This week’s guest is Mykola Dementiuk. I have the pleasure of sharing a release with Mick later this year. My short story, After Sunset, happens to appear in Crusing For Bad Boys, alongside Mick’s novella, My Father’s Semen. Interesting title, eh?

Q: Hello, Mick. Thank you for joining us today. To start, why don’t you tell us what genre you write in, and why?
A: Fiction — novels, novellas, short stories. I’ve done all three but found the novella is my favorite. When I did the long novel, ‘Vienna Dolorosa’ it took three years and very nearly destroyed me but at the same time it liberated me. I no longer felt I could be a writer — I was one. My first novel ‘Holy Communion’ will come out April 2009 though it was written in 1987-1989.

Q: How long did you write before you received your first contract for publication?
A: Much too long. Though I had published short stories, Synergy Press took a chance on me.

Q: So, if you don’t mind sharing, would you tell us about your latest work in progress?
A: I’m always writing; little bits here and there. Just completed a novella, called ‘Variety, Spice of Life’ about Variety Photoplays movie house on 3rd Avenue between 13th and 14th Streets, kind of low-life but a somewhat popular secretive gay porno theater showing straight porno films. It was shut down by the Guiliani Regime in cleaning up New York City for good; they did it with Times Square and now are almost done with the Lower East Side…and they call that progress. My characters are all closeted gay men, unbeknownst to them, taking a chance of being in the Variety movie house.

Q: Out of all the stories you’ve written, which is your favorite?
A: Baby Doll about a teenage transvestite when AIDS was on the brink of being revealed. I used to see this boy, maybe fifteen, hanging out on the street where I lived with other kids, mostly girls. Though we never had any contact I could see him changing, wearing makeup and pretty blouses. He was getting to look very feminine each day… until one day in my story it’s carried a little further. Baby Doll is a short story, about 50 pages, and published as a chapbook by Synergy Press.

Q: Do you need to be in a specific place or atmosphere before the words flow?
A: Not at all, inspiration comes at anytime, driving, walking, even sleeping. I was inspired to write ‘Times Queer’ three years after I had a stroke, in my dream, and the next day started writing it down. I haven’t stopped since and that’s been over nine years ago.

Q: What’s the strangest source of inspiration you’ve found for a story?
A: I once saw a truck hit and kill a guy on the street. His piss and shit just came out to dribble and pour down the street. Thought of writing a story about that, but it never came about.

Q: If you could offer one tidbit of information for new writers, what would it be?
A: Write what you believe in; say what’s got to be said. As long as it’s a good story don’t worry about failure, the world will come around to your door…Hey, I’m still waiting for it to tear down mine…haha!

Q: Do you have an evil day job or do you write full time?
A: In 1997 I was working as an electrician helper when I felt a bit tired and went to the bathroom just to wash my face but little did I know I was undergoing a stroke. I awoke three weeks later not knowing anything; all physical work and toil had been removed from me, except when I do the boring exercises to keep the heart pumping. But I’ve had many jobs over the years, from messenger, stock boy, restaurant helper, apartment cleaner, even roustabout at the Big Apple Circus and Cirque du Soleil which took me around the country. The best is what I’m doing now, being a writer…I go nowhere but write — that’s far enough.

Q: What do you like to do in your spare time?
A: Read. I always thought it was the best thing to do. I used to spend hours in a library, New Orleans, Austin, San Francisco, Chicago, on and on. To me seeing a new place meant getting to know their library. I can’t do that now but I did do that once upon a time.

Q: Name one thing readers would be surprised to learn about you.
A: I’m very handsome, in a Brad Pitt kind of way….oops, forgot this was an interview and not my fantasy. I write about sleazy things, do I live it too? Fat chance, I’m a just a guy who doesn’t walk or talk very well… I may write of lowlife pursuits but I live rather normally and with my stroke had to return to my family and live in my brother’s home, a very quiet New Jersey community. The community would feel shock and disgust if it knew I wrote such filth and got away with it too. Hey, what do you think this is, America? Oops, so it is….

Q: What’s your favorite dirty word?
A: You know in my novels or stories I hardly have any dirty words. Once in a while someone says ‘Shit!’ or ‘Fuck!’ but very rarely. Dirty words on paper don’t have the same force as they do in real life. I’m interested in the psychology of why a character uses a dirty word rather than just the mere uttering of that word.

Q: What’s your favorite holiday, and why?
A: My birthday. I never get what I truly want and that desire changes constantly.

Q: Do you have any tattoos or piercings?
A: A rose tattoo on my right arm just above my hand. Had that done in New Orleans in 1975 for $15 dollars and the red and green colors still show after all these years. I’ve seen some on guys who had theirs sloppily done, in less than a year the colors all faded and became a real mess.

Q: If you won the lottery tomorrow, what would you spend the money on?
A: Buy a house and property to live on, then books to read forever.

Q: Which household chore do you abhor and why?
A: Cleaning the toilet bowl; I shit too much and have to do it even though I hate it.

Q: What’s your favorite comfort food?
A: Of course chocolate cake, that is my favorite treat and one I wish I had everyday.

Q: Do you have any guilty pleasures you feel comfortable sharing?
A: Of course, I used to dress as a girl — short skirts, makeup, the works — that was my favorite form of expression and existence even though I couldn’t pass as one. haha!

Q: Do you have a favorite book or movie?
A: “The Crying Game.” I think that was a great movie, had love and romance there along with some danger there too. I love that film though I’ve only seen it twice at a movie theater, few times on TV.

As for book, my favorite writer is the Yiddish writer Isaac Bashevis Singer, weird no? I’ve read mostly everything he has out, even sometimes two or three times and still feel as if he speaks for me. What do I see in ‘Yentl the Yeshiva Boy’? I’m not Jewish, I’m Ukrainian, but something draws me to him and perhaps it’s changes that his characters undergo which makes him so very close to me…I don’t know…but I’ve read him for years and will keep reading him…

Q: Anything else you’d like to share?
A: My web pages:
http://www.holycommunionanovel.com/

http://www.viennadolorosa.com/

http://timesqueer.blogspot.com/

http://sallymiller.com/adults.htm#2

Also coming out in June 2009, CRUISING FOR BAD BOYS, edited by MICKEY ERLACH, features the bonus novella, MY FATHER’S SEMEN by MYKOLA DEMENTIUK, the disturbing story of a young man who seeks out his biological father only to be forced to survive the one way he knows how. This story will open your eyes to life on the streets of New York in the 1980s and will surprise you in the end.

Q: In closing, tell us a bit about your latest release (& share a yummy excerpt for those who aren’t yet familiar with your work)
A: When I wrote my first novel it was very difficult to sustain; things kept falling apart in everything I did. Add to that I had stopped drinking on Christmas 1986 after I slashed my wrists and felt a hell of a lot of bad feelings I was carrying over to my sober life, but little by little I came out of it. The novel is of a little boy undergoing his Holy Communion preparations and discovering not only God but more importantly himself…

An Excerpt from HOLY COMMUNION:

The priest rubbed his face and made a quick sign of the cross over the boy’s head, but it was more like a barren dismissal than a holy anointing. “Say two Our Fathers,” he said. His voice was sullen and tired, bored, resigned. “And stop lying,” he repeated softly.

The boy shivered. A lie; another lie. Or was it the same lie? How many lies can one say in a lifetime? How many sins can be committed? Isn’t the first one always the decisive one, since that’s the one that dooms you forever? And what of truth? If it’s a sin to tell a lie, is there a credit or reward for speaking the truth?

“Thank you, Father.” The boy crossed himself and fled from the room. He hurried past the lined-up children in the hall and walked quickly towards the stairwell. He was glad the nun was not about. But where should he say his penance? Two Our Fathers. Should he return to the auditorium and kneel before his classmates? Should he wait till he got to church and kneel before the gawking adults?

He turned and entered the Boy’s Room.

The white tile of the walls and floor, the sparkling enamel and silver piping of the wash basins, all gleamed brightly, and a faint biting scent of ammonia hovered in the air. The boy walked slowly past the wall urinals and peered into each stall. They were empty. He was alone. He hoisted himself up onto a sink and stared into a mirror. The bruises on his face, yellow and tawny-looking, were still clearly and harshly visible. His large nose, lumpy and bloated, seemed to have shifted and set to the other side. He scowled. The image only faintly resembled what he thought he looked like. Did it matter?

He lowered himself off the sink and went to the window, then tried to lift the large frosted glass. It was shut, a thick screw holding the window securely in place. He knew the window faced the street and he smiled to himself. Wouldn’t it be great if he could poke his head out and spit on the stupid parents below? His grin widened.

Once when he was in the bathroom alone, older boys from the upper classes, marauding through the school on the lunch break, burst in screaming and yelling and carrying a large silver fire extinguisher. They ignored the boy and went to the window — they had no difficulty lifting it open — upturned the fire extinguisher, and aimed towards the street, spewing a swift stream of extinguishing solvent on the pedestrians below. It was great! The boys screamed and laughed and cursed and spat and waved fists out the window, then just as suddenly as they had entered, fled from the room, dropping the metal extinguisher to the hard tiled floor where it clanged and echoed and bounded from end to end.

The boy stared wide-eyed, excited, but knew enough to scamper out of the room after the older fleeing marauders. He was breathless and thrilled, racing madly down the hall, losing track of the rioting companions as they scattered in chaotic directions, but he felt fortunately conspiratorial, as if he had been blessed in the involvement of something grand and regal.

Indeed it was grand! It was rebellion; exhilarating, wonderful, instantaneous; a fleeting destructive moment bestowed briefly and lasting but an instant, yet an instant that would be remembered and cherished forever.

The boy stared at the shut window and suddenly spat on the frosted glass, his saliva streaming slowly down the pane. The boy turned and entered a toilet stall. He snapped the bolt on the door behind him, lowered his pants, and sat down, resting his elbows on his knees. He strained and squinted into the crotch of the panties about his ankles, looking at the streak of brown that had rubbed off his ass and smeared the satiny material.

He farted, and a few droplets of urine fell to the water. He was glad he had not made in his pants. The other boy would probably be sent home to change. He would return in fresh clothes and the incident would be forgotten. The boy sighed. What if he made in his pants? Where could he go to change? To change into what?

He stood up and pulled the panties up his thighs. The silky material wrapped tautly round his waist and his little scrotum bulged smoothly from his legs. He gently brushed his fingers along the bulge and his penis began to stiffen. The boy sat back down. He leaned against the water pipe of the toilet and inserted his hand into the panties. His fingers encircled his stiffening penis and he closed his eyes. He licked his lips and touched his face and slid down on the toilet seat, one end of the U-shape seat boring into his buttocks, and began to move the flesh of his penis back and forth. He thought of his father and wondered if he could make that sticky stuff and rub it on his face. He thought of the fat bald man . . .

He froze. The outer door in the bathroom was flung open and footsteps pounded along the hard tiled floor. He bolted upright. There was no mistaking the ominous-sounding steps.

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