Author Insight: Geoffrey K. Graves
Geoffrey K. Graves shares the background to his short story, The Ride to Oblivion.
This story has been inspired by a true incident. Can you tell us a bit more about that? How closely have you stuck to the true story? Do you often fictionalise true events in your work?
The following is true: About once a week I have dinner at the bar in a favorite restaurant. Though located in a resort town, many locals like me frequent the bar as regulars. I patterned the Denise Cooper character after another regular who was injured as described in the story’s opening sequence. Prior to the accident, “Denise” was a contractor who owned a successful construction company that built luxury custom homes. Having finished a day working on a home in Malibu, California, she was riding her Harley Davidson motorcycle along Pacific Coast Highway where she was clipped by a car in a hit and run accident. The accident is described precisely as she related it to me as are her injuries which are obvious. Her body has been ruined. She now wears a prosthetic metal leg and is in constant pain. The infamous fentanyl is the only drug that helps moderate the pain though it is never completely ameliorated which is undoubtedly why against doctor’s advice she mixes alcohol with the drug. At best, she awkwardly hobbles with forearm crutches, every step an obvious misery.
I was able to describe the green squares on the stomach that are made from the transdermal fentanyl patch because she showed them to me. Doctors have tried several electrical implants designed to moderate her pain, but those have failed. One evening when leaving the bar, I unthinkingly patted her on the back at which she winced with pain. She hurts everywhere. It was the last time I did that. From online research I learned about the possibility of extracting fentanyl from a transdermal patch and transforming it into pill form for street sale.
The koi pond accident in which she fell did happen, her remaining leg badly gouged on lava rock. She does not have a wheelchair as appears in the short-cut alley sequence. I used it as a literary device to bring protagonist and antagonist together. I am not sure the real person could successfully manage a wheel chair. Through online research I learned of the American Mobility Outreach Foundation that provides wheelchairs free of charge for those who need them.
Also true: She lost her business, her house, her spouse, her relationship with her son soured, and her good friend who used to be a regular in the bar got tired of hearing her complain about the pain and told her to get someone else to deliver her groceries. Other folks have picked up that slack and are helping out. The driver of the offending vehicle has never been identified so remains anonymous. The rest of the story and all characters other than Denise Cooper are creations.
Regarding fictionalizing true events in my work: In reviewing the approximate one hundred short stories I’ve written, twenty-five have some basis in actual events. The nonfiction portion of this story is one of the most extensive employments of such by me. Interestingly, as I reviewed my stories to prepare this response, I have to say a goodly number of what I consider to be my better and more satisfying stories do incorporate real-life matters as prompts.
What made you want to tell this version of the story?
The injustice of it. Once heard, the incident and aftermath were not something I could shake off. It festered, made me angry, especially when I would see the real-life person valiantly wobbling into the bar, the difficulties they encounter with the simple act of getting onto a bar stool made awkward with clanking metal crutches and prosthetic leg. It has to be humiliating. The ongoing pain that will be with them their entire life hurts to observe. The more I thought about the cosmic injustice of it all, the angrier I became. In the proverbial blink of an eye a person’s entire life was destroyed at the hand of an unknown individual who didn’t care enough about another human being to stop and help regardless of the ramifications they would have to face. They didn’t even know whether or not they’d killed the victim.
I wanted to try to understand what kind of a person would do something so unconscionable, so I created who I thought a Ginny Evers might be via a kind of psychoanalytical construct like a method actor fleshing out their character. It would have been easy to turn her into a one-dimensional monster, but most people are complex and I made her so, building on the things I knew or could guess about her which were: Based on her driving, she was a person who took stupid chances. She was uncaring about others so she is self-centered. She didn’t stop because she might have been driving under the influence, perhaps had a prior Driving Under The Influence offense on her record that would have provided additional motivation for not stopping, which all meant she might have had an unhealthy hankering for alcohol and/or drugs. That was my skeleton from which I added meat to the bones of Ginny Evers.
Playing Solomon as we writers do, she begins suffering for her transgression, made worse on her daily drive to and from work every time she passes the spot where the accident occurred. The powerful remorse that haunts her leads to her daily mental floggings destroying her peace of mind. Her migraines worsen. She begins using alcohol and extra-powerful marijuana to anesthetize herself from the mental anguish not unlike Denise must do to dull her physical pain. Eventually Ginny’s guilt prompts her to taunt danger with long night walks in shady parts of town where she happens upon the devilish drug pusher. That encounter leads to her overdose on fentanyl sourced from the prescription of the very person she so badly injured, resolving in full-circle karmic retribution.
I thought about introducing some sort of last scene in which Ginny and Denise each achieve some kind of spiritual or psychological resolution that would make life tolerable, but the truth is that can never happen for either the real or fictional version of Denise, and it would be contrived to happen for Ginny. I decided if Denise couldn’t have it, Ginny couldn’t have it. Some stories, real or invented, just don’t have happy endings.
How did it unfold once you started writing? Did you have a plan or let the characters lead you?
A little of both. Before starting, I knew I wanted there to be a rebalancing of the scales of justice. I also knew I wanted the two primary characters to meet so Ginny would come face-to-face with the consequence of her actions, the fentanyl providing the device by which that happened with the assistance, of course, of Ricky, the grocery delivery boy. Once I brought him to mind, the wheels of the narrative were set in motion and it honestly felt like the plot inevitably propelled itself.
What do you hope the reader will take from this story?
I hope they find the twists and turns of the plot intriguing start to finish, the characters heartfully drawn, and they enjoy the bits of humor. This is a story about consequences, and in one form or another, hit-and-runs happen in life. I think caring people will find food for thought in this story, particularly about taking responsibility for one’s actions. Beyond that, it is a cautionary anti-drug tale though as some may not have known and will learn, when all else has failed in acute and chronic pain management, fentanyl does have a legitimate place in medicine, something of which I was unaware before I met the real Denise Cooper.