5. Halloween Story

When writing the Bruno books sometimes it’s difficult to differentiate between the real world and what the readers expect in their fictional worlds. In my travels I have come across events that are truer than fiction and I cannot by any means put them in a story. No one would believe it. And as an author I’d risk my credibility. I put real-life stories of my career in every Bruno book. But there is a fine line that is sometimes difficult to navigate. For an example, the story written below I could never put a book because no one would believe me. This story resides in the far end of the spectrum of believable…and yet is absolutely true.
My story begins on a cold Halloween night in Yucca Valley. I know you are already rolling your eyes. But I have the call history on paper to prove it.
A gentleman dope addict had increased his tolerance to Soma, a muscle relaxer. As a user continues to abuse a drug their tolerance increases. Afterward, based on the prescription, we figured he’d taken about thirty tabs. He was walking across his front yard on this cold Halloween night when he went into organ failure and he died right there. In the cop world we call it DRT, Dead Right There. The cute little costumed trick or treaters thought the dead gentlemen a prop and stepped over him to get to the front door to get their treat.
Long about midnight his wife who also liked to take drugs, sat in the living room watching the big screen tv and looked out the open front door. This, even though it was very cold outside. She saw that her husband and DFOed, (Done Fell Out). She went outside, took him by the boot and dragged him into the house, bumping and banging his head and tearing his shirt.
Once inside she could see that he was terribly cold. She became distressed as a good wife should. She gets a thermometer and tries to stick it in his mouth…But his teeth are clamped closed from rigor mortis.
She rolls him over, pulls down his pants and sticks the thermometer in the nether region …yes his buttocks, (I’m trying to stay away from the word rectum, seems a little crass for this audience).
She checks the thermometer and finds her husband is too cold. She pulls off all his clothes, gets a hair dryer and tries to warm him up.
She has left the front door open and a poor deputy doing his job was driving by slowly in the neighborhood. The wife runs out yelling, “Deputy. Deputy my husband’s sick. Hurry.”
The deputy tells dispatch and asked for code-three medical aid. He runs into the house to find a dead guy on his stomach with a thermometer sticking in his buttocks (rectum) and a woman trying to warm him up with a hairdryer.
Now that I put it down on paper it doesn’t sound as bad. Maybe I could make it work in a story. What do you think? Would love to hear from you.