Well I thank ya for reading this here book, strangers! Not a lotta people clickin' on random novels 'bout road trips these days. You tend to get some real odd stories on this website --sometimes even about the devil itself.
Hahaha. Couldn't resist.
Alrighty. Time for this humble Jester to complete the daunting task of writing the post scripts; it's an activity we enjoy yet somehow can't physically do. They're like artists' statements. How the heck do they work??
Maybe we'll start of by saying: Mile 15 was written partially as a joke. It all started when my brother and I were driving along our local rural Canadian highway, laughing and joking about hitchhikers and the stereotypes that go along with them. The two of us have always shared one braincell between us, so we often make up miniature skits and stories while we're on our own. So we accidentally came up with the dialogue for Banjo-man Joe while goofing around in our father's pickup truck several years ago, and I later decided to create a script for a short film because of it. --Well, I say "short". The original draft was something like 40 pages long, which in the screenwriting world is not short at all. But all the loyal Jester readers here certainly know that this poor writer is not one for making things simple or quick.
It took a few weeks, but I typed the whole thing out sometime in the spring of 2021. A few film-maker friends of Jester's were thinking of producing it the following year, but nobody actually had the time or money to focus on it with all the other productions going on (turns out road-trip movies are complicated to make). Thus, it remained untouched for the past couple years as this goofy little story we put together for no real reason. However, that being said, it might find its way to the screen eventually if we ever figure out the logistics.
After finishing God's Gone AWOL (which you should go read right now if you haven't already!!!), this poor Jester was at a bit of a loss. We had a lot of personal struggles going on (because who doesn't), with little idea of what to do next both in writing and in life in general. There's a sequel to that particular ridiculously long and overly complicated book in the works right now, but Jester needed a break from that universe of angels and demons. Thus, we dug through the piles and piles of old scripts and shorts to find something worthy of our time and energy. Mile 15 seemed like the best candidate because it was so different from the other crazy things we've written. It was the break this weary Jester needed.
Good lord, I ate way too many chocolate chip cookies while writing this.
Unlike the other couple works under Jester's name, the characters in this story are pretty simple. Bill and Marty compliment each other in their subtle ways, which makes their interactions easy to write. Except for in the very beginning during Marty's valiant battle with a showerhead, the two characters never appear on the page without the other. They're constantly together, and therefore always have reason to build off each other. It makes it really easy.
On that subject, because someone is probably going to ask at some point: Bill and Marty are NOT in a romantic relationship. Yes, Jester is notorious for writing LGBTQ+ stuff, but their relationship --at least at the time of this story-- is entirely platonic. They truly love each other, that much is obvious. And I considered maybe having some obvious romantic tension in the story at first, but honestly, it felt better to leave them as a chaotic friendship duo instead. For this part, anyway.
Actually, in the short-film days, neither of the two had set genders as we wanted to leave casting open. I used he/him pronouns for both in the original text, but was ready to change either or both as soon as things were finalized. Neither Bill nor Marty inherently have to be male or female or otherwise. Maybe this is the author's pansexuality speaking, but it's important to state that gender has zero effect on the nature of Bill and Marty's relationship.
Moving on.
The three hitchhikers were the most fun part of writing. The totally-not-a-murderer character known only as "Scab" was just a fun play into stereotypes about hitchhiking. They're really just there for gags, nothing else. Banjo-Man Joe was of course the whole reason we wrote the story to begin with. He was created first, and then everything else was formed around him, so he's really the most important character and should be considered the protagonist %100. And as for Abigail... she sort of speaks for herself. White-clad women ghosts appear in tales and cultures from all of the world, to the point where they're a staple in pop culture media. It'd be impossible to write this book and NOT include her character!!! Over all, they were really fun and totally made it worth the trouble to write.
Russ was also pretty fun to think about. We all have at least one friend who went on to become a c-list celebrity after high school or college or whatever. Of course, Russ a little more dramatized for the sake of entertainment, but most of us know someone who's gotten lost in the sauce of semi-fame, so we know how annoying they can be at times (yes, I'm looking at you, Sid. We're not watching your Netflix show 'til you answer our texts).
That's all on the subject of characters. Let's talk about setting now.
You may have noticed that the story is very clearly set in the United States. Just based on timing/location, Bill and Marty are probably coming from Wyoming or Idaho. Their route goes down, through the canyons of Utah where they meet our protagonist Banjo-man Joe. And then through a series of chaotic government roads, they end up going around death valley and into the Sequoias where the car breaks down. It is hardly an advisable route if you're planning on taking a road trip, for obvious reasons. Although some of us would do anything to avoid driving in Las Vegas...
We spent a lot of time on the road when we were younger, especially in the western half of the US. Taxidermy hotels, saloons in the middle of nowhere, chaotic and improvised travel breakfasts, waving hands out of open car-windows... a lot of the story was just based on lived experience. That's how most people write, I suppose. You write what you know, y'know. So hopefully this story did a decent job at capturing the strangeness of life behind a wheel in the modern "Wild West".
(Also, just a side note: this Canadian author tried its best to write in USA-language [changing spelling, using the imperial measuring system, etc.], but obviously we're Canadian so please excuse any errors on our part.)
That's mostly it for postscripts on this particular little novel. If you enjoyed the book, be sure to check out some of the other stuff Jester has written. God's Gone AWOL is a slowburn low-fantasy novel based on religious lore, so it's quite different from this story, but the writing style is mostly the same. Umbrella is a short novel about a woman x woman romance in a rural homophobic town, it's pretty short and sweet.
Anyway. Hope you had fun on this little road trip. It was really nice to have you along for the ride. And remember, where there are devils hidden in the dust, cover your nose so you don't breath them in!
Until next time,
-Red Jester
YOU ARE READING
Mile 15
Humor"Ridin' on down this ol' highway. Listen to what this Joe has seen. His story how he went astray, when he- Met the Devil on mile fifteen," Marty was voted "Most likely to become a pop-star" in his high school yearbook, but has yet to become anything...
