Ryan Hunter Writes

All right, folks, I am only twelve little likes away form the entirely arbitrary goal of fifty likes on my fb page before I publish my novel Ted & Stuff as an e-book. Just click here to Like my page I’m a Tedite and make my book happen.

  Now is the time, this is the place, we are the Tedites and now we can show our loyalty to the book Ted & Stuff by clicking here to access the facebook fan page I’m a Tedite. Simply leave a message with an address to which you’d like your bracelet shipped and one will be on it’s way to you.

  That’s all you have to do. I couldn’t be easier. Okay, it could be easier if a genius monkey could just do it for you, but surely you have better uses for your genius monkey.

Phase one of the Ryan Hunter is an actual writer plan is going into effect. The world is being introduced to Mr. Ted Dorfman through his FB page, I’m A Tedite. What’s that, you would like to visit I’m a Tedite and become a Tedite as well? Why, what a happy coincidence, the picture is a link.

                                     I’m Coming Out

  Salacious, no?

  Okay, it’s more of a cheap ploy but I couldn’t resist it. No, this is not the day in which I reveal a long hidden (but often suspected by my high school peers if locker room jibes can be taken at face value) truth and take my first steps into a new and more honest life. Instead, I am coming out as a writer.

  “Hmm?” you are perhaps hmm-ing this very moment. “Am I not reading a blog entitled Ryan Hunter Writes? That seems pretty damn out of the writer’s closet.” Well, how astute of you, you must be feeling pretty darned good about yourself right now. Any other innocent claims you’d like to debunk?

  I’m sorry, that was uncalled for. Yes, I have mentioned a time or two here on this blog and on my Facebook and Twitter pages that I enjoy writing but saying you’re a writer on the internet is something akin to saying that you enjoy a good steak at a reasonable price when at one of the many conveniently located Outback Steakhouses. (Outback, you can just make that check out to cash.)

   This year I’m stepping out of the internet world and telling people who can actually see and hear (and, circumstances depending, touch) me as I do so. I’m going to give people the opportunity to laugh in my face as I let them know of my plans and dreams. Is it scary, hell yeah it is, but it’s also exhilarating.

  At the moment I have a two-fold plan for moving forward on this. There may be more folds to come, I never know where my folding may take me, but for now I have only the two.

 ”Goodness,” you are no doubt saying aloud to yourself this very moment. “My interest has certainly been piqued by the preceding paragraph. Tell me, is there any way I can learn more about these folds of which you speak?”

  First of all, thank you for that, it made what could have been an awkward transition a little more smooth, secondly, yes, there is a way. Just read the following paragraphs.

  The first step in my literary public exposing is the publishing of a book that I have working on for several years now. I’ll be delving further into the book in future posts but I’m very excited about introducing the rest of the world to Mr. Ted Dorfman.

  The second step involves the big guy with the lightning and the calender at the top of the post. My play, It’s All Greek to Me, is going to be staged this coming November 10th. It’s going to be produced by Licklog Players, a theater group that I started working with when I was in the second grade. I’m half a year, and a shite-load of work, away from the curtain going up on my little play, but I’m pretty insanely excited about it. Now I just need me some playas. (Sorry, sometimes the street in me just can’t be suppressed.)

  So, friends and neighbors, keep those eyes and ears open for a whole lot of writing news coming from yours truly.

  I’ll see you in the bookstores.

“Well, this is it.”

“This is what?”

“It.”

“What is it?”

“This.”

“This what?”

“Is it.”

“What is it? Don’t say ‘this!’”

“…”

“Really?”

“You said don’t say ‘th…’ sorry.”

“I’m changing the subject.”

“Okay.”

“…”

“Well?”

“I can’t think of anything else.”

“Anything else but what?”

“Anything else but this.”

“This what?”

“Yeah, I’m just going to shoot us both.”

“Okay, you go first.”

Four coworkers arrived that day

dressed in period costume

One did love this spirit day, two thought “Meh”

and one did fume.

“I do not care for spirit week”

said Judy from HR.

“It makes me feel quite silly when

I’m walking from my car.”

“For soothe, what ho? Ye gads

and thine,” said Timothy from the mail-room.

“A wench with tongue of such sharpness

shall never find a groom.”

“All right,” said Judy,and she sat

some papers in her hand.

“So Timothy is fired now,

anyone else want to make a stand?”

“Ha ha, such wit,” said Timothy,

tossing his head with a laugh.

“As if a lowly wench as thine

could wield such a mighty staff.”

“Security will be her soon,”

said Judy on the phone.

“Dude I think she’s serious,”

said Jacob Joe Malone.

“Don’t get involved, Jake,” advised Sara Lou

who barely got credit for dressing.

“You’re probably right,” Jake agreed,

the whole scene was becoming distressing.

“Really Judy,” said Timothy,

dropping his accent and removing his mustache

“For the love of God I have children,

and literally no money stashed.”

“You don’t have kids, you have three cats

and if it makes you feel better.

We were going to fire you later this week,

now I don’t have to write that long letter.”

“But I…” Tim began then the door burst inward

and in marched Butch the security guard.

And Tim was thus swept away with the man,

and tossed on his ass in the yard.

 I broke my key fob yesterday. I wasn’t doing anything untoward with it, just opening a bottle, one of the many that it has opened over the ten plus years that it has been a passenger upon my key ring.

  I suppose I should be impressed that it made it as long as it did. I don’t know how much it cost, it was a gift all those many years before. It was given to me by the woman who became, first my wife, and then my ex-wife. I haven’t thought about its coming from her in a long while, it was just a part of the scenery hanging from my ignition, but when it broke yesterday I realized that yet one more piece of my life that was was no more.

 I’m not sure exactly why I decided to post this story here, this site is supposed to be dedicated to my writing life, not my personal, and I do try to keep it entertaining, an attribute I would even suggest this particular wound-licking contains. I just felt that I needed to ensure that this particular passing should not go unnoticed.

  All right, in for a penny, in for a pound as the saying goes. In August of 2010 my wife told me that she wasn’t happy and that she wasn’t going to be happy as long as she was with me. This, I believed, was a reaction to stress (a lot of it coming from me) but a reaction which would be tempered with time, something we would be able to work through given an absence long enough to make our hearts grow fond enough of each other to want to do the work. Last October (I know, some of us take a long time to figure shit out) I found out that she was dating, and had been dating for some time, a person that she’d met while we were still married. She met him while working on her photography business, a business that I had supported her doing with funds, encouragement and many an afternoon lugging equipment. It didn’t help that I had suspected she was developing feelings for this person before she asked me to leave my home.

  I learned about my ex’s moving on while visiting friends in the town I’d called home with the ex. From the moment I took the wedding ring off of my finger until that weekend, I’d kept it on my key ring, the one which until yesterday held the bottle opening fob. When I returned home that Sunday afternoon, I walked into the back yard and buried my ring and my marriage in a private ceremony, just me and the dog we’d once called our little girl.

 I never spoke of this ceremony, I never thought that I would, but I think now that that was a mistake.

  Now my keys have a new vacancy and I need to talk about it. This one won’t be terribly hard to replace. Maybe I’ll wait until the beach trip that I’m planning in a few months and put a reminder of my new life on my key ring. But I’m not going let another passing go unnoticed or unmentioned. It’s time I opened up to the world a little more and gave it a chance to open back up to me.

  One thing I can say about my lost fob, unlike the lady who gave it to me, it did bring me one last beer before it left.

“I told you this wasn’t a bus stop.”

“You don’t know that. Not for sure.”

“It’s been twelve hours, where’s the bus?”

“It’s coming. What am I, the bus conductor?”

“Buses don’t have conductors. They have… you know, whatcha calls em?”

“Drivers.”

“Thanks, Harry.”

“I want a squirrel.”

“Not now Carl, we’re talking about the bus.”

“Bus, what bus?”

“The bus that isn’t coming because this is not a bus stop!”

“You don’t know that for sure.”

“Will the bus have a squirrel?”

“Not now, Carl!”

I’ve been away from my tumblr for a while folks, but I’m back now, tune in early and tune in often for all my keyboard tchatchkes.

I met a man in my dream last night, he came to me as if from nowhere.

“You will go to war this day,” he told me. “And you will not return.”

“Oh, one of those,” I said. He only stared. “How many dreams have a vague

prophesy suggesting the end of something. They never mean what you think

they mean.”

“This one does, you will fight and you will die,” he told me.

“And by die you mean see things which will forever change me and,

therefore, the man I once was will now be dead.”

“By die I mean you will be shot in the face. The bullet will enter your

brain which will cease to signal your heart to beat. Without oxygen being

delivered to your organs they will, one by one, shut down and you will be,

by all medical and spiritual definitions, a dead man.”

“Oh,” I said. “That’s pretty specific.” The man simply stared. “Well, I don’t

want to go to war.”

“That is your choice, should you make it, you will not die.”

“Great, lets do that one then,” I said.

“Very well, someone else will die in your stead.”

“What?” I said. “You didn’t tell me someone else would die.”

“Did you not reason that for yourself? Someone will be put in your

place and that someone will have your death.”

“That’s not fair. It’s like I’m murdering him.”

“Would you like to take back your choice, to go to war and die as you were

meant to?”

“I can still reverse my choice?”

“Yes.”

I thought for a moment, a long moment, there was nothing that I could say to him.

At last he turned from me and walked away.

I sat upon the ground.

The man turned back and asked, “Would you like to see him, the man who shall

have your death?”

Again I said nothing, I had no words.

The man walked away and left me sitting on the ground. I sat there through the night and until I woke.

My fear is that, when I go tonight to my dreams, I shall be sitting there still.