Email Marketing Tips
How to get the best results with the least amount of money
By Kevin Six
What is Marketing?
To understand where Email Marketing fits into the big picture, we first must understand marketing. The first marketers would brand their work or mark it. They didn’t consider themselves marketers (or mark-it-ers) but rather artisans who made particular tools, implements, dinner wear, etc. The mark became a calling card and people came to look for a certain artisan’s mark, which ensures quality.
The mark these ancient artisans put on their work is still called a brand. From a hieroglyph on an ancient tool to a marked cow to Coca Cola, just about everything you purchase has been branded. Email Marketing is just another in a long line of tools used to make sure people know about your product or service – your brand.
All marketing is about collecting customers. First we collect prospects, and then we give them compelling reasons to purchase our products and services. After prospects become customers, we aim to keep them by occasionally communicating and offering something special because of their loyalty to our brand. Sometimes we want them to buy from us but other times we want them to feel good about our products and services – our brand. Sometimes we just want to thank them for being customers.
There are various ways to get the word out to prospects and customers. Traditional marketing includes print advertising in local or national publications; electronic media marketing is via radio and television; outdoor marketing includes billboards, signs and ads on busses; guerilla marketing includes posters, flyers, sandwich boards and the ubiquitous sign spinners; and direct marketing is all about calling or mailing clients at their home or place of business.
The dawning of the Internet Age brings new marketing techniques like web pages, E-commerce, pay-per-click, viral marketing and, of course, Email Marketing. But is it really new? Except for the obvious benefits to the trees, isn’t E-commerce like having a store and isn’t viral marketing like guerilla marketing? Your web page is nothing more than a billboard on the Information Superhighway. And of course, E-mail Marketing is the best, cheapest and most effective way to do direct marketing. You also get to know a lot more about your customers and – unlike any other marketing on the planet – about those who choose not to be customers and why.
Summary
• All marketing is branding
• There are many kinds of marketing
• Though the names have changed, the process haven’t
• The Internet Age brought new old technologies
• Email Marketing is like Direct Mail but better
• Email Marketing also saves trees
What is Email Marketing?
Email Marketing is direct mail without the mail. If done improperly, Email Marketing can turn into Spam but, with the right products (and sometimes services), you can actually make people glad they got an Email from you. See more on Spam below, but for now, let’s look at a cost comparison between traditional direct mail and Email.
You want to tell as many people about your products so you hire a telemarketing firm to call your prospects and turn them into customers. Or, you hire a telemarketing manager to hire a room-full of telemarketers. Either way, you’re paying for people, rooms, telephones, leads and commissions. Telemarketing works but the costs are high and with Caller ID, the Do Not Call List and cell phones, the numbers aren’t as great as they were in the golden days of telemarketing. Plus you’re calling a lot of people at home during dinnertime.
Instead, a less intrusive way is to send a postcard, a brochure or some other nice sales piece – even a personal letter. So you have to hire a designer, a printer, a mail house and pay for design, printing, processing and postage. A brochure could cost as much as $1 per unit of you go high end. A postcard could cost as little as half that.
Now, what if you could send something as pretty as a brochure at about 2% of the cost of a postcard? And what if that postcard had a lot of cool things that a piece of paper is simply aren’t capable of? Like what, you ask? Like this.
A piece of paper can’t keep delivering itself until it makes it to your house, you only get one shot. A piece of paper can’t bring people to your store or even your warehouse. A piece of paper, no matter how pretty, can’t tell you who read it, how much time people spent reading it, or how many of those people went on to purchase something because of it. But something a piece of paper will never be able to do is this: it can’t tell you who is almost ready to purchase and just needs a phone call or another Email to get them to commit to your company. One other thing paper can’t do is ask a person to save both parties the trouble and expense of communicating by having the prospect Opt-Out.
You know who’s not receiving your cards and letters because you pay for each one; the mail man to return them, the clerk to delete the addresses and the recycling firm to take them away. With E-mail Marketing, this and many other tasks are automated and each step saves you money.
All this can be done without making the receiver of Email Marketing think ill of you. In other words, by not creating spam.
Summary
• Email Marketing is a way to send several types of marketing pieces
• Email Marketing costs pennies per Email, much less than Snail Mail
• There are a lot of things that paper can’t do that Email
• Some Email Programs can tell me who reads my Email
• Email Marketing Programs keep me from sending Spam.
What is Spam?
It’s important to understand how Spam works so you can avoid it in your Email Marketing efforts. So here goes… Spam was developed during World War II to get the most out of animal products as most of the meat was going to serve the troupes. Canned meat became popular because it could last longer, tasted pretty good and no one knew what was in it, really. It is this icky-not-knowing-what’s-in-it feeling some people have about Spam the product that gave Spam the bad Email its name.
In other words, Spam is associated with marginal products that have been delivered without regard to who may get them. The odd thing about Spam (and circulars in your mail box too) is that if they didn’t work you wouldn’t get them. So even though you won’t consume pills, personal aides, titillating websites and off-shore gambling websites, someone does. But because the costs are so low, a very low return rate still makes Spam profitable for the sender. But Spam should be avoided and there are several ways to do this.
Your very own Email program is the best Spam producer in the world. Because your Email program works both ways, and doesn’t want you receiving scatter-gunned Emails, it has smart and powerful filters to only give you what you want to read. If you send Email to more than 15 or so of your friends, even if you Blind Copy them, most Spam Filters will dump the entire load of emails to your senders’ Spam Folders. This is why no one reads your Emails – it’s not you, it’s how you communicate.
Blind copying is a way for Emailers to hide the recipients of Emails. This is good if you don’t your recipients to get everyone else’s Email Address. This also works because nobody gets anything. Not good for Email Marketing though. So, for a little bit more than you’re paying your Internet Service Provider (the company that connects you to the Internet and probably provides you with Email), you can get a powerful software package that sends everyone an individual Email. This is what you always wanted to do but just didn’t have time to do. Like a mail-merge document that costs pennies to create, deliver and – again to tell you who’s reading it. Pretty cool, huh?
Email Marketing Programs, like Jugglemail, help you defeat Spam in many ways. First off, they won’t send Spam. Email programs will tell you what kinds of words and phrases in your outgoing Email will be caught by Spam filters and what kind of Email Addresses are Spam Traps (address that have a much lower threshold for Spam). Email programs send individual messages to your important list of clients or potential clients, as if you sent the same Email 100-10,000 times (depending on the size of your list).
Summary
• Email Marketing is inexpensive
• Spam is bad for 90% or more of the people
• Your Email program is great for one Emails and horrible for anything past 10
• Proper Email is easy to produce and send
• Email can do many things that plain paper can’t and costs hundreds of times less
Email Links, Tracking and Opt-In
Some of the things that Email can do that paper can’t have already been discussed. You can send individualized Emails that tell you what people are doing with them. But there is so much more that can be done with the proper tools.
Email Marketing Programs (like Jugglemail) can help you create emails in many ways. They come with pre-designed templates that you only have to fill in. They send each Email individually. They use bonded, White Listed Servers (a way of making sure that your Emails are delivered properly). They also attempt to deliver Email to clogged receiving servers at least 100 times before giving up – and then they tell you why your Email bounced (came back as undelivered).
This would be enough for many people to use an Email Marketing Program but there is so much more to it. You can include photos, videos and sound in your Email Marketing messages. But the most important thing that Email Marketing can do for you is compel people, who are already on their computer, to buy online. This is done by including Links in your Email to your Website where your products and services are designed to sell. After reading a well-written, sophisticated Email Message, many people will purchase your goods and services with only a few clicks. And the best thing is, your Email Marketing Program can tell you who did what and how many times. Yet another bunch of great things that paper can’t do.
This is world of Analytics, in which the more you know about what your people are doing with your Email, the better you can market to them. For example, if people aren’t reading your Emails in large amounts, you can spruce them up or tone then down. If a lot of people are reading them but not making purchases, you can make a more compelling argument for them to buy. Analytics provided by Email Marketing Services (like Jugglemail) can help you track Emails Sent, Emails Read, Links Clicked and, if you want to go that far, where people go once they reach your Website. You can follow an Email from in-box to Shopping Cart if you want to.
People who aren’t interested in your products and services can tell the Email Marketing Program not to send anymore Emails. This is referred to as Opting-Out. This is good because you can save each other’s time and your money by not spending time on someone who doesn’t fit your demographic. The same program that lets people Opt-Out also lets people forward your Email to friends (and gives you those Email Addresses) and lets people Opt-In as well. More on that later.
Summary
• Each Email you send with an Email Service is track-able
• Each Email has Links to your Website, where people can make purchases
• You can tell what people are doing with your Emails with Analytics
• You can tone your Emails up or down or re-mail to your Hot Prospects
Email Marketing Pieces
So far it’s been all about why but now we can get into what. If you’re still reading, you are probably excited about how to put them to use, so thank you for reading this far! Now, here are a few tried and true Email Marketing Pieces that you can use to great affect.
Sales Introduction
The Sales Introduction is a great way to get a soft sales message to potential customers. The Sales Introduction can be as simple as a letter or a postcard and shouldn’t be much more fancy than that. People who don’t know you and your products/services well might shy away from an Email Marketing piece that is too flashy. By all means, however, do place your logo and at least one high-quality photo in your Sales Introduction. You also want to invite people to see your products and services by linking to your website. The idea behind a Sales Introduction is to say: “Hello, this is who I am and what I do. I don’t know if you’d be interested in my products/services but, if so, here’s a way to find out more.”
Direct Pitch
The Direct Pitch is a way to get people to purchase what you’re selling. It is designed to get the person, most likely someone you know a little better than one you’d send the Sales Introduction to, to make a purchase. The Direct Pitch works well with Hot Prospects (this is what Jugglemail defines as people who’ve read and/or clicked on a previous Email but haven’t made a purchase). The Direct Pitch can have better graphics, more photos and a more direct way of speaking. Something like: “Because you know me, you know you’ll get something of great value from me. Here are a few pictures (and possibly a video) of my products (or me serving clients) in action. If you order today, you’ll not only get the benefit of the product (or service) but you’ll also get a discount. You can even return it for a refund if not satisfied.”
Above the Fold
You want to put your sales message Above the Fold. This is an old newspaper term meaning in the top of the page (or in the case of Email Marketing the screen) before anyone has to scroll down to make a purchase. It’s the place where a reader’s eyes naturally go. And, because people read left to right, guess where your sales message should go? Right! Right and just Above the Fold.
Email Newsletter
An Email Newsletter is a great way to give your customers and prospects a look at the human side of your company. You can spend more time and space giving information and insights because you’re not rushing anyone to a sale – and people like that kind of change-up. The Email Newsletter is more about why a person should do business with you than what you do and why a person should buy today. It’s a much more laidback message that says: “I’d like you to get to know me and my people better so that you can rest assured that we create the best products and/or services. We are a group of people with friends, families and interests inside and outside of the things we sell. We have fun together and we just know you’ll have fun working with us too.”
Tips
Tips are a great way to gain clients – especially through Opt-In efforts and Auto Responders, which will be talked about later in this Piece. Speaking of this Piece, you’ve probably already realized that you are reading the perfect example of a Tips Piece. It gives the reader valuable information about a product or service that they want to know more about. You either signed up to receive this or an associate who knows you and your needs forwarded it to you. Either way, it comes to you from an organization that is a specialist and can most certainly help you with your needs through advice and a subtle sales message. The Tips Piece says: “I specialize in just what you are looking for. I am willing to give you a vast amount of my experience in exchange for you allowing me to briefly describe my product or service when it relates directly to what we are talking about.”
In this case, the product is Jugglemail and it provides all you need to send Marketing Emails to 100-10,000 clients. It also offers you the opportunity to gain clients who Opt-In to your Email List and automatically responds. Yes, we’re about to talk about more features.
Summary
• Sales Introductions are heavy on information and soft on sales messages
• Sales Emails have the message Above the Fold
• Email Newsletters are about the people behind your products and services
• You’re reading a Tips Piece right now
Opt In and Auto Responders
Email Marketing Programs (like Jugglemail, the product we’re selling in exchange for you taking advantage of our expertise in this Tips Piece) can allow you to build your list of prospects and send them a Sales Introduction or Tips Piece automatically. The Marketing Program allows you to program what you want to gain (Email Address, Name, Address, etc.) in a step-by-step protocol. At the end of the process, the program produces html code that you can place in outgoing Emails, on Websites or on your Blog. This code becomes an Add Box for your website that collects information from people who are interested in your products and/or services. It also places them on a pre-designated Email List and sends them a Pre-Designated Email. For example, if you offer a product that enables people to market via Email, you would offer Email Marketing Tips. People who are interested in this would find your website, blog, or receive an Email with this promise. Then they would sign up and automatically receive an Email you have written and stored with your Email Marketing Service.
By Opting-In, your prospects agree to be sent an Email and, because they have Opted-In to an Email Marketing List, you can feel comfortable sending them Sales Emails. If you have other products and services, you might send them a Sales Introduction Piece about them to gage their interest. About three or four times a year, you would send these people an Email Newsletter about your company and its people. The interesting thing is that you can write and update this Email Newsletter and program it to go out in a set number of days after a person initially signs up on your Email List.
It’s like having a robotic secretary that collects Email Addresses, files them and sends correspondence at set intervals. You do a little bit of work in the beginning and some occasional maintenance and that’s it. The robot does the rest. The best news is that the robot doesn’t cost you anything and you don’t have to store it. But it’s still cool to own a robot. I mean, we’ve been promised them in Science books and journals for about 50 years.
Summary
• You can create an Add Box to allow people to Opt-In to your Email Lists
• They are already interested in what you have or they wouldn’t have signed up
• You can program Auto Responders to send them Emails after they Opt-In
• Robots are fun to own if you don’t have to pay upkeep or storage
Fulfilling the Promises Made by Your Email Marketing Efforts
In order to succeed with Email Marketing, you need a few important things.
A computer with Internet Access is vital. Your Email Marketing Program is Internet Based, meaning the software is created, stored and updated On Line. This gives you one less thing to worry about (purchasing software and continuing to purchase upgrades). Saving money is almost as good as having your own robot.
Another vital piece of equipment is a Website. Your webpage can be simple or complex depending on how much time and money you want to expend on it. The website should tell customers and prospects about your company, products and services; where and how to purchase them; the benefits of having purchased them; and a little bit about the people who make them. There should be high-quality, low-resolution photos, videos too, and lots of copy designed to nudge the reader to purchase. Remember that if you use a web designer, he or she might promise you the world and it might take just as long to create.
E-Commerce is also good. You can use several Internet-Based programs and services designed to take payment form clients and reimburse you after a certain percentage is retained for the service. The most popular is Pay Pal but several others exist. Look for links at the bottom of this document, go to their websites and see how they handle Email Marketing E-Commerce and Shopping Carts.
You also need a delivery system for your products. Many Fulfillment Companies take your products, ship them to your clients and bill you for the service. You can do it yourself but you should have some protocols in place – especially if your Email Marketing efforts are successful. Remember to have enough product or time to serve as you have potential customers. You can Email tens and even hundreds of thousands of potential customers inexpensively and might get high returns.
An Email Marketing Firm can help you develop Emails that sell well. They can even manage your Email Lists, through a program like Jugglemail for you. A full service firm will create ads, Email them and make sure you have the proper follow-up protocols in place – or create them for you.
Landing Pages are important. Once you send an Email, you want people to go to a place that is similar in design and feel. A landing page is a way-station between your Email Marketing Piece and your Website, E-Commerce site or any place else you want people to go. You can design your Email Marketing Piece to drive your customers to your own site, a Landing Page created just for them and/or right to your catalog.
Summary
• People need a place to go from your Email
• Emailed clients need to end up at Website or a Landing Page
• E-Commerce and Fulfillment Companies can help
• So can a Full Service Email Marketing Firm
Next Steps
What to do next? First, take stock. Ask yourself important questions designed to see if you can be successful at Email Marketing. Here are a few starters:
1. Is my Webpage designed for sales?
2. Am in involved in E-Commerce or can I get there quickly?
3. Do I enjoy communicating via Email?
4. Am I doing less effective, more expensive forms of Marketing?
5. Can I do away with those expenses and invest them in an Email Campaign?
6. Do I have the time to dedicate to Email Marketing?
7. If I don’t have the time, do I have the resources to hire someone to do it for me?
The answer to any question about the viability of Email Marketing is: “I can’t afford not to.” Your competitors are already doing it. You have been the recipient of it. The Internet and E-Commerce are here to stay and it’s time you started benefiting from them.
Second, become aware.
1. See if you notice how many times you are targeted by Email Marketing
2. Get yourself on a few lists, Opt-In and see what each company does. You can always Opt-Out later
3. Speak to your business associates, friends and especially younger people.
4. Take a class, seminar or a free Online Tutorial for a product you’re interested in.
5. Have fun.
Third, get in and do it. Many Email Marketing Companies have free trials. Jugglemail is one such company. And now for the wind up and the Sales Pitch: If you log into www.Jugglemail.com and go to the Landing Page we’ve designed for you (see the link that says Free Trial), you will be given 100 free Emails to send. If you have an Email database you can Email a random selection of your clients and see how they respond. We strongly advise you to take this offer AFTER taking the Online Tutorial. It may seem strange to you at first but remember, it’s just another way to do what you already do: communicate with your customer list, grow it and market to it.
August 29, 2010
August 25, 2010
Chapter 3. Before Dinner
Letty and her mother busied themselves readying for dinner. This meant managing a houseful of servants. Waterwood housed the immediate A. Reed family, Uncle James and his invalid wife – who took all her meals in her room – and 12 servants. Uncle James occupied third floor, Isabelle and Adolphus the second and Letty and her brother lived on the second floor, which was also the nerve center for the many family businesses. The house could house an additional 25 guests easily and could entertain over 200. It sat on 10 acres and was surrounded by Old Man Walker’s Orchards to the East and the senior Reed’s Cattle ranch to the South. The north was a working farm with chickens, cattle, dairy and an assortment of grains and vegetables.
Adolphus and James Reed did a lot of talking on their rides. Always had done. There was something about a long, dusty ride on horseback that lubricated the mind and loosened the lips. The entire Reed Central California Trust was hatched on one of their last trips back from the shining city of San Francisco to the small town they loved. It was not uncommon for the family to hear the details of an incredible venture after the men returned from a long horse ride. More and more those ideas were influenced by the Reed women who always saved their best business ideas for just before the Reed brothers saddled up. On their last trip to the big city, after three hours in the saddle, Adolphus and James Reed had made a number of decisions. A visit to the lawyers was in order.
The Walker and Reed Trusts had bet 67 per cent of its total assets, no small amount, on a gamble that people in California would never know about. They purchased all of the banking assets of both banks and affiliated branches throughout California. They did not take ownership of Wells Fargo freight, stage line or security concerns. The family had always preferred Pinkerton Security to Wells never leaked business information to the press.
The business plan was essentially Letty’s. She was convinced that most banks in the United States were over extended – and especially in California. All that “mining money” as Uncle James called it was tied up in a lot of shaky investments – much of it in the New York Stock Exchange. A minor run on California banks would topple all but those with the cash on hand to ride out an economic crisis. Letty knew banks with too few liquid assets would fail in the next three years and that they could be purchased for pennies on the dollar by a bank rich in cash and gold.
The good news, Letty lectured Uncle James, was that a bad economy was compelling enough reason for America to become involved in the war in Europe. Once that was done, she reasoned, money would start to flow into and out the surviving banks as the best bank customer in the world – our Uncle Sam – needed cash to fund a war. And most of what the US would purchase was raw material and foodstuffs. And that was just exactly what the Reed brothers invested the remainder of their holdings on. They were either going to be richer or fantastically richer in a matter of years..
She was right of course. But, of course, she would not live to see her fantastic successes and the growing fortunes of her family.
Isabella had managed to keep the book out of her hands before dinner but Letty was able to get a glimpse of a few well-rendered words in a strong, intelligent and – she could only hear the word dangerous – hand. The words, some Latin-based language, were fantastical. Bloody and violent on the only page she saw while walking to the stables with her father and uncle.
Then, intercepted by her mother before she could ask one of the thousands of questions about Wells, Fargo, Pinkerton and the book, she was off to arrange the details of the meal with the staff. The men shared a meaningful glance.
“Do you think we did the right thing, Jimmy?”
“We’ve been lucky, Dolfus.”
“Luck ain’t got nothin’ to do with it! We gambled millions on this.”
“The legal boys liked it, Dolphus.”
“Yep.”
“She’s smart.”
“Yep.”
“She just has a talent for reading all those articles and reports and books and coming up with a simple plan.”
“So simple! That’s why I don’t know if – ”
“Dolphus. It’s always been simple. Working with Papa. We pulled metal out of the ground and the men in San Fran gave us money for it.”
“Yep. Hard currency, though, Jimmy. Land, we can see. Horses we can touch. We gave hard money for hard things. This is just all just so much paper…”
“I know your guts as well as I know my own and we’re going to do well. ‘Sides, we didn’t bet it all on the banks. We saved some for commodities and such.”
“She thought of that too. She didn’t even care one way or the other. It was just like – what does she call it? A theoretical exercise? What the hell does that mean, James?”
“It means you got horse sense and your wife’s got book sense, Adolphus. And that beautiful, crazy daughter of yours has both in spades.”
“Yep.”
Adolphus and James Reed did a lot of talking on their rides. Always had done. There was something about a long, dusty ride on horseback that lubricated the mind and loosened the lips. The entire Reed Central California Trust was hatched on one of their last trips back from the shining city of San Francisco to the small town they loved. It was not uncommon for the family to hear the details of an incredible venture after the men returned from a long horse ride. More and more those ideas were influenced by the Reed women who always saved their best business ideas for just before the Reed brothers saddled up. On their last trip to the big city, after three hours in the saddle, Adolphus and James Reed had made a number of decisions. A visit to the lawyers was in order.
The Walker and Reed Trusts had bet 67 per cent of its total assets, no small amount, on a gamble that people in California would never know about. They purchased all of the banking assets of both banks and affiliated branches throughout California. They did not take ownership of Wells Fargo freight, stage line or security concerns. The family had always preferred Pinkerton Security to Wells never leaked business information to the press.
The business plan was essentially Letty’s. She was convinced that most banks in the United States were over extended – and especially in California. All that “mining money” as Uncle James called it was tied up in a lot of shaky investments – much of it in the New York Stock Exchange. A minor run on California banks would topple all but those with the cash on hand to ride out an economic crisis. Letty knew banks with too few liquid assets would fail in the next three years and that they could be purchased for pennies on the dollar by a bank rich in cash and gold.
The good news, Letty lectured Uncle James, was that a bad economy was compelling enough reason for America to become involved in the war in Europe. Once that was done, she reasoned, money would start to flow into and out the surviving banks as the best bank customer in the world – our Uncle Sam – needed cash to fund a war. And most of what the US would purchase was raw material and foodstuffs. And that was just exactly what the Reed brothers invested the remainder of their holdings on. They were either going to be richer or fantastically richer in a matter of years..
She was right of course. But, of course, she would not live to see her fantastic successes and the growing fortunes of her family.
Isabella had managed to keep the book out of her hands before dinner but Letty was able to get a glimpse of a few well-rendered words in a strong, intelligent and – she could only hear the word dangerous – hand. The words, some Latin-based language, were fantastical. Bloody and violent on the only page she saw while walking to the stables with her father and uncle.
Then, intercepted by her mother before she could ask one of the thousands of questions about Wells, Fargo, Pinkerton and the book, she was off to arrange the details of the meal with the staff. The men shared a meaningful glance.
“Do you think we did the right thing, Jimmy?”
“We’ve been lucky, Dolfus.”
“Luck ain’t got nothin’ to do with it! We gambled millions on this.”
“The legal boys liked it, Dolphus.”
“Yep.”
“She’s smart.”
“Yep.”
“She just has a talent for reading all those articles and reports and books and coming up with a simple plan.”
“So simple! That’s why I don’t know if – ”
“Dolphus. It’s always been simple. Working with Papa. We pulled metal out of the ground and the men in San Fran gave us money for it.”
“Yep. Hard currency, though, Jimmy. Land, we can see. Horses we can touch. We gave hard money for hard things. This is just all just so much paper…”
“I know your guts as well as I know my own and we’re going to do well. ‘Sides, we didn’t bet it all on the banks. We saved some for commodities and such.”
“She thought of that too. She didn’t even care one way or the other. It was just like – what does she call it? A theoretical exercise? What the hell does that mean, James?”
“It means you got horse sense and your wife’s got book sense, Adolphus. And that beautiful, crazy daughter of yours has both in spades.”
“Yep.”
August 23, 2010
Chapter 2. The Walker and Reed Trusts
The Reed Central California Trust was a newly minted mining company when Ulysses Walker proposed a marriage between Reed’s son and heir Adolphus and his daughter Isabella, long the secret to the success of the Ulysses Walker Trust. The RCC and UW Trusts combined to become as formidable a company were the two great families. Isabella kept her maiden name as a reminder that hers was an older and more valuable brand. The Walker Reeds had two children in quick succession: James named for his bachelor uncle and Leticia named after her Great Grandmother, wife of a Grandee of Spain. But business was what the Walker Reeds grew. Spawning dozens of smaller companies, the combined trusts took to buying up everything that California had for sale. Land, of course, and natural resources and, finally, the very foundation of all business: banks.
“Father!” shouted Leticia Walker Reed throwing her arms around her father. Because he was still astride his horse, Letty jumped into the saddle by placing her right foot atop her father’s in the stirrup and swing herself up onto his lap.
“Letty!” said her uncle James, is that the only way to get you to ride side saddle?”
“Uncle James, Father promised he’d return in a week and that was two weeks ago! And he promised to bring me all the new books from San Francisco.”
“They’re on the way from town now, darling,” said Adolphus Reed. “You know we’d never be able to carry all of them on horseback.”
“You want to kill old Charger?” teased Uncle James.
“I thought you carried gold and silver both on the sires of these very horses in ’49 and ’50!” she replied.
“Grand or Great Grand Sires by now. Great genes, all of ‘em. Could go straight over the mountain, too!” Uncle James was nostalgic for the old days. He and his big brother were born in a mining camp and had indeed carried millions of dollars worth of precious metals over the mountains on many storied trips across the high San Clemente range. “No these horses are gentrified now. Have to keep ‘em in a stable while we take a train.”
“You enjoyed the dining car and the bar car well enough, Jimmy,” said Letty’s father as he lowered her from the horse. She had manage to pick his pocket.
“You more’n me, Dolfus! I fear our old horses wouldn’t recognize us.”
“Oh Daddy! For me?” Though she was 23 years old and the owner of two degrees from the University of California, Letty Walker Reed could still sound like a miner’s little girl. This even though she’d only heard stories about the trails and camps from her father and uncle, Letty insisted upon being called Clementine until she was twelve.
“A book for you and a bank for your mother.”
“James!” Adolphus Reed was not an educated man but he was smart and the smart money didn’t believe women had any sense when it came to business. Mr. Red didn’t like discussing business in the open air, in the parlor or in front of the women – especially when other men were around. The Walker Reed women had been advising for years but mainly at the dinner table or, in the case of Isabella Walker Reed, the bedroom.
“Don’t worry, Dolfus. You’re secret is safe with me. You and your wife have made me a rich man indeed. I’ll never let on that she’s smarter’n both of us.”
“Not a tough task, Jimmy!” The men dismounted and walked their horses to the creek that ran from Waterwood to the mill in town. On the two-hour, ten-mile ride, the brothers traversed nothing but land they owned. The mill, Walker’s Mill, had long since evolved into the railroad and telegraph station and the Walker Reeds owned that too.
“A bank?” Letty was distraught. She followed the men and horses to the water’s edge. “I told the both of you that financial equity is a risky investment in the best of circumstances and a zero sum game in the tough times ahead. That damned dust bowl is still swirling towards us and what it means for the economy is largely unknown.”
Dolfus Reed didn’t like being lectured by his daughter and his face showed it. The fact that Leticia Walker Reed had spent twelve more years in school than her father was beside the point. “Letty, darling. You leave the business to the men –”
“Father! I’ll have you know that I will vote in the next election or at least the one after that—”
“Letty!” It was her mother. “Let the men water those horses. You’ll ruin that dress.”
“And don’t give advice unless you’re asked!” teased Uncle James. Before the trip to San Francisco, James Reed had spent two hours listening to his niece’s advice. What she said made sense to him. Good horse sense! They spent much of the ride into town three weeks ago discussing much of it. James Reed left Walker’s Mill comfortable about the purchase they were contemplating though Letty didn’t know the details. He was also determined to ask the advisors in San Francisco about something called soy futures.
‘We’re going to have a lot of hungry people in this state. We should invest in nonperishable foods, and farm land before—”
“Now Leticia,” said her mother, “run along and read you book if that is what that horrible thing you’re holding is.” Then to her husband: “I can only imagine what witchcraft she’ll learn next. These books and the ideas in them.”
“What’s in it Father?”
“That’s just it, Letty. No one can read the damned thing—“
“Adolphus! Language.”
“Unclaimed bank assets,” said Uncle James.
“Banks! There is only one solvent bank in this country, Daddy.”
“Don’t you want to know what bank you’ll end up owning after we kick the bucket?”
“James!” it was Isabella.
“Jimmy gets it all anyway,” said Letty.
“If he lives that long,” said Abolphus of his son. James Walker Reed had a taste for a life much sweeter than the uncle for whom he was named. He was currently traveling in Europe with a ne’er-do-well friend from school.
“Adolphus!”
“Besides, your ideas have been sound,” added Uncle James. “You already own thirty per cent of the bank. Don’t you want to know what it’s called?”
“James! What are you men talking about?” Isabelle was nearly beside herself. Talking business in the open was one thing but talking about business with women – out of doors – and including women in the asset distribution... It was nearly too much.
“Unless that name is Wells or Fargo,” interjected Leticia.
“How about both?” said James Reed.
The Walker Reed women could just stare, gate-mouthed. The Reed men smiled sweetly back. They had purchased both of what many of the brighter minds in finance believed the only two banks that would come out of the current financial crisis in tact.
No more was discussed out in the open. But there would be a nice long talk during dinner.
“Father!” shouted Leticia Walker Reed throwing her arms around her father. Because he was still astride his horse, Letty jumped into the saddle by placing her right foot atop her father’s in the stirrup and swing herself up onto his lap.
“Letty!” said her uncle James, is that the only way to get you to ride side saddle?”
“Uncle James, Father promised he’d return in a week and that was two weeks ago! And he promised to bring me all the new books from San Francisco.”
“They’re on the way from town now, darling,” said Adolphus Reed. “You know we’d never be able to carry all of them on horseback.”
“You want to kill old Charger?” teased Uncle James.
“I thought you carried gold and silver both on the sires of these very horses in ’49 and ’50!” she replied.
“Grand or Great Grand Sires by now. Great genes, all of ‘em. Could go straight over the mountain, too!” Uncle James was nostalgic for the old days. He and his big brother were born in a mining camp and had indeed carried millions of dollars worth of precious metals over the mountains on many storied trips across the high San Clemente range. “No these horses are gentrified now. Have to keep ‘em in a stable while we take a train.”
“You enjoyed the dining car and the bar car well enough, Jimmy,” said Letty’s father as he lowered her from the horse. She had manage to pick his pocket.
“You more’n me, Dolfus! I fear our old horses wouldn’t recognize us.”
“Oh Daddy! For me?” Though she was 23 years old and the owner of two degrees from the University of California, Letty Walker Reed could still sound like a miner’s little girl. This even though she’d only heard stories about the trails and camps from her father and uncle, Letty insisted upon being called Clementine until she was twelve.
“A book for you and a bank for your mother.”
“James!” Adolphus Reed was not an educated man but he was smart and the smart money didn’t believe women had any sense when it came to business. Mr. Red didn’t like discussing business in the open air, in the parlor or in front of the women – especially when other men were around. The Walker Reed women had been advising for years but mainly at the dinner table or, in the case of Isabella Walker Reed, the bedroom.
“Don’t worry, Dolfus. You’re secret is safe with me. You and your wife have made me a rich man indeed. I’ll never let on that she’s smarter’n both of us.”
“Not a tough task, Jimmy!” The men dismounted and walked their horses to the creek that ran from Waterwood to the mill in town. On the two-hour, ten-mile ride, the brothers traversed nothing but land they owned. The mill, Walker’s Mill, had long since evolved into the railroad and telegraph station and the Walker Reeds owned that too.
“A bank?” Letty was distraught. She followed the men and horses to the water’s edge. “I told the both of you that financial equity is a risky investment in the best of circumstances and a zero sum game in the tough times ahead. That damned dust bowl is still swirling towards us and what it means for the economy is largely unknown.”
Dolfus Reed didn’t like being lectured by his daughter and his face showed it. The fact that Leticia Walker Reed had spent twelve more years in school than her father was beside the point. “Letty, darling. You leave the business to the men –”
“Father! I’ll have you know that I will vote in the next election or at least the one after that—”
“Letty!” It was her mother. “Let the men water those horses. You’ll ruin that dress.”
“And don’t give advice unless you’re asked!” teased Uncle James. Before the trip to San Francisco, James Reed had spent two hours listening to his niece’s advice. What she said made sense to him. Good horse sense! They spent much of the ride into town three weeks ago discussing much of it. James Reed left Walker’s Mill comfortable about the purchase they were contemplating though Letty didn’t know the details. He was also determined to ask the advisors in San Francisco about something called soy futures.
‘We’re going to have a lot of hungry people in this state. We should invest in nonperishable foods, and farm land before—”
“Now Leticia,” said her mother, “run along and read you book if that is what that horrible thing you’re holding is.” Then to her husband: “I can only imagine what witchcraft she’ll learn next. These books and the ideas in them.”
“What’s in it Father?”
“That’s just it, Letty. No one can read the damned thing—“
“Adolphus! Language.”
“Unclaimed bank assets,” said Uncle James.
“Banks! There is only one solvent bank in this country, Daddy.”
“Don’t you want to know what bank you’ll end up owning after we kick the bucket?”
“James!” it was Isabella.
“Jimmy gets it all anyway,” said Letty.
“If he lives that long,” said Abolphus of his son. James Walker Reed had a taste for a life much sweeter than the uncle for whom he was named. He was currently traveling in Europe with a ne’er-do-well friend from school.
“Adolphus!”
“Besides, your ideas have been sound,” added Uncle James. “You already own thirty per cent of the bank. Don’t you want to know what it’s called?”
“James! What are you men talking about?” Isabelle was nearly beside herself. Talking business in the open was one thing but talking about business with women – out of doors – and including women in the asset distribution... It was nearly too much.
“Unless that name is Wells or Fargo,” interjected Leticia.
“How about both?” said James Reed.
The Walker Reed women could just stare, gate-mouthed. The Reed men smiled sweetly back. They had purchased both of what many of the brighter minds in finance believed the only two banks that would come out of the current financial crisis in tact.
No more was discussed out in the open. But there would be a nice long talk during dinner.
August 20, 2010
New story. I put the Cop Comedy on hold because Darling Emily took over.
Darling Emily is about a woman who adores Emily Dickinson, writes poetry and is convinced that she will be totally destroyed by a handsome stranger. She is right. Lemme know what you think of the first chapter...
1. Leticia and Emily
Leticia Walker Reed was considerably more attractive than she thought she was. She had trouble making friends, getting along in society, with self-esteem and, in a later age, would probably be diagnosed with some ailment on the higher functioning end of the autism spectrum. In short Leticia Walker Reed was odd. Always had been. Intelligent, in fact smarter than most of her tutors, teachers and headmasters. It was odd enough that she had been invited to the University of California and offer still that she was given a full scholarship: her family was one of the richest in eleven western states.
Her oddness was a good thing. Good for her that she was left alone to study. Good that she would find many like-minded individuals at University and good for her that she was a citizen of an entirely different America. The bad part was that women in the early part of the 20th century were rarely allowed to share their intelligence with the world. College was just a four year respite from family matters and a way to meet the well-bred sons of California industrialists. But the fact that she got a first-class education and graduated with distinction was a good secret.
Leticia Walker Reed, Letty to her few friends, kept many secrets. She was well-behaved and knew her place, she kept her council among the people she was smarter than and kept her secrets in a diary that was itself a secret. Letty was an intense correspondent with the poet Emily Dickinson. This was a one-way correspondence as Leticia Walker Rees only recently discovered Dickinson and, as the rest of the world did, only after her death.
As a woman of her time, Letty knew only too well that a woman’s career path could only be as a wife or a teacher. But she wanted intrigue. She loved eavesdropping on her father’s meetings with representatives from Pinkerton’s Detective Agency and longed to become involved in crime, either side of which offered more excitement than Walker’s Mill, California.
Even Darling Emily Dickinson had found intrigue. The toast of the literary world – a published and respected poetess! Even if it was nearly two decades after her death, at least Miss Dickinson’s case was published. Letty had nearly as many poems in her own diary but, after reading Dickinson, had grown in her knowledge of poetry to know that she simply didn’t measure up. Lately the audience to whom she wrote in her diary became the friend she never knew but with whom she had so much in common.
Letty shared many problems with her dear friend Miss Emily Dickinson of Amhurst. She was more intelligent than anyone in her immediate family; no one understood her poetry; she excelled at and enjoyed domestic pursuits like baking, sewing and gardening even though she wanted more out of life; and she believed she was destined to be swept up in an intriguing, devastating relationship with a handsome and dangerous stranger. Of all these fantasies, sadly, only two would come true for Letty. The first and the last.
Leticia’s diary read like a series of open letters, each of which began: ‘My Dear, Dear Emily,’ or sometimes: ‘Darling Emily,’ and, when something particularly vexed the diarist, simply, ‘Emily’. The diary, excruciatingly neat in presentation and correct in grammar, punctuation and spelling, was only exciting when it left the mundane world of Walker’s Mill, California and entered the illusory realm of the thoughts, dreams and, fantasies of the diary’s owner. Modern psychologists, if ever given the chance to read the diary of Leticia Walker Reed, would conclude that she was intensely intelligent, a rigorous grammarian, possessor of an immense vocabulary but sadly, totally and completely delusional bordering on psychotic.
Of course, the twin facts that a): every neatly-written, well-reasoned word was true and b): the diary had been purloined by handsome and dangerous stranger with whom she’d had a brief, intriguing and thoroughly devastating relationship, made Leticia Walker Reed’s disappearance a perfect crime. Perfect in that the handsome stranger, Leticia and her diary were never heard from again. In fact no one even presumed that that the unfortunate circumstance was anything but a disappearance. Poor little rich girl gives it all up for handsome stranger, one that no one ever saw.
Had the Placer County Sheriff been able to investigate, he would have uncovered the most sensational case in the County’s then brief history. The nearly limitless Walker and Reed fortunes made sure that those venerable names were kept out of the newspapers. The family’s more professional and infinitely better funded investigations shed no more light on the case than did the Sheriff’s.
Leticia sat on her bed in the mansion she called Shambala but that the family called Waterwood. She rote in her diary while waiting, impatiently, for her father to return, He was now three weeks late.
My Dear, Darling Emily,
Thank you, thank you, darling for your intense verse! I was kept awake late into the night by the thumping, no, the pounding of your magical, motoric, meter. It was as if the rhythm your verse took over my heart, mind and body and that your poetry commandeered my very soul and imprisoned my soul. It was a forced march through your visions, your words and your invention. I was a most willing captive. Thank you, darling Emily!
Thanks also for hiding your work until it could be appreciated! How dare that charlatan tell you you couldn’t write! How dare that man, impotent, crass and barbaric, destroy your creation – one that he was too simple to understand. Or could he? Was he, dear Emily, simply incapable of expressing his awe, as I have in these very pages, because of his stupid, inane and infinitely worthless masculinity?
How desperately I dare to dream that I can sequester myself, heart, soul, body and mind, from the machinations of men as you have! But I fear, dear Emily, that I mayn’t be as strong as you. Did you love (the guy who told Dickinson she couldn’t write)? Did he destroy you as totally as I fear I will one day be destroyed? I look forward to parts of it with a morbid fascination but mostly with trepidation as, Dear Emily, my cannon is nowhere near complete.
I would innumerate on my shortcomings at length but it seems that Father and Uncle James have arrived from San Francisco and are desirous of engaging me in a job for the trust. Imagine! Two months divorced from University and degree, and already earning my keep. More soon!
The household was in a flutter in anticipation of the arrival of James and Adolphus Reed. The dispatch from the telegraph office in Walker’s Mill had informed Mrs. Reed of her husband’s impending return. Isabella Walker Reed was a formidable woman. For years it was rumored that her father owned one half of California and her husband and his brother owned the other. It was a match made in the real estate office. There was love of a kind but mostly respect between these two California pioneers. Respect for each other, for decorum and, above all, for business.
1. Leticia and Emily
Leticia Walker Reed was considerably more attractive than she thought she was. She had trouble making friends, getting along in society, with self-esteem and, in a later age, would probably be diagnosed with some ailment on the higher functioning end of the autism spectrum. In short Leticia Walker Reed was odd. Always had been. Intelligent, in fact smarter than most of her tutors, teachers and headmasters. It was odd enough that she had been invited to the University of California and offer still that she was given a full scholarship: her family was one of the richest in eleven western states.
Her oddness was a good thing. Good for her that she was left alone to study. Good that she would find many like-minded individuals at University and good for her that she was a citizen of an entirely different America. The bad part was that women in the early part of the 20th century were rarely allowed to share their intelligence with the world. College was just a four year respite from family matters and a way to meet the well-bred sons of California industrialists. But the fact that she got a first-class education and graduated with distinction was a good secret.
Leticia Walker Reed, Letty to her few friends, kept many secrets. She was well-behaved and knew her place, she kept her council among the people she was smarter than and kept her secrets in a diary that was itself a secret. Letty was an intense correspondent with the poet Emily Dickinson. This was a one-way correspondence as Leticia Walker Rees only recently discovered Dickinson and, as the rest of the world did, only after her death.
As a woman of her time, Letty knew only too well that a woman’s career path could only be as a wife or a teacher. But she wanted intrigue. She loved eavesdropping on her father’s meetings with representatives from Pinkerton’s Detective Agency and longed to become involved in crime, either side of which offered more excitement than Walker’s Mill, California.
Even Darling Emily Dickinson had found intrigue. The toast of the literary world – a published and respected poetess! Even if it was nearly two decades after her death, at least Miss Dickinson’s case was published. Letty had nearly as many poems in her own diary but, after reading Dickinson, had grown in her knowledge of poetry to know that she simply didn’t measure up. Lately the audience to whom she wrote in her diary became the friend she never knew but with whom she had so much in common.
Letty shared many problems with her dear friend Miss Emily Dickinson of Amhurst. She was more intelligent than anyone in her immediate family; no one understood her poetry; she excelled at and enjoyed domestic pursuits like baking, sewing and gardening even though she wanted more out of life; and she believed she was destined to be swept up in an intriguing, devastating relationship with a handsome and dangerous stranger. Of all these fantasies, sadly, only two would come true for Letty. The first and the last.
Leticia’s diary read like a series of open letters, each of which began: ‘My Dear, Dear Emily,’ or sometimes: ‘Darling Emily,’ and, when something particularly vexed the diarist, simply, ‘Emily’. The diary, excruciatingly neat in presentation and correct in grammar, punctuation and spelling, was only exciting when it left the mundane world of Walker’s Mill, California and entered the illusory realm of the thoughts, dreams and, fantasies of the diary’s owner. Modern psychologists, if ever given the chance to read the diary of Leticia Walker Reed, would conclude that she was intensely intelligent, a rigorous grammarian, possessor of an immense vocabulary but sadly, totally and completely delusional bordering on psychotic.
Of course, the twin facts that a): every neatly-written, well-reasoned word was true and b): the diary had been purloined by handsome and dangerous stranger with whom she’d had a brief, intriguing and thoroughly devastating relationship, made Leticia Walker Reed’s disappearance a perfect crime. Perfect in that the handsome stranger, Leticia and her diary were never heard from again. In fact no one even presumed that that the unfortunate circumstance was anything but a disappearance. Poor little rich girl gives it all up for handsome stranger, one that no one ever saw.
Had the Placer County Sheriff been able to investigate, he would have uncovered the most sensational case in the County’s then brief history. The nearly limitless Walker and Reed fortunes made sure that those venerable names were kept out of the newspapers. The family’s more professional and infinitely better funded investigations shed no more light on the case than did the Sheriff’s.
Leticia sat on her bed in the mansion she called Shambala but that the family called Waterwood. She rote in her diary while waiting, impatiently, for her father to return, He was now three weeks late.
My Dear, Darling Emily,
Thank you, thank you, darling for your intense verse! I was kept awake late into the night by the thumping, no, the pounding of your magical, motoric, meter. It was as if the rhythm your verse took over my heart, mind and body and that your poetry commandeered my very soul and imprisoned my soul. It was a forced march through your visions, your words and your invention. I was a most willing captive. Thank you, darling Emily!
Thanks also for hiding your work until it could be appreciated! How dare that charlatan tell you you couldn’t write! How dare that man, impotent, crass and barbaric, destroy your creation – one that he was too simple to understand. Or could he? Was he, dear Emily, simply incapable of expressing his awe, as I have in these very pages, because of his stupid, inane and infinitely worthless masculinity?
How desperately I dare to dream that I can sequester myself, heart, soul, body and mind, from the machinations of men as you have! But I fear, dear Emily, that I mayn’t be as strong as you. Did you love (the guy who told Dickinson she couldn’t write)? Did he destroy you as totally as I fear I will one day be destroyed? I look forward to parts of it with a morbid fascination but mostly with trepidation as, Dear Emily, my cannon is nowhere near complete.
I would innumerate on my shortcomings at length but it seems that Father and Uncle James have arrived from San Francisco and are desirous of engaging me in a job for the trust. Imagine! Two months divorced from University and degree, and already earning my keep. More soon!
The household was in a flutter in anticipation of the arrival of James and Adolphus Reed. The dispatch from the telegraph office in Walker’s Mill had informed Mrs. Reed of her husband’s impending return. Isabella Walker Reed was a formidable woman. For years it was rumored that her father owned one half of California and her husband and his brother owned the other. It was a match made in the real estate office. There was love of a kind but mostly respect between these two California pioneers. Respect for each other, for decorum and, above all, for business.
August 2, 2010
Complex: Chapter One (some bad words)
Chapter 1. North Inland
In which we meet a Detective and a Captain, each with an unfortunate name
It was a normal day at the San Diego Police Department’s North Inland station. Everyone called it North Inland. No one ever called it The Station like they do on TV. Not the overweight assholes shuffling paper angrily because they were no longer wanted/needed on the streets. Not the sworn officers and civilian staff alike who were just wishing/hoping for cause to grab a weapon and just shoot some asshole; just shoot and shoot. Nope. Normal.
Normal cigarette smoke filtering in from the patio. A normal phone, not connected to voicemail, ringing and ringing. Normal acrid, smoky coffee smell mingling with the smoke and the shouts. And through this miasma of anger, failure depression and anxiety, and vocal calisthenics, sat Detective Dickstein trying to fade into the wallpaper. A difficult exercise for, as anyone who’d ever worked or been brought in there knew, the walls were painted an institutional lime/puke green. The term ‘into the wallpaper’ was just a taking of artistic license – one of many thefts to come.
Dicketein wasn’t his real name but a lot of civilians called him this – a rotten joke played on him by his associates at North Inland. Detective Richard Steen was often introduced as Detective Dick Steen, with as little pause as possible between names, by his associates. If he applied himself, Dicketein, as he was called, was twice the cop everyone at North Inland was. So those associates, mindful to keep him down and from making them look bad by comparison, called him Dick to his face and Dick Steen in front of civilians.
He knew they kept him from applying himself but he quit mentioning it to the Police Psychiatrist in his mandatory sessions because she thought it was just paranoia. Keeping quiet, Steen knew, was the best strategy. Not that he could get a word in edgewise, Captain Cunt was a yeller. But keeping quiet, fading into the background, was always Dickstein’s way of dealing with his Captain, Cunt, who had been yelling for nigh on about ten minutes. This would be a long one, as most who knew Captain Cunt knew: this was just his warm-up. There were three types of Captain Cunt dressing downs: Short and Horrible, Long and Really Fucking Horrible, and Oh God You Really Fucked Up This Time Horrible.
Steen, hands-down the winner of the most Oh God You Really Fucked Up This Time dressings down, was concentrating on quiet. His quiet center, something he told no one about; the thing that was the source of his incredible power of recall. He accesses his quiet center not so he could take in the content of the Oh God You Really Fucked Up This Time dressing down. Not so he could hear something in the Oh God You Really Fucked Up This Time dressing down that would make him a better cop. No, Detective Steen was quiet so he could tune out the Captain and concentrate on the grievance he would file with the union the very second he returned to his desk.
Steen tried to memorize everything Captain Cunt was saying (besides “Oh God You Really Fucked Up This Time,” the saying three times of which indicated the nature of the dressing down). He tried to memorize the words so he could put as many of them as he could fit into the 50-words-or-less space reserved for this on the union’s automated grievance form on their website.
Captain Cunt wasn’t the Captain’s real name, obviously, and 50 words were never enough to describe an Oh God You Really Fucked Up This Time. Cunt was just how everyone in North Inland referred to the Captain. Not out loud. Never out loud. What are you an idiot or something? Jesus! No. No one ever said it out loud but every time the Captain introduced himself, he said, “Hi I’m Captain Bolunt,” and everyone within earshot said, silently, “rhymes with Cunt.”
North Inland covered the crimes of a strange pancreas-shaped area of San Diego city that managed not to include all the cool spots for crime to happen. Not the beach, not the mountains, not the valley or the waterfront. Just the places where people seemed to be pissed off at their neighbors or doing really stupid things for really stupid reasons. North Inland covered several middle class neighborhoods, like Manila Mesa, Linda Viet Nam, Old Geezer Town, The Dump. All of those names were North Inland euphemisms except The Dump. The Dump is just what everyone called the dump.
The cool places to investigate, but not solve, crime were in North Coastal (where the Cougars live), North (where all the rich people live even though the North Coastal assholes thought they were as rich as those in North), and Central (where all the good shit happened).
Not solving crime, in spite of what every cop show in the Universe would have you believe, is the rule rather than the exception. No one ever solved a crime like they did, or in as little time as they did it, on TV. And no one in law enforcement was that pretty. Not even close. The successes were counted in percentages and those were rarely double digit percentages of cases. North Inland was second best at not solving crimes. North Inland was second only to South and South was near the border. Even South East (where the formerly segregated neighborhoods and most of the gangs were) had more crimes solved than North Inland. And this is why Captain Cunt yelled.
But the yelling would have to be put on hold as Radar entered with bad or worse news. No one in his or her right mind would interrupt a dressing down for fear of having it turned on him. There were only three events that would allow Radar to interrupt dressings down: a) a visit by a civilian (bad news); b) a murder (worse); or 3) a visit by brass (worst of all). Everyone called Sergeant Raymer Radar not because he could read minds like the guy in the TV show M*A*S*H* but because he was the Captain’s lackey like the guy on M*A*S*H*and his name was Raymer so, close enough. Radar did a knock-and-enter just as Cunt was saying, for the third time, “Oh God You Really Fucked—what is it Radar?”
This was enough to pull Dickstein out of his grievance-composing funk. “Some President at a complex in Nam has a suspicious death,” said Radar.
“Murder?” said Cunt.
“Probably.”
“Well, fuck! It has to be better than probably,” yelled Cunt, “or it won’t justify you’re coming in here!”
“Said someone’s floating in the pool and looks like there’s no skin.”
“That works.”
Radar left.
“I’ll just be going, then, Cap—”
“No, Dicketein. This looks like much more fun than that Little League investigation you’ve been fucking up all to God Damned Hell.”
“But—”
“No buts, Detective Steen! I need you to get over there and assess the situation. You need to direct the Investigators, make initial inquiries and draft an IFR.
The use of his real last name by the Captain, not to mention the Initial Finding’s Report, was all Richard Steen needed. Using his real name and all that FMJ (Force Mumbo Jumbo) meant that Captain Bolunt was already typing Dickstein’s Note-To-File in his head. Anytime Cunt used real or official words, somebody was about to get rat-fucked.
In which we meet a Detective and a Captain, each with an unfortunate name
It was a normal day at the San Diego Police Department’s North Inland station. Everyone called it North Inland. No one ever called it The Station like they do on TV. Not the overweight assholes shuffling paper angrily because they were no longer wanted/needed on the streets. Not the sworn officers and civilian staff alike who were just wishing/hoping for cause to grab a weapon and just shoot some asshole; just shoot and shoot. Nope. Normal.
Normal cigarette smoke filtering in from the patio. A normal phone, not connected to voicemail, ringing and ringing. Normal acrid, smoky coffee smell mingling with the smoke and the shouts. And through this miasma of anger, failure depression and anxiety, and vocal calisthenics, sat Detective Dickstein trying to fade into the wallpaper. A difficult exercise for, as anyone who’d ever worked or been brought in there knew, the walls were painted an institutional lime/puke green. The term ‘into the wallpaper’ was just a taking of artistic license – one of many thefts to come.
Dicketein wasn’t his real name but a lot of civilians called him this – a rotten joke played on him by his associates at North Inland. Detective Richard Steen was often introduced as Detective Dick Steen, with as little pause as possible between names, by his associates. If he applied himself, Dicketein, as he was called, was twice the cop everyone at North Inland was. So those associates, mindful to keep him down and from making them look bad by comparison, called him Dick to his face and Dick Steen in front of civilians.
He knew they kept him from applying himself but he quit mentioning it to the Police Psychiatrist in his mandatory sessions because she thought it was just paranoia. Keeping quiet, Steen knew, was the best strategy. Not that he could get a word in edgewise, Captain Cunt was a yeller. But keeping quiet, fading into the background, was always Dickstein’s way of dealing with his Captain, Cunt, who had been yelling for nigh on about ten minutes. This would be a long one, as most who knew Captain Cunt knew: this was just his warm-up. There were three types of Captain Cunt dressing downs: Short and Horrible, Long and Really Fucking Horrible, and Oh God You Really Fucked Up This Time Horrible.
Steen, hands-down the winner of the most Oh God You Really Fucked Up This Time dressings down, was concentrating on quiet. His quiet center, something he told no one about; the thing that was the source of his incredible power of recall. He accesses his quiet center not so he could take in the content of the Oh God You Really Fucked Up This Time dressing down. Not so he could hear something in the Oh God You Really Fucked Up This Time dressing down that would make him a better cop. No, Detective Steen was quiet so he could tune out the Captain and concentrate on the grievance he would file with the union the very second he returned to his desk.
Steen tried to memorize everything Captain Cunt was saying (besides “Oh God You Really Fucked Up This Time,” the saying three times of which indicated the nature of the dressing down). He tried to memorize the words so he could put as many of them as he could fit into the 50-words-or-less space reserved for this on the union’s automated grievance form on their website.
Captain Cunt wasn’t the Captain’s real name, obviously, and 50 words were never enough to describe an Oh God You Really Fucked Up This Time. Cunt was just how everyone in North Inland referred to the Captain. Not out loud. Never out loud. What are you an idiot or something? Jesus! No. No one ever said it out loud but every time the Captain introduced himself, he said, “Hi I’m Captain Bolunt,” and everyone within earshot said, silently, “rhymes with Cunt.”
North Inland covered the crimes of a strange pancreas-shaped area of San Diego city that managed not to include all the cool spots for crime to happen. Not the beach, not the mountains, not the valley or the waterfront. Just the places where people seemed to be pissed off at their neighbors or doing really stupid things for really stupid reasons. North Inland covered several middle class neighborhoods, like Manila Mesa, Linda Viet Nam, Old Geezer Town, The Dump. All of those names were North Inland euphemisms except The Dump. The Dump is just what everyone called the dump.
The cool places to investigate, but not solve, crime were in North Coastal (where the Cougars live), North (where all the rich people live even though the North Coastal assholes thought they were as rich as those in North), and Central (where all the good shit happened).
Not solving crime, in spite of what every cop show in the Universe would have you believe, is the rule rather than the exception. No one ever solved a crime like they did, or in as little time as they did it, on TV. And no one in law enforcement was that pretty. Not even close. The successes were counted in percentages and those were rarely double digit percentages of cases. North Inland was second best at not solving crimes. North Inland was second only to South and South was near the border. Even South East (where the formerly segregated neighborhoods and most of the gangs were) had more crimes solved than North Inland. And this is why Captain Cunt yelled.
But the yelling would have to be put on hold as Radar entered with bad or worse news. No one in his or her right mind would interrupt a dressing down for fear of having it turned on him. There were only three events that would allow Radar to interrupt dressings down: a) a visit by a civilian (bad news); b) a murder (worse); or 3) a visit by brass (worst of all). Everyone called Sergeant Raymer Radar not because he could read minds like the guy in the TV show M*A*S*H* but because he was the Captain’s lackey like the guy on M*A*S*H*and his name was Raymer so, close enough. Radar did a knock-and-enter just as Cunt was saying, for the third time, “Oh God You Really Fucked—what is it Radar?”
This was enough to pull Dickstein out of his grievance-composing funk. “Some President at a complex in Nam has a suspicious death,” said Radar.
“Murder?” said Cunt.
“Probably.”
“Well, fuck! It has to be better than probably,” yelled Cunt, “or it won’t justify you’re coming in here!”
“Said someone’s floating in the pool and looks like there’s no skin.”
“That works.”
Radar left.
“I’ll just be going, then, Cap—”
“No, Dicketein. This looks like much more fun than that Little League investigation you’ve been fucking up all to God Damned Hell.”
“But—”
“No buts, Detective Steen! I need you to get over there and assess the situation. You need to direct the Investigators, make initial inquiries and draft an IFR.
The use of his real last name by the Captain, not to mention the Initial Finding’s Report, was all Richard Steen needed. Using his real name and all that FMJ (Force Mumbo Jumbo) meant that Captain Bolunt was already typing Dickstein’s Note-To-File in his head. Anytime Cunt used real or official words, somebody was about to get rat-fucked.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)