Subtext

Years ago I enrolled in a writing class at the University I was attending.  I was 19 and not terribly serious about anything, and so most of the work I turned in was silly or schlock.  I wrote a lot about murder and bizarre characters. And murdering bizarre characters.

Anyway, one particular short-story stands out in my mind. The topic was subtext.  We had to write a short scene where there was some kind of subtext between the two characters that would come out in dialogue.  I had a bit of a problem with that assignment: I didn’t know what subtext was.

To make matters worse, I wasn’t (and still am not) a very subtle person.  Some people enjoy and are good at hints and innuendo. Not me.  I’m more like a meth-addled bull in a China shop.  Why skirt around anything when you can just go full bore, non-stop into a wall? Eventually, after beating your head, heart and body into concrete, the mortar will fail and wall will come down.  Typically right on your head, “Balls to the Wall” style. 

Back to this class. The short story was a gem.  It was one of those pieces where I just started writing and had no idea how it would turn out.  As a result, most of the subtext, which was supposed to be implied, came right out in the dialogue.  Oops.

It did have an interesting twist. The scene I wrote took place in an apartment building hallway where a man was talking to a woman through a slightly opened door. Apparently, these two were once lovers.  The man was pissed though and the woman didn’t really want to talk to him.  As she started to close the door, he said: “Wait!  Don’t we have something to talk about?”  The woman replied: “Like what?”

Like what indeed?  I had no idea where to go with this scene.  It needed a resolution.  A hook.  Some kind of reason to be read.  But what should they talk about?  So I wrote the first thing to come to my mind.

“The monkey.”

After that it was all downhill.   At the end of the scene, I had the man throw a bloody pink collar at the woman who cried out “Becky!”  He then left after saying (this I almost remember verbatim) “The next time you send one of your little friends after me, tell them it never snows, in New York, in June!”

I guess the backstory is these two were lovers and she left him. During their relationship, or shortly after, the woman trained an army of monkey assassins.  One of which was sent after the man. The man foiled the attempt by saying to the monkey, as it aimed a gun at him, “Look!  It’s snowing in New York.”  As we all know, monkeys are invariably interested in snow, and will do anything to watch it.  The monkey, apparently named Becky, was a slave to her nature, and came to an untimely end.

I really, really hope this isn’t the peak of my work.