The yellow parrot --- Green Eyes III --- Bright, viridescent eyes shine into the room --- teaser

What happens with your new book, people are asking. Well, we're progressing slowly, slowly, but here's at least the second part of the first chapter.

Context: John has been asked by Alice Sandeman to replenish her shrinking stock of Eleanor Beasley paintings---Eleanor Wagner-Beasley, Godehart Wagner's spouse of convenience, now deceased. If your read the first part of the saga, you may remember that Eleanor specialized in canvasses of white dots painted on white backgrounds. So that's what John's has been doing in Alex's old pad, when he's caught red-handed (or paint-smuded) by the notorious art critic Souren Souleikan. Minds meet, and there's something transactional in the air:


Under more auspicious circumstances I would feel my dick now. But I don’t. We will need some lubrication. And we need some assurances as to the transactional character of this since said lubrication could get into the way: Souleikan gets drunk, then he gets laid; then he doesn’t remember the deal (and I’m fucked).
“I need a drink,” I say. And Souren needs a drink too, except that there won’t be any tipple left in this desolate attic, what with Alex’s tipsy attitudes.
((Hold on.))
This is where the old Alex lived with the constrained, self-denying personality of his previous life; he didn’t drink then. There may be some hold-over bottle of booze he kept for his friends, or the friends he didn’t have. I get up.
 “Mind, you,” Souren says. “No Chateau Margaux. Claret should flow at the table in the company of kindred food and kindred company, but nowhere else.”
“I’ll be back,” I say, touching his shoulder. He nods.

I am back from the kitchen where I found and untouched bottle of Bourbon in the left cabinet below the counter. I hold in my left hand now, the other hand, digits spread, clinging to two low-profile tumblers. I set this all down, uncork the bottle, pour stiff drinks. We’re past the point of return, we’ll be getting laid straight away. Souren downs his shot wholesale. Another shot, and another. Gulp. Terrible, the mechanics of substances. We swim, we float, we undress, we-—we don’t go into details.

The yellow parrot --- Green Eyes III --- "Ripley under ground" --- teaser

Cool, folks, cool. We somehow failed to get excited about the interaction between Sarah and her robot (the play we had started), but now, out of nothing, blissfully unprepared, we began writing the first chapter of the next installment of the GREEN EYES saga, "The Yellow Parrot"---yes, the previous part had a chapter about her already, an now we are going full Enid Blyton. (I'm fairly certain that a seasoned agent or publisher would advice a change of title, first thing in the morning).

Context: John has been asked by Alice Sandeman to replenish her shrinking stock of Eleanor Beasley paintings---Eleanor Wagner-Beasley, Godehart Wagner's spouse of convenience, now deceased. If your read the first part of the saga, you may remember that Eleanor specialized in canvasses of white dots painted on white backgrounds. So that's what John's doing in Alex's old pad, which has been transformed into a hide-away studio. 

One more thing, the chapter is titled: "Ripley Under Ground." And one more thing, we've hit another speed bump in the space-time-continuum, and were kicked right into the year of the Trump, 2017.


And now what? A typical Ampersant opening:


The doorbell rings. 

Alex’s attic is entirely on the wrong side of the tracks---compliments of his depression when he got the place three years ago---and so the bell is not a RRing, but a squirt of dying electricity. I buzz the buzzer carelessly, Amazon never rings twice.

A middle-aged man scales the stairs, huffing a bit, keeping his eyes on the rickety steps. He’s dressed in a rumpled, yet darkly-precious suit (made of silk-linen from Iran, his home country, we’ll learn later). There’s also a breast pocket handkerchief, which enters my focus when he arrives on the landing and raises his head. “My name is Souren Souleikan,” he says, lips poised, voice mildly accented, his eyes peeking past me into the den where Composition  #117 resides half-baked on its easel. 

He allows for three useless seconds of silence, then asks: “You are Alexander Iglesias, I take it?” 
“No,” I say. 
“Interesting,” he replies, his regard moving from my counterfeit composition to my left, smudge-painted hand. 
“Who are you?” I ask. 
“I’m Suren Souleikan,” he reiterates, smiling falsely. “The art critic.” He allows for more wordless seconds, then adds, “I’ve come at the right moment, I see. There’s some art that might need my attention. May I come in?”
“I’m busy,” I say, raising my dirty hand, but he’s already stepped into the den where he positions himself in front of my composition.
“You are the artist?” he asks, pointing at the canvas with an abstracted gesture.