my son, still writing that snappy dialogue, shares his work here

It seems a lifetime ago that I opened the doors to our modest home and the children came in. Young storytellers, readers, dramatists who were willing to spend a summer evening collaboratively writing and performing their work. I'd clear the largest room of most of its furniture, roll out massive sheets of paper, give the kids a neighborhood full of houses and character sketches, and there they'd go. Or I'd read passages from Jack London and release the kids to work on their own fiery stories. Or I'd play music and they'd develop the movie for the melodies that played. One thing, then another, and the children were writing.

My son was always in the mix, and he had, even as a young writer, many talents—metaphors of surprising reach, unobvious tales. As he grew older, he settled into writing what interested him most—well-cast, long-running TV series. He likes a good whodunit. He's wildly at ease with dialogue. Time and again he has developed a plot that, weeks later, will be played out in the news. How did you know that was going to happen, we'll ask him. He'll shrug. He has been, from early on, the keenest of trendspotters.

His love for writing continues. He does it just for fun. He has an audience of two, his father and me, and we're always eager for his updates. What impresses me, still, is his snappy dialogue, the rat-a-tat between detectives, the hum-drum of the daily job juxtaposed against moments of clarified compassion.

Hey, I said to him yesterday, can I run a few lines from your latest on my blog?

Sure, he said. And so I do. It's the middle of a segment from "Brotherly Love." The detectives have a case they're trying to crack.

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“Luke,” Fisher said to Carbona. “You spoke with the victim’s friend, right?”

            “Yeah,” said Carbona.

            “She must have said something about another dude, right?”

            “No, actually. We asked if she knew why it ended but according to Dimitria, Anika’s feelings for Tyler had just faded.”

            “I’m surprised she wouldn’t have told Dimitria about this new guy,” said Randolph.

            Randolph looked at det. Koralis. “Don’t bffs like tell each other everything?” he asked.

            Koralis thought for a moment. “My sophomore year of college,” she said. “I had this roommate, Jessica.”

            “She good-looking?” Carbona asked with a smirk.

            “She’s pretty cute. She’s also pretty engaged.”

            “25 and already about to tie the knot?” asked Fisher. “Damn, that’s young!”

            Koralis rolled her eyes at the detectives, who were all chuckling. “Can I ever talk about my friends without you horndogs asking about how hot she is?” she asked, rhetorically.

            “Sorry,” said Fisher. “Continue your story.”

            “So, at one point, Jessica starts acting really weird. She started coming back to the dorm at odd hours of the night, I’d ask to hang out and she’d say she was busy. I finally sat down with her and was like, ‘Jess, what’s going on?’ At first, she said she was just busy with schoolwork and everything but finally she came clean. She had been sleeping with her psychology TA.”

            “That ain’t so bad,” said Fisher. “I was expecting you to say it was her professor or the dude who cleans the toilets.”

            “That’s what I told her,” said Koralis. “She was so embarrassed and I was ‘Jess, he’s a 24-year-old grad student. It’s not like you're hooking up with someone old enough to be your father.’ And even then, I wouldn’t have judged.”