The call came in at 3 a m: a body burned beyond recognition in the hills (insert location, Laurel Canyon, Newton, the outskirts of Moline.). The detective (insert socio-economic thumbnail here: a Tai Chi master and Lesbian loner,a sharply loveless nearly middle aged military veteran who, if he held strong beliefs would resemble Robert Jordan, but because of ((insert malady here: the Viet Nam War; divorce and bourbon; downward economic mobility; manic depression; disability; or other invisible neurological disorders)) he can only live in the moment like a restless and superior animal.(You can insert other liminal sleuthing figures: shaken priests, rabbis, awol professors, secretive homeboys, just remember that your shamus needs her or his alienation for the private investigator must be a ritual figure who functions best when he or she is out of town by choice or exile.)
The call came in at 3 a m. The body was found in an empty swimming pool like some character in a Robert Altman film but it was unidentifiable, only the soles of the feet intact.
Detective Ernest Fenellosa lit an Egyptian cigarette and peered down at the remains. He could smell the eucalyptus leaves or the wood smoke or the wild cinnamon ferns–it doesn’t matter, he had a good nose.
He saw how the body straightened itself as it burned.
He remembered a hundred cruelties and kept them to himself.
The detective possesses dramatic irony.
He can hold several thoughts in his head simultaneously. He knows that Sordello can be Browning’s Sordello or Ezra Pound’s or the Sordello belonging to the girl next door.
His only sentimentality occurs in sleep.
He doesn’t believe in lyrical epiphanies. For instance he likes the people who love the opera but not the opera itself. He has conditioned reflexes.
He sees that the victim is a message but of an infinitely small type.
His book of science often comes apart in his hands. He reshuffles the pages.
One tends to like him more than the poets. He understands that not all movements are for effect.
This is a relief.
Those whose fidelity is engaged with silence are the best at asking questions.
S.K.
Planet of the Blind 