My Nice Friend Bradley

Bradley Denton is one of the better writers of his generation. I may be a bit prejudiced because he, like Steve, is one of my few adoptive brothers. You should now visit Brad's site and sample the good music and short stories and other neat stuff there. Buy some books. Then come back here and congratulate me for my good taste in writers and adoptive brothers.

Brad is the Toastmaster at this weekend's World Fantasy Con in Austin. Exhibiting an endearing level of trust, he allowed his friends to write whatever they wanted to write for his bio page in the con's program guide.

Here's my bit:

Bradley Denton is my very nice friend. I knew him as long as I can remember. He told me to make this story about him. He said I could tell anything I wanted, but I won’t tell the really bad things.

He is nice most of the time. And he’s really funny too. He has three dogs and a cat. Two of the dogs are big and they jump on me. It doesn’t hurt much.

He has a big house in the woods. It has a big yard where the dogs live in the back. Sometimes he lets me be in the yard, but I don’t stay long, because the dogs jump on me then.

He lets me sleep in his house sometimes when I don’t have any other place to stay. He made me smoke a cigar once, and he gave me a drink and I thought it was a Coke, but it burned.

He is really, really smart. He has a computer. There are lots and lots of books in his big house. He told me that he wrote some of the books. He tried to read me one of the books, called ‘Blackburn’. But I got scared, so he stopped. Also, another day, he read me a story he wrote, called ‘Sergeant Chip’. He said lots of people like it, but I didn’t understand it. It was about a dog that was brave and nice just like Bradley and killed a lot of people. I think.

But I don’t think my friend Bradley has killed a lot of people yet.

He also is a famous musician. He plays about a hundred drums with wooden sticks. I think he just likes to hit things, but when I said that, he hit me with the sticks. It didn't hurt much.

Sometimes he makes me and other friends play music with him.

It’s nice, mostly. We get real loud sometimes. Sometimes he will stop the music and tell me I am playing my guitar too loud and I have to turn it down. And he says it doesn’t sound right when I turn on my stortion pedal. I like the way it sounds when I turn on my stortion pedal, but he makes me turn it off all the time. Sometimes I cry, but he pretends he doesn’t see. He’s just trying to help me play better. I know.

He makes Warren turn down his guitar, too. I think Warren cries too, but he wears glasses, so I’m not sure. He makes Caroline stand right in front of the big loud drum and play her bass whenever he kicks the big loud drum. She pretends she likes it, but you can tell. She does like to sing though. Gilda likes to sing, too, and Bradley doesn’t make her play an instrument. Except the shaky-rattly thing sometimes.

Bradley lives with Barb. She’s really, really nice. Even nicer than him maybe. They said they were married. But they’re always friendly and nice to each other, so I don’t know.

Anyhow, that’s my story about my nice friend Bradley.

p.s. My friend Jessica wrote this story when I said it, because I don't write too good. Jessica is really, really nice. Only different from Bradley because she never makes me cry.