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Earlier I wrote of Olga Godim's great idea
of asking the main character of our included story 5 questions.
Some of my fellow anthologists
(sounds like we are associates of Indiana Jones, doesn't it?)
have voiced concern on just how to do that with their ominous protagonist.
Once I was hood-winked
(ah, I mean asked)
to do the same in a blog-hop concerning my then recent novel)
This is how I asked the given questions to my cursed hero, owner of the haunted jazz club, Meilori's.
Vivian Hightower wiggled without moving as she sat across the table from me.
She was sure of her sex appeal.
She shouldn't have been.
I was married to an Empress, of whose beauty sonnets had been written by Shakespeare and Keats.
"Captain McCord, I'm surprised you are agreeing to this taped interview. My last one destroyed the career of your policewoman friend."
She cleared her throat at my silence, turning on her tape recorder.
"They say your jazz club, Meilori's, is haunted."
Vivian narrowed her diamond eyes. "You aren't speaking."
I looked at her from under the wide brim of my Stetson.
That I had not taken it off when she sat down should have been a warning.
"You haven't asked any questions, Miss Hightower."
"Oh, in that case: What is your biggest vulnerability? Do others know this, or is it a secret?"
I smiled like the last wolf I was often called.
"Now, my hunch on that might be dead-on, Miss, or it might be full of worms. But Mama McCord didn't raise any sons dippy enough to tell it to a vicious reporter ... on tape."
"Be that way. What do people believe about you that is false?"
"That I am a hero. In all the ways that count, I am a monster."
She wet her lips. "Wh-What would your best friend say is your f-fatal flaw?"
"Father Renfield believes me not believing in God anymore is that. Coming from a vampire priest that is saying something."
Vivian snoted at the word 'vampire.' "What would Father Renfield say is your one redeeming quality?"
I smiled sadly.
"That while I say I'm agnostic, I act as if I still believed ... which means to him that deep down I still believe, for what we do, we believe."
She outright sneered at that. "What do you want most? And what will you do to get it?"
I bled a sigh.
"Not a what but a who, Miss Hightower. My wife. And I will do nothing to get her back. Love forced is no love at all. On either side."
She turned off the tape recorder, and I asked her a question.
"When I said that you could come to my table, did I ever say anything about you leaving it alive?"
I tore off my right glove that kept my cursed palm from touching innocent flesh.
I reached out and grabbed her satin throat tight. She slowly withered before my eyes.
The plus side to that was that she would destroy no more innocents.
The down side was the flood of her vicious, joyful memories of those cruelties.
"I am a monster, Miss Hightower, in all the ways that count. But I only kill other monsters."
If you want to see what McCord looks like:
That will make your fellow authors a little gun-shy about asking you questions...
ReplyDeleteHey! It's hard to grab a throat through the internet. :-)
DeleteThanks. I wanted to make answering the questions entertaining, coming off as a story of its own. :-)
ReplyDeleteFascinating. You wrote a story about an interview. I never thought of that. My idea was a purely journalistic approach, with nothing but Q&A. No emotions or movements or anything to distract from what they say.
ReplyDelete