WHANSAN

NECON—the time of year when I am reintroduced to muscles I forgot I had, thanks to exertion at the softball game. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I met up with Charles and Cara Colyott at the Philadelphia airport and drove with them to Roger Williams University for my fifth (I’m fairly sure) NECON. Checked in to my dorm room with Jack Haringa and Constantine Markopoulos (my roommate, Mark Steensland, arrived later) and went straight to the quad, the center of most of the weekend’s activity. A couple of dozen of us went to dinner at Jacky’s Galaxie and then back to the quad for saugies and late night drinking. I only managed to stay up until 12:30 that first night. There was occasional rain, that evening, which mean that the nearly 200 attendees all huddled together under a canopy that covered approximately twenty square feet of concrete. The sound level in there was amazing, with 80% of those nearly 200 people talking roughly simultaneously.

Friday morning was mini golf. This is the first year I’ve participated. I don’t know why I skipped it all those other years, but it was a lot of fun. My foursome included Charles, Cara and Mark. I haven’t swung a golf club in decades, but I didn’t humiliate myself. I even got a hole-in-one and came close to other impressive shots through the sophisticated application of trigonometry and luck. After golf, a bunch of us ran into each other with bumper cars. Woo-eee. Road rage expunged.

Panels filled up much of the rest of the day. The author signing was that evening—I didn’t bring along anything to sell this year but still ended up signing a bunch of stuff. I got four co-authors to sign my copy of A Dark and Deadly Valley. I’d been hoping to get Destination Prague before the weekend, but it didn’t show up in time. Watched Mark & Rick Hautala’s two short films, Lovecraft’s Pillow and Dead@17 and another short based on Chet Williamson’s Ghandi at the Bat, which was hilarious. I managed to stay up until 1:30 am that night, but I had to be up on time the next morning because I was moderating a 9 am panel.

Surprisingly, all my co-panelists showed up (though Darrell Schweitzer straggled in a little late) and we had a decent audience and a good discussion about “what’s hot” in horror. More panels, lots of good food at the new cafeteria, and then the aforementioned softball game. Desperate to scratch out a win, Tom Monteleone brought in ringers and stacked the team. Even so, we made a game of it, and almost tied things up in the final inning after a seven-run rally. My shining moment came a couple of innings earlier when I, playing right-center-middle-back-a-bit field (AKA sixth outfielder from the left) caught a well-hit fly ball, to the astonishment of everyone present, including myself. Given my own poor eyesight, I won’t make implications about the visual impairment that resulted in the game ending with me craning my neck to look at a ball sailing several feet over my head—and having it be called a strike.

Saturday night was the game slow—I mean show—followed by the roast, which was hilarious as usual. Chris Golden’s son learned a lot about male anatomy during Doug Winter’s section. Then it was back to the quad for the final round of drinking and socializing. Another 1:30 a.m. night, which for me is almost like staying up all night. I had to leave for the airport at 9 a.m., but ended up sitting around in Philadelphia airport for 7 hours for my connecting flight. I made good use of the time by reading nearly 450 pages of The Queen of Bedlam by Robert McCammon. I’m enjoying the heck out of that book.

Now it’s back to the real world for another year. NECON is over almost before it began, it seems, but I had a great time reconnecting with so many people and meeting some other folk for the first time. I ate far too much, drank more than usual, stretched my leg muscles sprinting around the outfield (and walking uphill to the commons), and talked and laughed tons. I can hardly wait until next year.

I received an acceptance letter this morning, which was a nice way to start the post-NECON era. My short story Talking Old Soldier will by published at Espresso Fiction on October 16. Espresso sends out a new story every Tuesday, so this will be my first “pushed” story. I’ll be interested to see how it is received and what sort of feedback it generates. It’s a crime story set in an isolated Mexican cantina.