The Statue of Pan
Six Stories, a Novella, and Novella-Play
(Gay Fiction)
by Ken Anderson
Winner of the Saints & Sinners Playwriting Contest
&
Former Finalist in the Independent Publisher Book Awards
Museo Archeologico di Napoli
Two men lost in a snowstorm, a forensic psychiatrist and the man who stabs him, a well-adjusted music student and a sexually repressed tennis player, a former college quarterback and the twin of his former lover, a handsome escort and the client who hires him, a murderer and his trick, a music professor and a student with a foot fetish, a chicken hawk and a suicidal hillbilly, as well as the crazy crowds at Mardi Grass in New Orleans— these are just some of the exotic colors in the rainbow of characters arcing through this provocative psychological study. “When you live in a cold world,” one character says, “you have to build your own fire. Right?” See who strikes the spark in The Statue of Pan.
$18.95 349 pages
ISBN-10: 1934187143 ISBN-13: 978-1934187142
STARbooks, Box 711612, Herndon VA 20171 USA
To order, click Amazon.
Author email: islandhouse@netzero.net
Distributed by PDC in the United States,
Bulldog Books in Australia, and Turnaround in the United Kingdom
Click for excerpt below.
Photograph by David Butt. Cover for Hasty Hearts.
Hasty Hearts
Ten Stories & the Novel
Someone Bought the House on the Island
by Ken Anderson
Finalist in the Independent Publisher Book Awards
Charcoal sketch by David Mott. Cover for Someone Bought the House on the Island.
"Ken Anderson has created a haunting novel that is both erotic and romantic, a rare achievement." Richard Gould Independent Publisher
"[Anderson's] work reads like a long, wet dream filled with tranquil locations, perfect men and hot sex alfresco. His leisurely pace reflects the serenity of the Georgia mountains where much of his work is set, and his erotica is refreshingly intelligent where the characters indulge both their bodies and their minds.... One part thriller, two parts literotica, Someone Bought the House on the Island is a great read." Sean Meriwether, Velvet Mafia
"Anderson is creative, lyrical, and both amusing and insightful." Richard Labonte
Follow young Kevin, the handsome boy next door, as he steps from the provincial world of his youth into the seductive circle of Dieter and "the boys."
$13.95 ISBN 1-891855-24-7 416 pages
Star Books Press / Florida Literary Foundation
To order, click Amazon.
Charcoal sketch by Karen Bertrand. Cover for Intense Lover.
The Intense Lover: A Suite of Poems
by Ken Anderson
$9.00 ISBN 1-877978-80-9 96 pages
Star Books Press / Florida Literary Foundation
To order: islandhouse@netzero.net
The Dark Field
As soon as I fall asleep, I hear the rustle
of their legs brushing the tall grass,
and out of the dark field appear the men,
all the tricks and lovers in my life--
the blond and brunet, the awkward and the sure,
the sullen and the glad, all silvery
in the moonlight.
They touch me, and the air is a hundred hands.
They kiss me, and the air is an orgy of mouths.
But they never say a word. They only sigh and groan
or cry out in their pleasure or their pain.
Out of the dark field the men appear--
all the fathers and brothers and sons,
all the strangers and lovers and tricks,
the many faces of the archetype I crave,
the men, the man, the one ideal who waits
inside to walk into the field at night
beneath the stars.
The Dead Cyclist
I can see you hunched
over the handlebars, the scent-laden Florida wind
in your face, a wreath
of ivy
in your hair, your hair all streaming
with stars.
A sexy angel is riding
in back. She is holding on
to the saddle horn
of your crotch. She is toasting the moon
with schnapps.
"And where are you headed tonight?" she asks.
"To that wild apartment complex
in the sky," he says. "To that bitchin' pad
where all good bikers go."
Excerpt from "Snowbound,"
a story in The Statue of Pan
The temperature had dropped to freezing during the night, and light sleet and crisp snow had been falling all day. But Gun had cabin fever and decided that if he didn’t go somewhere fast, namely the bar, he would wind up shooting himself. Even he saw the humor in the pun. Besides, he was horny, so horny, in fact, he was turned on by just about anything he touched, his feet against the soles of his hiking boots, his palms against the supple leather of the chair arms. Even the seat cushion felt like the spread crotch of a man.
The roads were icy, and since the bar was less than a mile away, he thought he’d walk instead of drive and hoisted himself from the chair. He slipped into a canvas field coat, wrapped a gray scarf around his neck, and, pushing back a big handful of hair, slipped a gray knit cap over his head. He stuck a stud through the hole in his left earlobe and fastened it in back. Then he picked up his gloves and gave himself one last dubious look in the mirror.
The name of the bar, The Hot Spot, was spelled in pink neon lights, except that a couple of letters were broken so that the name actually read The Ho pot. The Ho pot, however, was the closest thing to social activity in a hundred miles, Stone Age as it was. The wind was up, and the letters glowed in a nimbus of mist, staining the snowflakes flying by the color of cherry petals. Beneath the lights, the silvery icicles hanging from the gutter looked like so many jagged, bloodstained teeth. Two ice-glazed pickup trucks, one black, one brown, huddled against the cold in the gravel lot.
The Hot Spot wasn’t so hot for another reason, too. It was almost as chilly inside as out. Gun could even smell the chill.
“Jesus, Jacque,” he groused, pulling off the cap. He shook the snowflakes off it, then stuffed it into a coat pocket. He pulled off the gloves, stuffing them into another. “You do have the heat on?”
The bartender drew a draft, staring at Gun deadpan, then escorted the mug down the counter. Just sitting on the barstool, though, struck a sensual match in Gun’s groin. He felt as if a pair of big hands had clutched his buttocks.
“Where’s Sylvia?” Gun asked, meaning the waitress.
“Car wouldn’t start.”
“Better off at home with this storm coming.”
Gun loosened the scarf, then swigged beer. The jukebox had been playing Elvis Presley’s “It’s Now or Never,” but when it switched to Paul Anka’s “Put Your Head on My Shoulder,” he noticed the group in the booth, two rough-looking men and, unfortunately, three equally rough-looking women. The dimly lit bar was basically a big rectangle with ragged maroon booths along the frosted windows in front, ragged maroon stools at the bar, a coat rack by the door, and a colorful jukebox at the end of the room. The blank space in the middle was the dance floor, and the bearish group densely wedged in the booth somehow seemed to counterbalance all the hefty emptiness.
“Hi, honey,” one called. “Come on over.”
The women’s hair was a contrast in colors: fire red, oily black, and bleached blonde a la Marilyn Monroe.
“Have a seat,” the redhead said, Siren-like. “I’m Miriam.” When he sat, she began the introductions. “This is Tie, short for Ty-rone.”
When he reached across Miriam to shake Tie’s hand, it was big, strong, and calloused. Tie’s round, blowzy face tended toward a sour expression.
“The one who did not read the warning label on her pills,” Miriam explained, “is Ruth.”
Ruth was slumped, head back, mouth open, against the booth’s padding. As far as Gun could tell, she was dead. She certainly wasn’t breathing. Her hair, all awry, looked like a nest of sleeping snakes.
“Stew’s the other fella,” Miriam added.
Stew flicked the tip of his nose a couple of times with his index finger as if sending Gun a secret message.
“And I’m Trudy,” the blonde announced. “His date.”
Trudy had a wad of green gum stuck to both a lower and an upper tooth so that as she chewed, it would stretch, but wouldn’t break. And her coif was so sprayed in place that chewing jiggled it, like a chandelier in an earthquake, no single hair or pendant, the whole thing.
“But I ain’t got a date,” Miriam said, pinching the back of Gun’s hand.
“Ow!” he blurted, yanking it away.
She whispered into his ear, “I kin take the chill outa the air fer ya.”
When she bit him, he slid away, feeling his earlobe.
“If that’s your idea of flirting,” he informed her, “I’m not into S and M, especially the M.” He showed everyone the red smear on his fingertip. “Imagine that.”
He rose, clutched his beer, and strolled back to the bar. But before he even settled on the stool, Tie appeared at his side, startling him.
“Why didn’t ya order the little lady a drink?” he asked. “You kin tell she wants ta wring your rag.”
“Wring my rag?” Gun chuckled. “I’d rather fuck you.” All he meant was that he was not interested, but it was, of course, a Freudian slip, though Gun didn’t desire him. When Tie shot him a sharp look, Gun said, straight-faced, “Uh. Not that the little lady doesn’t have her charms. It’s just that—”
“Just what?”
“Well,” Gun hesitated, trying to think of something. Finally, he confided, “Please don’t tell ’er, but I’m suppose’ ta wait ten days before havin’ sex with anyone. You know, till I finish the medication.” When Tie’s eyes narrowed to a squint, Gun added, “Clap’s a bitch.”
At that point, Paul Anka was finished, and a glacial hush fell on the room.
“If you’ll excuse me,” Gun said, stepping off the stool, “I have ta pee.” When he touched the restroom door, he turned and said, “Not lookin’ forward to it.”
In the restroom, he stood in front of the basin, looking at the small purple aneurysm where Miriam had nipped him. He tried to rub it out, then squirted a drop of liquid soap onto his fingertips and massaged his earlobe. After that, he stared at himself in the smudged mirror: pale skin, gray eyes, brown hair.
When he returned to the bar, the tension in the air was as palpable as the chill, colder. Tie and Stew were gone, but Miriam and Trudy were watching him as if waiting for the spell to take effect. When he dropped the dollar on the counter, he was not entirely surprised at Jacque’s hostility, either.
“Why you so fuckin’ rude to my customers?”
Jacque was leaning on the counter, hand on hip.
Gun thought he would try crossing the room without offending anyone, but as he did, Miriam and Trudy lunged across Ruth, whispering behind their wrists at such a furious pace they sounded like a crowd.
When he opened the door, a snow squall was blowing across the lot, and the two snow-encrusted men were posted by the pickups. Tie was holding a crowbar casually by his side, and Stew was hitting the gloved palm of his left hand with the wheel wrench in his right. Each was wearing his poker face, but even without the weapons, Gun could see what they were thinking. Gun was a big man with the meaty body of a boxer, but this time, when the fight-or-flight reflex kicked in, it was flight. He would simply rather run.
When he stepped back inside, Miriam was waiting for him, arms crossed, a cracked, red, patent-leather shoe turned to the side.
“How come you don’ wanna fuck me, big boy?” she snapped. “What’s wrong with you anyway?”
When he tried to jog past her, she stepped into his way, and he bumped her.
“You don’t like pussy?” she called after him. “What do you like, huh, cock?”
When he swung round the bar, he slammed into a door jamb, bouncing into a back room stacked with boxes of liquor. He managed to get out the back door just as Tie was chugging around one corner of the building and Stew around the other. The bar was on the edge of town, and Gun was galloping as fast as he could through knee-deep drifts across a flat field he knew went on forever. But soon he couldn’t see the men, or anything else for that matter, so he crouched in the snow, waiting for them. He was breathing hard and, at times, thought he saw them, light-gray blurs focusing out of the white, then softening back in. He put on the cap, pulling it over his ears, and wound the scarf around his face, leaving a slit for his eyes. He put on the gloves, squinting into the whiteout, but when he decided that they were, in fact, not following him, he set off at a right angle to his tracks, paralleling the road, he thought, then cutting back toward town.
Till then, he had thought of himself as having a good sense of direction —some inner gyroscope keeping him on course— but after thirty minutes, he knew he was lost. If he was going to find his way back, he realized, he would’ve. He stopped, looked around, and tried backtracking, but soon his tracks played out. The wind had erased them like pencil marks, each fainter than the last, fading, at last, into a blank page of snow.
He stopped and looked around again. Drifts sheared off, unraveling in long, sibilant, crystalline strings. A lull ensued, and the wind whispered over the field, gossiping about him, as he thought of it. When another gust hit, he could actually lean on it.
He set off on another tangent, his thighs tired from the high strides. Occasionally, he would step into a furrow or hole and fall, half swimming, half crawling back onto solid footing, and soon his boots and clothes were both miserably wet and ice stiff. His nose, ears, fingers, and toes began to ache, then went numb. His face felt like plastic, skin stunned with Novocain. The warmth in his body had retreated to his chest, he felt, had been turned down to a little blue flame, a wavering pilot light, and it was about an hour later, on the verge of collapse, head down, that he walked into something that gave a little but held, something that stopped him long enough for him to come back to himself: dark strings of icy barbed wire cutting across his chest. Then he saw the Buick Special, a red and white, four-door sedan half buried in snow. A drift sloped up and over the car on the road side, but the fence side was up only to the handles.
Gun leaned over the wire until he flipped, landing on his back, then sat up and crawled to the car. The window was glazed with ice, and when he pounded it, it crackled, and a young man’s face appeared behind it as if trapped under ice in a river. The young man was in the back, leaning over the passenger side. He studied Gun, then struggled to roll down the window. When there was enough room for his hands, Gun grabbed the top and pushed, and when there was enough room for him to climb through, he did, falling flat on the seat. He immediately noticed the warm male smell.
Bio
Ken Anderson’s Someone Bought the House on the Island: A Dream in Two Acts won the 2008 Saints and Sinners Playwriting Contest and will premiere May 9 at the Marigny Theater in New Orleans. It is a stage adaptation of his novel Someone Bought the House on the Island: A Dream Journal, which sold out and was a finalist in the Independent Publisher Book Awards. His latest book is The Statue of Pan: Six Stories, a Novella, and a Novella-Play, available at Amazon. Hasty Hearts, also available from Amazon, is a collection of ten short stories plus a reprint of the novel. His play, Mattie Cushman: A Psychodrama, has been produced twice and aired on cable. Permanent Gardens was his first book of poems; The Intense Lover: A Suite of Poems his second, available at islandhouse@netzero.net. As a student, Ken won Louisiana State University’s Caffee Medal for prose and the Louisiana College Writers First Place for fiction and First Place and Grand Prize for drama. A Professor Emeritus of English, he has been a consultant for a fine-arts journal and a literary quarterly. His fiction and poetry have appeared in over a hundred journals and anthologies. He has also written a screenplay version of Someone Bought the House on the Island and is looking for a producer or agent. Other screenplays include The Crystal Ball and The Statue of Pan.
Photo by Scott Osborne.