In the middle of a free writing exercise with my students I jotted down some notes that occurred to me. I might have some ideas for a new writing project. I know I need to return to Monte Stories and revise and fill in the cracks with detail and embellish more of the relationships I suppose but I was pretty excited to know I have a new idea. The idea is to follow a sort of hypothetical story of John Relles’ life if he hadn’t died in the Huerfanos project. A son’s story about a lost father like in Diaz’ Drown. In that book the father is lost to New Jersey and in this story perhaps the father is lost to Colorado unemployment and then California and then Nevada. Mostly I want to follow him and Bruna as they look for work and family. Follow John Relles from hospital laundry room to fry cook and then on to California and his attempts at opening a business. I’ll cal them Relles Stories for now. Anyway, here’s the line I got down:
That night John Relles had the idea to escape from Colorado he had already been up past midnight for three hours spit shining his only shoes–his jungle boots and his Tio’s wing tips loafers.
