Purveyor of sheer awesomeness.
Joshua Hale Fialkov is the Harvey, Eisner, and Emmy Award nominated writer of graphic novels, animation, video games, film, and television, including:
THE LIFE AFTER, THE BUNKER, PUNKS, ELK'S RUN, TUMOR, ECHOES, KING, PACIFIC RIM, THE ULTIMATES, I, VAMPIRE, and JEFF STEINBERG CHAMPION OF EARTH. He's also written television including MAX’s YOUNG JUSTICE, NBC's CHICAGO MED and NETFLIX’s AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER.
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To whomever it may concern in regards to Mr. Jefferson Clement Walker, He keeps a dog-eared copy of Dorian Gray on his shelf by his desk. He tells people it's the same one he's had since high school, but that's just another of his lies. Like the abuse, the affairs, the Hollywood stories, hell, even his own name. The only true thing that he's said the whole time I've known him was that when he set foot in Los Angeles for the first time ten years ago, he knew that he'd never go 'home' again.
Los Angeles is a place to be born again, to change your life, and redefine your history. All he bothered to change was his name. The man lived here as he lived there. Except that now he would tell bigger stories, unprovable due to distance and, frankly, he delivered it all with such panache that there was rarely a person who doubted his twisty turny stories. Besides, isn't it better to know the guy who beat up six guys before being jumped by the carnies at the Tulahuset State Fair? Isn't it better to know the guy who fucked the girl who went on to be the star of the show your girlfriend makes you watch every Wednesday night?
No, Los Angeles allowed him to be who he always wanted to be. The tortured, tormented, zit covered, tiny-dicked jerkoff he was back home was erased in favor of a 'rough and tumble smartass know-it-all of arcane acerbity', as he often would refer to himself. And we all fell for it hook line and sinker. When an old friend told us he fucked him out of a thousand dollars, we figure, maybe that friend is just a bit sketchy. When word came back that he may have tried to fuck your girlfriend, it must've been the other way around. Pulling him off of some random stranger after a night of drinking becomes just a funny story. Taking phone calls at all hours as he 'plans his next move,' be it career or stickup related, was just part of his charm. Begging for a couple hundred to pay off 'the guys' he's been playing poker with for four nights is just the price of friendship.
Until one's usefulness has been worn out.
Then, there's no place colder than his empty stare. No theft, be it literal or figurative, is out of the question, and every minute in his company makes you into a walking, talking, breathing target for his rage, self-loathing, and, most of all, his fickle sense of humor. For years, we'd watch him alienate those around him one by one. I'd say 'those that he loved', but, a man like that, he was incapable of love. He was incapable of anything other than the selfish thoughts and instinctual moment to moment chemical explosions in his brain pan. Each of us laughed as he turned his razor tongue on another innocent soul, knowing somewhere in our minds that we may be next.
But I never thought he could do what you good people think he did. I know for a fact that he could never have done what the people on the news and in the paper and in the court room all said he'd done. But, when you stop and think about it, sure, he probably stole the forty grand, why not? It was only money to him. And, then, well sure, he could've been freaked out, grabbed a gun (hell, he was the kind of guy who casually told you about the 9mm stashed behind a bottle of Cutty Sark that he used to get out aggression by shooting the rats and cats and bats and whatever other rhyming four letter furred creatures entered his back yard), and sure, maybe in the heat of the moment, a shot got squeezed off, and that shot went through the throat of the guy who was running the card game. That shit happens, and I could see how it could go wrong.
But the little girl. No. Even him, he couldn't do it, not the way they say he did.
I've known him since he moved here. I ain't saying I know him any better than anybody else, and, in fact, I doubt any of us even know him at all. I've seen him do awful things, but, truth be told, every once in a while, I've seen him do something halfway decent.
I wish I could be there today to speak on his behalf, but, the last time we talked he told me he wanted me dead, and he'd do it his-own-damnself if he ever set his eyes on me again. I like to think it was probably just him talking tough, but, I figured best not chance it.
Some people have trouble doing the right thing. I wrote this letter, in spite of all that went on, because I like to think I ain't one of them.
Allen Gilbert Douglas California State Penitentiary
P.S. For what it's worth, I might not of done what he said I done, but I surely deserved to be sent here. -- Joshua Hale Fialkov Los Angeles, CA 3-9-09
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Posted the following on a discussion board a little bit ago, and realized I never said anything about Watchmen on the site, so, here's my extremely brief review. I saw Watchmen at a screening a couple of weeks back. It's way better than I expected it to be, and, in fact, I found myself inspired by it. I hadn't read the graphic novel in at least ten years, and liked the movie so much, I went out and rebought it, and reread it.
It's different than the book, obviously, but, some of the choices are actually pretty great (the squid never worked for me in the book, and what they came up with instead really makes infinitely more sense.) Overall, there's considerably more style than substance, but, the material itself is so substantial, that it ends up being okay.
So, yeah, go in with low expectations and be pleasently surprised.
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Today is the day that air mail first commenced. Today is the day that my car broke down. Today is the day that she left. Today is the day that everything went wrong. Today is the day that things finally started going right. 1919. 2002. 1997. 2005. It's a nexus. The day that everything converges, and then falls apart. Every year, it builds, every year anticipation takes the reigns, and all logic, hope, truth... drifts away. Today is the day when the diagnosis came back negative. Today is the day when they told me there is no cure. Today is the day I took my first steps. Today is the day that I knew I would make no more. 2006. 2007. 1980. 2008. Beginnings and endings, each twirled as if to make the ugliest piece of whirlyart out of my life. Our of that one day in my life. Today is the day I heard about that job. Today is the day that she came back. Today is the day that truth became lies. Today is the day that doesn't matter much to anyone else. 1999. 2001. 2003. 1984. So, then, here I stand, today. The today today, facing the future, and facing the past. Every one of those things happened on today, just not, today. So, I decide, this year, this time, today will be nothing more than just today. Just another in a never ending string of faceless, meaningless days. I call in sick to work. I turn off my phone, unplug the internet. Today will be the day that nothing happens. I turn off the tv. I close the door to my room tight, and pull the comforter over my head. I close my eyes, and, for once, I sleep.
The pounding starts not soon after that. The pound pound pound pound on the wall. The drilling. The hammering. I place my palm on the wall next to me, and feel every tiny shockwave from the hammer, and the shrill vibrations of the drill. I don't care, today is the day that nothing much happened. Today is the day that I'm going to have a regular day like everybody else in the world. Today is the day.
The pounding stops before noon. I start to drift back to sleep. I'm woken to heavy steps, and the sound of sobbing. The sobbing of a woman. A girl. Next door. I've met her once or twice, I've watched her a few times other than that. She's not pretty. Not traditionally, but what does that mean anyways? She never smiled. But, neither did I. She never laughed, but, then, neither do I.
We rode the train to downtown together once. Together, but not. We found ourselves both walking towards the station at the same time. Then we found ourselves riding the same train, in the same car, and sitting next to each other in silence. We both got out in downtown, we both walked to the library, up the long steps, and into the new wing. I looked at her, for just a second, and she caught me. We both smiled, and continued walking. I cleared my throat to speak, and she looked at me with her wide brown eyes.
"Hi."
She smiled a halfway vacant smile. That was not today. That was a different day. We ran into each other a few more times, and smiled quietly to each other when we did. And now, she's crying in the next room. I touch my hand to the wall, as if to send comfort through the drywall dividing us. And then I remembered. Today is the day that nothing much happened. Today is the day that I heard my neighbor cry through the wall is dangerously close to something. I pull the pillow over my head, and start to drift off once again.
The thud shook the whole building, and I woke up instantly. I suppose I knew what the sound was, it was a little over a hundred pounds of meat falling hard. But, Today is the day that nothing much happened, really. So I ignore it. I ignore the whining sound of something swinging. I ignore the incessant phone ringing through the wall. I ignore the sound of a door being kicked in. I ignore the sound of the police and a sobbing mother, and the confused yelps of my neighbors cat, staring at the scene before her. I ignore the sound of the cart wheeling my neighbors body out of her apartment, and down the steps, into the court yard, and out to the meat wagon parked out front.
Today is the day that nothing much happened. Nothing but the girl who maybe I liked, who maybe I could've loved, who maybe was the one I was meant to be with, hung herself from the wooden beams in her apartment.
Today is the day.
Joshua Hale Fialkov Los Angeles, CA 3-3-09
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