The Fracking War's final battles - banda music and finishing Section V

NUEVO VALLARTA, Nayarit, Mexico - The Mexican work crew outside my window is blaring banda music (mixed with occasional techno crap) loud enough that I am considering breaking with all Mexican protocols and telling them to, well, SHUT UP!

An hour ago I finished the last chapter of the fourth of five sections of The Fracking War, which was infinitely satisfying on one level, and a dreaded moment on another.

Satisfying to finish because so far the book holds together just fine. Unsatisfying because now all the various characters, situations, dramas and themes are all crowding together like characters from a Charles Dickens' novel, racing towards the final chapter.

Dickens used to keep careful track of every character and by the end of each of his novels, the fate of that character would be accounted for. Some critics say he once added a chapter just to account for a dog who appeared briefly at the beginning of a book.

I only have one dog in The Fracking War, a female Labrador who I will not forget.

The last section of The Fracking War will get sketched out in the next couple of days here, in the relative quiet of my condo. The actual writing will (Dios lo permite) in Sacramento.

And the next segment takes me to the Bronx. I am not kidding, I just write what the characters tell me.

Oops, back to the drafting/redrafting. The music just stopped and the only sound is the ocean.

Ahhhhhhhhh...

Cross Bronx Expressway