October 20, 2003
Hanged Man: Author's Disclaimer
"Hanged Man" is a work of fiction, and as such the usual disclaimer text that 'any resemblance between the characters herein and real persons living or otherwise is purely coincidental' applies.
Allow me to stress that this applies especially to the character of the wife, who bears no resemblance whatsoever to any wife I have ever known, especially my own. While my own wife is as dedicated and loving as Mrs. Ron, the wife in Hanged Man, this resemblance is purely coincidental and she most definitely lacks both Mrs. Ron's murderously vengeful streak and her inability to listen to reason.
Likewise, the primary male character, Mr. Ron, has nothing in common with anyone I know, including me. He is a perfect example of the Nice Guy, whereas I am more the weasely, sneaky type. His kidneys fail, mine are, so far, just fine. We both do happen to be exhausted and in great need of naps during the day (much to Ron's eventual chagrin) but, as with my own wife and Mrs. Ron, this is purely coincidental.
Like all the characters in this story, or in any other story of mine, these characters are complete and utter inventions, fictional constructs. Even in the rare instances where I do violate this principle and use details I have gleaned from observing persons with whom I have come into contact, such details are invariably taken out of context and combined with other details, real or imagined, such that my characters cannot, absolutely cannot, be said to bear any resemblance to any real persons, much less be based on them.
It might help illustrate the extreme degree to which every single detail in this work is invented to insert a word about from where, when inventing said details, I get my inspiration: the characters were developed largely in the same way I develop all my characters, in this story and anything else I write: they popped into my head pre-formed while I was taking a shower one morning. Showering is, for me, creative activity number one.
If this fails, I do sometimes shuffle through a deck of tarot cards (which is how I arrived at the title of this piece) or look through a random selection of color chips in search of chance inspiration. For example, it was precisely by means of this latter technique that I arrived at the character of the hit-man Mussini, the ultra Marine. Along similar lines, details such as the Native American motel cashier White Glove, and even minor descriptive details of setting such as the “frosty morning” when Mussini first tries to murder Mr. Ron, the “clear view” he has of his intended victim through the telescopic sight of his sniper rifle, or the “frosted juniper” where he discards his disguise following his attempt were originally the names of interior paint gleaned from decorating catalogues; the same is true of more important details of location et cetera, from the “little pond” where Mr. Ron went skating as a boy to the “tropical pool” and “mystic harbor” he encounters while running and hiding from his pursuer with his hot secretary “Tawny Port.”
In the interest of full transparency, it should also be pointed out that no other aspects of Hanged Man are based on anything occurring in reality, either: not places, buildings, roads, automobiles. Neither consumer items nor durable goods, works of culture popular or otherwise; not even geographic details. To illustrate, let me point out that I have not only never been to New Caledonia, I haven’t even read anything about it. I couldn’t even say with confidence which hemisphere New Caledonia is located in, although I would guess Southern, and perhaps Western, due to the “New” part of the name. So don’t expect anything said about New Caledonia in the story to actually have any similarity to the real place. This is a work of fiction, after all.
Other details and “facts” cited or demonstrated in the story are just as invented. It is unlikely that Mrs. Ron would have been able to acquire sufficient knowledge of the Italian language from two weeks of listening to “Parliamo Italiano!” Italian language cassettes for beginners in her car during her commutes to and from work to enable her to actually carry out negotiations with an Italian hit man in his native tongue. This is due both to limitations of human language acquisition, as well as the nature of Italian hit men.
Some other instances where I’m pretty sure I’ve taken artistic liberties: I’m not sure that someone who is still recovering from a kidney transplant could, even with knowledge of yogic breath control methods, hold his breath for five minutes or shortly thereafter robustly engage in sexual activities bordering on the acrobatic. Likewise, it is doubtful that someone could have a telephone conversation immediately after firing six shots from a short-barreled .38 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver inside a locked Ford van, since his ears would no doubt be ringing for at least the next half hour.
Another place where I relied on pure inspiration, another name for guesswork, was in the question of whether or not a hotel, or motel, would rent a room for a short space of time, several hours say, to a sick, exhausted man who just wanted to take a nap. My guess: they would. Especially motels such as the Bide-Yer-Time where Mr. Ron naps in Hanged Man, which I would assume do not subject their clientele to especially detailed background checks beyond verifying the validity of their credit cards, and which are, to my knowledge, in the habit of renting rooms out for periods shorter than an entire night, especially during the day, to couples intending to engage in clandestine trysts. This, I stress, remains pure conjecture and was never researched or tested, neither by me nor by any assistant, neither in person nor by post, telephone, e-mail or any other modern technological means of communication.
In a similar vein, medical details such as the disparate rates of recovery for a kidney donor, and a recipient were pure invention; in fact, I have no way of knowing whether Mrs. Ron would be out of the hospital within a few days while her husband would remain inside for weeks. This was simply necessary for the mechanics of the plot. While I hope it was believable, I cannot vouch for its medical accuracy. This goes for the way, in the story, gradual kidney failure causes such exhaustion in the protagonist that a nap becomes an obsession with him: pure guesswork.
On the key scene where a devoted wife, at home after recovery, discovers a credit card charge for a hotel booked for several hours during the day shortly before the transplant: while it should be common knowledge that cheaters normally pay their philandering-related bills by cash, Mrs. Ron’s streak of paranoia has, I hope, been sufficiently demonstrated by this point for her extreme reaction to be plausible; on the other hand, I rather doubt that a credit card bill would really specify the time of day a room was booked, or the duration.
Before concluding with this disclaimer, I must also point out the unlikelihood that Mrs. Ron’s defense – she could not have arranged for Mussini to carry out the crime because she does not speak Italian – would fail in real life, because it is doubtful first of all not only whether any test could establish the ability to speak any certain foreign language in a person as determined and tough as Mrs. Ron if she were determined to hide this ability but also that someone like her would fall for the old trick of placing her alone in a room with her husband’s purported mistress Tawny Port until she breaks down and starts screaming Italian obscenities at her, not least of all because it is doubtful that, even if she did acquire a functional Italian vocabulary in two weeks, expressions such as battona and bocchinara would be included in said vocabulary.
Finally, although there are rumors in certain martial-arts circles that this can be done, I have no real knowledge whether it is possible to inflict wounds with bare hands such that an adult could bleed to death within sixty seconds.
Thank you.
