Writing Class, Assignment One!

We were given a list of characters to choose from (only two), which included
o Frank, a cop or ex-cop
o Billy, a cartoonist
(among others)

Items, to choose one of:
oIpod
ostaplegun
oduct tape
olamp
etc....

Location:
Seattle
Chicago
New York
Basement
etc.. (to choose one of)

A genre to choose one of:
o mystery
o romance
o crime

and a line, that we HAD to use: "Where are my pants?"

Then we had to do a story 1200 words or less. Got it? Okay. Here is mine, tentatively entitled "Where are My Pants?"


“‘Where are my pants?’” Frank read, looking over Billy’s sketch of the suspect. The image of the suspect was so clearly depicted that, if it weren’t for the grey hue of the pencil, it could easily have passed for a photograph. Every nuance of the witness’ statement had made its way onto the page; even the suspect’s heroin addiction was apparent by Billy’s careful shading. There was one problem, however. Just beside the suspect’s mouth was a talk bubble, a circle that turned into an arrow at one end. The sort of thing you’d see in a comic.

Frank glanced up at Billy from over the top of his glasses. They were poorly fitted and continuously slid down the bridge of his nose. Frank usually ignored this until they threatened to fall off his face altogether. “What the hell is this?” he asked, dryly.

“John ‘J.J.’ Markenston,” Billy replied, capping his pencil and appearing more than a little satisfied with himself. The breeze that somehow continuously blew through Homicide, though in the basement of the station, seemed to grow twenty degrees cooler instantaneously.

Pushing up his glasses, Frank crossed to the other side of his desk, where Billy proudly sat with both his arms and legs crossed, and set the paper down in front of the new sketch artist. “And why the hell is he saying ‘Where are my pants?,’ Billy.” It was the voice Frank usually reserved for interrogations.

Billy began fiddling with the desk lamp, switching it on and off, unscrewing the light bulb and dusting it with a sleeve, and twirling the long cord between his fingers. “The report said Markenston was last seen fleeing a building naked.” Billy emphasized the last word as though it was the most amusing thing in the world. “If I saw someone running down the street in the nude,” he drew the word out, “I think him being naked’s the only thing I’d remember.”

With a quick, almost violent motion, Frank grabbed the lamp away and set it beside his trash bin. “This bastard,” Frank continued in his cop voice, “raped, murdered, and disemboweled six women. Nice women, most of them mothers. It isn’t some joke, Billy. Show these ladies some respect.”

“Fine!” Billy replied, exasperated. “Do you want me to redo it?”

Frank picked up the sketch and examined it again. Calming himself as he walked, Frank returned to his side of the desk. “Nah. We’ll just erase your dumb ass comments.” He then noticed something written small, almost illegibly so, at the bottom of the page. He leaned into the document to check it up close. “Is that your signature?”

Billy spent the next half-minute rolling his chair slowly to Frank’s side of the desk, before glancing down at the drawing. “Why, so it is.”

“Are you out of your damn mind?” Frank snapped, causing him to receive a number of irritated glances from his colleagues. “He’s still out there. This would lead Markenston straight to you.” Frank took his glasses off and rubbed the bridge of his nose, as if to imply that Billy’s idiocy was giving him a migraine. “Billy, I don’t know if this is gonna work out. You can’t seem to take anything seriously.”

A pitiful expression covered Billy’s face as he looked up at his old friend. “I’m a cartoonist, Frank.”

Frank sighed, deep and loudly, before cracking his back, shaking out an old on-the-job injury. “That isn’t enough anymore. You’re gonna have to try harder. I’m trying to help you out, but both our asses are on the line if the chief ever sees the likes of this,” Frank slapped the sketch with the back of his hand, “Think of Marianne and the baby.”

“The baby!” Billy groaned. He let his head drop into his hands, melodramatically, comically.

“Let’s try it again,” Frank said. He got out a blank page and set it in front of Billy. “Just try to get in the mind that he’s after your wife, alright. He’s nothing to be laughed at.”

“This is creatively stifling,” Billy muttered under his breath.

“Amen, brother.” Frank stood and pat Billy on the shoulder. “I’ll go get the witness.”

Billy held up his coffee and attempted a weak smile. “Anything to pay the bills, eh?” He toasted.

Frank tipped an imaginary hat. “Anything to pay the bills,” he repeated.
It occurred to Frank, hours later, that he had never spoken truer words. When the sound of his cell phone woke him the next morning, presumably someone calling him to the scene of yet another homicide, Frank muttered to himself, “Anything to pay the bills.”