Phoenix Chapter One: The Accident

PHOENIX

Chapter One: The Accident

His pay in his pocket, John Rogan was minutes away from finally purchasing his dream guitar. The black and silver Fender glinted in the window of Jewel Music, just across Walnut Street, in downtown Shermer. Waiting for the crosswalk sign, he idly glanced over the crowd on the opposite side of the street. Black bushy hair, pale skin and dark eyes. It was Allison Reynolds.  The light turned green, he pushed off from the curb, and then it happened, in slow motion. He raised his hand to wave. She stepped into the street. A car bore down on her. It clipped her and she was airborne, flying in an arc. Then she smashed to the ground. The car came to a halt and time sped up again. In three bounds, Rogan was at her side. He pushed back his long dark hair. Allison was lying on her side, trying to sit up. Rogan knelt next to her in his black jeans. 

"Don't get up. Just lie still."

She looked up at him, into his hazel eyes. Her plain black clothes were rumpled, her hair messy as usual. Rogan winced. Her forehead was marred by scraped skin, dirt and blood. 

“Hey, no, you stay down," he said as she tried to rise. He was aware of the crowd collecting. "Just lie still, until the ambulance comes." 

"I don't need an ambulance. I'm fine."  She sounded sleepy, like someone woken from an unintentional nap. 

"C'mon, do me the favor, OK? Just stay still until the medics come." Folding his black motorcycle jacket, he slipped it under her head as she subsided. 

"Thank you, Rogan." She touched his lean, well-muscled arm. “I'm not feeling so good.”

“The medics are on the way... Listen, hear the sirens? Just hang on.” He let her curl her fingers around his wrist.  

Then the medics were there, replacing him at her side. When they lifted her onto the gurney and began wheeling her, he followed quickly. Someone handed him his jacket and the medic was asking her, “Can you say your name?” 

There was a bustle as her gurney was loaded into the ambulance. One medic climbed in beside her and the other turned to him. “You know her?”

Rogan nodded.

“Sit up front, with me.”

The siren sounded funny from inside the vehicle and they drove very fast. The hospital was only five blocks away and sooner than seemed possible, they arrived. Beckoning him, the driver pointed him to the ER entrance. The other medic jogged along after Allison's gurney, which was disappearing inside. 

Following the big signs indicating the emergency room, he entered through large automatic doors and approached the desk labeled “Check in.” There were three people ahead of him, but finally it was his turn.

“Allison Reynolds, they just brought her in. Can I see her?” 

The woman at the desk looked at her computer monitor and said, “John Rogan? Miss Reynolds has asked for you, but she is being examined and can't have visitors. You can sit in the waiting room. I'll have the security guard bring you back when you can join her.”

Rows of flimsy plastic chairs lined the walls of the windowless waiting room. Rogan took a seat near the door. He scanned the room for any comfort and found none. There was nothing to distract him, not even tables with stale magazines, just this bare, depressing room. Everyone seemed sunk in their own pain or worry. One couple murmured quietly, the woman wearing a surgical mask and coughing harshly. A man in paint-spattered work clothes held his wrist in his lap, his face down, preoccupied with his own pain. Others seemed to be waiting, as Rogan was, for word about a loved one. The large white clock on the wall seemed to tick more slowly than seemed right.    

His motorcycle jacket had flecks of blood and dirt on it and he was brushing at them an hour later when the security guard called his name. 

“You can sit with her now. She's back this way.” He led Rogan through another automatic door, stout and wooden, labeled “Authorized Persons Only.” They navigated a maze of examination rooms until the guard showed him into room 706.

Allison looked small, propped up in the white bed, with a bandage on her left temple. 

“How’re you feeling, Allison?”

“Tired. And my head hurts. He said I have to wait, I can't go home yet. They need to do a C-T scan to see if there is any bleeding in my brain.”

Rogan pulled a chair up next to her bed.

“You want them to call your parents?” he asked.

Allison gave a little laugh that turned into a cough.

“They're in Canada, camping. They wouldn't care anyway.”

“A boyfriend? You still with Andy?”

 “He's out of town, too, for a wrestling meet. You're the closest thing I have to family right now.” She reached for his hand. “Can you stay with me?”

“I'm here. I'm not going anywhere. So, what brought you downtown, Al?"  

“Art supplies. From the Artist’s Guild.”

Rogan remembered her watercolors and sketches. He’d been impressed with the way she captured her subjects with such tender accuracy. 

“How about you?” she asked.

“On my way to buy a guitar.” 

“A new one? My accident interrupted some serious business.”

“Nah, it will still be there when I go back.” He was surprised she got the importance of such a purchase. But she understood artists, and he was an artist in his own way.

Rogan was about to ask her further questions about her current art project, when she put her hand to her temple and closed her eyes.

“Just lie still. You don't have to talk.” 

 He returned the slight squeeze of her hand and watched as she closed her eyes.

***

It took almost three hours to complete the C-T scan. A young woman, a volunteer, entered pushing a wheelchair.

“I don't need that,” Allison protested.

“I know, honey, but it's regulations.” The woman wheeled Allison out of the exam room. Rogan trailed behind, feeling superfluous. They ended up at a small booth where a tired looking man had reams of papers for Allison to sign. Finally the volunteer pushed Allison up to the front entrance of the hospital. A security guard called them a cab on the house phone.

“They say I need someone to stay with me tonight. Wake me up a couple of times, make sure I don't get worse. Can you do that?” she asked.

“Sure, Allison. No problem.”

He waited in the living room while she changed into pajamas. Wandering over to the mantle, he looked at the framed pictures. They showed Allison's parents at different locations, formal pictures and informal snap shots, at the beach, in ski gear, beside a tent in the woods. There was not a single picture of Allison. 

Allison gestured him into her bedroom, looking tired and drawn with pain. Some detached part of him noticed the curves her snug t-shirt revealed and he felt like a complete a*****e. Doubly so, as she was still dating Andy. Focus, he told himself. She's hurt and needs to get in bed. He was relieved when she pulled the covers up to her chin. Settling into the armchair by the window, he prepared for a long night. 

As instructed, he woke her at midnight and again at four. Both times she was coherent. At eight, he woke to find cold morning light creeping in around the edges of the curtains. 

“Allison,” he said, touching her shoulder. “Allison, wake up for a second.” 

She dreamily opened her eyes and looked into his. “Thank you, Rogan. I'm not dead yet.” She gave him a sleepy smile and he had an insane desire to touch her face, kiss her neck, hear her sigh. He couldn’t believe he was having sexy thoughts about a sick woman. He pulled up the covers that had slipped down. 

“You can go back to sleep.” Her eyes closed and he left her side before he could act on his crazy impulses to kiss and stroke her warm skin. She was Andy's girl, off limits; he couldn't be having these thoughts about her. 

Rogan settled back in the arm chair and deliberately pushed his mind in another direction. It was almost exactly a year ago when Rogan last saw Allison. They had a great day on Lake Michigan: Allison with her boyfriend Andy, and Rogan with his girlfriend Claire. He had a watercolor picture by Allison, of them all standing on a pier at sunset. Claire had left two days later. Allison and Andy were a year younger. They must still be in school, senior year. That day seemed like a long time ago.   

 Claire... that had been good while it lasted. She was on the east coast now, going to school at that fancy place her mother went to, Bryn Mawr. Anyway, she was gone, their idyllic summer over. Because that was all they had: one summer. They both graduated and they'd always known she'd be leaving in August. 

And he'd been good, no other girls, just Claire. She was his first serious girlfriend, after a life of one night stands. And now, now he must keep his hands to himself. Not only did he not want to be trapped in one of Andy's wrestling holds, he respected him. Since Allison and Claire were such good friends, the four of them had spent a lot of time together over the summer. He found Andy a likable guy, not averse to a little talk about cars. That was about all they had in common, but that was okay. 

At noon, he startled at Allison's touch on his arm. He was hunched and stiff from sleeping in the chair.

“Rogan, do you want to get in bed? You look uncomfortable.” 

“What? No, I'm awake. You feel better?”

“Yes. I've had some juice and toast, and my headache is better. You can go now, if you want. I'm ok,” she told him.

“They said twenty four hours. I'd better stay.”

“Andy's on his way over. I'll be fine, unless you want to crash here for a while. You look tired.”

The idea of being surrounded by her scent in her bed was too much. He got up. 

“No, I'll head on out, if Andy is here to take care of you.” 

She hugged him goodbye. He left before he could have any fresh ideas about touching what wasn't his.

Author's Note

Thank you for reading. I return all reviews, except poetry. All comments are welcome, large or small, critical or positive.

I revised this entire story into past tense. If you see any tense problems, please let me know.

Reviews

[MoonlitWillow]

An interesting first chapter. Rogan seems like anyone, really. I think most people try to do right most of the time, even if that isn't their initial inclination, and that's what Rogan seems like to me. You have your own writing style, and it differs from mine, so I can't say you should change this or that, because I think it would just be me looking for what's normal to ME.

One thing I think would help the flow a little would be to divide your first paragraph in two. There's a clear subject change that goes from his desire for the guitar, to the recognition of Allison and the resulting accident, and it would make more sense for it to be two separate paragraphs.

Other than that, a good start. I'm interested enough to read more.

[SweetNutmeg]

Thank you for the review! I have a master document and I will note your observation about the first paragraph to contemplate at my leisure. You've been really helpful and I appreciate it.

[wtp]

I liked "Phoenix" enough to read the whole book straight through, and am currently re-reading so I can offer constructive feedback chapter by chapter. I hope you will read my feedback in that context: I don’t put in that much effort if I don’t like it!

I think your John Rogan is a very compelling hero. A mechanic at Midas (not a Mercedes dealership or Autohas). Child of a very dysfunctional family. Lots of complexities in his attitudes (especially with respect to drugs). I found myself rooting for him to "win", whatever that might be.

However, I found Rogan confusing at times, especially with respect to women. I think it's because the Rogan you show and the Rogan you tell can be very different. Essentially, the Rogan you show through his actions is a sensitive guy who respects women but the Rogan you tell through narrative or other characters' observations is kind of a man-w***e. That was just a general impression from the first reading. I will try to highlight places in each chapter's comments where I found it confusing…

Specific issues in Chapter 1:

The accident and its aftermath are an interesting and efficient way to set the stage for the upcoming chapters. You packed a lot of history and present into that chapter...

I thought your description of Allison's time in ER and the directive to wake her at regular intervals very realistic, and that really strengthens the chapter.

There were two smaller points that bothered me as a reader.
(1) It seems odd that Rogan doesn’t know Allison lives with her parents. Shouldn’t he know that from the previous summer? Perhaps it is as simple as adding the word "still" to that bit of dialogue...
(2) It seems odd that Rogan doesn’t know which East Coast school his ex-girlfriend went to…

In this chapter, you show Rogan as very much the gentleman. He only dated Claire for the summer, but hasn’t had anyone in the ensuing year even though he knew the relationship had a short shelf life; “And he'd been good, no other girls, just Claire.” The idea that not sleeping around is being "good" seems pretty important to his character.

Rogan also stays up all night with Allison because she needs him. He feels a connection but won’t hit on her because she has a boyfriend… to the point of leaving when he worries about his self-control.

(“She hugged him goodbye. He left before he could have any fresh ideas about touching what wasn't his.”)

This is all completely consistent and believable, but I will point out places where see conflicts in later chapters...

[SweetNutmeg]

Wow! Thank you so much for such a thorough and thoughtful review! My internet is down so I can't respond to each review as my phone's screen is so tiny. But I will come back as soon as I get my connection back to give you the attention you deserve

[SweetNutmeg]

I'm so pleased you liked Phoenix well enough to invest such time and thought in helping me make it the best it can be. All of your reviews are helpful.

I think you find Rogan confusing because I have an idea in my head that I obviously didn't manage convey to the reader... In my mind, the story is that he was a bit of a Casanova until he met Claire. She changed him a bit, showing him what real intimacy can be like. But he hasn't changed *entirely* he still likes girls and has no problem with one night stands if he doesn't have a steady girlfriend. I base this idea on things from my own experiences. I was trying to start the story off without too much back story right away, but if it confuses you, I need to work on that.

Or I could make Kirsten the seducer and he just goes along, saying nothing about him using the bad boy image to get girls, letting go of the idea he used to be a s**t of sorts.

In addition, in further chapters, he lets Ryan assume more than there is, as far as his partying and womanizing. He doesn't contradict the image Ryan has.

Yes, I will change the bit about Rogan asking Allison about where she lives. It made sense in my head but looking carefully, it doesn't make sense at all to the reader.

I will make him know the name of the east coast school, as well.

[wtp]

I think your intended evolution for Rogan is perfect. I think the part I missed was that "he'd been good, no other girls, just Claire" applied to the time they were together. I read more into it than was on the page. My bad!

In this context, things make a lot more sense to me.

[SweetNutmeg]

I changed the two spots you pointed out on my master doc, and added a few sentences, which hopefully will elucidate his character. Here is the new paragraph:

"And he'd been good, no other girls, just Claire. She was his first serious girlfriend, after a string of one night stands. And now, now he must keep his hands to himself. Not only did he not want to be trapped in one of Andy's wrestling holds, he respected him. Since Allison and Claire were such good friends, the four of them had spent a lot of time together over the summer. He found Andy a likable guy, not averse to a little talk about cars. That was about all they had in common, but that was okay. "

[Fabian G. Franklin]

I don't know if you can sustain this sort of detail in novel length but the writing seems very direct and focused. Keep up the good work. Cheers.

[SweetNutmeg]

Thanks for the review! I've tried to find the balance between enough detail to evoke strong images in the reader's mind, without shoving inordinate detail down their throats. There's nothing I hate more than a writer not trusting me to fill in the gaps. In your own flash fiction, you found that balance quite skillfully.

[Fabian G. Franklin]

You know who bores the reader with minute details? F. Scott Fitzgerald, that's who. If you've ever read anything by him such as Tender Is The Night or The Great Gatsby, you'll know what I mean.

[Christoph]

You do the thing I never do, which is get to the point right away.

Halfway through the first chapter and I think you've already set the stage. By the end of it I feel like I have a working sense of your world, the relationships and dynamics between the most important characters.

Probably good for me to read the work of people who are great at what I'm terrible at.

What stood out to me most, being a scene I can relate to and vouch for, is the first moment Rogan catches himself having inappropriate thoughts toward Allison. When someone you care for is frail, when it's your job to look after them, there's a tremendous intimacy in that. It comes across here as tender and genuine.

The only part of this chapter that feels off for me, and only slightly off, is when Rogan sits down and thinks about Claire. She's sophisticated, he's a metalhead, he taught her this and she taught him that. It's just a little too on the nose, I think, and reads like a character biography rather than Rogan's thoughts in that moment.

I'm certainly inclined to keep going with this. Eventually I need to stop finding new books to start reading on here, but not today.

[SweetNutmeg]

Thank you for reading and reviewing. I made a note in my manuscript of your comment about Rogan sitting down and thinking about Claire. In retrospect it is a bit info dumpy and not a particularly natural bit of internal dialogue. I will work on that.

I appreciate your interest and encouragement. It's always good to spread reviews around, it's the only way to find good review partners. I'll hop over to your work sometime today or tonight.

[KueenSlayer]

I love the storyline. It's very much common in our daily lives. A lot of people can learn a lot from this story.

[SweetNutmeg]

Thank you for reading and reviewing. I tend to write about the daily lives of ordinary people. I'm glad you enjoyed this first chapter.

[Samuel Dickens]

I think this chapter is much improved over the previous version. It's quite good, really. One suggestion--I would leave off the very first word, "finally".

[SweetNutmeg]

Thank you for coming back and rereading. I erased Finally as you suggested. It wasn't needed. I appreciate all of your comments and your ever encouraging words.

[JayG]

The biggest problem I see is that for far too much of the time what we're reading is a transcription of you talking about visual details on the viewscreen in your mind, or background information that contributes nothing.

The first reason that approach gets in the way is that because you already know the story in detail, as you tell it you insert information that you "notice" but which the reader doesn't care about. As an example:

• It's Saturday afternoon, on a humid August day.

Why start with a weather report? The worst opening ever written was Bulwar-Lytton's "It was a dark and stormy night." Would the story change in the slightest if it was dry? No.If it was a Sunday? Again no. Would it change were it September? Nope. So why does a reader care, or need to know such detail? That matters, because the only purpose this line serves is to delay the beginning of the actual story.

• John Rogan is standing on the corner of Walnut Street and Astley, in downtown Shermer. Head and shoulders above most of the shoppers, he can see the guitars in the window of Jewel Music across the street.

As a minor point, you're trying to Jazz up the telling by placing it in present tense. It doesn't, because the "person" and tense you tell it in is an authorial choice as to the voice the NARRATOR will use. But the narrator is an intrusion, and interrupts the action. So no matter the tense, it needs to be kept to a minimum. As Sol Stein put it: “In sum, if you want to improve your chances of publication, keep your story visible on stage and yourself mum.”

For the one living the story as in life, it's always first person present tense. So, for a reader there is no difference between. "John Rogan is standing on the corner of Walnut Street and Astley," and "John Rogan was standing on the corner of Walnut Street and Astley," Both are the words of someone not in the story or on the scene, who's interrupting the action to explain things the reader has not asked to have explain. Moreover, in this case, the narrator jumps in to talk about visual detail that the reader can't see and doesn't need to. Most of what you mention are things the viewer would notice peripherally to the action, and in parallel with it. So such detail would take nothing from their enjoyment of that action, and slow that action not at all. But ours is a serial medium. When you stop the action to talk about things, serially you bring the action to a crawl.

That aside, in this line he can see musical instruments he never buys, in a specific intersection, in a mythical town. Why do I care how much he wants the guitar? It's not relevant to the plot. You have the wind push his hair so you can make the reader know it's long and the color. Does it matter to the action at this point? No. Does he ever look at his hair and say, "Damn, I have amber hair." ? No. So who's noticing this? You're not in the story. If it matters to the story that his hair is long, and amber, have the one it matters to tell him she likes it.

If we don't tell the reader what the protagonist looks like, for each reader, the protagonist looks like THEM. That works for you, not against you.

In other words: Start your story with story, not a lecture on things irrelevant to the plot, character, or to setting the scene meaningfully. Make-it-march. Keep your reader busy, and interested—involved—or they bail.

You're not in this story, or on the scene. So what matters to you and what you focus on is irrelevant. He knows the girl who will be hit by the car. That's relevant because it will make him react, emotionally, and by extension, the reader, too. How long it's been since he has seen her is irrelevant to-this-scene. It may matter when he has time to think about her, or talk to her. But right now she's about to be hit by a car. Who cares how long they've been apart, or why? She's about to be hit by a car!

As a storyteller, plot detail and backstory matters. But it doesn't matter to him in the moment called now, and HE'S both our avatar, and your protagonist. It's HIS story, and you're about to make life really difficult. So instead of talking ABOUT him, the weather, and how pretty his hair is, let him live his life. Give the reader excitement not detail and history. Give them something to worry about. Make them CARE! Fail that and they won't turn the page and learn how good your story is.

In general, you have three pages or less to change the reader's mild curiosity to active interest. So the closer to the top of page one you can do that, the better.

The second problem you face, and it's a killer, is that no one but you can hear emotion in the voice of the narrator. Your reader has no access to your intent for how they should perform as they read. All they have is what the words and punctuation suggests to THEM, based on THEIR background. And since you can't know that reader's background, you can't slant the words to make them meaningful to them, and they cannot know HOW you would read it, what have they got? Have your computer read this to you aloud, to hear how different what the reader gets is from how you would perform it.

There are lots of ways to get around that problem, but not one of them was given us in our school days, because professions are learned after we leave our schooldays. All those reports and essays you were assigned? They made you really good at writing essays and reports—nonfiction.

The solution is simplicity itself. Add the tricks of the trade to your current skills. Lots and lots of books on the subject. One I now recommend is here:
https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Fiction-Writing-Conflict-Suspense-ebook/dp/B006N4DAZE/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=Elements+of+Fiction+Writing+james+scott+bell&qid=1563058732&s=digital-text&sr=1-3

What you need to do it change from telling the story to making the reader live it.

- - - - Addendum:
Whoops. I just looked and saw that I've looked at your other book, and so want to add that this is dramatically better. You've picked up a lot of viewpoint tricks, but still, you need to get out of your head and into the protagonist. Ask yourself if it matters to that character in their moment of now. If not, that's not the place to place it.

Hang in there, and keep on writing.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/

[SweetNutmeg]

Thanks for your review. I really appreciate the time and effort you put into it.

[Wathanya.5KY3]

I saw that you edited the chapter and came back to read it. It's a bit different than how I remembered it, more details, more backstories, which is great!

However, I'd like to point out two things.

1. In “A boy friend? You still with Andy?” did you mean "boyfriend" or "boy friend?"

2. "...the last summer he had with Claire" suggests they spent more than one summer together, while "...that was all they had: one summer" suggests the opposite.

[SweetNutmeg]

Thanks for coming back. I actually changed only one thing, the thing about sex. From your comment, I apparently gave the impression that Rogan was inexperienced with sex. He was inexperienced with long term relationships, inexperienced with anything BUT one night stands. One night stands, he was very familiar with, lol. He's always been a player.

Thank you for pointing out those small items, too. I will go back and fix them. I'm going to add some muscles too, lol. Gotta give Rogan a body type. Lean but muscled.

[Wathanya.5KY3]

I see. It all makes sense now!

Haha In my head Rogan is tall and lean but not too muscular. Does that sound about right?

[SweetNutmeg]

Tall, and muscular, but in a lean way. He's not busting out of his shirts with Popeye muscles. He's no weight lifter, but he is a mechanic, and that calls for some muscles. BUT, I think the best image people can have in their minds is the one they make for themselves. So if you see him as less muscly than I do, carry on! I don't want to be a dictator and shove things down my readers' throats.

[Wathanya.5KY3]

You're right. He's a mechanic.
I think we envision him in the same way.

[Wathanya.5KY3]

After my thousandth reread, I'm amazed this slipped everyone's eyes:

Black bushy hair, pale skin and dark eyes.

There's supposed to be an Oxford comma after "pale skin."

It's quite minor, so I'm not writing a new review.

[SweetNutmeg]

I was taught to not use Oxford commas, as the AP Stylebook does not. The Chicago Manual of Style does use the Oxford comma, and there is much conflict and strife over this comma. I don't use it because that is the way I was taught, in elementary school, high school and in two different universities. I'm just a creature of habit, I suppose.

[Wathanya.5KY3]

Noted! I'll turn that radar off for you.

I was taught so viciously to never EVER forget the Oxford comma, so I guess I'm also a creature of habit. :P

[Raelin]

The story flow is flawless so far and hooked me in right from the start. I personally love how you described Rogan. You mentioned the essentials, leaving enough for the imagination. There's just one small thing that I feel I need to point out. Rogan is tall and has long, dark amber hair, but ends there. Is he muscular? Skinny? Got a flabby beer belly? I'm curious. I haven't read all the chapters posted yet, but saving it for later when I get a chance to sit down and read thoroughly. When I'm done, I'll leave a proper review. I usually read to critique or review, but it's a bonus when I get to enjoy the story. Looking forward to reading the rest. :)

[SweetNutmeg]

Thank you for reading and reviewing. I agree, I think his body type is pretty interesting in this type of story. I will try to work that in somewhere. He is not quite lanky, just a tad more muscular than lanky implies. In my mind. This will be quite a challenge.