An orphan, Nick had an advantage most of the rest of us don’t have, he could pick his own last name. So Nick picked “Avalon.” Although he didn’t have the pedigree, it helped him fit in with the wise guys who ran his neighborhood and for whom he did an occasional job in his chosen profession, hit man. As tough as he was, however, everyone knew Nick had a soft spot for the people, the little guys, the poor, the downtrodden. So, when a Mexican drug cartel decided to move in on the neighborhood, it was Nick everyone relied on to save the day. As he told his friend, the reclusive Max, who lived beneath the streets, that was okay with him, he didn’t like “Spics” anyway. In fact, Nick had no use for what others politely called “minorities.” As long as those “people” stayed out of his neighborhood, Nick could care less what they did. And that went doubly for “fags.” He’d stopped his old street gang from beating on them but he liked to invite them to hang out in some other neighborhood. Nick had it all figured out. Yeah, until he rescued Helen after she’d been kidnapped by the cartel along with the local crime bosses’ daughter. Helen was everything Nick wasn’t: refined, educated, mannered. She was also a knockout, one of those “broads” who was naturally, unconsciously sexy. Nick was hooked. Hell, he was in love. There was only one problem. After she disappeared, Nick found out the woman he’d fallen in love with was, well, a guy. Nick looked it up. Helen was a GD “trannie.” After going ballistic, Nick realized he couldn’t stop thinking about Helen. Suddenly, his way of looking at things wasn’t so clear anymore. Along with taking on the wise guys and the cartel, trying to avoid a bloodbath in the neighborhood, Nick was going to have to work out his own personal crisis. It was going to be a tough few days for Nick Avalon, hero of Til The Last Breath…. They teach you in writing schools (mostly avoided by successful writers) to “show, don’t tell.” As in “real life,” you let your story unfold through your characters. Any “message” a story conveys is found through the progression of your characters as they deal with the conflicts in the story. As in life, good fictional characters reflect their own unique attitudes. Every writer of fiction, at some point or another, has to decide how much he or she will “sanitize” their characters. Good writers conclude, early on, their characters will be engaging, compelling, only if they are as close to real as possible. And, depending on the character being portrayed, that may mean depicting the character in ways that will make the author cringe. In extreme cases, the author make risk public ridicule or even threats of bodily harm. By far the greatest threat to an author is that his or her work may be censored. It is now commonly known that Mark Twain used the “N” word extensively in Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. It reflected the speech and attitudes of the characters at that point in American history. Often overlooked in the debate about whether it is appropriate to remove the “N” word from these classics is the recognition that both tomes include a strong anti-racism message, delivered, as in any good novel, through the characters. Now, some Auburn professor has produced new versions of Twain’s books deleting the “N” word. His justification seems to be that it is better to have sanitized versions than banned versions. In fact, it is better to have an original version and continue to oppose those unenlightened people who have the gall to decide, at any given moment in history, what should be “politically correct” and available for others to read or see. Nick Avalon can be seen to be bigoted and intolerant, even though he doesn’t see himself that way. His journey to enlightenment, flawed and incomplete though it may be will be all the more compelling because of who he is when he starts that journey. In the final analysis, a life judged “well lived” reflects the effort more often than the result. In this context, the use of derogatory slang by characters, though intolerant, even offensive, may produce better results toward achieving tolerance than trying to ignore the problem in the first place.
