{"id":17305,"date":"2022-08-12T07:00:45","date_gmt":"2022-08-12T11:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/?p=17305"},"modified":"2022-08-06T17:27:41","modified_gmt":"2022-08-06T21:27:41","slug":"free-fiction-even-when-you-try","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/free-fiction-even-when-you-try\/","title":{"rendered":"FREE FICTION: &#8220;Even When You Try&#8221; by Bruce McAllister"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"8765\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/dungeon-count-verlock\/cd-genfreefiction\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/CD-GenFreeFiction.jpg?fit=830%2C120&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"830,120\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"Cemetery Dance Free Fiction\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/CD-GenFreeFiction.jpg?fit=830%2C120&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-8765\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/CD-GenFreeFiction.jpg?resize=830%2C120&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"banner that says Cemetery Dance Free Fiction\" width=\"830\" height=\"120\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/CD-GenFreeFiction.jpg?w=830&amp;ssl=1 830w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/CD-GenFreeFiction.jpg?resize=350%2C51&amp;ssl=1 350w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/CD-GenFreeFiction.jpg?resize=768%2C111&amp;ssl=1 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 984px) 61vw, (max-width: 1362px) 45vw, 600px\" \/><\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Even When You Try<br \/>\nby<br \/>\nBruce McAllister<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>She insisted from the first time we met &#8212; which was after work, at a diner on Melrose, looking at each other down the counter and speaking at last &#8212; that she was the reincarnation of Marilyn Monroe, and in the end I did believe her. At first, I didn\u2019t know what she meant. I hadn\u2019t looked at her eyes enough. I hadn\u2019t yet discovered the mole she kept covered with make-<br \/>\nup. She was an exhibitionist, sure, and beautiful, and could do things to you with her voice the way MM could (or so they say), but I didn\u2019t really know what it meant for someone to live every day like that, being someone else, someone who\u2019d died, who\u2019d killed herself. I didn\u2019t know she\u2019d beg me to take her to plays and at intermission look for erudite men who (like Arthur<br \/>\nMiller, the first husband) might be playwrights. She\u2019d say, \u201cLet\u2019s go talk to that guy &#8212; the one with the wool jacket.\u201d Because she was so pretty, the guy would\u2019ve already noticed her and didn\u2019t mind our approaching him, didn\u2019t mind talking to us, or to her. I didn\u2019t know it would mean that even when we were just walking down Santa Monica Boulevard she\u2019d be looking for guys with faces like that baseball player, Joe DiMaggio. It was sad how desperate she was, as if looking for her first love, or only love, or a father she\u2019d lost.\u00a0 She\u2019d wear dresses the wind could move easily, and she\u2019d stand over grates in the street (LA does have a few) waiting for her dress to be blown up by the wind and paparazzi to appear suddenly and take pictures, but it never happened. She just stood there waiting. She hung pictures of Robert Kennedy and John Kennedy &#8212; both of them &#8212; in our bedroom on Helena Court, and looked at them sometimes; but when she did, it made her cry, though she wasn\u2019t sure why, she said.\u00a0 She hadn\u2019t known Bobby all that well, she said.\u00a0 When she was unhappy, the sex was great, as if she could forget herself just a little, but I also know she wanted, in the middle of it, to call me by a name other than mine. She never did. \u00a0She didn\u2019t want to be that cruel even if the entire thing &#8212; being a famous person instead of just a girl from the old housing tracts of Torrance &#8212; was a living hell for her, even if I didn\u2019t matter really who I was because I wasn\u2019t any of the guys she actually wanted and needed, any of the guys who could have kept her from killing herself and didn\u2019t. I just wasn\u2019t, so when the time came, I helped her with it. It was the least I could do.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mcallistercoaching.com\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bruce McAllister<\/a>\u00a0is an award-winning West-Coast-based writing coach, writer in a wide range of genres, consultant in the fields of publishing and Hollywood, workshop leader and an \u201cagent finder\u201d for both new and established writers. As a writing coach, he specializes in all kinds of fiction, non-fiction, poetry and screenplays.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Even When You Try by Bruce McAllister She insisted from the first time we met &#8212; which was after work, at a diner on Melrose, looking at each other down the counter and speaking at last &#8212; that she was the reincarnation of Marilyn Monroe, and in the end I did believe her. At first, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/free-fiction-even-when-you-try\/\" class=\"more-link button bg-gold white\">Continue Reading!<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;FREE FICTION: &#8220;Even When You Try&#8221; by Bruce McAllister&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[316],"tags":[1737,2755,1622],"class_list":["post-17305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-free-fiction","tag-bruce-mcallister","tag-even-when-you-try","tag-free-fiction"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>FREE FICTION: &quot;Even When You Try&quot; by Bruce McAllister - Cemetery Dance Online<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Free Fiction exclusively from Cemetery Dance: &quot;Even When You Try&quot; by Bruce McAllister\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/free-fiction-even-when-you-try\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Cemetery Dance Online\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.cemeterydance.com\\\/extras\\\/free-fiction-even-when-you-try\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.cemeterydance.com\\\/extras\\\/free-fiction-even-when-you-try\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Cemetery Dance Online\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.cemeterydance.com\\\/extras\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/30439c850dbb0e44ac4d2ddd09fb2d61\"},\"headline\":\"FREE FICTION: &#8220;Even When You Try&#8221; 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