Ed Calkins and Four-Dimensional Chess

Here is an excerpt by Ed Calkins, Steward of Tara, from his upcoming novel, Tu Ruthless, which is his second book in his "Ruthless" trilogy.

Ed Calkins is a real, 60-something, proud of his Irish-heritage computer programmer and amateur writer who has also spent his entire life working in newspaper circulation. Years ago, Calkins invented a "ruthless dictator" alter ego, also known as "The Steward of Tara." 

With Calkins' permission, BryonySeries author Denise M. Baran-Unland furthered altered him to create a minor character in Bryony, making Calkins the first Irish vampire of any significance. 

Of course, Calkins claims Bryony is really all about him, so he’s held his own book signings, which he is calls, "The Ed Calkins Tour." 

There must be some truth in his sentiments, because Calkins' plot importance does grow with each novel in the original BryonySeries "drop of blood" trilogy. 

Calkins is also the author of Ruthless and Denise M. Baran-Unland's Irish Genealogy. He also shares his writings on this blog (Saturdays are devoted to Ed and all things Irish).

Email him at bryonyseries@gmail.com.

The characters in this excerpt are referenced in other books.

Trudy is an alcoholic and a longtime "oil and water" friend.

Eicheard is a leprechaun that runs a pawn shop.

New Medication is a brownie that only Trudy sees.

Glorna is a rebellious changeling that Ed created from his imagination and garbage DNA.

John-Peter is a...character. Let's just say that.

I am The Goddess (cool, right?), and I am not a character in my BryonySeries' books, only Ed's.

Matt is Sheriff Matt, sheriff of Beulah County, where Munsonville is located.

Everyone else is a vampire.

Munsonville is a small, depressed fishing village in Northern Michigan where lots of the action (or non-action) in the BryonySeries books takes place.

Deep Time Psychosis appears to afflict only Ed.

The real Ed and vampire Ed are both dyslexic.

And Ed only writes literary nonsense anyway.

Enjoy!

We’re both fourteen again, my best friend and I. I’m on a bike and she’s hugging her knees on the merry-go-round. I’m riding the bike towards her. She has her weapon, I can see. My son, Rick, invented it for her, but I suggested modifications that makes this wooden stake-shooter with an apparent design flaw. It has a handle, trigger, and crosshair sight looking the way one might expect a stake-shooter to look. The surprise is in the barrel, which does not point away from the shooter but points backward. Since it was I that suggested this modification, one might assume that Trudy is too trusting.

              I dismount the bike, letting it fall to the ground and approach my date with doom. Trudy, for her part, walks straight towards me till her deep gray eyes lock with mine. Now pay attention, Cah, because this could save your life. When a vampire looks you in the eye, he’s actually at your back. Trudy sees my front in front of her, but I can see both her front and her back…as if there was a mirror behind her and my actual self was the reflection not the reflection’s source. Trudy lines her shot up with the barrel under her arm, using the crosshairs, which is made of a substance I found in my travels to the end of time. Mirrors show everything seeable but vampires. This substance reflects only vampires. I know Trudy’s shot will be true because I can see the reflection of my own undead self. If only I had gathered more of this strange paper thin ridged black rock, I could have made a fortune selling shaving kits for vampires. That’s a strange thought to have when you’re about to be tested with five questions and getting only one of the wrong means getting staked.

              “What is your name?” Trudy demands.

              “Ed Calkins.”

              “What is you disposition?”

              “I’m very ruthless.”

              “What is important?”

              “Newspaper delivery”

              “How many wives do you have?’

              “I don’t know, but it’s a lot. I can only have sex with one though. Her name is Nala.”

              “And what is you claim to fame?”

              Claim to fame? Am I famous, Cah? And if I am famous, what am I doing here in Wraith Park, where ghosts, wraiths, witches, werewolves, poachers, and other nasties like to hang out?

              “Give me a hint.”

              Lucky for me, she does.

              “When the Goddess writes about you in her books, she describes you as…”

              “Oh yeah, a dyslexic, psychotic, time traveling vampire.”

              “Correct. Can you think of any reason that I should stake you?”

              I think for a while. I think really hard for any reason.

              “I got nothing,” I tell her. “Can you think of a reason?”

              “No,” She lowers her weapon. “Looks like you stay undead for another year.”

I think we’re both a little disappointed. I sit beside her on the merry-go-round, listening to the moaning, raging, wraiths that swirl around the park. There are all kinds of myths about them. Some say they are the blood of the innocent. I say, if they were blood, the vampires would have drunk all of them years ago. Still, you’ve got to admire their persistence at hating every single living thing. Who could pull that off? They think I should be afraid right now, but like the first time I met them, I actually feel safer because I know they’ll scare all the other people away.

“Can’t be worse than our parents!” Trudy shouts to be heard over the wraiths and smirks at their taunts and threats. She knows me well, so she doesn’t have to read my mind. Anyway, the wraiths’ protection is limited. Soon, they’ll realize we’re not impressed, and they’ll get bored. Then the mating calls of springtime creatures will replace their constant bitching.

“How’s it going?” I shout to her.

“Manic. Been that way for two weeks now! Also, my brownie, New Medication, and his wife A have been trying to get pregnant without any success!”

“That needs more sex!”

“Mania?”

“No. New Medication!” It was hard to understand each other with all that howling and hateful misery.

“More pills? Oh. You mean the brownie! Well, thanks, genius! What do you have for mania?”

“’Manic’ usually means you’ve started a new business or project of some kind!”

“The only project I’ve got now is training my deputy replacement! If I do a real good job, I get fired! If I don’t, Matt doesn’t get reelected, and I still get fired! She was going to meet you but she seems to have run in terror at the wraiths! She took the cruiser too! Can you sit with me until she realizes what she’s done and comes back for me? I expect that wouldn’t be till sunrise!”

“No doubt she was afraid of me…worried that I’d think badly of her.”

“You’re still trying to believe that!” Trudy shouted. “You lack confidence in your high opinion of yourself!”

“What did you tell her about me?” I shouted back.

The wraiths suddenly quit their haunting screams and scowls and the night fell silent.

Trudy replied in a voice of normal volume.

“I didn’t tell her anything. She knows about the five known vampires of Munsonville, but she’s heard nothing about you. I don’t know what to tell her. Nothing about you makes sense. Explain to me again how you can imagine things into existence and that’s a symptom of you deep time psychosis.”

“I think you just explained it all. When I imagine things, everyone else thinks they are real. Before my psychosis, only I thought they were real…or at least I thought they were as important as anything real.”

“But I’ve never seen you do it. Two days ago, Eicheard told me that you came into his store for soda bread and all you did was complain that you were six Posts short and now you had to drive all the way back to Shelby to deliver them. Why didn’t you just imagine six Posts? Moreover, why do you even bother with newspapers? Couldn’t you just imagine new cars and sell them at your imagined car dealership?”

“I can’t control what I imagine,” I told her. “How would you explain it?”

“My theory is basically; either you’re crazy or you’re lying.”

“But you’ve been to Tara as I imagined it. That’s how you got your brownie, remember? You were captured and given to me as a sacrifice, and he stuffed himself into your bra. I even sent you his wife. Don’t they both clean house for you, or are you thinking that someone’s been stealing your mess? What is more, your husband is from a different Tara that I imagined without people. How does your theory explain that? By the way, anytime you want to go back, the portal is at that funeral parlor in the women’s restroom. It’s the mirror on the door and it still works.”

“I’ll pass. Look, when I dream, people I dream about are having the same dream, but it’s still just a dream. As for the brownies, they come to Munsonville just like any vampires or ghosts. The ‘dream’ theory applies when they say they are from Tara.”

“Does it? If everyone has the same dream, is it just a dream or reality’s wooden club? Or do you believe that everyone is either lying or crazy.”

“I don’t need to be crazy. I’m an alcoholic. What’s your theory about my dreams?”

“The dreams of a poet are meant to be shared.”

“This is beside the point. Are you claiming that you can make imaginary things real?”

“Things don’t need to be real. I’m a psychotic.”

“Fair enough, but you always have theories. Don’t you have one that don’t involve things materializing from thin air?”

Trudy cringed at what she said as she realized she just invited me to explain them.

“I have six.”

Trudy groaned. “I need more alcohol if I’m going to listen. Because you’re going to tell me, right?”

She looked around her for a flask but then remembered she is fourteen again, before flasks full of scotch were possible. She’d have settled for apple wine, but there was none on the first day we met. Since this was some kind of reenactment, that bottle wasn’t here either.

“Relax, they’re not so bad. The first one is way you just mentioned; that I imagine things and imagine other people see them, too. For example, I was once confronted by three mobster mafia-type vampires who wanted to stake me after they pulled my teeth. One of them forgot his pilers. Well, I couldn’t not imagine what pilers were and, even though I didn’t own a pair, I knew where I’d put them if I did. Sure enough, Tony the Tooth found them. But they were the wrong kind. After he explained what he did need, he found them. But they left without staking me or removing any teeth…”

I was losing my audience.

“Glorna told me this story,” she interrupted me. “So you’re saying that you could have imagined the whole incident and Glorna could have just visited your imagined story just like he dreams my dream.”

“Not just Glorna, but the three mobster vampires. I never did check my apartment for pilers after they left. But that’s only one theory. Another is that I’m just lucky. Maybe both pilers were there before from a prior renter and I just never noticed. Maybe because I’m so lucky, everything I really need just happens to be there for an unrelated reason.”

“And how does this theory explain John-Peter being controlled by a child in an electronic womb that somehow has access to the future web, even though its in fourth century Gaul right now? Did several satellites from the distant space wander in the right time intervals so they could send a signal hundreds of years into the future?”

“Wouldn’t that explain it?”

“Not so I believe it.”

“Then you’re really not going to believe my third theory. What if my unconscious mind is doing business with some futuristic dealer that accepts imaginary currency for merchandise delivered anywhere in time or space?”

“I don’t like that,”

“Or that God and I are really close, and He creates anything I need.”

“I don’t like that either, but you’re at four and I do like how quickly this is moving.”

“Or maybe still, future me  knows what I need. More likely, though, past me went into the future, spent eons getting everything ready, and now current Ed has forgotten it all.”

            “Maybe a bit more credible. What’s the last one?”

              “You won’t like it.” I frowned.

              “When has that stopped you?”

              “Many times,” I told her. “I try not to speak of things that make us both sad.”

              Fourteen-year-old Trudy just nodded. But she wasn’t really fourteen anymore, she just looked as she did that day. Life for her was hard back then, and it wasn’t going to get much easier moving forward. She could believe it would all those years ago. I put my hand on her shoulder and she put her hand on mine, in recognition of my sympathy.

              “Reality is imagined,” I told her when I finally spoke. I’d have needed to say so much more if I was talking to anyone else but her.

              “And we only imagine for ourselves what we deserve,” she finished for me. “For you, it’s the pliers when someone wants your teeth. For me, it’s being an ugly whore that leaving everything I’ve ever own when reality or some guy shows me the door.”

              Damn that hurt!

              “’Ugly’ is hardly fair. Neither is ‘whore’.”

              “Are you going to call me ‘pretty?’ Was I ever pretty at any age?”

              “No. I’d call you attractive at any age. So many other guys felt the same way, too.”

              “Too many guys and too old when I was too young. I had the energy back then for all of them. Now, I’m in love but I’ve got nothing for him.”

              “Too many guys and when I was too young,” I agreed. “I was the whore. I was already too old for my clients when I first met you…washed up at thirteen. It doesn’t go away, does it?”

              “No. And yet it’s the life we have and maybe the life we earned.”

              “But hasn’t it made us stronger?”

              “I don’t want to be strong. I want to be drunk.”

              “And yet you are here, mostly sober and strong despite yourself,” I said. “It’s a good thing, too, because we have a problem. Munsonville is missing a vampire. Her name is Sue Betts, and we have to find her if Kellen Wechsler’s plans are halted. The question is, who is pulling Kellen’s strings and why?”

              “But you’ve taken Kellen out, right?” Trudy looked up at me, alarmed. “Didn’t you say that you’ve killed him twice, in case one of the ways doesn’t work? You said that John-Peter stabbed him with a silver sword a few days before his last Christmas twelve years from now. You also said you sent your granddaughter to run him through with some equipment my husband made for you. Has something changed?”

              “Four-dimensional chess,” I answered. Trudy waited so I continued. “In four-dimensional chess, you can move any piece at any point in the game…like making forty sealed moves without ever seeing your opponent’s sealed moves. Then, when all the moves are written down and sealed, you open each move one at a time and play the game like a normal chess game. But if the piece you intended to move isn’t on the board, you forfeit your turn. That’s why I needed to kill Kellen twice. But that might not be enough.”

              “How does that justify bringing yet another vampire to Munsonville? Are you planning to kill him a third time?”

              “Killing him isn’t enough. You should know that. I die every year. It’s staking me that does it for good.”

              “And you sent John in the future to stake him. Also, Cornell Dyer has been staking corpses in Happy Hunting Ground Funeral Parlor since it opened. Seems to me you’ve staked him twice.”

              “Unless he’s onto what I’m doing. John never mentions anything about staking Kellen. Maybe Kellen prevented him somehow. Sue Betts got turned by Kellen, even though she committed suicide to prevent becoming his vampire slave. This guy is good is four-D chess, Trudy. I’ve got to keep him off balance. I’m going to need your help.”

              “Is that really how four-dimensional chess works?”

              “The truth is that I’ve never known anyone that still plays four-dimensional chess except Eircheard. And since he only plays for money, it would be too expensive for me to start, but I’m sure he’d teach you at a bargain. Better I explain the game. I’m playing with time travel and the forces that are trying to make me King of the Damned, where I bring peace and prosperity to the vampire world. Kellen Wechsler is really smart, but he knows it. That makes him overconfident.”

              Trudy smiled.

              “Delusions of grandeur aside, no one has ever accused you of being overconfident. Oh, Mighty Ruthless One, do you really believe Susan Betts is the answer?”

              “Of course, I don’t know. But if you help me get her, I promise to make her behave well. Remember, a vampire can only go into the future as it is now, not how it will be. That’s reality’s wooden club when it comes to creating paradox.”

              “Which brings us to the worst problem in explaining you. Why do you think that your enemies are trying to make you their king?”

              “They’re not. They are only trying to make me king of their puppets. If I can bring peace to the vampire world, blood of the living will be in great demand. Maybe some demon is waging war against Hell itself. Imagine if every living person became a vampire that didn’t stake other vampires. No one would die and the Kingdom of the Damned would reign outside of the gates of Hell.”

              “And what makes you think you’ll bring peace to the vampires? Vampires hate each other.”

              I shake my head.

            “I don’t remember why I think that. Maybe my delusions of grandeur thing are working?”

              “And how does believing you’re some grandiose benevolent super-vampire helps with your Deep Time Psychosis?” Trudy asked, half regretting it.

              “It heals my psychological paralysis. Imagine the inaction of not knowing who you are, where you are, and what you are supposed to be doing? Traveling time as much as I did, who can say who I am? Am I the Ed that’s bleeding to death in the seven seconds it took me to travel to the end of time and back twice? And where am I? How can I be sure? Is this the first time traveling to the end of time or is it the second? And what I’m I doing?”

              “Stop! I get it. You’re confused. You’re like an old man with dementia. How does being delusional HELP that?”

              “Don’t you see? If I believe Ed Calkins is always great, it doesn’t matter which version of great I am, does it? Nor does it matter where I am, as I’ve blessed wherever it is by being there. Furthermore, whatever I’m doing, I’m doing a great job. Can you understand that?”

              “No,” Trudy said. “And neither do you.”

              “Ok. You’re right. But the only other vampire with Deep Time Psychosis is your former therapist Dr. Roslyn. I give her the same advice I take myself, but she doubts and doesn’t stick to it. See what happens to her when she forgets how to feed?”

              “She dies?”

              “In the future as it is now, worse.”

              “How do I die?”

              Trudy asks me that, but I don’t want to answer.

              “How!” she demanded.

              “You’ve got to stop drinking,” But I know I’m wasting my breath.

              “Why? Do I kill a bunch of kids when I crash into a school bus?”

              “No. You die waiting for a liver transplant. You never make the top of the list. But that’s the future as it is now. How the future is will be is up to you.”

              “It seems like everyone wants to lecture me about my drinking lately. Why should a crazy vampire be any different?”

              “Trudy, I could keep an eye on the future. Maybe I can find you a new liver. Maybe I can…”

              “No! Don’t! If I get a new liver, they’ll insist I stop drinking. Let me end my life the way I started it…trading sexual favors for a shot of scotch and doing it drunk and with the liver I was born with.”

              “That was in your first rehab, not your birth at the maternity ward,” I laughed. “It’s not too late for the liver you have. Do you want to know when it is about to be too late?”

              “No. Let me die drunk and proud. Can we talk about something else?”