# Big Man



## garza (Sep 9, 2012)

miniflash - 276 words

The man was angry and ready to fight. The conductor was calm, but determined. The bus was crowded and we were all squashed together, hot and sweaty. 

The conductor explained again. 'They are your children. You are responsible for their fares. I need two dollars for each. That's six more dollars, please.

'I'm a big man. You don't need to talk to me like I'm a little boy.' 

'I'm only doing my job, sir,' said the conductor. 

The aisle was filled with standing passengers. The conductor was close by my left side and any altercation involving him would involve me, like it or not. 

What Big Man did not see was the Police Constable standing close by my right side. 

'I'll teach you your job,' said Big Man as he stood and faced the conductor. He was a big man for real. He stood tall, topping my six feet by four or five inches, with the well-developed shoulders and arms of a construction worker. As he raised a clenched fist in the conductor's face, the PC leaned over, reached around me, and tapped Big Man on his shoulder.

Big Man pivoted from the conductor toward this source of unwanted interference. He had to look down. The PC must have barely met the height requirement to get into the Police Training School. He came only to my shoulder, but there before the eyes of Big Man were the peaked cap, the crown-emblazoned khaki shirt, and the badge of authority.

Big Man sat, pulled out his wallet, paid the conductor, and rode the rest of the way to Belize City looking out the window at the passing scenery.


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## JackKnife (Sep 9, 2012)

Short, simple, and sweet. Sounds like an altercation I'd rather not have been involved in.


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## Bilston Blue (Sep 9, 2012)

Tight like I expect from you, Garza. 

Such respect from authority is refreshing, but then again, I'm wondering whether or not the police officer carried a gun. Respect comes naturally from an unarmed man when confronting an armed man.


*ponders opening a debate in the debate forum entitled "British police officers should carry guns. Discuss."

The only line I stumbled on was this: 




> The PC must have barely met the height requirement to get into the Police Training School.


 
 I think it's the positive negative thing, "must have barely". I realise it's likely to be grammatically correct, and wouldn't question your knowledge on that. 'Twas only a minor stumble on my part. 




I'm still awaiting your sex tape, Garza. :lone:


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## garza (Sep 9, 2012)

Traditionally Belize Police have not been armed. That's beginning to change, but in this case the PC was not armed. 

This happened about a year ago and I'd forgotten all about until I was going through my old notebooks looking for a telephone number and happened to stumble on the notes I'd made on the incident as soon as the bus reached the Belize City terminal. 

The murder rate in Belize City is indreasing, mostly over drug deals. You may have read that one of our leading businessmen, our top exporter of bananas, has recently been identified by the U.S. as a major drug kingpin. U.S. citizens may no longer deal with him or his associates. That affects me directly because my favourite supermarket is owned by one of his partners and I cannot legally shop there because I retain my U.S. citizenship.

edit - re sex tape. I've had to borrow a neighbour's thesaurus and question some of my gang-involved friends about obscure euphemisms for certain words. A few people who've read the first draft have volunteered to create the video.


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## Bilston Blue (Sep 9, 2012)

> A few people who've read the first draft have volunteered to create the video.



:shock: :shock:


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## Olly Buckle (Sep 9, 2012)

Nice, reminds me of my 'last bus' story, must write that up.


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## words (Sep 10, 2012)

garza said:


> miniflash - 276 words
> 
> The man was angry and ready to fight. The conductor was calm, but determined. The bus was crowded and we were all squashed together, hot and sweaty.
> 
> ...



interesting story. As a narrative , I wonder whether the first para is redundant  and whether the  parts Should be used lnstead lower down to qualify the mood of was said. The second para does a far better job to introduce the scene and get the story  moving

it captures what big man did after the tap on the shoulder, it does not capture his mood in doing so, or what the kids had to say for example.


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## garza (Sep 10, 2012)

Can a first paragraph be redundant? I intended it to set the scene, as opposed to using dialogue as I'm fond of doing. Whenever I start with dialogue, I'm told I should have something to set the scene first.

The mood of a person I can only indicate by that person's words and actions. Big Man was talking loud, behaving in a combative manner, and turning red in the face, so I felt safe in calling him angry. The conductor never raised his voice, but continued to ask the man for the additional money to pay the children's fares, so I felt safe in saying he remained calm. As a reporter I try never to go inside someone's head, but only to write down what I see and hear. That's what I did here.

The kids never said anything. They only pointed out their father to the conductor.


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## Kevin (Sep 10, 2012)

Not sayin' it needs to be added, but are you allowed to go in your own head? I was thinking that you could 'report' on your own emotions ( and your thoughts about your conclusions about others' emotions) and maybe include how you came to 'enter' into this thing. Just thinking out loud here. For a short, it was good. I could picture that sweaty freakin' bus. A cops once told me "...you can't beat the radio", meaning that reinforcements could always be called, however "big" the job...


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## TheWonderingNovice (Sep 10, 2012)

I really like the clean and tightness of the story. You said you are a reporter, If this is just a short peice I wonder how your longer articles look like. Well written.


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## Olly Buckle (Sep 11, 2012)

> As a reporter I try never to go inside someone's head, but only to write down what I see and hear.


 Perhaps that sometimes leads to a bit more telling than showing, for example,


> 'I'll teach you your job,' said Big Man as he stood and faced the conductor.


Could be a little more vivid "He stood, pushing his head forward and his face towards the conductor". Mind you, that's how I imagine it, it may not have been the case. In a Way that reinforces the point, the only image of his body language is, 





> As he raised a clenched fist in the conductor's face


,A pretty standardised image of agression. Did he raise his voice? Advance himself? Or was he confident enough in his size that he treated the conductor casually, a fly to be swatted?

Mind you I am partly reacting to previous comments, I found it perfectly satisfactory when I read it first time.


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## garza (Sep 11, 2012)

Kevin - Given the way I was taught as a youngster, no, I cannot go into my own head in reporting an incident. That can only happen in an op-ed piece.

TheWonderingNovice - Thank you. What you see here is, for the most part, the style I use,whether for long or short pieces.

Olly - It happened as I described. If I were to turn this into an incident in a fiction story I would be free to embroider but all the man did was stand, face the conductor, and show the conductor his fist. He was speaking somewhat louder than conversational level, but not shouting. Once he saw the PC, not another word was spoken by anyone. The PC never said anything. He didn't need to.


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## words (Sep 11, 2012)

garza said:


> Can a first paragraph be redundant? I intended it to set the scene, as opposed to using dialogue as I'm fond of doing. Whenever I start with dialogue, I'm told I should have something to set the scene first.
> 
> The mood of a person I can only indicate by that person's words and actions. Big Man was talking loud, behaving in a combative manner, and turning red in the face, so I felt safe in calling him angry. The conductor never raised his voice, but continued to ask the man for the additional money to pay the children's fares, so I felt safe in saying he remained calm. As a reporter I try never to go inside someone's head, but only to write down what I see and hear. That's what I did here.
> 
> The kids never said anything. They only pointed out their father to the conductor.



Only trying to help!!

There are two ways to consider the story.

First as an experience, and in that regard it cannot be "wrong", it was happened seen from your perspective.

The second is to view it as an engaging narrative. Which first and foremost must get people to read, read on to the end, and then satisfy them as readers. In that context - I am simply giving my perspective as a reader. The first para did not make me want to read, I had lost interest before line 2 - Line 1 was somehow disjoint. 

The last somehow lacked punch. and emotion.

"Big man angrily paid the conductor, but pay him he did slamming the bills down into his hand. You could see by the fire in his eyes, he was still seething! It seemed it was all he could do to stay still for what remained of that journey, because small man PC stayed watching."

Anyway it is just one avid readers opinion, trying to be helpful with a critique, that is all!!
So what happened to the PC - did he stay? Did he move on...did "big mans" attitude change when he did? The curious readers mind at work. Good writing in my view answers the questions in the readers head just as they occur to him..


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## garza (Sep 11, 2012)

words - Thanks for your continued interest, but keep two points in mind. 

First, this is a straight-forward non-fiction account of an actual incident. The dialogue is reproduced verbatim from my notes taken at the time and the action was exactly as described. There was no slamming of bills. As I recall the man pulled a five-dollar bill from his wallet - obvious by the red colour - and a dollar coin from his pocket, and handed them to the conductor in a manner no different from the way we all paid our fare when the conductor came through the bus. There was no lingering sign of antagonism. I guessed, but did not say in the account, that he was somewhat embarrassed at being called to order by a policeman, even if only by a tap on the shoulder. Remember that his three children were witness to the entire event.

The PC had nowhere to go. Many of us, including the PC, were standing in the aisle of the bus and the PC was crowded in between me and other passengers. As is usual with Belize policemen he was not armed and when he saw the man pay the conductor he neither said nor did anything further - the incident was closed.

Here's something I learned many years ago in reporting from battlefields and protest demonstrations. Lots of adjectives and adverbs tend to get in the way of accurately describing events. They are needless clutter. Either the incident itself is of interest, or it is not. If it is, no dressing up is needed. If it is not, no dressing up will help. When I tell how Jackson City Police fired into a peaceful civil rights march by students and killed a 21-year-old unarmed man standing only a few yards from where I stood, piling on lots of subjective description will not make the story more important. Either murder is interesting, or it is not. The shooting, by the way, happened on Lynch Street, which some people found symbolic.

Second, even when writing fiction I try to write simply. The first editor I worked with when I was 14 taught me the meaning of what became my two favourite words: precise and concise. Taken together they mean you should say exactly what you intend to say, and say it with the fewest and simplest words possible. I enjoy telling stories, and I enjoy telling them with language that is lean and, hopefully, strong. If the story itself is of no interest, then I have no desire to force interest with overheated language.


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## Cran (Sep 11, 2012)

garza said:


> *The first editor I worked with* when I was 14 taught me the meaning of what became my two favourite words: precise and concise. Taken together they mean you should say exactly what you intend to say, and say it with the fewest and simplest words possible.


First editors, especially in print journalism, can be powerful mentors. 
Mine didn't say it, but had a big sign on the wall behind her desk - *No Dross*


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## garza (Sep 11, 2012)

In my case there were two quite different editors in my early days. The first was Mr Wilkes of _The Biloxi-Gulfport Daily Herald_. Mr Wilkes was a stern, no-nonsense perfectionist. I don't remember ever hearing him called by his first name. He printed my first-ever newspaper article in September of 1954, taught me the inverted pyramid style, and gave me those words 'precise' and 'concise'. 

The second was Clayton Rand of _The Dixie Guide_. Mr Rand was an easy-going publisher/editor who had little interest in printing hard news. He left that to Mr Wilkes and _The Daily Herald_. _The Dixie Guide_ was weekly and was more a community and society magazine than a newspaper. It was Mr Wilkes who encouraged me to write two versions of my stories - one for himself and one to take to Mr Rand. 

The style I used here is the way I would have written the story for _The Dixie Guide_.

Edit - An afterthought. With the demise of the local newspaper, is it yet possible for kids to get a start as a stringer the way I did? Is there a place where the eager youngster full of 'cheerful self-appreciation' (to quote Isaac Asimov) can hand in a story and picture of a scout camping trip as I did and see it in print the next day?


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## Cran (Sep 11, 2012)

garza said:


> The style I used here is the way I would have written the story for _The Dixie Guide_.
> 
> Edit - An afterthought. With the demise of the local newspaper, is it yet possible for kids to get a start as a stringer the way I did? Is there a place where the eager youngster full of 'cheerful self-appreciation' (to quote Isaac Asimov) can hand in a story and picture of a scout camping trip as I did and see it in print the next day?


For the Daily Herald, I imagine it would have been a two par terse account of the facts for the local news briefs, and only then if PC Short, Big Daddy, or the conductor was a local identity. 

Local newspapers are still operating here, some as a centralised network with local news and comment sections (eg, the community newspaper group), others as fully independent operations, but none that I know of as daily press.  The trend in that respect is definitely towards digital media with its much broader range of standards.


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## TheFuhrer02 (Sep 12, 2012)

Bilston Blue said:


> Such respect from authority is refreshing, but then again, I'm wondering whether or not the police officer carried a gun. Respect comes naturally from an unarmed man when confronting an armed man.



As that particular Robert de Niro film goes, "Most people respect the badge, but everyone respects the gun."


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## garza (Sep 12, 2012)

Uniformed policemen in Belize are not armed except under extraordinary circumstance. The PC on the bus was not armed. The badge was enough. Except for the drug sub-culture, Belizeans are peaceful people. Sometimes we get angry and talk foolishness, and sometimes when we've had a drink we start a fight and spend the night as Her Majesty's guest, but mostly we behave well enough that a simple word of admonisment or perhaps a tap on the shoulder from a policeman is all that's needed.


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## Olly Buckle (Sep 12, 2012)

TheFuhrer02 said:


> As that particular Robert de Niro film goes, "Most people respect the badge, but everyone respects the gun."


This strikes me as something like the slave owner's concept of respect, that has more to do with fear and deference than mine. I see respect as something earned rather than imposed, and a man willing to police the streets armed wit a short wooden stick earns a lot more respect from most people than one with a gun. Actually I don't think it is true under any definition, there is always someone mad enough to show he despises you.


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## Ddesmond (Sep 28, 2012)

I hope the constable reads this and understands that us regular people see a normal day at "the office" to be one full of bravery and dedication.


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