BINK: A ROUGH DRAFT

Of the three protagonists who have been simultaneously competing for my ear---Raymond, Bink, and Moses---Bink is currently...well, I suppose I might say, the loudest.  I have just completed a rough draft of his story.  I've put it away in a drawer, and I'll get it out in a couple of days, hoping that it will still seem solid, on the right track, and strong enough to profit from rewriting and editing.  Some readers may have come to the conclusion that all of these characters have sprung full-blown into my life within the past few weeks.  This is not the case.  Each of them has occupied a separate folder in my file cabinet for several years.  In fact, I had already done a fair amount of research for Bink's story, and perhaps that is why he is now the first to have a complete rough draft.

The setting for Bink's story is the diner where he works.  Over the years I had visited several diners to take photographs of their exteriors (this one still operates in the original building)...

...and of their interiors (this one still has the original stools, mosaic floor, and counter).  I had also been collecting news items of quirky crimes and misdemeanors---factual events that I could possibly work into my diner setting.

Bink, Raymond, Moses---each of them has surfaced for a time to demand my attention, and then has subsided for further subconscious rumination.  What has been new for me in recent weeks is that when, once again, they all began talking to me at once, I---to the best of my ability---began listening to all of them at once. The result seems to be Bink's complete rough draft.  Perhaps cacophony is not to be avoided after all...