The Secret Life of Hamel Blog

The Secret Life of Hamel: January 2010 Posts (plus 4 posts from February)

2010-02-07T03:58:00.000-08:00

She knew it was an obsession, but the need to recollect and review each moment of the day before he’d vanished had grown stronger. Was it possible that she’d missed something — a sentence, a gesture — that might have foreshadowed her husband’s disappearance?

Hamel’s wife was no longer certain of her feelings about Hamel’s disappearance. Once she’d believed, fervently, that Hamel had been a victim of other people, other forces. Now she was no longer sure. If something bad had happened to her husband, wouldn’t someone have discovered something by now?

Hamel’s wife looked up the street to see if the bus was coming. There was nothing in sight.

She wondered if that was how she was going to spend the rest of her life, looking in one direction, then another, for some signs of her missing husband, and never finding any. Hamel’s wife wrapped her coat around herself more tightly and continued to wait for her bus.

CHAPTER FOUR: 22 YEARS, 5 MONTHS, 21 DAYS BEFORE HAMEL DISAPPEARED

The weather, as Hamel trudged from dormitory to library, was colder, grayer, and even more dismal than all of the other cold, gray and dismal days since the month of February had begun. Other students complained about it incessantly, reminding each other in whining voices how long it had been since the campus had enjoyed a day with sunshine. Hamel thought himself superior to them: for some reason, the cold and damp did not seem to affect him, and the grayness of the skies often matched his outlook on the life he was living as a student, flat and monochromatic.

Hamel often wondered about other students in classes or the dorms. They seemed so enthusiastic about so many things: basketball games and concerts and parties, even activities like food drives and tutoring programs and volunteer efforts. Hamel did some of those things himself, had recently attended a concert with a group of five others from his dorm floor, and had gone to his first basketball game only two weeks prior.

He had never participated in volunteer activities of any kind; as a student, he had plenty of time to do so, but never the inclination. Why spend a Saturday clearing an abandoned lot for the neighborhood? Wasn’t that the city’s job?

It wasn’t a question of time: Hamel was honest enough with himself to admit that he just did not care. The good thing about being a student is that you had an automatic excuse for side-stepping whatever you wanted to avoid: Sorry, I’d like to, but I’ve got this paper I’m working on. Sometimes, of course, the excuse was the reality.

This was clearly Hamel’s challenge as he neared the library. The paper that he’d begun so confidently weeks ago on the topic of Peak Experiences needed to be completed. But since his last visit to the library, when he’d been disappointed by the absence of the dark-haired librarian, Hamel had lost interest in the paper. Now, like so many of his academic endeavors, the paper had become
a burden.

But something had to be turned in. And that meant a dull and painful evening ahead, frustrating hours in the library followed by the tedious job of typing in his dormitory’s study lounge. Perhaps he would finish by 3am; perhaps not. At this point, Hamel was approaching the assignment with the attitude of a person trying to paint a very large room. The best way to do it was to avoid looking at the unpainted surfaces. Just concentrate on what was immediately in front of him.

In Hamel’s case, it was an almost blank page with a paradoxical heading: Peak Experiences in Everyday Life. When he’d first started to work on his paper,
Hamel was sure that this section would be the heart of it, and that he would be able to write lots, and well, from his personal observations of the people around him on the campus.

Hamel considered himself to be a keen, astute eyewitness to the human condition as it played itself out around him. Much more than an onlooker, way past a casual bystander, Hamel believed that he possessed a special gift for discerning the nuances of human behavior. It was the biggest reason why the few minutes spent with the pretty librarian frustrated him so much. He thought

A Full Year of Posts -- Now What?

2010-02-04T02:34:00.001-08:00

Today I posted the Feb 4 tweet to The Secret Life of Hamel, a novel on Twitter. So a milestone of silliness has been achieved: one year of posts (except for six or seven days which I would claim were due to writer's block except that the idea of a block so massive it could obstruct 140 characters is ridiculous).

Anyway: a break is needed. Time to assess what got writ (I have very low expectations that much, if any, could be salvaged into real fiction.) I learned a lot, had a lot of fun, and really appreciated the fact that there were three or four people whose last names are not Diccicco who took the time to read some of it.

I will post to this blog all of the January tweets -- and the four tweets from February. And then we'll go on hiatus.

The Secret Life of Hamel: December 2009 Posts

2010-01-11T20:43:00.000-08:00

she asked. “Who can give me some information about my husband’s death?” The man in the dark suit spoke immediately. “For the record, m’am, we do not know for sure if this man,” he gestured slightly with his head, “is your husband.”

He paused, and then spoke quickly and officially. “One of our officers was on foot patrol near City Park last night. He saw a vehicle that appeared to be abandoned: one of the car doors was left open. He went to investigate and found this man,” again, a gesture of the head toward the covered body, lying beside the vehicle, not breathing.He called for back-up immediately, and tried to administer some emergency medical treatments, but there was no response.”

As he spoke, Hamel’s wife fixed her gaze on the sheet covering the body in front of her, steeling herself for the moment that was to come.

The man in the dark suit gestured to the man in the blue scrubs who moved to the head of the table and gathered the edge of the covering sheet. “M’am,” said the man in the dark suit, “I’m sorry, but I must ask you officially, is this your husband?”

Hamel’s wife fixed her gaze, not blinking, as the sheet was folded back. She stared into the face of a stranger.

“It’s not . . . ” she hesitated, her voice shaking slightly. “It’s not Hamel. It’s not my husband.”

Hamel’s wife looked around at the men, expecting somehow that they would share in her emotion. They did not. She glanced back again to the cold face before her, saw the resemblance between this man and her husband, understood how such a mistake could be made. “I’m sorry,” she apologized, “it’s not Hamel.”

She did not know what else to say, and almost expected that the man in the blue suit would challenge her, ask her to look again, ask her if she was sure.

He did not. The three men glanced at each other. The man in scrubs replaced the sheet. Then the man in the blue suit apologized for taking up her time. Followed by the man with the Coroner Office badge saying, “I’ll walk you to the lobby, m’am.” He turned, took her elbow, started to steer her toward the door.

Hamel’s wife pulled away, politely, and looked directly at the man in the blue suit. “Excuse me, please. What about Hamel? What about my husband?”

She knew her question made no sense at all: how could this misidentified dead man in front of her provide information to authorities about her husband gone missing?

“It’s been three months,” she said evenly, “and I know nothing. Nothing at all. People don’t just disappear. They leave a trail. Some kind of a trail. Clues. Something . . . ”

Hamel’s wife heard her own voice trail off into a murmur. The helpless feelings
of the past three months returned, full force. She wanted to be challenging but she simply felt defeated. Over the past thirteen weeks, she had come to believe one thing: The system was the system and it did not give a fig about a middle-aged woman whose husband was missing.

The man in the blue suit started to say something, but Hamel’s wife overrode him. “Please,” she said, “if all you are going to do is tell me that your department is still actively working on finding out what happened to Hamel – and that you will call me with new information the minute you learn it, well, don’t bother.” She spoke bitterly: “I don’t believe you.”

Hamel’s wife took one more look at the sheet covered body, felt a surge of despair course through her. Then she steeled herself, walked to the door and spoke over her shoulder without looking back. “I can find my own way, thank you.” She did not expect a response and she received none.

Standing outside the hospital at the bus stop, Hamel’s wife thought again about the last day she’d seen her husband.

The Secret Life of Hamel: November, 2009 Posts

2009-12-12T05:37:00.000-08:00

He was not successful. In frustration and with growing feelings of annoyance, he gathered his things and headed for the stairs.

CHAPTER THREE: 3 MONTHS (EXACTLY) SINCE HAMEL DISAPPEARED

The phone broke the silence and surprised Hamel’s wife. It rang while she was in her family room, arranging dried flowers in a vase, and wondering if she should get the carpets cleaned. It startled her at first — she did not receive many phone calls these days.

She hesitated, looked around the room to see if her wireless phone was in sight. The call had reached its fifth insistent ring before she found it, tucked between two pillows on her sofa.

“Hello,” she said, “I’m sorry. I couldn’t find the phone.”

Hamel’s wife realized that she was doing it again, apologizing when there was no need, though she seemed unable to avoid that these days.

“Can I help you?” she asked. The voice on the other end was not clear; there was some kind of commotion in the background, loud voices arguing. Struggling to hear, Hamel’s wife closed her eyes and concentrated. She did not get every word, but she heard the important ones: “Police department. Missing person report. Body of unidentified male matching description of your husband.”

Hamel’s wife listened to the ever so slight quiver in her voice as she responded to the caller. She had steeled herself for this moment, always felt that eventually she would learn something about Hamel’s disappearance. No one, she’d thought many times, just evaporates into thin air. Not in this day and age.

“I’m Hamel’s wife,” she said to the caller. “Did I hear you correctly? You want me to identify the body? Today?”

Hamel’s wife could feel a tenseness overtake her. What would it feel like to stand in a morgue, surrounded by people she did not know, with someone in a white coat sympathetically looking at her, then lifting a sheet so that she could look into Hamel’s face and nod?

Hamel’s wife had seen too many TV shows with that identical scene: the thought of herself in that role made her slightly nauseous. Yet, simultaneous with the dread, there was an undeniable eagerness Hamel’s wife felt about going to the morgue. She was uncomfortable with the feeling, but it was real. What she wanted, what she needed, was a singular moment of clarity about what had happened to her husband. After so many weeks of ignorance and uncertainty,Hamel’s wife felt that somebody — the police department, the city, God, Life, somebody? — owed her that much. She wanted to know.

“Yes, I’ll come right away,” Hamel’s wife heard herself say. She was pleased with the sound of her voice. It was steady and clear.

Hamel’s wife was met in the lobby of the hospital by a serious-looking young man. He mumbled his name, and extended his hand to greet her. He showed her identification, a card with his photograph and bold type that read Coroner’s Office. He spoke in soft tones, as if they were in church, as he led her through hospital corridors to an elevator and then down to the basement of the building.

The morgue itself was less intimidating than she expected: clinical and sterile, yes, with spotless stainless steel wherever she looked. But she expected hospital smells, and there were none. She expected to be cold, but the temperature was merely cool, not uncomfortable
.
There were two other men in the room when she entered, one from the hospital, an orderly perhaps, dressed in blue scrubs, and the other in a dark suit and tie with an official look about him. They introduced themselves in the same muted tones as the man from the Coroner’s Office. Hamel’s wife wondered why. Is that the way they spoke all the time, or was it for her benefit?

She looked directly at the three men and spoke in her normal tone of voice. “Could someone please tell me who’s in charge here?”

Gremlins abound

2009-11-08T07:47:00.000-08:00

I posted September tweets on October 10 -- and just realized today that, for some reason (I prefer to blame this on unknown technological forces), the September blog was incomplete. That has now been fixed. Plus: October tweets have now been posted. The world is in harmony once again. I need a cocktail . . .

The Secret Life of Hamel: October, 2009 Posts

2009-11-08T04:21:00.000-08:00

“Mostly avoiding,” said Hamel. He gave an almost imperceptible shrug of his shoulders. “I don’t mind sitting here by myself. ” He shifted his position in the chair, tried to think of something else to say, but couldn’t. So he repeated himself, trying to sound casual and offhand about the subject. “I don’t really mind at all.”

The librarian nodded her head. “I like people,” she said, “in small doses. Like fudge. You break it into little pieces that sit on your tongue and just melt — that’s the best way to enjoy fudge.” She smiled at Hamel again. Then she looked at her watch, shook her head and said, “I’ve got to get back to my desk to close up.”

She turned to go, then hesitated and asked, “Will you be coming in tomorrow night?” Hamel nodded yes, with no consideration to any previous plans or commitments. Not that he had many of them anyway.

“Good,” she said. “I’ll see you then.” She walked away, through the narrow stacks. Hamel watched her go until she turned and disappeared at the stairwell.

He did not get up immediately, even though he knew the library would close in minutes. He simply stared at the space she’d occupied moments before, felt a warmth in his face, and mentally ran through every moment of the last few minutes, from the instant she’d said Hi. He examined every word she said, tried to recall clearly every movement and gesture. Then he looked down, at his notes and his books and the blank piece of note paper that was supposed to contain the start of his philosophy paper. He closed his eyes for just a second, opened them, and packed up his things to leave.

On his way out the door, he looked back to see the librarian leaning over some papers at her desk. She didn’t look up. He hesitated just a second, considered stopping by her desk to say good-bye, but didn’t. He opened the door and left.

Hamel returned to the library the next evening about thirty minutes earlier than the day before. He glanced toward the desk, irrationally hoping that the librarian would somehow be available to join him as he walked up the stairs, would take time to talk with him, would focus her attention on him.

When Hamel saw that another person was in her place, behind the desk, disappointment surged through him. He took his usual path toward the stairs, but continued to look back at the desk as if visual concentration alone might change the picture.

He walked slowly up the stairs but his thoughts were racing: Why wasn’t she where he’d expected to see her? What was going on? Was this some kind of mean trick she was playing on him, telling him that she’d see him when she’d known she wasn’t working that night?

Hamel turned the questions over and over in his mind, looking at them from different angles, imagining conversations with the librarian, considering different responses to whatever she might say.

He was surprised at how much her absence from her desk bothered him. He sat at the study carrel and fidgeted, shuffling books and papers. He stood and looked out the window, watched students crossing the campus, became annoyed at himself for even reacting this way. He sat back down, wanting to focus on his philosophy paper as a distraction from the feelings running through him.

Chief among those was a sense of unease that something had changed in his life and he had no control over it. Which made no sense to Hamel. Yesterday, he’d walked into the library as always, not even bothering to look toward the front desk. Today, less than twenty-four hours later, his mood had darkened, his ability to focus considerably worsened, simply because a person, a woman, that he had just met, was not where he expected her to be. Hamel considered this incomprehensible.

He wanted to do something — but he could not think of any single action he could take that would change how he was feeling.

He realized that he had no way to get in touch with her. But, more significantly, Hamel also knew that he had no idea what he would say to her anyway. Hamel shook his head, as if it would clear his mind from the tumult of half-formed thoughts colliding inside his brain.

The typo issue

2009-10-10T03:11:00.000-07:00

Okay -- these typos are getting out of hand. I must commit myself to a more careful reading before I click on the Twitter "update" option. But I fixed the one that happened in September -- now my soul can rest.

The Secret Life Of Hamel: September, 2009 Posts

2009-10-10T03:01:00.000-07:00

Hamel did manage to rid himself of the stigma of virginity during his junior year in high school. It happened in his parent’s car, parked behind a supermarket, with the windows open to combat the heat from both weather and passion, and the unmistakable smell of decaying lettuce overpowering his date’s perfume.

As a university student, Hamel attended parties thrown off-campus with the regularity of others in his classes, met a few girls who were nice to him, enjoyed some moments of awkward groping while both he and his female companion of the evening were beer high.

His one completed copulation occurred in the first month of his freshmen year.

She was a senior. She’d met Hamel a few days previous in a student lounge, had both introduced herself and smoothly dominated the first thirty minutes of conversation. Then, airily, before heading to a class, she’d suggested a picnic lunch, in a somewhat secluded, park-like area of the campus, to celebrate Hamel’s arrival to the university.

The picnic and the coupling had happened in short order, the latter following closely after the former, with both taking less than forty minutes to complete. While she was rearranging herself, Hamel tried to do what he thought might be expected of him, and asked her if she would like to go to a movie the coming weekend. She turned to him, smiled slightly and said “No thanks – today was good enough.”

Hamel was not certain of all that was meant by this remark but perceived it, correctly, as a sign of dismissal.

He saw her again, two weeks later, talking to another freshman outside the football stadium. He’d waved slightly as he walked by; she did not wave back. They never spoke to each other again, even though Hamel saw her on campus from time to time.

He shook off the experience quickly and unemotionally, like shaking raindrops off an umbrella. He remembered her name, and what she looked like naked on a blanket under the trees, and not much else about her. He never spoke to anyone about the incident.

From Hamel’s point of view, there was nothing to tell. As his private, mental epitaph to the incident, he’d simply concluded that he did not know how to connect with “older” women, especially someone three class years ahead of him.
And now, facing the attractive librarian who was even older — by three or four years — than his picnic date, he was convinced of it. He could not think of a single thing to say. She saved him.

“Why is it, “ she asked him, “that you always come here by yourself? Most students seem to study with their friends, though I am not so sure,” she smiled, “that there is much quality academic work going on.” She paused and looked at Hamel with curiosity.

“Is that why you always come to this spot, to stay away from the other students?” Her voice had softened and Hamel felt uncomfortable, as if she were suddenly and unwillingly divulging his private thoughts. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I am not trying to pry. I just wondered.”

“I have friends,” Hamel said, then realized he had answered a question which she hadn’t asked. “Some friends,” he repeated.

“Oh, I wasn’t asking that,” said the librarian. “I’m sure you have some kind of a social circle — people you spend time with. But when you come to the library, you always come alone. And you always head straight for this spot. And I’m wondering,” she paused, and softened her voice. “I’m wondering if you come here to this out of the way study carrel so that you can concentrate on your work
or simply to avoid others.”

The Secret Life of Hamel: August, 2009 Posts

2009-09-07T06:13:00.000-07:00

It was not surprising, consequently, because Hamel liked to consider and often described himself as a committed pragmatist, that he decided to put his preoccupation with the lecture to good use: his philosophy paper would be based on peak experiences as they applied to the modern university student.

Hamel was sure that he could fill the paper with more than enough “insights” to earn a passing grade. As he continued his walk across the campus toward the library, Hamel began to consider how the paper might begin. His thoughts were interrupted by a friendly greeting from the librarian as he entered the building.

“Back again?” she said.

Her voice echoed slightly in the large open area of the library’s atrium. Hamel looked at her. She was maybe twenty-six or twenty-seven, not all that much older than the co-eds that Hamel knew from classes, the dining hall, or the occasional party that he attended.

Hamel nodded at the librarian without speaking, then turned to climb the steps to the third floor. He was heading for a small cluster of study carrels, located in a wing of the library that other students rarely visited. It was quiet there. On many occasions, Hamel worked in that location for two hours or more without ever seeing another student. Sometimes he would sneak in a quart of beer to drink while he forced himself to read assignments from weighty textbooks or write, painfully, to complete a required paper.

Hamel turned to the left as he reached the third floor, walked a narrow pathway between two imposing stacks of books, lifted his arms to unburden himself of his backpack. He sat at the nearest of the four study carrels, and burrowed into the backpack for class notes and writing materials. He pulled a spiral bound copy book from a side pouch, discovered a red ballpoint pen with a chewed cap, found his scribbled notations from the “peak experiences” class, placed all of them carefully on the top of the desk, leaned back, and stared.

Thirty minutes later, he was still staring, his mind wandering from one place to another, his thoughts drifting with the aimlessness of a page torn from a student notebook, blown across campus by little gusts of wind.

Her voice startled him; he had not heard her approach. “Hi,” she said, “The library will be closing in about fifteen minutes so I thought I’d come find you.”

Hamel looked up into the face of the librarian who had greeted him earlier. She was smiling at him, in a friendly way, and Hamel half-smiled back but did not know what to say. The librarian seemed to sense Hamel’s discomfort. “Every once in a while,” she added, “students fall asleep studying up here. And then I lock up and leave them. They can get out, of course, through the emergency exit but then Security is alerted. Which causes a big commotion.”

She smiled again. “I didn’t want that to happen to you.”

“Thank you,” Hamel said. “I wasn’t sleepy though. I was just thinking.” For the first time, even though he’d seen her on many occasions over the past few weeks, Hamel took notice of the woman standing near him. He observed those things that young men find interesting: a face that he categorized immediately as cute, not beautiful, with dark eyes and dimples that deepened with her smile; rich, brown hair that fell nicely in place, even after a day behind her desk, and perhaps longer than the styles worn by girls Hamel knew from around the campus; and an athletic body, apparent despite her appropriately conservative dark skirt and maroon sweater.

At this point in his life, while women were interesting to Hamel, they did not occupy much of his time. Unlike his few males friends, who always seemed to be moving from one female relationship into another, Hamel did not have a girlfriend. In fact, he'd never had one, not in grade school when liking a particular girl meant enduring endless whispering and giggling among said girl’s friends, and not in high school where girls Hamel liked took no notice of him, and those that were interested in him were,from Hamel’s perspective, dull or unattractive or silly.

The Secret Life of Hamel: July, 2009 Posts

2009-08-05T04:20:00.000-07:00

Author's Note: In order to have my monthly summaries make sense, I have decided to begin and end each blog posting with complete thoughts. In some cases, this may mean repeating sentence fragments from last month's post, or stealing a line or two from the following month's Twitter tweets. I do this under the continuing delusion that anyone cares.

A fellow student once asked Hamel if he found the pronounced scar on the professor’s chin disconcerting. Hamel thought about the question, realized that he’d never even noticed the scar, and then replied Yes, but not that much. Hamel took a close look at the professor during the next class: the scar was probably an inch in length, ugly and red, and virtually impossible to miss. Seeing it, in a sense for the first time, Hamel grasped the obvious: he’d never really looked at the professor’s face before, at least not with the slightest bit of interest or attention.

Six weeks of classes, three times a week, 50 minutes per class. And never, not once, did such a pronounced facial disfigurement make an impression on Hamel’s consciousness. Given such disregard for his professor, combined with his lack of interest in the course, it was unusual that Hamel paid close attention to the “peak experiences” lecture. It was the premise that intrigued him, the idea that life could and should be lived, not as a continuum of existence, but rather a series of highlights, “peak” moments, which could last from minutes to several days or longer, and during which a human being experiences life to the fullest.

Admittedly, Hamel’s professor had a different take on this phenomenon from that espoused by other, more published philosophers. The “big boys” — Hamel’s professor always referred to well-known philosophers this way — universally described peak experiences in highly positive terms. They wrote about joyous moments, occasions of intense happiness, feelings of profound wonder and awe.

According to these thinkers, the catalysts for such experiences were similarly connected with “goodness”: deep meditation, overwhelming feelings of love, gazing at a stunning piece of art, or a wonder of nature, or hearing and being moved by a wonderfully uplifting piece of music.

Hamel’s professor told his students that he believed all of these phenomena could be described as “alpha generators” and that the peak experiences they brought on could be called “white peaks.” Yet, he argued, just as there seemed to be a polar opposite for everything in Nature, the same was true of peak experiences. In addition to white peaks, the professor explained, there are “black peaks”, experiences similar in intensity, similar in their dramatic impact on the individual living in those moments, but brought on by negative, “omega” generators or incidents of profound evil, horror or despair.

Serial killers, he stated, often experienced an intense, almost transcendental euphoria at the moment of taking a human life.

He went on to explain that peak experiences — at least of the white kind — could also be brought on by certain drugs, and that controlled experiments were often conducted to induce the phenomena and give researchers further insights into their nature and their impact on individual subjects. But here is the big idea, the professor concluded, spreading his arms wide for dramatic emphasis: “Peak experiences don’t just define our lives — they ARE our lives. Within our psyches, we all yearn for these zenith moments — they are our only connections to true happiness and real satisfaction as human beings. Most people,” he continued, “don’t understand this at all. In fact, most of you,” he said as he looked intently at each member of the class, “will live your lives unfulfilled, and not know why."

The young woman next to Hamel raised her hand tentatively. The professor turned his head, stared at her, but did not respond.

The professor continued. “In fact, most of you,” he pronounced, “will die wondering and wishing and wanting because you will never have given yourselves a chance to live.” The professor, clearly enjoying his delivery, paused for dramatic impact. He ran his hand through his hair, glanced down at his watch, stared out the window for a moment. Then he concluded, almost whispering, with a theatrical intensity. “But some few of you will leave this classroom today. . . and begin a search. Class dismissed.”

The professor turned away and began to gather books from his desk. He did not look at any of his students. The class sat in awkward silence.

Someone sitting close to Hamel murmured, “What an arrogant ass.” Hamel nodded slowly in agreement. Yet, the professor’s lecture made him feel uncomfortable somehow, as if, hidden within his comments to the entire class, the professor had placed some special truth, some important precept for Hamel to consider. Not purposefully, of course. Hamel knew that, on a personal level, he was insignificant to the professor; Hamel was not even sure if the professor knew his name.

Yet, something in the professor’s remark had triggered an unusual response in Hamel. Over the past several days since the lecture, Hamel had replayed the class in his mind again and again.

The Secret Life of Hamel: June, 2009 Posts

2009-07-02T09:29:00.000-07:00

Without knowing what she was looking for, Hamel’s wife scanned the area all around the bus stop. She saw nothing else out of place. She looked up the street in both directions, looked down again to where the coffee mug has been placed, shook her head slowly in confusion. Agitated, frustrated, Hamel’s wife turned and re-crossed the street toward the corner grocery, clutching the mug tightly in her hand. She knew, once she got home, that she’d call the police again and report her find. She was just as sure that it would be a waste of time.

CHAPTER TWO: 22 YEARS, 6 MONTHS, 1 DAY BEFORE HAMEL DISAPPEARED

It was a small, urban campus, in an economically declining section of the city. Academic buildings, once stately and imposing, looked tired in the early evening light, their outsides darkened by the exhaust of too many passing automobiles.

Here and there, walls of individual buildings showcased the talents of local graffiti artists. Iron bars covered first floor windows. Sidewalks were pitted and stained; most were spotted with ugly, black blotches, leave-behinds from a generation of mannerless, gum-chewing students.

Occasionally, in his walk from dormitory to library, Hamel would pass a skeleton tree, barren of leaves, or a concrete bench, cracked and crumbling from age.

For many students, February was a dismal, depressing time on the university campus; Hamel, typically, had little reaction to season or scenery. He walked across campus oblivious to them both.

Hamel’s mind was occupied with other things, principally a five-page philosophy paper due in two weeks and, as yet, not begun.

Hamel was, at best, an average student. He studied irregularly, as much from boredom as anything else. His grades, consequently, were unremarkable, consistent with the effort he applied, at odds with his considerable intelligence.
Hamel enjoyed reading, but his tastes were eclectic and rarely in line with the academic courses in which he was enrolled. His professors considered him to be something of a mystery. This was fine with Hamel. As long as his academic results were sufficient to maintain the financial support of his parents for his education, Hamel was unconcerned.

Occasionally, however, Hamel encountered a topic that piqued his interest. Recently, his professor in Ethics, a wild-eyed, wild-haired individual, with a degree from Cambridge, and an accent from Mississippi, presented a lecture entitled The Peak Experience Life: An Ethical Perspective.

Hamel did not understand why this teacher felt it necessary to title each of his lectures. It seemed a little pretentious, like his wearing academic robes to class and insisting that students address him as Doctor instead of his given name.

Most of the class thought the man bizarre; Hamel considered him a buffoon. Others complained about his poor teaching methods; Hamel simply ignored them. Since the course itself was of little interest to Hamel, the professor who taught it was, by default, insignificant. He was an easy grader and, therefore, neither a problem to be addressed nor an obstacle to be overcome. The professor was, in fact, so totally unimportant to him that Hamel would have had difficulty answering even the simplest of questions about the man. A fellow student once asked Hamel if he found the pronounced scar

Catching up on Hamel

2009-06-11T03:20:00.000-07:00

If anyone wants to know what has happened in The Secret Life of Hamel so far, this is the place to be.

Three of my blog postings (April 5, May 3 and June 3) summarize the daily posts to Twitter through May 31.

I will continue to post monthly summaries as I go.

If you are reading the Hamel novel (get a life!), thanks -- only 12 years to go and we'll see how this thing turns out.

I am more curious than you are.

The Secret Life of Hamel: May, 2009 Posts

2009-06-03T03:26:00.000-07:00

HERE IS THE CONTINUATION OF THE STORY AS POSTED DURNG MAY, 2009. PREVIOUS BLOG POSTINGS PROVIDE THE STORY FROM ITS FIRST TWEET ON FEBRUARY 5, 2009.

Hamel’s wife continued walking, tried to shake off her uneasiness. She was not successful. It clung to her like the heavy, damp air. Five days, she thought. And counting. With no end in sight. And each day bringing her closer to believing she would never see Hamel again.

She wondered, again, if there was anything more she should be doing. During the past week, she’d called a number of local hospitals. They were always polite. No, we have not admitted any male patients without identification. Have you spoken to the police? they’d ask.

Hamel’s wife knew that the hospital calls were a long shot. But she was haunted by the possibility that Hamel was, perhaps, in a coma, a victim of a violent robbery that had left him without his wallet and identification. She wondered how often that happened to people.

Hamel’s wife had handled — pretty well she thought — inquiries from Hamel’s boss, the vice president of logistics and the man who’d given Hamel his promotion several years ago. She’d told him that Hamel was very ill and would probably be out until Monday.

She’d listened as Hamel’s boss voiced appropriate but insincere concern. Please have him call me when he’s feeling better, he’d asked. But today was Sunday. If Hamel did not show up for work on Monday, his boss would be calling back. Then what?

By this point, Hamel’s wife was convinced that the police had forgotten all about Hamel. What was one missing man in a city of several hundred thousand? These were the thoughts that occupied her mind as Hamel’s wife continued to walk.

Looking up the block, Hamel’s wife became acutely aware of something she already knew, that Hamel’s bus stop lay directly ahead, across the street from the corner grocery that was her destination. It was marked by nothing more than a small sign on a post, not being worthy of one of the roofed shelters that the city had built along its bus routes to protect riders from inclement weather.

She kept her eyes on the bus stop as she walked, almost as if she could make Hamel re-appear by staring at it long and hard enough. Perhaps it was the staring — the obsessive scrutiny of every detail surrounding the area — that helped her notice a small object at the base of the signpost. What is that? she thought, squinting her eyes to get a better look. Hamel’s wife wore glasses but she’d needed new prescription lenses for several months. From her location on the block, she could not see the object clearly.

Yet each step — like turning the lens on a slide projector — brought the object more clearly into focus. And then, in an instant, she knew. Even though she was still a good thirty feet away, even though she could not have sworn to it in a court of law, she knew that she was staring at Hamel’s coffee mug, the same mug that he took with him to work every day and brought home with him every night.

Heart beating faster, Hamel’s wife quickly crossed the street, barely glancing to see whether there was any traffic to avoid. She was almost breathless from tension as she reached the bus stop.

She stared down at the coffee mug for several seconds, reluctant to pick it up. Was this evidence? she thought. Will there be fingerprints? Do I call the police?
Her hand was shaking slightly as she bent down, ignoring all the warnings in her head, and reached out for the coffee mug. It was nestled snugly against the post, standing upright. It looked as if it were carefully placed there, not simply discarded or thrown aside. What do I make of that? she thought.

Probably someone had seen the coffee mug lying on the ground, she decided, and was trying to help the rider who’d left it behind. Yes, that made sense. Some thoughtful person had placed it against the post to be retrieved eventually by whomever had left it. But what could have happened that made Hamel leave his coffee mug behind when he boarded the bus? He was not an absent-minded man.

The Secret Life of Hamel: April, 2009

2009-05-03T19:45:00.000-07:00

HERE IS THE CONTINUATION OF THE STORY AS POSTED DURING APRIL, 2009 PLUS THE FIRST DAY OF MAY. (THE APRIL 30 POST ENDED IN MID-SENTENCE. MY DAUGHTER TELLS ME THIS WAS POOR PLANNING.)

Once, a young, very pretty, red-haired waitress at a restaurant clearly became obsessed with getting Hamel to notice her. She filled his water glass immediately each time Hamel took a sip. She touched his shoulder lightly as she leaned forward to pour. She asked him questions with each trip to the table. Did he work nearby? Was he a runner? Did he ever visit the restaurant for lunch?

When the waitress brought the credit card slip for a signature, Hamel’s wife noticed a business card from the restaurant attached. Trying not to be obvious, she watched closely as Hamel signed for their meal. She saw him pick up the card, casually turn it over, and then drop it on the table. As they stood to leave, Hamel’s wife retrieved the card and slipped it into her handbag.

Later that evening, alone in her kitchen after her husband had gone to bed, Hamel’s wife examined the card closely. A phone number, the words Call Me?, a simply drawn heart with a smiley face inside it. There was no name, no signature.

Two days later, Hamel’s wife did an unusual thing: she decided to ask Hamel about the card and the waitress. She chose her words carefully.

Did you notice that waitress the other day? she began. The red-haired girl. She really seemed to pay a lot of attention to you.

Hamel shifted his position on the sofa, but didn’t look up from the book he was reading. I didn’t notice, he said. He turned a page.

It was so obvious that she was flirting with you, Hamel’s wife said. I’m surprised you didn’t have some kind of reaction.

Hamel’s wife hesitated, tried to deliver her next words lightly, almost conspiratorially, as if they were sharing some special secret. You know, she left you her phone number. On a card. Hamel’s wife tried to make her tone even lighter. Looks like you have a big fan.

I think you’re mistaken, Hamel said. And that ended the conversation. Hamel’s wife knew that it was useless to say anything further.

Conversations, if you could call them by that name, were not Hamel’s strong point. He was not rude; he did not ignore her. But Hamel rarely contributed to dialogue with his wife, other than to acknowledge its existence with a polite comment or murmur. He was often as silent as the picture that stared at Hamel’s wife from the computer monitor. Whatever was going on in Hamel’s brain, he shared it only occasionally. It had been that way for as long as she’d known him, though she had once hoped for a change.

Hamel’s wife broke herself away from both her thoughts and Hamel’s steady gaze. She emailed the photo file to the police officer.

Now what? she asked herself. What exactly are the proper, day after thoughts and actions when a woman’s husband has disappeared?

There was no one in Hamel’s wife’s life to tell her. She had no one to call. It had been just her and Hamel for such a long time.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Five days after Hamel’s disappearance, his wife decided to make the short walk to the corner grocery. It was a tiny, poorly lit store, the kind of iconic retail establishment that was quickly disappearing from the city’s neighborhoods. Hamel’s wife did not shop there often, preferring instead the modern supermarket that had opened recently, just two blocks farther from the house. But it was a cloudy, gloomy day, with an unseasonably chilly breeze, not a good day for a stroll.

She picked her way carefully down the concrete steps from her townhouse, turned left when she reached the sidewalk, passed her neighbor’s tuft of a front lawn, felt a sudden desire to quicken her pace.

Hamel’s wife knew that this was her first time outside her home since Hamel’s disappearance. She was unprepared for her reaction.

Anxiety, vague and formless, seemed to wash over her the moment she turned to walk up the block. She felt the tenseness of an animal being stalked, could feel a prickliness on her arms and the back of her neck. This is silly, she told herself. Whatever happened to Hamel, she was sure it had not happened here, in this neighborhood, in this stable, quiet section of the city where she’d lived all her life.

Double Phooey

2009-04-12T04:07:00.000-07:00

I guess it was bound to happen. And it did. Yesterday, Saturday, April 11, from the Embassy Suites in downtown Portland, Oregon, I posted a tweet with a typo.

I know, I know. It is less than 140 characters, Diccicco, how could you be such a doofus? Who can't proof 140 characters at a time?

Me, I guess. But now that I am humbled, I will be ever more vigilant. This WILL be the only error in the twelve and a half year journey that I am on.

Here, for purists among you (no need to raise your hands), is how the tweet should have read:

Hamel shifted his position on the sofa, but didn’t look up from the book he was reading. I didn’t notice, he said. He turned a page.

Now, let's put this nasty little incident behind us, shall we?

The Secret Life of Hamel: Feb-Mar, 2009

2009-04-05T20:12:00.000-07:00

HERE IS THE COMPLETE STORY TO DATE. I WILL NOW POST RECAPS TO THIS BLOG ON A MONTHLY BASIS.

Hamel walked out of his modest town home sipping coffee from a travel mug, strode purposefully toward the bus stop, and disappeared.

Hamel’s wife did not miss him until 7pm. By 10 she was worried. At 11 she called the police. The officer on duty seemed uninterested.

Politely: “Yes, ma’m, you can file a report over the phone.” Matter of factly: “No, ma’m, no need to wait 24 hours.” Hamel’s wife listened carefully. She picked up a pencil, scribbled “24” on the back of an envelope, then drew a line through it.

“Could you spell your name please?” The officer scanned his monitor to access the proper form. “Last name first, please.”

The realization that an official process was now underway unnerved Hamel’s wife. Things were happening a little too fast. Do I do this? she asked herself. What if he shows up now? Hamel’s wife shut her eyes, tried to think, felt a rush of anger. Where ARE you?

A truth about Hamel’s wife: She loathed attention. She always used the side entrance at church, always chose a middle pew. This is Hamel’s doing, not mine, she thought. Why am I in the spotlight? Why am I center stage? Resentment conquered worry decisively.

Oh, I think I hear him coming, she lied to the police officer. But thank you. You’ve been helpful. Sorry. She pressed End to disconnect.

Hamel’s wife was sure that the officer did not believe her. She was not a good liar — it was a skill rarely needed or employed. She took a deep breath, tried to calm herself. If he’s not home by morning, she decided, then I’ll call back. But why hasn’t HE called?

What to do when your husband of 15 years — who was as predictable (and boring) as the seasons— doesn’t come home? Hamel’s wife made tea. She sat at her kitchen table, hands cradling her teacup, staring at the pieces of her life stuck with magnets to the refrigerator door.

I must remember to pay the gas bill, she told herself. Lottery tickets — what a waste. I never did use that coupon for hand lotion.

By 6am, as light from a gray sky began to fill the room, accompanied by city noises from the street, Hamel’s wife decided two things.

First, she concluded, this is not Hamel’s fault. Not possible. Some convictions — like this one of Hamel’s wife — begin small but manage to grow strong, all on their own. This evolution, tentative hope into unwavering faith, had occurred while Hamel’s wife drank tea.

The resentment she’d felt toward Hamel just hours ago was gone. And that drove her second decision. Hamel’s wife reached for the phone.

A new police voice, female this time, took the call. Not so officious, Hamel’s wife felt. Not so judgemental. She told her story.

As she listened to her own voice, Hamel’s wife was encouraged by her calm, rational recounting of the facts. She was in control.

So now, she concluded, it has been almost 24 hours since I have seen or heard from my husband. Pause. And I am worried, she added.

Hamel’s wife waited. So far, so good, she thought. But that had been the easy part of the call. Now came the questions.

No, this has not happened before, Hamel’s wife answered. My husband is a considerate man. If he is going to be late, he calls me.

No, we did not have an argument. We hardly ever disagree. I can’t even remember the last fight we had about anything. Yes, very good health. No, not moody at all. Hamel is pretty much the same from one day to the next. I’d say . . . even-tempered.

The questions continued. Hamel’s wife was a little surprised at how well, how calmly, she responded to each one of them. All the while, as the police officer probed for information, Hamel’s wife listened for footsteps, a key turning in a door handle, Hamel.

The next question was asked gently, in a softer voice. Is it possible, asked the police officer, that your husband is seeing someone else?

Another woman? Hamel’s wife shook her head silently at the irony of the question. No, I’m sure that there is no one else, she said firmly.

For a moment, Hamel’s wife considered trying to explain. And then decided no. It was too complicated. And she was sure that the agreement she had reached with Hamel — what choice did she have? — had nothing to do with his disappearance. How could it?

Just one more question, said the police officer. Have you and your husband suffered any financial setbacks recently?

Financial setbacks? No. At least, nothing I know of. My husband handles our investments — I pay the bills. It’s a good arrangement.

I’m sure it is, said the police officer. But you might want to check — just to be sure. To be sure of what? thought Hamel’s wife.

What happens now? Hamel’s wife asked. I’ve told you everything I know. Can you help me find my husband?

I know this is difficult, said the police officer. But it’s only been one day — there are so many possibilities. Try to stay positive. Meanwhile, continued the officer, our department will issue an All Points Bulletin. It’s standard practice in a missing person’s case. But we’ll need a picture — a recent picture. Do you have one? asked the officer. Hamel’s wife thought for a moment.

Yes, she said, I have a digital picture we took on Easter Sunday. I could email it to you — would that be okay?

The officer gave Hamel’s wife the email address and said she’d be in touch. Hamel’s wife slowly returned the phone to the charger.

Hamel’s wife stared out the window for several moments, focused on remembering each detail of the morning before. He hadn’t said anything about work — Hamel rarely spoke about his job. Although she knew that managing inventory at a warehouse was not a job Hamel enjoyed. It was a job that he performed. He’d told her, many times, that there was a big difference between the two.

What was the last thing he’d said to her? Hamel’s wife concentrated, replayed their morning routine, tried to remember every detail.

Most mornings, Hamel’s departures consisted of a quick kiss on the forehead and a matter of fact Have a good day. Or: See you later.

Was yesterday any different? Hamel’s wife pictured the morning in her mind. She was in the kitchen, in her robe, rinsing her teapot. Hamel was standing near the counter, tightening the lid on his travel coffee mug. Item number next to last in his morning routine. He turned to her, she recalled, and bent over slightly to deliver his routine forehead kiss. And he said Goodbye — have a good day.

And then he left. Just like normal. Just like everyday for the past ten years, since he’d begun the manager’s job and stopped shift work.

Hamel’s wife shifted her thoughts to the present. Was there something more to do, someone else to call? There was no one to tell her.

First things first. Hamel’s wife sat at the computer, located the picture file that she’d downloaded months ago, clicked to display it.

There he was. Standing erect, looking directly into the camera with that not quite a smile expression and those penetrating brown eyes.

Hamel’s wife knew that other women found her husband attractive. She wasn’t sure what Hamel thought about this. She’d never seen Hamel respond to any of the flirting directed to him. He’d never spoken to her about it, even when it was most obvious.

Monthly Recaps

2009-03-29T05:38:00.000-07:00

Humor me here. Let's pretend that some reasonable number (let's say, five) of the 259 people who are ostensibly following The Secret Life of Hamel on Twitter are REALLY following The Secret Life of Hamel on Twitter. But then one of them gets the flu and does not go on the computer for a week. And another forgets to pay his/her Internet bill for a month. And two get so captivated watching Dancing with the Stars that they forget about Hamel for a while.

Don't these people deserve an easier way to catch up than reading updates in reverse order?

I agree. That's why I have decided to provide monthly recaps. (Also: this helps me remember what has been said so far.) So, look for the first recap sometime after April 1. And monthly recaps thereafter. For the next twelve and a half years.

My first technical problem

2009-02-16T03:47:00.000-08:00

I went to post my "epitweet" this morning -- and the Twitter red number was a positive 1. But when I hit update I got an error message telling me that my tweet was too long --

Twitter did say that it went ahead and sent the tweet to my "good friends" -- who are they?

(Well, aside from the special people of Malta, who are they . . . ?)

So, just in case, I did the whole routine again.

Same result.

Then I figured out that I had some invisible characters: extra spaces at the end of the line. So I fixed that problem.

I also did a quick edit to further reduce the character count --

Third post was fine but now I have annoyed readers with a triple posting of the same essential line . . .

(This is no country for old novelists . . . )

Oh, well -- perhaps they wil humor me. At this point, I have a theoretical 221 followers on Twitter -- and 121 members of my Facebook Group.

The goof goes on . . .

It has begun . . .

2009-02-05T02:39:00.000-08:00

FYI TO SELF -- I "published" the first sentence of the novel via Twitter just after five this morning. Looks like I will be doing this every day for the rest of my life.

I have 184 Twitter followers -- which means potential readers. Random House is not yet worried.

I also have 87 members of a FB group I started named "I'm reading The Secret Life of Hamel on Twitter" -- many of these folks do not even have a Twitter account.

So it goes.

Writing problem

2009-02-03T18:24:00.000-08:00

Since I only have 140 characters to work with for each post, I've decided to eliminate some waste and not use quotation marks when people are talking. I think any readers will still follow the dialogue okay.

And I am not going to use tweet abbreviations -- like ur and c u soon. Too distracting.

Any other rules?

I don't think so.

(I'm eager to get things underway.)

Now I have an audience -- yikes

2009-02-03T01:35:00.000-08:00

The pressure starts Thursday.

I now have an audience of close to 150 on Twitter -- and I have about 35 FB friends who have joined my group called I'm reading The Secret Life of Hamel on Twitter.

Promo time is over -- storytelling starts.

Yes: I have written my first tweet. In fact, I have written several at this point.

The challenge is to make each one interesting enough so that people actually look for the next one.

Let's see what happens.

Building An Audience for a Goofy Idea

2009-02-01T07:20:00.000-08:00

Okay, here are my thoughts on building an audience for my novel -- The Secret Life of Hamel -- on Twitter.

Between now and Feb 5 (when I publish the first epitweet in the novel), I plan on emailing the world and providing them with my twitter address -- @secretlifehamel -- and hoping a few check it out.

And I'm beginning to follow a lot of people on Twitter from @secretlifehamel because they might, in turn, follow it.

But, since this is also an experiment in social media and viral dynamics, I'm going to stop any mass building efforts as soon as I hit 100 followers. Then I will see whether or not the audience builds -- or languishes -- or just disappears.

If anyone has any other thoughts on this, let me know.

A Blog for a Novel Published Entirely on Twitter

2009-01-30T20:17:00.000-08:00

I admit -- this is one of my sillier ideas.

Who writes and publishes a novel 140 characters at a time?

Actually, if you google "Twitter Novel", you'll find a few who've already done so or are doing it right now.

So this effort is not about being first. And it's not about trying to get into the Guinness Book with something like the "longest novel" ever published on Twitter.

No -- this is about the creative challenge of trying to be interesting and engaging and telling a story under a significant constraint. Plus, after years of preaching "compression" to copywriters in my ad agency, it's time to see if I can practice what I preach.

To see the novel one epitweet (I made up this word) at a time, you need to have a twitter account and follow @secretlifehamel. The opening of the novel will be published on February 5.

For people (will there be any?) who get behind and want to catch up, I will republish all epitweets on this blog, weekly. Most of the time this will be on a Wednesday.

I will also publish a synopsis of the novel -- a chapter at a time -- so that someone who does not want to read all the past tweets can get up to speed in a couple of minutes.

Okay -- let's see what happens.

PS I have only written the first scenes of this novel and will definitely be making it up as I go along . . . who knows where it will go?