When out reading or when in no particular hurry, if someone decides to speak with me, I will make a few notes—in this case on the cover page of the book in hand and then reconstruct the conversation later—usually not all of it. For instance, I was still learning this new person's dialect as we discussed boxing, so did not include much of that in this reproduction, but used it to learn his style of expression. Reconstructing monologues and dialogues helps me write fiction. It is a mental exercise I used to develop the ability to reproduce the words of people I interviewed for the Violence Project in 1996, who were not comfortable with someone writing their every word. I use a notation system, marking roughly a word or a phrase for every paragraph spoken. These notes help me reconstruct the person's speech from memory, and the notation—if done judiciously—is not distracting to the speaker. The upper limit is about 900 words for this type of 'semi-quote.'
With an underatanding of how the person speaks, the quotation of key sentences, my memory of the subject under discussion and my observations of his behavior, what I have below is about the upper limit for reconstructing a conversation that the subject will later read and say, "Yeah, that's me, you nailed it." Another test is to have a reader call up and say, "James, was that person in this article so-in-so?" Of course, without a tape recorder nothing is assurdly a direct quote. However, with a tape recorder, nothing is real and uninhibited. So, in essence, what I use interviews for is developing the ability to sketch realistic charcters through dialogue in fiction. The initial training though, came in attempts to faithfully record people's stories in their own words between 1996 and 2000.
I was sitting on a bench reading The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche when a man approached me and stood off two paces, crossing his forearms and laying them over a rail so that I could see his hands. He was a thickly-built, wide-headed, light-skinned black fellow, preparing to speak with me and not wanting to threaten or spook me. I looked up from the book and we nodded to each other, and he said, “Good morning, sir. A good book?”
“Yes,” I said, placing the book face down over my left leg. It’s by H. L. Mencken, who used to be a famous Baltimore newspaper man.”
“What’s it about?”
“The philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, a German who believed that most people were not worth much.”
“Sounds like a smart man. Is that your favorite kind of book?”
“No, I prefer action to thought—like reading history and adventure.”
“What about self-help? Have you read Jack Canfield’s Success Principles, or The Richest Man in Babylon?”
“No, I haven’t, but I’ll look into them.”
“I read self-help, started readings self-help in prison. Best thing I ever did. My name is Nick, sir. I’m a cook.”
As we shook hands I said, “Nice to meet you, Nick—James.”
“Why are you reading that book?”
“I am writing a book about Baltimore, and Mencken is my inspiration in terms of looking at the urban setting in general, plus he is the most famous Baltimorean.”
“Is this your first book you are writing?”
“No, I’ve been writing full time since two-thousand-and-ten, and I wrote my first book in ninety-two.”
Nick’s eyebrows raised in amazement and he said, “How many books?”
“I’m not precisely sure, but I published eleven books over the last two weeks, had seven completed before I retired—I think I have ninety-four in print. I’m currently writing twenty-one books, so it gets kind of confusing.”
“Wow, then you probably like to get stories from people, right.”
“Yes I do—what’s yours?”
Nick sat down and scooted around on his butt until he was comfortable on the bench and said, “Well I boxed, was a good amateur boxer—Tyson was my hero—cried when he lost. Shannon Briggs saw me sparring in the gym one time and told me I had real potential, told me to stick to it. But I got off course, ended up in prison.”
“Sir, do you believe a book can save your soul?”
“Based on personal experience, I would have to say, ‘yes.’”
“Well that’s what happened to me in prison. I read this book, The Secret Law of Attraction, read it seven times before it sunk in. It was difficult, but it sunk in. It’s about visualization. You have to be able to visualize something before you can achieve it.”
I interjected, “Like envisioning yourself winning a boxing match?”
“Yes, exactly—you know this, you read the book!”
“No, it’s a generally held principle in athletics.”
“I see,” he said, as is eyes stayed wide and he seemed to consider many things from a dazed state and then went on with knitted brows, “I had organized a block party one time, all by myself with no help and no money, using facebook and instagram and twitter. I just had such a strong vision of me cooking out at this block party—I’m a cook, by the way. Then everybody started telling me it was going to rain, my party was going to get rained out. The news said it was going to rain, but I kept with my vision, and lo and behold the sun shined and the party was a success. People said it was the best party ever—I cooked for everybody, three-hundred people. It was just fantastic.
“I smoke weed a lot.
“I really wanted this one apartment near this place where I smoked my weed in a field. My friends told me that I would never be able to rent that apartment because the lady had her son living up in there. But I stayed steady smoking weed in that field and looking at that apartment—steady envisioning myself in that apartment, smoking my weed in that apartment. And don’t you know, I got that apartment through no action of my own, just through the law of attraction. When I found out it was open I applied and got the apartment."
Nick pointed to a Latino man approaching and said, “This is my friend, Fernando. The audio books I listen to drive him crazy—he’s my roommate. But he reads too.”
Nick introduced us and we greeted each other, me noticing that Fernando was closer to my age than Nick’s age, Nick looking to be in his mid-thirties. Nick smiled as he left with Fernando and said, “It’s been so nice speaking with you, James. I hope to read one of your books one day.”
