Wednesday, August 4, 2010

The Gladiator Resort

by
John McFetridge


Steve mentioned the other day that here at DSD headquarters we’re putting the final touches on a collection of short stories we’re calling “Terminal Damage,” and I thought for today’s post I’d put up the first few paragraphs of my contribution, “The Gladiator Resort.”

Some people who’ve read my novels may recognize the name of the resort as a place the bikers were opening up – a resort where in addition to getting a room the customer gets a woman. Of course, that’s too sleazy an idea even for me to make up, it’s based on a real place called The Viking Resort (here’s a link to a review, but be warned, there is adult content, though as usual when the word ‘adult’ is used it means the opposite of adult: http://www.mademan.com/2008/07/vikings-exotic-resort-island-babes-only-3900_31)

And the short story includes some of the characters form my books, JT and Richard Tremblay and makes references to others.

So, I have a question. How do you feel about this kind of loose association between stories and books? Does it add anything or is it just a distraction?

Okay, here’s the beginning of my story:

The Gladiator Resort

The plane was two hours late landing at San Jose, Costa Rica, JT saying they were delayed at JFK, place was locked down, “Somebody probably tried to bring shampoo on the plane.”

Richard looked at the two girls, blondes, maybe in their twenties but probably not yet and JT said, “No, no English, fucking Renzo. But they know the game, the skinny one gave me a blowjob in the bathroom on the plane, she’s good,” and Richard said, okay. He led the way through arrivals to the smaller terminal where the charters left from, saying, “It’s better these days, airports freaking out looking for ragheads with bombs up their ass, it’s a lot better for us,” and JT said, “If you say so, Gramps.”

Yeah, Richard thinking back in the day we needed the long hair and the tats and the colours, the vests and the patches to impress the kids like this JT, the hangarounds and prospects but then going out in the straight world was tough, really drew attention. Now they’d made their move into the bigtime, Richard and a kid like this JT could look like tourists, like fucking bankers. Didn’t even need bikes.

The Costa Rican pilot was waiting by the Cessna and Richard said to JT, “Come with us.”

In the plane Richard lit a joint and passed it to JT who took a hit and offered it to one of the blondes. She took a hit, handed it to the other one and when she went to hand it back to Richard he waved her off and she shrugged and took another hit.

Richard said, “They look like they’ll be okay.”

“Renzo said he’ll have two more next week.”

“Good. We’re booked for months, the place took off way better than we expected.”

JT said the website looked great, “The video is pro.”

Richard said, yeah, guy named Garry made it, real pro, “Real filmmaker, has movies out and everything. He’s going to shoot some pornos at the resort and he wants to shoot a real movie, some kind of indie.”

“Crime story?”

Richard said that would be too much of a stretch, crime at The Gladiator Resort, “What would we know about crime? No, it’s some kind of low budget sci-fi,” and JT said, “Low budget sci-fi with porn chicks, what’s it called Sex-bots in Space?”

Richard said, yeah, sort of, “It’s about this ship that crashes on a deserted planet, a few survivors but they can’t remember anything. The ship was carrying these robots, well not robots, Garry explained it, they’re alive like people, but they were programmed, six women.”

“Clones?”

“I don’t know, maybe, yeah. The ship was on its way to a mining planet so they figure they’re hookers.”

“The chicks do?”

“Yeah, and the guys, there are some guys on the ship, too, Garry and his fucking fag porno,” Richard laughed.

“He’s bringing fags to the Gladiator?”

“He says we should open a gay club.”

JT said, yeah, right.

“Then he tells me there’s a whorehouse in Vegas, you know, outside of Vegas, some Bunny Ranch shit, they’re bringing in guys to service women.”

“Guys’re gonna have to fuck some fugly chicks.”

“Garry said they’re calling them the prostidudes.”

“Nice.”

“But for the movie, I don’t know if he’s bringing fags or porno dudes or real actors, anyway, in the movie they figure they’re delivering these chicks to the mining planet.”

JT said, “We don’t deliver, the guys have to come here,” and Richard said, depends on the price, “You come up with enough cash, we’ll deliver.”

JT said, yeah, thirty minute or its free. “And we’d do a better job than fucking Renzo, we say they speak english, they’d speak english.”

Richard said, I don’t know, we’d say what the guy wants to hear, too. He lit a cigarette and said, “Anyway, Garry says none of the survivors can remember anything, so they’re putting this together with the evidence on the ship, whatever they can find. The computers are busted, so there aren’t any records or anything.”

“And he’s filming this at the Galdiator, I wonder where he got the idea.”

“Yeah, so it turns out the chicks are the ones in charge, they’re the people, and the guys, the men, they’re the robots, or these organic cyborg things, or clones or whatever the fuck and the chicks are selling them as slave labour to the mining company.”

JT said, cool, “Nice twist,” and Richard said yeah, you’d never see it coming. He looked at the blonde chicks, didn’t speak any english and said, “Like they might be in charge,” and JT said, “Yeah, right.”

...

And just for fun, here’s an ad for The Bridge in France:



I really like the way the show starts at twenty to eleven on Mondays...

1 comment:

Dana King said...

I like stories that are related to novels. It's a chance to show more of key characters doing something that might not relate closely enough to the novel's plot to be included. I've done a couple now, and one has led me to another potential novel idea.