Guy Cuddy Must Die

But he won't. Because Guy Cuddy's the killer

I’ve always been attracted to outlaws, and I don’t know where that comes from. Well, that’s a lie. I’m related to one of California’s greatest outlaws. And got to hear stories about El Famoso when I was a child. I used to think of Joaquin Murrieta as a bandit. But that word carries with it some weight I don’t think is fair to give to Joaquin Murrieta. It means someone who commits crimes, especially in a group. But its origin is an Italian word, “Bandito.” And that translates roughly to, “an outlawed or banished person.”

As I grew up, grew older, and became a writer, words started to take on specific meanings beyond a sort of casual, “you know what I meant” way. Good thing, too. If words didn’t grow in value for me, what the hell kind of writer would I be?

In a lot of books about the California Gold Rush, Joaquin was described as a bandit and a thief who spread terror in mining camps. But if you walk around the other side of that description and end up thinking about him as an outlaw, instead of a bandit, you get to ask different questions.

Why was he outside the law?

Was the law fair to him?

Was he just a psychopathic killer?

If you do that, you start walking around on the edge of something instead of in the center of it where easy opinions are made.

What happened to him that made him like that?

Fuck anti-hero, maybe he was a no adjective needed, straight up, HERO.

And I admit another attraction to outlaws has to do with the way I’ve historically approached authority and authority figures. Questioning authority is never an easy way to go about life. Being someone in fourth grade Sunday school asking how come there were no dinosaurs in The Bible is no way to get to the head of the class or be one of the children selected to light an advent candle. For sure.

Doing your high school oral presentation on “Who’s my hero?” about Irish Republican Army soldier Bobby Sands while he is in the midst of the prison hunger strike that killed him is no way to be asked to speak at graduation. For sure.

But that’s okay because the outlaw trail is supposed to be a lonely one, right? According to all those stories of a loner riding in and out of town, having lived by their own code to the detriment of any companionship. Outlaw is a lonely business, baby. Someone on a horse, riding into a setting sun, sticking to their principles and always alone. It’s a great story.

It’s a story about sacrificing comfort, companionship, community and a future to stick to your guns. Literally. The stuff of legends, poems, dime store novels, B-movies, great songs, and the satisfaction that you stood for something.

It can also be something concerning.

It is often something concerning.

Concerning to people around you who give a shit about you.

Concerning to yourself, too. If you stop and consider how concerned people who give a shit about you are about you.

Say, for example, you are at a phase in your life where, just as an example mind you, you have become the symbol of authority. Let me see if I can create out of whole cloth and thin air some things that would give you a picture of what I mean.

You’ve been a showrunner.

A Professor.

The Deputy Director of a film school.

Now an Associate Dean.

The Secretary-Treasurer of the Writers Guild of America.

These made-up examples above could turn someone who loves outlaws into someone who is the kind of person who should find outlaws and bring them back into the law. Into the fold. Into the organization. Into line.

Or maybe It’s just maturity. That’s it! I’m older now. I understand things better. I have an ability to see… nuance. Angles. I have empathy. I’m not just the outlaw riding out of town, dragging a coffin with the bad guy I killed inside it. I’m also understanding the bad guy had a wife maybe or was a small business owner and now all the people that work in the bad guy’s stationary store are going to be out of work. Yeah. The bad guy owned a small stationary store. It was called “Pens, Plumas, Papel and Paper.” The bad guy was bilingual. He came from Spain, and he missed his wife. She didn’t want to move to the Old West with him. She just didn’t see the same vision he did. Of being a bad guy AND selling high quality pens and paper. That’s it. It’s just being mature.

But if it’s maturity, hang on. If moving from outlaw to authority is about gaining experience. Does that also mean being an outlaw DEMANDS youthful vigor. Or is it that just the nagging old authority figure that tells anyone bucking the system, “You’re just too immature to know better? You’ll come around, you’ll see. Home ownership, parenting, seeing things from all sides, etc. And If you don’t come around, well then, you’re not a romantic outlaw. You’re an immature psychopath who needs to be broken.”

You know who can do the breaking down of your stupid immature ideas of fairness, and justice and ideals? An Associate Dean in Charge of The Union Treasury. Ugh.

Even the fact that I’m spending time tumbling these ideas over in my mind is proof that I can no longer consider myself any kind of outlaw. Truth.

Also, time spent on this is time not spent on naming the Stationary Store Bad Guy.

Guy Cuddy. That’s the name. Guy fell in love with how an expensive fountain pen felt as it glided across parchment vellum. And he didn’t care who he had to steal from to afford his pens and his papers. That’s just how Guy Cuddy is.

The only way out of this cul-de-sac of shedding is to rebel and turn the dumb idea of a criminal who has great cursive writing into a whole story by itself. Like any good psychopath would do.

Guy’s also a killer of dreams. He offers dance classes in the back of his store at night. And he tells his students they are amazing and every one of them should be dancing on Broadway. Only to pull the rug out from those students when they invite their parents and friends to a recital where he stands up after each performance and critiques it as horribly amateur and fully hopeless. Bad guy, huh? Know how he became such a bad guy? When he was younger and in love with Lisa Roeske, she told him what he wanted to hear – that he was an amazing cursive writer and his “f” and “S” were so good it was like a poem of one letter when he would write it. But the truth is that Guy Cuddy was left handed and his cursive was always smeared across his expensive parchment. It looked like a toddler got his hands on a black crayon and just stabbed the coloring page with it. When he entered a hand-writing contest at the county fair, he was laughed out of the fair. And on that day, he vowed that he would do whatever it took to never have anyone have fake confidence in their abilities ever again. His actions might feel offensive and mean, but he was a true outlaw, dispensing justice for people’s feelings of confidence. He also killed Lisa Roeske for shining him on about his handwriting and buried her body under the floorboards of the butler’s pantry of his mansion.

Yeah. Guy was rich. And also a stone cold murderer.

The way to stay where I want to be is to keep following where an idea takes me. Structure? That’s for authority figures. Types that would have wrapped up this essay about my love of outlaws with a circular idea like this:

I grew up watching The Natural. It made me want to be a baseball player.

I grew up watching All The President’s Men. It made me want to be a writer..

I grew up watching Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. It made me want to be an outlaw.

Then when I was a grown up, I realized I didn’t want to be any of those things. I wanted to be Robert Redford.

But me? Outlaw me? He ends this showing you the cover to his new novel about Guy Cuddy, the Cursive Killer.

Welcome to the new readers. A big week of growth. Keep telling people about this space. Word of mouth is the best way to grown things.

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