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    C2H6O: The Annihilation of the Blossoms
    C2H6O: The Annihilation of the Blossoms
    C2H6O: The Annihilation of the Blossoms
    Ebook95 pages1 hour

    C2H6O: The Annihilation of the Blossoms

    By D. E. Clayton

    ()

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    About this ebook

    NEWS RELEASE
    New ebook charts beleaguered Fourth Estate newshound through tale of excess and search for redemption

    LOS ANGELES—C2H6O: The Annihilation of the Blossoms is a just-released novella by Southern California writer D. E. Clayton.
    This sobering, sometimes darkly comic and humorous story captures three days and nights in the life of Jack Markgraf, a middle-aged newspaper reporter who has seen too much blood, too much death, too much of the mundane—and not enough alcohol. Or so he thinks. An experienced and opinionated journeyman journalist, Jack obsesses as much over the painstaking creation of a fine martini—and the nightly rearrangements of his oversized Beatles wall posters—as he does about perfection on the job and the need to tell “good stories.”

    He’s a martini man first and foremost, but he loves it all—Chilean cabernets; Hungarian reds; tequila and mescal; tall, golden lagers; the sweet, orange-flavored liqueur. It’s all okay with him—until finally it isn’t.

    Jack stumbles through boozy nights, intense days at the newspaper, and the nuanced spirit paths that somehow manage to discover him, while snapshot-like memories of his past flash before him. Ultimately he comes to a sloppy reckoning with his drinking fixations, but is it soon enough? Or too little, too late?
    This book is a good read for anybody involved with, or interested in, the world of newspaper journalism and the drinking life that often complements the sometimes grim and onerous grind of daily news gathering. The pace is brisk. Clayton writes from the perspective of one who has suffered the romantic allure of the drinking-and-writing life, and Jack Markgraf’s quest for sobriety, recovery, and personal transformation will especially resonate with those readers who have traveled the same or similar paths.
    C2H6O: The Annihilation of the Blossoms is published by O’Baoighill Publishers and has been designed by 52 Novels for reading in ebook format. Length: 21,000 words, approximately.

    * * *

    Author Biography

    D. E. Clayton (a pseudonym) has worked in magazine, newspaper, and book publishing for more than 30 years as a writer and editor. Originally from Northern California’s Bay Area, he attended public schools in Southern California and was an honors student and all-league basketball player in high school. After dropping out of a leading research university, Clayton later earned degrees elsewhere in journalism and law. He worked as a newspaper reporter and editor for 19 years in Southern California’s Inland Empire region; prior to that he briefly wrote for and edited a music and entertainment industry trade journal based in Hollywood. Most recently he has worked as a technical writer and book editor in the computer software industry. Before his career in print and digital publishing, Clayton labored as a movie theater usher, bus driver, shower stall fabricator, print shop bundler, hardware salesman, dishwasher, housepainter, janitor, warehouseman for a greeting card company, pizza cook, and bartender.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherD. E. Clayton
    Release dateJan 6, 2014
    ISBN9780989418379
    C2H6O: The Annihilation of the Blossoms
    Author

    D. E. Clayton

    D. E. Clayton (a pseudonym) has worked in magazine, newspaper, and book publishing for more than 30 years as a writer and editor. Originally from Northern California’s Bay Area, he attended public schools in Southern California and was an honors student and all-league basketball player in high school. After dropping out of a leading research university, Clayton later earned degrees elsewhere in journalism and law. He worked as a newspaper reporter and editor for 19 years in Southern California’s Inland Empire region; prior to that he briefly wrote for and edited a music and entertainment industry trade journal based in Hollywood. Most recently he has worked as a technical writer and book editor in the computer software industry. Before his career in print and digital publishing, Clayton labored as a movie theater usher, bus driver, shower stall fabricator, print shop bundler, hardware salesman, dishwasher, housepainter, janitor, warehouseman for a greeting card company, pizza cook, and bartender.

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      Book preview

      C2H6O - D. E. Clayton

      NEWS RELEASE

      New ebook charts beleaguered Fourth Estate newshound through tale of excess and search for redemption

      LOS ANGELES—C2H6O: The Annihilation of the Blossoms is a just-released novella by Southern California writer D. E. Clayton.

      This sobering, sometimes darkly comic and humorous story captures three days and nights in the life of Jack Markgraf, a middle-aged newspaper reporter who has seen too much blood, too much death, too much of the mundane—and not enough alcohol. Or so he thinks. An experienced and opinionated journeyman journalist, Jack obsesses as much over the painstaking creation of a fine martini—and the nightly rearrangements of his oversized Beatles wall posters—as he does about perfection on the job and the need to tell good stories.

      He’s a martini man first and foremost, but he loves it all—Chilean cabernets; Hungarian reds; tequila and mescal; tall, golden lagers; the sweet, orange-flavored liqueur. It’s all okay with him—until finally it isn’t.

      Jack stumbles through boozy nights, intense days at the newspaper, and the nuanced spirit paths that somehow manage to discover him, while snapshot-like memories of his past flash before him. Ultimately he comes to a sloppy reckoning with his drinking fixations, but is it soon enough? Or too little, too late?

      This book is a good read for anybody involved with, or interested in, the world of newspaper journalism and the drinking life that often complements the sometimes grim and onerous grind of daily news gathering. The pace is brisk. Clayton writes from the perspective of one who has suffered the romantic allure of the drinking-and-writing life, and Jack Markgraf’s quest for sobriety, recovery, and personal transformation will especially resonate with those readers who have traveled the same or similar paths.

      C2H6O: The Annihilation of the Blossoms is published by O’Baoighill Publishers and has been designed by 52 Novels (www.52novels.com) for reading in ebook format. Length: 20,000 words, approximately.

      Inquiries: Elka Andersdottir (obpub@earthlink.net).

      C2H6O

      The Annihilation of the Blossoms

      D. E. Clayton

      C2H6O: The Annihilation of the Blossoms

      By D. E. Clayton

      Copyright © 2013 O’Baoighill Publishers

      ISBN: 978-0-9894183-7-9

      Smashwords Edition

      Cover design: D. E. Clayton

      Cover martini image: Unrestricted Stock

      Ebook layout and design: 52 Novels

      This novella is a work of fiction. Any similarities to real people or events are coincidental.

      O’Baoighill Publishers

      Inquiries: obpub@earthlink.net

      This publication is the exclusive property of O’Baoighill Publishers. This work is protected under United States copyright law. No part of this work may be reproduced, translated, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by an information storage or retrieval system, except as permitted in writing by O’Baoighill Publishers. All requests should be sent to Contracts and Legal Services Manager, O’Baoighill Publishers; attention: Elka Andersdottir; email: obpub@earthlink.net.

      Contents

      Dedication

      Epigraph

      Prologue

      1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10

      Epilogue

      Epigraph

      About the Author

      Author’s Notes

      For Danny

      To create, the artist must have a stunning debilitation.

      Man with flask on bus, westbound Interstate 80 out of Cheyenne, Wyoming, early 1970s

      Prologue

      I wanted to pursue right paths, right thinking, mistake-proof situations. But the world was preparing to end. We watched it on TV: JFK and Nikita, their fingers on the buttons—ready and waiting to nuke us all.

      We did duck-and-cover drills in school to prepare for the big day. At an early age I read Hersey’s Hiroshima and realized what it would feel like to have my eyeballs melt in a nuclear firestorm—melt and run down my one-eighth Cherokee cheekbones. I liked my Cherokee cheekbones. I didn’t want my cheekbones to perish. I didn’t want my eyeballs to melt.

      My parents stockpiled food and water in our house near the orange, lemon, and grapefruit groves. We watched TV and we stockpiled, the fragrances from the citrus tree blossoms wafting over our starter homes and covered patios and nearby amusement parks.

      Some of my friends’ parents had workers come and dig underground mini-bunkers in their back yards; swimming pool construction companies came and built the bomb shelters. Some of my friends had swimming pools and some had nuclear bomb shelters. We had neither.

      For a long time I believed I was going to die in a thermonuclear bomb blast. I could imagine what it would be like—perfectly.

      Will they drop those giant mushroom-cloud bombs today? I asked myself. I walked to school each day and considered what a mushroom cloud would look like, the tall toadstool of poison ash and fire, the searing clouds ascending and spreading over us all—houses, schools, people, pets, the sweet-smelling citrus trees …

      I wondered about the annihilation of the blossoms …

      • • •

      Later, when the Beatles showed up on TV, I watched and studied John’s Rickenbacker, George’s Gretsch, Paul’s violin-shaped Höfner. I was a piano player, but I’d already started blanking out at my recitals, dumbstruck with fear, nearly passing out. I could play Bartók or Chopin or Brahms perfectly at home alone, but the scrutiny from the small, living room audiences was too much.

      I froze.

      I figured I’d try the guitar. My parents bought me an inexpensive acoustic model from a local department store and I tried playing it, but the fingerings were too scrunched up. It turned out I just couldn’t deal with the thin, steel insanities of the thing—tiny dots and lines all over the neck; the finger-cutting strings; the searing potential of fingertip laceration.

      It was too much.

      And then I quit the piano, too.

      1

      What are you working on, Markgraf?

      Research, I said.

      Well, I hope you’re learning something.

      It was the managing editor, a major editor also known as the M.E. He moved off toward the coffee machine. He was addicted to it.

      We all were.

      Whew, I breathed to myself. Good goddamned riddance.

      So it was early a.m. and the M.E. was moving away from me as I ripped through one of the competing morning newspapers. My head hurt, but my fingers and hands were flashing, spinning those pages of flattened, murdered trees past my eyes. I was trying to see if the competing papers had any stories I’d missed. I always began my days in fear, trying to determine

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