Crusade (Eden Book 2) (45 page)

Then Arlin croaked “Gator McClusky,” Burt Reynolds’ character in
White
Lightening
, and I knew I had him beat. As great an actor as he was, Shaw couldn’t trump Mitchum, and if Arlin wanted to bring a fast-car-driving-moonshiner into it I wouldn’t have to leave the Mitchum oeuvre, so I spat out “
Thunder Road
, fucker.” Tommy looked at me, a mix of disdain and drug induced incomprehension, and he started to sing,
Farewell and adieu unto you Spanish ladies
… I felt I had won the argument and made my point. Further, I’m not the confrontational type, and Killah Skillz looked like he was getting ready to shank me. So I gathered my belongings and left the hotel room, leaving Arlin and his entourage to their madness.

I heard later that Tommy and his little coterie—including the escort—had an altercation with security and were tossed out of the hotel and the convention, following a ruckus at Scary-okie that night. I haven’t spoken to Arlin since, though I did receive one last letter from him.

A few remarks, then, about
Eden
.

To the people who read it and enjoyed the book, several of whom took further time to email me such,
thank you!
Eden
was
for you;
Crusade
is
for you. I am, like you, first and foremost, a huge fan of the genre. I want to thank Jacob Kier and Permuted Press for publishing
Eden
. Thanks also for all the support the book has received on the forums at Permuted,
All Things Zombie
, and
Zombie Squad
. If the idea of a participatory economy interests you, check out any book by the amazing Michael Albert.

I’d like to thank Permuted’s Chris Kaletka for the astounding job he did on the cover of
Eden
. And Leah Clarke receives my gratefulness for the unenviable task she tackled when editing
Eden
(Hopefully
Crusade
proved easier than its predecessor). A few reviews have noted “grammatical errors.” Spelling errors I will cop to. So, if for example, I misspelled
looked
as
lookied
on page 5 of
Eden
, that’s on me. But writing an action sequence—conveying a sense of multiple lines of action with the use of hyphens—constitutes no grammatical error. Those sequences, which may have been unwieldy for some but seemed well received by most, were purposefully written in that style, and if they are not “grammatically correct” that begs the whole question of standard usage and the political and social determinations that go into ascribing such.

I want to thank Dr. Michael Hardiman for his insight into schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders. Thanks also to Anastasia Katechis for her help in translating the Greek. Crusade wouldn’t be what it is without the attention to detail and amazing editing job of Louise Bohmer, whom I wish to thank immensely! To my wife, Myoungmee, and my two children, Tony Michael and Honalee, I declare all my love and gratitude for their inspiration. To you, the reader, I again offer my appreciation for your interest and support. I would love to hear from you, either on the forums (
www.PermutedPress.com
) or through
[email protected]
.

So, this is goodbye then. Goodbye from me the author to you the reader until the third and final installment in this trilogy (the only hint I’m giving is its set about twenty years after the events in
Crusade
). Goodbye from me to Tommy Arlin and his bogus ways. I now realize that my attraction to Arlin was based on my own insecurities and his B.S. His bullshit, because he talked a good game—about his love of zombies and the genre and left-wing politics—but he never walked the walk. If you ever meet Tommy you will find he is charming, even dashing. Tommy will talk circles around you about his love for humanity and the human species, but all he truly cares about is his latest debauch. And if you’re a woman, be especially careful.

My own insecurities left me vulnerable to Arlin’s influence. Ever since I’d got it into my head that I wanted to be a writer then read about the Beats, I wondered, who would be Neil Cassady to my Jack Kerouac? With time and, I like to think, maturity, I left my attachment to the Beats behind. The myths didn’t and don’t make up for the men behind them. Kerouac spent his last years as an anti-Semitic drunk; Cassady criss-crossed the country but couldn’t take care of his own family; Burroughs killed his wife playing William Tell in Mexico and was a pedophile junkie who would travel to Tangiers to have sex with pre-pubescent boys. Today I am able to write for the sheer joy of it, and like I said above, the occasional email from a reader really does make my day.

Arlin sent me a final missive, threatening legal action against my person should I take it upon myself to pen an Eden sequel. He stated he was working on his own sequel. One that combined zombies, Romanticism, Southern Gothic and time travel (What is he thinking?).
Whatever
. In his 1915 letter, DH Lawrence asked Bertrand Russell why he wouldn’t “own” his “perverted, mental blood-lust.” Beware, dear readers, of Tommy Arlin and what drives him, and should you meet him, listen to his words, yes, but more importantly, watch his actions. “Let us become strangers again,” Lawrence ended his letter, “I think it is better.” And to Tommy, if you are reading this, I ask much the same. We are history, Arlin.

Tony Monchinski

Peekskill, New York 2010