THE BIG MACHINE
BIRTHED
(OR THE FUNNY THINGS THAT HAPPEN WHEN A
CHARACTER BEGINS TO RECUR)
It started when they found the fourth
girl, her throat another mouth. Only it didn’t. It started seven years earlier
with a girl named April Rider. For those of you who have read A BETTER KIND OF
HATE, I tweaked that last sentence.
One, because it seems apt, those three
lines coming from an early Bishop Rider tale, and two, because it’s as close as
I can come to giving a time and place to when Rider entered my mind. His story
morphed with time, sure, coming to include his mother’s murder as well, but
yup, Rider’s story, it never really began with Rider, not as one would think.
Also, let’s get real: Bishop Rider is an
archetype, and one which is as easily interchanged with Frank Castle as he is
with Charles Bronson. What makes him different from those iconic characters is,
well, not much of anything, really. He is just as angry. He is just as vicious.
Willing to remove body parts when the situation calls for such an event to
transpire. Granted, he may take things a step further, stacking said parts like
wood, but only because a certain someone behind the keyboard feels there is some
catching up to do.
And to tell you the truth, I never
envisioned Rider’s story as this backdoor trilogy it will become. Better yet is
at one time he actually stopped speaking to me. I know, I was just as
surprised. Wasn’t until I broke a collarbone that his voice came back to me.
And yes, I’d have to be a complete moron (hey, stop agreeing with that) in
failing to see the correlation between Rider losing part of a leg at around the
same time I snap my clavicle in half.
But that is only part of a trilogy I never
knew was there, the other being a throwaway line from a story I wrote years
before which proved to be not so throwaway after all. It involved Marcel Abrum
(one half of a brother duo who take Rider’s sister and mother from him in ways
we will not discuss) and a son which at the time I had yet to even name.
Once
this son re-enters Rider’s life, he is no longer that boy, but now a man just
shy of thirty. A man quite unlike his father, oh yes, and looking back, exactly
the turn of events I needed to open up Bishop’s world. I mean, I already had
Batista, Rider’s old partner from his time as a cop, but to continue at the
clip Rider wanted to, well, let’s just say it isn’t as inexpensive as people
would lead you to believe.
Enter Jeramiah Abrum, benefactor from the Gods.
Better still was the irony I’d yet to discover-that the money Jeramiah would
use to bankroll Bishop’s quest came from the very same man who’d taken Rider’s
family from him. Ah, the ties that fucking bind.
So, we have Batista, Jeramiah, and Ray, a
man who Rider and his platoon used to call Trinkets back in the day. He likes
to make things, does Ray, and some of his ideas have gotten Rider out of some
pretty hairy jams. Last but not least is one other, but as ever, this narrator
has remained unnamed from the start.
All told, and since I seem to tell Rider’s
life out of sequence most times, he’s what I call my “previously on Rider” guy,
implemented to keep you abreast of all the more pertinent points of interest so
I don’t have to go all exposition-ninja on the reader whenever a Rider story is
told.
Oh, don’t get me wrong, I still get to give my fair share of exposition, which
is pretty much par for the course in a gig like this, but with this guy, I get
to fill the bucket in a different (hopefully interesting) way.
Anyway, I’ve never been privy to how
others work with characters who recur, but this here, warts and all, is how it
happened for me. Take it or leave, it’s the only story I have to give on the
subject.
Take it or leave it, it’s how Bishop Rider
was born.
Also, and in case you missed it, I am now a co-editor over at The
Flash Fiction Offensive, or Out of the Gutter Online, along with Jesse Rawlins, Jim Shaffer, and Mick Rose.
Flash Fiction Offensive, or Out of the Gutter Online, along with Jesse Rawlins, Jim Shaffer, and Mick Rose.
This means we’d like you to send us your double crosses, your tales of heists gone wrong, and maybe that one with that guy, him, buddy at the end of the bar. And trust us, we want to publish your stories, but only the best you have to offer will do. Even then it still might not fit---but be sure I have always believed in the motto of try, try again.
Last thing: follow the guidelines. First thing that gets you ejected from the island will be this. As ever, we look forward to reading your dark minds laid bare. We look forward to your particular cup of swill.
Beau Johnson has been published before, usually on the darker side of town. He is the author of A BETTER KIND OF HATE, THE BIG MACHINE EATS, and in the spring of 2020, ALL OF THEM TO BURN. On top of this he enjoys book selfies, John Carpenter’s The Thing, and both Beckys from Roseanne equally.
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