04-17-2014, 01:33 PM
I first met Lucius Shepard in 1980. That was before he became a name. We’d both made the cut for Clarion that year, a six-week intensive science fiction writing workshop held at Michigan State in East Lansing. In all, there were 19 of us from different walks of life. At our first gathering, Lucius did not impress. He was a monstrous slob of a man, shoddy in dress, with straggly hair and unkempt beard; and his fragmented speech (“Hey, man, you know, like...”) promised little in the way of prose. But soon after he submitted his first story, we realized he was a major talent.
As it turned out, he and I were suite-mates (our adjoining dorm rooms shared a bathroom). Though complete opposites (I was neat, he was a slob; I was quiet and reserved, he was loud and gregarious), we got along great. I’m not entirely certain why. He’d kid me a lot, abuse me in good-natured ways, such as stuffing me butt-first into garbage cans. He stood 6’ 3” and topped 300 pounds, while I was 5’ 9” and barely tipped 125. I was the Gulligan to his Skipper, and he’d often call me Li’l Buddy.
Six instructors (all professional writers) taught the workshop, each for one week. The final two were Kate Wilhelm and Damon Knight, a husband-and-wife team who had founded the long-running Clarion workshop. We’d meet in the mornings to workshop stories and listen to lectures. The rest of the time was ours to write. But no one could spend all that time at their typewriter, and as the workshop wore on, we partied more and more. More often than not, Lucius was at our center. He had so much charisma. Besides his writing, he was a talented musician. Armed with a guitar and a deep resounding voice, he drew us like the Pied Piper. Still, now and then he pulled back from the group, confiding in me that he was not comfortable taking so much control.
Lucius sometimes got out of hand with the kidding and pranks. One time, while sipping a beer at a party, he casually noticed a lady workshopper in a nice dress standing close by. She had her back turned, busy talking to someone. As I watched, he tipped some beer down the back of her dress. He did it without thinking, just spur-of-the-moment. Shocked and furious, she told him off and stormed away, leaving him wondering what he’d done. As for me, how many trash cans did I need to be stuffed into? And did he have to hide my food in the cafeteria every time I looked away?
He was always walking through the connecting bathroom into my room to see what I was up to. My calendar was an endless source of amusement for him. He found it incredible that someone would actually schedule things. So one day I jotted an entry for the following week that read, “Kill Lucius.” It didn’t take him long to notice. “What’s this about? You’re going to kill me?” He seemed genuinely perturbed that I would make such a joke. Later that same day, he came into my room and asked if I’d checked my calendar lately. I said no. “I think you should check your calendar,” he pressed. So I did. He’d written, “Kill Cranefly,” on the day before I was to kill him.
I’ve depicted Lucius as an impulsive and undisciplined goof-off, and he was; but he was also profoundly and worldly wise. While I was a product of Indiana with its Republican mindset and believed in the good ole US of A, Lucius had travelled extensively and experienced the reality around the globe. Cynical and contemptuous of politics here and abroad, he was street-wise, jail-wise, third-world-country-wise, aware of how the world really worked, and how, on pretext of doing good, governments exploited the poor and disadvantaged at almost every turn.
He had a deep resentment and contempt for authority and the status quo. He would denigrate or damage things for no apparent reason. He once wrecked an elevator’s ceiling grid while we were in it. When finished eating in the cafeteria, he’d often toss the silverware in the trash along with scraps. He seemed to despise the American way of life, or at least the propaganda machine that would have us believe we were morally and ethically superior to anyone else.
Lucius trusted me enough to share some very personal things. Of his upbringing, he told how his scholarly father would take him out on long walks in the Virginia countryside, and upon their return would pose, “Now, Lucius, tell me what you saw.” Lucius would have to give a very detailed accounting. I envied him this writerly training at so young an age. But there was a dark side to his childhood, one full of abuses, which came to a head when, at age 14, he sat down to dinner with his parents and woke up strapped down in the back of a van. His parents, deeming him uncontrollable as he got involved in drugs and rock music, had him institutionalized. It took Lucius three months to convince an aunt that he wasn’t crazy. Assuming the role of guardian to get him out, she raised him thereafter.
Lucius joined a succession of rock bands, acting as lead singer, songwriter and guitarist. One of them even played warm-up for The Band, but proved too overpowering (making The Band sound tinker-toyish) and lost that gig. He claimed that Bob Seger had stolen one of his songs, and he had a lawsuit pending against him. He told of a performance in a seedy bar where the drummer kept ogling a motorcycle chick. Lucius warned him time and again to stop, then fled the bar as the motorcycle gang charged the stage to break the drummer’s hand. As for drugs, Lucius would try anything handed to him. He once walked out of a drug deal gone bad where someone was about to have his face pressed against a red-hot stove burner. He’d also travelled the world and was brimming with anecdotes about South and Central America and other exotic places. Lucius made me aware of how little I’d lived.
Our writing styles were very different. While my stories were inventive, plot-driven, and minimally descriptive, his were all about setting and atmosphere, rich in figurative language. He seemed to have a fair amount of respect for what I was doing, while I was in awe of what he could do.
Lucius was the big discovery at Clarion that year. Instructors praised his writing and encouraged him to pursue it as a career. One told him to stop wasting his time in the science fiction gutter and write mainstream. Lucius was euphoric at all the attention. But midway through the workshop things got complicated. Though married, he became involved with another workshopper I’ll call Lady X. Doe-eyed, raven-haired, six feet tall, she was a knockout. She was also married. One morning her husband walked in on them unannounced. Lucius’s wife soon knew the score as well.
The last two weeks of Clarion turned hellish for Lucius. He couldn’t write, couldn’t sleep. He was doing more drugs than usual. He confided in me a growing concern for his own sanity, because he’d begun to hallucinate. In particular, he kept seeing eyes floating about in the air. The morning after he told me this, I was up early and typing away at my desk when he entered through the adjoining bathroom. Coming up behind me, he slapped his big palms down on my shoulders. “Hey, Li’l Buddy. How’s it going?” “Not bad,” I said, still typing away. He kneaded my shoulders a bit, then inched them closer to my neck. “Did you put those fucking eyes up on my ceiling?” I had spent the evening before drawing up a bunch of eyes, then carefully cutting them out. When Lucius stepped out of his room, I’d gone over, climbed up on his desk, and carefully taped the eyes to the upper wall and ceiling. In hindsight, it had been a terribly insensitive act. When I admitted that I might have done it, Lucius shouted, “Jesus fucking Christ!” and mock-choked me. That morning he had been in a very difficult phone conversation with his wife when he leaned back in his desk chair and stopped in mid-sentence, seeing eyes.
One writing teacher at Clarion -- I believe it was Algys Budrys -- lectured us that succeeding as a writer has less to do with talent than with being good at nothing else. That upset me. I knew I had talent, and wanted to believe it would lead to writing success. But in hindsight Budrys was spot on. Writing is such a difficult profession -- requiring so much self-discipline -- that if you have any other profession to fall back on, you’re apt to settle for that. Of all of us at Clarion that year, Lucius came closest to being good at nothing else. A 9-to-5 job seemed inconceivable to him. He would not, or could not, do it. That made his writing a sink-or-swim proposition.
After Clarion, I returned to my software programming job in Paoli, PA. Meanwhile, Lucius pursued writing as a profession -- second only to his pursuit of Lady X. Most in our workshop thought he and Lady X would hitch up. They had been so passionately involved at Clarion and seemed the perfect beauty-beast match. Some felt they were destined to become the next Damon and Kate, who had long served as father/mother figures for fledgling science fiction writers. But while Lucius was quick to finalize his divorce, Lady X began to have second thoughts about ending her own marriage. Just as opportunity was shining brightly on Lucius, he was stricken with unrequited love; and this gaping mental wound would persist -- and permeate his writing -- through a good part of his life.
As it turned out, he and I were suite-mates (our adjoining dorm rooms shared a bathroom). Though complete opposites (I was neat, he was a slob; I was quiet and reserved, he was loud and gregarious), we got along great. I’m not entirely certain why. He’d kid me a lot, abuse me in good-natured ways, such as stuffing me butt-first into garbage cans. He stood 6’ 3” and topped 300 pounds, while I was 5’ 9” and barely tipped 125. I was the Gulligan to his Skipper, and he’d often call me Li’l Buddy.
Six instructors (all professional writers) taught the workshop, each for one week. The final two were Kate Wilhelm and Damon Knight, a husband-and-wife team who had founded the long-running Clarion workshop. We’d meet in the mornings to workshop stories and listen to lectures. The rest of the time was ours to write. But no one could spend all that time at their typewriter, and as the workshop wore on, we partied more and more. More often than not, Lucius was at our center. He had so much charisma. Besides his writing, he was a talented musician. Armed with a guitar and a deep resounding voice, he drew us like the Pied Piper. Still, now and then he pulled back from the group, confiding in me that he was not comfortable taking so much control.
Lucius sometimes got out of hand with the kidding and pranks. One time, while sipping a beer at a party, he casually noticed a lady workshopper in a nice dress standing close by. She had her back turned, busy talking to someone. As I watched, he tipped some beer down the back of her dress. He did it without thinking, just spur-of-the-moment. Shocked and furious, she told him off and stormed away, leaving him wondering what he’d done. As for me, how many trash cans did I need to be stuffed into? And did he have to hide my food in the cafeteria every time I looked away?
He was always walking through the connecting bathroom into my room to see what I was up to. My calendar was an endless source of amusement for him. He found it incredible that someone would actually schedule things. So one day I jotted an entry for the following week that read, “Kill Lucius.” It didn’t take him long to notice. “What’s this about? You’re going to kill me?” He seemed genuinely perturbed that I would make such a joke. Later that same day, he came into my room and asked if I’d checked my calendar lately. I said no. “I think you should check your calendar,” he pressed. So I did. He’d written, “Kill Cranefly,” on the day before I was to kill him.
I’ve depicted Lucius as an impulsive and undisciplined goof-off, and he was; but he was also profoundly and worldly wise. While I was a product of Indiana with its Republican mindset and believed in the good ole US of A, Lucius had travelled extensively and experienced the reality around the globe. Cynical and contemptuous of politics here and abroad, he was street-wise, jail-wise, third-world-country-wise, aware of how the world really worked, and how, on pretext of doing good, governments exploited the poor and disadvantaged at almost every turn.
He had a deep resentment and contempt for authority and the status quo. He would denigrate or damage things for no apparent reason. He once wrecked an elevator’s ceiling grid while we were in it. When finished eating in the cafeteria, he’d often toss the silverware in the trash along with scraps. He seemed to despise the American way of life, or at least the propaganda machine that would have us believe we were morally and ethically superior to anyone else.
Lucius trusted me enough to share some very personal things. Of his upbringing, he told how his scholarly father would take him out on long walks in the Virginia countryside, and upon their return would pose, “Now, Lucius, tell me what you saw.” Lucius would have to give a very detailed accounting. I envied him this writerly training at so young an age. But there was a dark side to his childhood, one full of abuses, which came to a head when, at age 14, he sat down to dinner with his parents and woke up strapped down in the back of a van. His parents, deeming him uncontrollable as he got involved in drugs and rock music, had him institutionalized. It took Lucius three months to convince an aunt that he wasn’t crazy. Assuming the role of guardian to get him out, she raised him thereafter.
Lucius joined a succession of rock bands, acting as lead singer, songwriter and guitarist. One of them even played warm-up for The Band, but proved too overpowering (making The Band sound tinker-toyish) and lost that gig. He claimed that Bob Seger had stolen one of his songs, and he had a lawsuit pending against him. He told of a performance in a seedy bar where the drummer kept ogling a motorcycle chick. Lucius warned him time and again to stop, then fled the bar as the motorcycle gang charged the stage to break the drummer’s hand. As for drugs, Lucius would try anything handed to him. He once walked out of a drug deal gone bad where someone was about to have his face pressed against a red-hot stove burner. He’d also travelled the world and was brimming with anecdotes about South and Central America and other exotic places. Lucius made me aware of how little I’d lived.
Our writing styles were very different. While my stories were inventive, plot-driven, and minimally descriptive, his were all about setting and atmosphere, rich in figurative language. He seemed to have a fair amount of respect for what I was doing, while I was in awe of what he could do.
Lucius was the big discovery at Clarion that year. Instructors praised his writing and encouraged him to pursue it as a career. One told him to stop wasting his time in the science fiction gutter and write mainstream. Lucius was euphoric at all the attention. But midway through the workshop things got complicated. Though married, he became involved with another workshopper I’ll call Lady X. Doe-eyed, raven-haired, six feet tall, she was a knockout. She was also married. One morning her husband walked in on them unannounced. Lucius’s wife soon knew the score as well.
The last two weeks of Clarion turned hellish for Lucius. He couldn’t write, couldn’t sleep. He was doing more drugs than usual. He confided in me a growing concern for his own sanity, because he’d begun to hallucinate. In particular, he kept seeing eyes floating about in the air. The morning after he told me this, I was up early and typing away at my desk when he entered through the adjoining bathroom. Coming up behind me, he slapped his big palms down on my shoulders. “Hey, Li’l Buddy. How’s it going?” “Not bad,” I said, still typing away. He kneaded my shoulders a bit, then inched them closer to my neck. “Did you put those fucking eyes up on my ceiling?” I had spent the evening before drawing up a bunch of eyes, then carefully cutting them out. When Lucius stepped out of his room, I’d gone over, climbed up on his desk, and carefully taped the eyes to the upper wall and ceiling. In hindsight, it had been a terribly insensitive act. When I admitted that I might have done it, Lucius shouted, “Jesus fucking Christ!” and mock-choked me. That morning he had been in a very difficult phone conversation with his wife when he leaned back in his desk chair and stopped in mid-sentence, seeing eyes.
One writing teacher at Clarion -- I believe it was Algys Budrys -- lectured us that succeeding as a writer has less to do with talent than with being good at nothing else. That upset me. I knew I had talent, and wanted to believe it would lead to writing success. But in hindsight Budrys was spot on. Writing is such a difficult profession -- requiring so much self-discipline -- that if you have any other profession to fall back on, you’re apt to settle for that. Of all of us at Clarion that year, Lucius came closest to being good at nothing else. A 9-to-5 job seemed inconceivable to him. He would not, or could not, do it. That made his writing a sink-or-swim proposition.
After Clarion, I returned to my software programming job in Paoli, PA. Meanwhile, Lucius pursued writing as a profession -- second only to his pursuit of Lady X. Most in our workshop thought he and Lady X would hitch up. They had been so passionately involved at Clarion and seemed the perfect beauty-beast match. Some felt they were destined to become the next Damon and Kate, who had long served as father/mother figures for fledgling science fiction writers. But while Lucius was quick to finalize his divorce, Lady X began to have second thoughts about ending her own marriage. Just as opportunity was shining brightly on Lucius, he was stricken with unrequited love; and this gaping mental wound would persist -- and permeate his writing -- through a good part of his life.