Dirty Boots: Page and Sam, #1

By Mike Purfield

Demon?

 

Killer?

 

Angel?

 

Or all three?

 

Teen-ager Page Shelly is dying. Realizing there's nothing left to live for in her shallow New Jersey suburb, she runs away to Florida to spend the rest of her day on the beach.

 

Until she hits Sam Young with her car. A quiet boy on the run from a mob that thinks he's a monster. Sam has nothing to live for either, except a place in his dreams, a place of  love: Sedona, Arizona.

 

Page helps Sam cross a weird and violent America. But who will kill her first, Sam Young with his out of control powers or the serial killer hot on her back.

Or will their futures be tied together?

 

Join the many readers of cult fiction and buy this horror, sci-fi, fantasy, young adult novel packed with satire and humor that had been out-of-print for almost 15 years.

• Language: English
• Publisher: trash books
• Release date: Nov 1, 2001
• ISBN: 9781393014522

Mike Purfield

Mike E. Purfield died many years ago. Before his death he wrote many novels and short stories that have appeared in print and on the web. He had also worked as a book reviewer, a screenwriter, and a bookseller.

Book preview

Bury That Shit So Deep So It Will Never Be Found

In 2001, I published my first ever novel Dirty Boots through a Print-On-Demand company called iUniverse, which was associated with Barnes and Noble. POD publishing was on the rise and would influence self and traditional publishing. Traditionally books are commonly printed on system call offset publishing where they created thousands of books for a cheap price for the publisher. POD is as described. A customer order a book and one is printed out and mailed. Publishers could also print bulk in POD but it would be more expensive than Offset.

Back then, I was a screenwriter. I’ve written about twenty scripts, had a few bites but was then thrown back to sea. Reflecting now, I’m positive those bites were scams that wanted my money and I’m glad I was tossed off. Dirty Boots started as a screenplay that I wrote as a late teen. That would explain some of the juvenilia in it. I wrote four parts and even revised them under the eye of my screenwriting teachers at The School of Visual Arts. One of my teachers Bruce Hidemi Sakow who was a writer on Friday the 13th part 4 (Like, I know. OMG) told me I could use the Dirty Boots script to find an agent. As you can imagine, I was overwhelmed. I never had a professional support me like that before, or any other adult, or teacher.

Growing bored with my adventures in film writing, I wanted to do something different. I wrote some novellas and short stories as a kid so I  try that out again. I bastardized the Dirty Boots script into a novel. Since I came from a film school background that taught the DYI way of creation, it seemed natural that I should go out and publish my book n my own. Why not go through the traditional route? 1) DIY was my way of life. All my heroes did it. I’m a punk so that only seemed natural. 2) Although, I read books like an addict, I didn’t know any better. Maybe I still don’t. Hence, why I went the POD self-publishing route.

I soon learned that there was a rash of conservatism in publishing. Writers don’t self-publish. It’s a sign of an amateur despite some of the greatest works of literature that have been self-published a hundred years ago. No, writers sent out their submissions to large and small presses, collect rejections and feedback, re-write to death, and accept small advances for rights to their work. Advances if you were lucky. Because of the POD revolution, many small presses were not offering advances and a lot of them were started up by people who went to college and majored in How To Screw People. This line of conservative thought is still out there, but instead of a scream, it is a whimper.

As one could imagine, I had a lot of trouble marketing and convincing people to buy my book. Contrasting with today, ebooks were still gestating. PDF (That could be read on your desktop or printed out. This was long before common laptops and hand-held devices.) was the only thing going around. Some small publishers experimented. I recall one ebook format (The name I can’t recall today. Pretty sure the publisher was from Australia) that replicated turning pages like a real book, a punk version of Kindle today. Other writers who got advances or cash for their short stories looked down on us who went the indie route. We didn’t put in our dues as they did. Often, we suffered humiliation and isolation. We struggled to concinvce people to buy our work. Like convincing a publisher to buy your work? The good part was that sometimes the castrated writers and I would help each other out.

I never made much money with Dirty Boots. I got a lot of raves reviews and a fan or two but it never matched the greatness in my mind. I understood why. It was poorly proofed and had the SP stigmata. Ok. Lesson learned.

I decided that my next book would be published traditionally. A company called Publish America released Stereo Sanctity. I soon learned the Publish America was not a traditional publisher but another scam POD publisher like iUniverse. PA held my rights for 7 years (iUniverse only held 3 years) and made their money when the authors bought their other services like marketing, etc, or from bulk copies of the author’s books. (Mind you the price of author copes was not cast price like one could buy today.) Although they offered a higher percentage royalty (I recall 20% compared to a traditional 2-10 %) to compensate for not giving a royalty, I never made much money back.

So from that moment on, I naively decided to go the traditional-offering-advance route. At the time, it was the only way to find money and respect from the public and my peers, things I thought I needed from my writing. I continued to write novels in the horror genre and publish short stories accepted in non-paying, For-The-Love markets. I was determined to be paid a royalty whether from a large or small press, even if they took  my rights forever or the advance was $100, I didn’t care. I should have. The market was riddled with scam publishers even if they offered advances.

Dirty Boots almost got published by a small traditional press. Was even able to wrangle a cover artist I loved. I was riding high at finally finding a small bit of respect. But then that small press crashed, owing people money and so were my chances of Dirty Boots seeing a legitimate light.

Eventually, I got tired of the incestuous horror writers scene. Like any job market, it’s who you know at the bar or conventions and I rarely drink or have a social disability. I got a little bored of horror and wanted to challenge myself. I felt my strengths were in Young Adult characters and oddness. So I changed my name to M.E. Purfield and started writing contemporary YA and fishing for a publisher.

I found that the YA publishing world just as incestuous. A mess of agents and publishers corralling writers that have sold their rights and soul for a pittance. Don’t get me wrong. I met a lot of great YA writers and a handful of compassionate agents gave me useful advice. A few even read my whole manuscript and suggested how I should re-write it to be accepted by the world. I ran farther than when I wrote horror. It was a hard journey but one that learned from.

At the same time, Kindle and the millionaire-writer-who-self-published exploded onto the scene. It was overwhelming. I studied it. By now I knew I could never make hard cash with my writing but maybe I could make a living? Cash-in on .001 % of that explosion?

I researched on this new format of ebooks and found that many companies stressed how it was a tool, not a publisher. A writer held all their rights and made 70% royalty on ebooks! You could buy services to enhance your publication or DIY.

Shit, what do I have to lose? Traditional publishing, to survive, was turning into legal scammers, so I should experiment with the third YA I wrote called jesus freakz + buddha punx. The process and marketing were easy. People liked the book, I got rave reviews, and I made some money. From there, I did another and another book. I missed the million-dollar wave of the revolution (many of those names are gone and I’m still here) but I still made some scratch and continue to do so.

What was great about this Kindle revolution was that traditional authors were releasing their back catalogs, the books they still held the rights for, onto this new platform. Some of them, if their traditional publisher wasn’t offering a good deal, would self-publish new material. Some abandoned transitional publishing completely and released through the new platforms for life.

It’s strange. What was once looked down upon was now the cool, respected thing to do. Maybe because the Big 5 of publishing is screwing so many writers. Today, I see so many writers that used to spout the conservative mantra of Self-Publishing Is Evil and a Joke now releasing their books without a traditional publisher. Maybe they rationalize it somehow. Either way, it makes me smile.

I continued down my YA route that also turned back to horror and series writing. I promised myself that I would never republish the two old novels under Mike E. Pufield. Despite being stories I love, they were sloppy. I was learning to write in public, finding my voice. They should never see the light of day. But I recall something editor Ellen Datlow once said when I saw her speak once. If you write something, you might as well put it out there. This coincided with the Heinlein Rules of Writing #4: Keep a story on the market until it sells.

I experimented again with Stereo Sanctity, which was out of print since I got my rights back, on ebook platforms. The son of a bitch sold a few copies. Go figure. But that was it. I would never do that with Dirty Boots. Never.

Recently, I ego surfed on the net and found a few message boards with recent posts asking about Dirty Boots. Where can they find a copy? Others echoed that question. Another poster linked them up to a bootleg site that had the ebooks for free.

Huh, someone wants to read Dirty Boots? Are they insane? Was it that notorious or good? Then, I recalled something Dean Wesley Smith once said. It doesn’t matter what you think of the story, if it is good or not. Someone may love a story you hate and want it.

So here we are today. A few months shy from Dirty Boots’ 20th anniversary. This is not the exact copy that was printed through iUniverse. I cleaned it up a bit for market many years ago but the story, scenes, and effect are the same. Still, I don’t think it will make the grammar police happy. Most grammar fascists are never satisfied. But so what. It made me happy to write it back in the day and maybe it will make a reader happy today.

I.

Counting Backwards

Monkeys or Cigarettes

In Owel, New Jersey Page Shelly sat with her by-name-best-friends and listened to them talk. The five preppy girls sat on the bleachers at the football field. In their gym clothes, they watched the rest of the class run laps past them. A cool, late April breeze blew through their uniformly straight, highlighted hair and cooled off their six-hour dry skin. Page sat behind the others and moved the red bangs from her eyes.

Hey, remember that blood drive they had last month? Debbie asked. She picked school-illegal gum from her teeth with a paint-chipped nail.

Ugh, said Terry. That was just so sick. Can you imagine having someone else's blood running through your body? Even if I were dying, I still would not want to live with that feeling. What if they were some loser or freak?

Well, you don't seem to mind having Eric's rinky-dinky dick going through it, laughed Jodi.

Talk to me when you know what you’re talking about, little girl with the cherry between her legs.

Debbie let out an aggravated breath. I'm trying to say something here. They all looked at her. Thank you.  Now guess what I heard when I was signing in late today?

What was your excuse this time? asked Terry.

Don't worry about it, Debbie warned.

You didn't miss your period again?

It was just late. I didn't want to come in if I was sick.

Being pregnant is not a sickness, Page offered.

Uh, hello. Do you throw up? Debbie asked.

Yeah, of course, Page sighed.

"Then it’s a sickness.

Now, Debbie continued, you know that disease they said that can only be found in faggots and monkeys? You know, the kind that gets in your body and destroys your yellow blood cell and makes you and die.  Well, they found it in, like, six kids in this school.

All the girls made a face of silent disgust. Except for Page - she rolled her eyes.

Jodi turned to Debbie. By monkeys you mean colored or the real monkeys?

Real monkeys.

Oh.

I hope they’re going to get those kids out of the school, Susan said. That could be, like, breaking a health code or something. What if they got in the food and spread it around?

My God, we could all be infected right now.

Disgusting!

They should take them out of the state.

Shit, the country.

Oh, I got it. Wouldn't it be cool if they could put them on a little island like they did with those dirty little Haitian people.

You mean leopards.

Duh, you shit head. I think you mean lebbers.

Oh, right.

It would be the most humane thing to do.

Really.

If anyone really cared they would drop a bomb on the island. No one should have to live with that disease.

More ideas passed out of their mouths.

Page kept her mouth shut. She wanted to tell them how stupid they were. But although most likely joking, she knew they would think she was one of the so-called six infected kids. Which was not far from the truth. Page did have the ‘Disease’. But she wasn’t part of the blood drive. Page skipped school that day.

Short of Funds

This was not what Allison Mascis had in mind at all when she became a teacher. She knew it was going to be a hard job. Harder than finding a school that would take her right after graduation. But this kid was too much work for her low salary.

Sam Young attended her classroom for remedial English at Greensboro High School. Most of the kids in her classes were either, by her standards, cracker-punks in jeans and flannels or coke-bottled kids. She hated coming to work. Whenever Allison parked her car and walked to the school, she sensed how the kids looked at her. Wild animals. The older teachers said not to take it seriously. All she had to do was show no fear. She tried, but failed.

The 16 year-old in front of her had not been like the others. Sam looked small and frail with unbelievably white skin and long brown hair that looked like he had cut with a hunting knife. Throughout the year, Allison developed a theory that Sam was terminally ill. He accumulated more than thirty absences, but there was never a note from a doctor. She confronted Principal Greenberg about it. He assured her that the matter was handled; she was not to worry about it.

Odd.

Now, she sat in the class after school and tried to tutor him in the basics of English. She couldn’t