Doubt, Handguns and the Advice of Raymond Chandler

"When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand."
-Raymond Chandler, Trouble is My Business-

Photo copyright - Steve Houk

If you know anything at all about me you know that my idol as a writer is Raymond Chandler.  Well before I entered a life-long career as an actual detective I was reading old Chandler paperbacks.  Not only was I in love with the genre, I was head-over-heels about the writing.

I never set out to be a detective.  About all that I did well was write.  I didn't know it at he time because the shitty creative writing classes I took in high school were all about poetry or about writing critical essays dissecting the fine works of established authors.  The few times I went off scipt as a teenager the teachers were dismissive and discouraging.

I ended up going to college chasing a degree in journalism.  I took Chandler with me. His prose was always spare and lean and I found that it translated well to newswriting.  Throughout the scattered and unfocused years of my college career it was the words of Chandler and Edward R. Morrow that led me to a degree in journalism. Perhaps not so much of a coincidence that I've ended up spending 30 years doing detective work.

In the introduction to Trouble is My Business Chandler talks about the demands for action when writing for the pulps, which led to one of his most quoted lines, "When in doubt have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand." This was Chandler being a bit facetious but, as a young man, I took it to heart as a metaphor.  I was often paralyzed by indecision and Chandler's line was a reminder to not spin on the mental hamster wheel and to take action.

That's how I ended up in California.

After my divorce literally everywhere I went in Seattle was the trigger of painful memories.  If ever I needed a man with a gun to walk through my door it was then.  And he did, in the form of job hunting for anywhere and everywhere that was not in Washington State.  And it worked.  Within a year I had relocated to San Diego.

Unfortunately, I'm the world's most reluctant Californian.  I find it very difficult to find any sense of connection here, to the place or the people.  It really has nothing to do with San Diego, its all me.  I immediately felt like an alien here.  A woman who I briefly dated who was also a transplant told me to give it some time.  She finally felt at home here after about 3 years.  I've been here 10 years and it still feels like I'm on a long and now somewhat awkward business trip.

After about a year I decided that a man with a gun needed to walk through my door.  This time it was in the form of a surfboard.  If it had not been for surfing I would have left San Diego after my second year here.  Learning to surf was terrifying, difficult and exciting.  Maybe not the stuff of the pulps, but like any good pulp hero I got a little banged up, met a few femmes fatale and collected some damn fine stories.

But man cannot live by surfing alone.  I had not taken a vacation since I'd moved to San Diego.  I was stressed, lonely and unhappy.  This time the man with gun had a Costa Rican accent.  I took a solo vacation to a surf camp.  This was the first time that I had traveled solo outside the US.  And the man with the gun delivered.

Costa Rica Selfie

Copyright - Steve Houk

There was a little man with a big, big truck, a poisonous snake bite to an ass cheek, a delightful Canadian woman, and the thrill of discovering that I was knee deep in a river teeming with saltwater crocodiles.

In the following years travel became my man with a gun whenever Southern California life became too oppressive. I went to North Africa and fell in love with Morocco.  The sense of wonder that I felt the first time that I heard the call to prayer at sunset has never left me.  Neither has sweaty fear of a fist fight and trip to jail from the altogether way too tense haggling for a leather jacket at the souk in Agadir. Every time that I wear that jacket I'm in Morocco and visiting all the great overseas friends that I made.

A close friend from my days in Tamraght

Copyright - Steve Houk

I surfed the South China Sea and stayed on an island south of mainland China and east of Vietnam where I weathered a surprise typhoon and survived an encounter with a dyspeptic camel.  I lived for two days on almonds, beef jerky and tiny bananas that the hotel maids left in a basket outside my door.

The list goes on with new friends and adventures in Australia and New Zealand.

Now however, I can't seem to find the man with the gun or even the door that he might come through.  Health issues and upcoming life changes have put travel adventures on hold.  I'd like to think that I can get back to tuc

king myself away in out of the way corners of the world but right now it feels like I just can't get there from here. I am afraid of the coming changes.

Me & Mr. Camel just before our grave misunderstanding

Copyright - Steve Houk

I try to stay positive.  I tell myself that there will be a different man with a different gun coming through a door that I hadn't noticed.  But it sounds like the type of lie you tell late at night in a squalid bar to a woman who looks better after midnight.

So, I keep re-reading Chandler, seeking wisdom and solace in his descriptions of a California that is now lost in the past alongside clunky black rotary dial phones.  Chandler wrote nearly all his best works while dead drunk.  That seems sad to me.  Back when I wrote more frequently I felt that my best writing came when I was the most depressed or angry.  I stopped writing for years after that revelation.

With the future uncertain for me I have returned to writing, not as a balm for sadness and loneliness, but in hopes that words from the heart will lead will lead me lead me to the place that I seek.

A door. That will open and I'll get to see what shape the next man with a gun will take.