Rise of the Undead 1943 (9 page)

Oddball, Vanessa, and Pilch sit in the back of a truck as it
heads down a desert road. Oddball holds Vanessa close, staring glumly out at
the desert landscape whipping by.

“Never heard you this quiet before,” Pilch says.

Oddball turns to him, “Just thinkin’ about what I’m gonna
tell the grandkids.”

Pilch thinks, “Just tell ‘em . . . Just tell ‘em, 'the
desert’s a bitch.'”

Vanessa laughs, and Pilch looks down at the scimitar he
holds in his hands, then out at the sand that stretches to the horizon.

Having squandered my youth as a deviant and troublemaker, I
started my adult life in the military. No judge forced me into this, nor was I
drafted, conscripted or unduly influenced by recruiters. I volunteered.
Shocking, I know.

I was trained as a paratrooper and learned by being pushed
out of airplanes. I’ve had many bad landings, wrecking crops, scaring small
children, and I even broke a church steeple once.

After the military, I earned a degree from Texas A&M
University. Although Texas A&M is an agricultural school, I never attended
a single agriculture course. I think it only fair to be up front about that.

Having earned my degree, I planned on a career in
counter-terrorism. This stems from some deep-seated psychological problem that
I never have put a finger on. Worry not; these testosterone-driven, misguided
dreams have long since receded to the depths of my mind, and they rarely make
an appearance.

While in Los Angeles interviewing for a job, I met a guy at
a bar (a common story starter for me, as I spend a lot of my time in bars). He
took me along to a Hollywood party where I met some other guy who offered me a
job on a movie. To make a really long story, which should be told over several
pints, short, I spent twenty years making movies around the world where I
actively kept up the guise of an “Ugly American” while honing my craft as a
storyteller and author.