Hell of a Book

by Jason Mott

  “Which is a seventeen percent difference in sales,” Sharon says.

  “Exactly,” says Jack. “So, first off, sport coat. Then, when you’re not in a sport coat, you should be in a suit. Have you ever seen an author on the Today show not wearing a suit?”

  “Well . . .”

  “You haven’t,” Jack says. “The suit—or sport coat—is the backbone of a good interview. Speaking of interviews, has Sharon given you her interview primer?”

  “I have,” Sharon says.

  “Good,” Jack says. “Now get up there and show me what you’ve got.” He turns and nods toward the lectern at the far end of the room.

  I get up and walk toward the lectern, because what other choice do I have? Jack’s a professional media trainer. This is his business. And me, I’m a guy who’s spent his whole life in customer service and who just happened to write a book someone wanted to publish. When I stop to think about it, I can’t remember ever seeing an author on the Today show who wasn’t wearing a full suit. So Jack and Sharon must know what they’re talking about. Which only makes me all the more nervous.

  My legs feel like concrete as I take my place at the lectern. I count nine microphones in front of me, all of them placed there to make me feel uneasy, I guess. To push me out of my comfort zone.

  “Excellent,” Jack says. “One more quick thing.” He walks over to the camera standing in front of the lectern and switches it on. “There,” he says. “Are you ready?”

  “Not really.”

  “Good,” he says. “Because life never waits until you’re ready. First question: What’s the title of your book?”

  “Hell of a Book,” I say.

  “Let me stop you right there,” Jack says. “You didn’t thank me for asking you that question. You should always thank your host for their first question about your book. Let’s try that again: So, what’s the title of your book.”

  “Um . . .”

  “No ‘ums’ or ‘uhs.’ Try again.”

  “Thank you for asking,” I say, my voice shaking like the precursor to an earthquake. “My book is called Hell of a Book.”

  “Wow!” Jack says, far more excited than he should be. “That was great! Ready for your next question? Here goes: What’s your book about?”

  “It’s about . . .”

  “Title,” Sharon says, sending yet another email from her phone.

  “What?” I say.

  “Repeat the title as often as you can,” Jack the Media Trainer says. “Go again: What’s your book about?”

  “Thank you for asking,” I say tentatively, like sticking a toe into deep and unknown water, “Hell of a Book is about—”

  “So here are the key points that you need to make about Hell of a Book,” Jack interrupts. He leans forward on the table, ready to whisper the great secrets that I later found out my publisher was paying $350 an hour for me to hear.

  “Okay,” I say.

  “Who are you?”

  “I don’t think I understand.” I know for a fact that I don’t understand.

  “Who are you?” Jack repeats. “It’s the only point that you need to make about your book. It’s the only point anyone ever really needs to make about anything. Who you are defines the world in which you exist.” Jack smiles. “Who you are defines your book more than any plot point, more than any character arc. Every time someone asks you about your book, what they’re really asking is ‘Who are you?’”

  “And don’t forget plot,” Sharon says.

  “‘Who are you in plot form?’” Jack corrects. And then he leans back in his chair, more than a little pride stretched across his face.

  “Wonderful,” Sharon says. She’s looked up from her phone this time. She looks mesmerized. Awestruck, even. She turns to me after a moment. “Didn’t I tell you this would be wonderful?” she says.

  “Jack?” I say.

  “Yeah?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “That’s okay,” Jack says. “You don’t have to understand. Not right now, at least. It’ll come to you later.” He points to Sharon. “She gets it already because it’s not about her. It’s about you. It’s always easier to see the truth about other people than it is to see the truth about ourselves.”

  “Is this because of that labyrinth inside of me?”

  “My work here is done,” Jack says. “You’re on your way to becoming an author. You’re on your way to becoming a professional author. One last thing, though.”

  “What’s that?”

  “This probably goes without saying, but I’m going to say it anyway: Don’t write about race. Specifically, don’t write about being Black. You can write about Black characters, but just don’t write about being Black. No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Trust me on this. I’ve crunched the numbers. I’ve seen a dozen writers like you come and go. You’ve got that crossover talent, my man. You live in both worlds. That’s the smartest thing about Hell of a Book. You need to hang on to that. The last thing people really want to hear about is being Black. Being Black’s a curse—no offense—and nobody wants to feel cursed when they read something they just finished paying $24.95 for. Know what I mean? Here’s one thing I’ve learned: when someone treats you terribly, the last thing they want is for you to behave as if they’ve treated you terribly. If I punch you in the neck, I don’t want you bringing up that time I punched you in the neck. It’s your job, as the punchee, to grin and bear it and treat me like I never did it. Make me feel good. Help me forget the whole neck-punching adventure. It’s common courtesy, really. And that’s just the same for the person who said they loved you and then showed it not to be true as it is for the country that kidnapped you and chopped off your left foot. Nobody wants their monstrosities brought up. And if you should happen to do it, they’ll hate you for it. Just ask Frankenstein’s monster.”

  “Say what?”

  “So here’s what I want you to do: I want you to make sure that you keep things as light as possible—as a person, as an author, and as a book.”

  “But I’m not a book.”

  “Of course you are. And, as such, don’t plant flags anywhere. Ever. Don’t commit to anything. Just exist. Just like that maze inside of you, the future of this country is all about patriotic, unity-inducing language. Post-Racial. Trans–Jim Crow. Epi-Traumatic. Alt-Reparational. Omni-Restitutional. Jingoistic Body-Positive. Sociocultural-Transcendental. Indigenous-Ripostic. Treaty of Fort Laramie–Perpendicular. Meta-Exculpatory. Pan-Political. Uber-Intermutual. MLK-Adjacent. Demi-Arcadian Bucolic. That is the vernacular of the inclusive, hyphenated, beau-American destiny we’re manifesting here! You and me! Book by book we’re making it happen! But it doesn’t happen by planting flags and picking at the scabbed-over wounds of a certain Dispossessed Neo-Global Cultural demographic committed at the hands of a onetime possibly improprietous proto-nation.”

  It’s such a beautiful word soup he’s feeding me. Simply beautiful. But not without its lumps.

  “Wait . . . just wait,” I say, scratching my head. “Am I the . . . the, uh, the Dispossessed Neo-Global Cultural demographic?”

  “Listen. The key takeaway here is that if you’re going to write, write about something universal that fits into that fervid, sublime nationalistic archetype I just mentioned . . . Write something like love.” Jack leans back in his chair and rubs his chin, pleased with himself. “Yeah,” he says. “Write about love. Love and Disney endings. Not suffering. Not oppression. Not fear. Not the slights of the past—imagined or documented. Not disappointment. Not death. Never death. Only love. Tell a love story. Always tell a love story. Love is a form of absolution—if not expressed, then implied.”

  . . . Like I said: this is a love story.

  It was the belly of summer and the cicadas trilled their familiar song as Soot’s father, William, jogged throu
gh the night. The air still smelled of fireworks. Now and again, he ran past clusters of people in their backyards. Al Green, Marvin Gaye, Wu-Tang, Donna Summer, J. Cole, they all rolled out over the muggy night air as Black bodies danced and laughed in the dim glare of porch lights.

  He ran past the Browns’ house and caught the smell of a barbecue. His stomach growled and a voice called out about coming in to get a plate and William yelled back that there were miles to cover yet but maybe he’d come by tomorrow and get whatever was left over. And then the person yelled something back and disappeared into the night behind William as his run unfolded.

  Soon, he entered the stretch between the houses. The lights all fell away, leaving only the dim light cast by a sliver of moon and a swath of stars. The only sound he heard was his breathing and his feet flapping against the pavement.

  His run took him out through the long arms of the countryside. He crossed over a small bridge and heard the splash of something leaping into the water. He wanted to stop and find out what had made the sound, but it didn’t quite feel right so he kept going. But the feeling came back to him, again and again, as he ran. He throbbed with the need to stop and linger, the urge to wait, to stretch out the moments and mysteries that were given to him, in case they were suddenly taken away from him.

  More than anything, it felt good to be out here, lost in the darkness of the world, away from everyone. He felt at home within himself, at home in his skin. He could believe, just then, that the whole world was gone away and all of the eyes that had been watching him were finally gone. He wasn’t being watched anymore. He didn’t stand out. Every moment of his life, he felt that he stood out. Too tall. Too skinny. Too Black. All of it swallowed him up some days. There were eyes everywhere, watching him, staring at him.

  He saw that same worry in Soot and hated the world for it. But, more than that, he hated himself for not being able to fix it. He’d wanted so much for his son to learn to disappear. To be able to go away, become unseen and safe. It was the only thing he wanted to give his son, and he was failing at it day after day.

  But even that sadness and guilt went away when he ran. Out here, beneath the black sky, surrounded by the black earth, he was just himself.

  He was no one.

  He was unwatched.

  He was unseen.

  He was safe.

  * * *

  —

  The way back home was more of the same splendor. He passed the dwindling moments of other parties. By now, people were too tired, or drunk, or just having too much fun to see him jogging past them in the night. It was when he was reaching his home that he saw the glimmer of the blue lights behind him.

  The siren chirped and William moved to the side of the road and looked back over his shoulder. Blue lights hovered. Headlights blinded him. He turned back and saw his home—the little square of wood and nails and memories destined to come to an end. He could throw a stone and hit it if he wanted. Or he could run to it and be there inside seconds.

  The police car came to a stop behind him. He heard a door open. “Hold on right there,” a heavy voice called out.

  William took a deep breath and turned. All he saw was the glare of headlights and the flash of blue. A silhouette climbed out of the car and said, “Just wait right there.”

  A flashlight shined in his eyes and, reflexively, he lifted a hand to shield his eyes from the light.

  “Don’t do that,” the silhouette said. William felt a shiver run down his spine. He lowered his hand slowly. “What are you doing out here?” the silhouette said.

  “Running home.”

  “Why you running in the dark?”

  “Gets too hot in the daytime. That’s all.” William turned and pointed at his home. “That’s my house right there.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” the silhouette said. “You got some ID on you?”

  “No. Like I said, I was just out running. My house is right there. I left my ID at home.”

  “You should have your ID with you. Turn around.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Turn around.”

  “I—”

  And then the world exploded.

  William fell to the ground. His legs failed him. His lungs trembled in his chest and he felt as though he were drowning. His arms still worked, but they did not know what to do with themselves. “Calm down,” he said to himself. “Calm down. You’re going to be okay. You’re going to be okay.” Those were the words he wanted to say, but all that came out was a pain-filled moan.

  The shape behind him shouted something, but William couldn’t hear the words. He needed to get home. If he could get home, everything would be okay. His wife would be there and his son would be there and, together, they would all be okay. They would be safe.

  If only he could make it home.

  He rolled onto his stomach as the blue lights flashed in the grass around him. He tried to crawl, but his body could not comply.

  He looked up and saw, there in the doorway of his home, his wife and his son, watching it all. Her face contorted in terror and the boy’s . . . the boy gave no reaction.

  Then it happened. The boy began, slowly, fading away. It was not darkness that clouded William’s eyes—that would come soon—but something else. The boy was disappearing. Effervescing like steam. Melting away into nothing.

  Drifting off . . . into The Unseen.

  Finally.

  Finally, he would be invisible.

  Finally, he would be unseen.

  Finally, he would be safe.

  The disappearance of his son was the last thing William saw. He smiled in death.

  Because my life isn’t enough of a traveling sack of chaos, I make the mistake of telling The Kid that there’s a love story coming down the pipe as well. I know it’s a mistake even as I’m doing it. Ever since Renny smacked me around and told me I’m Black and I need to talk about it, The Kid’s been stalking me a lot more. And while I’ve done my best to keep him at a distance, I can feel him starting to get to me. Every time I try to just get back to the way things used to be, he shows up again, smiling that smile of his.

  We’re sitting together outside the airport watching all of humanity pass us by and he’s still a bit sore about the notion I buy into that you can’t treat people as real beings, no matter how much your local PBS station and Sesame Street tell you otherwise. I try to explain to him that adulthood just isn’t built for believing in the existence of other people. If we all believe in everyone—really believe they existed—then we have to care about them. We have to change our lives. We have to admit that maybe some of us actually have it better than others and, in having it better, we have to admit that maybe we could get by with a little less so that others can have a little more and that means giving up some of the things that we have.

  “What’s so wrong with that?” The Kid asks, glowing with naivety.

  “The Fear, Kid.”

  “The Fear?”

  “That’s right. The Fear. Fear’s the oldest state of being in the human hustle. Comes in all shapes and sizes. But there are two versions of it that’ll affect you the most, being who you are.”

  “What do you mean?” The Kid asks. I can hear the hesitation in his throat. Every word digs its heels into his tongue, doing what it can to stay in his head. But The Kid shoves them out anyways, knowing full well that they’ll come back to bite him. He’s onto the fact that he’s opening up a grease gun of knowledge that he doesn’t really want. But he does it anyway.

  Yeah, safe to say this kid’s got moxie. And, in this world, moxie’ll either take you far or get you killed. Or maybe it’ll take you just far enough to get you killed.

  Either way, if he’s willing to ask me for it, the least I can do is give it to him. So I do, with both barrels, straight down the line: “Live long enough,” I say, “and you’ll eventually see all sorts of
things taken away from you, Kid. Toys, sandwiches, money, people, and eventually time. And the longer you go in life, the more you worry about something being taken away and you worry about going back to not having enough. We’re all afraid of being at the bottom of life’s shit stack. We’re all afraid of being poor, being injured, helpless, handicapped, all of the things that make us look at other people and say, ‘How bad. Somebody should do something to help them.’ The thing we’re most afraid of is being the ‘them’ in that equation.” I shake my head to push home the horror of what I’m saying to The Kid. I can’t tell if he’s understanding me or not. I can’t tell if any of this is really getting through or if I just sound like another cynical heel. But this is the truth I know.

  The Kid mulls it over in silence, and that impossibly ebony skin of his swallows the sunlight in the most beautiful way.

  “What’s the other one?” he finally asks.

  “The other what?”

  “You said there were two big versions that would affect me. What’s the other one?”

  I sit there for a second, thinking about whether or not I should go into that one. I don’t have the heart to tell him that the second one is even worse than the first. I don’t have the heart to tell him about how I came to learn it on the day my old man died and how it’s haunted me every step of the way ever since. I can’t tell him how much it’s taken away from me.

  So I just don’t tell him. Decide to save that horror for myself. For now, at least.

  “I’m sorry, Kid,” I say.

  “What for?”

  “For telling you all of this. For breaking the illusion.”

  The Kid shakes his head. “Nah,” he says. “It’s okay. I decide if I really believe what you’re saying or not. My mama taught me that. She said I can always pick what is true about the world. I can’t pick the facts, but I can pick what’s true. But she apologized too.”

  “What did she apologize for?”

  “She wouldn’t say. She just got sad all of a sudden. Did your mama tell you that too? That you could pick what is true about stuff?”