Through gritted teeth, Malcolm said, “Writing’s my real future, not moving up the yuppie ladder at First Arapahoe or Western Bell, or anywhere else. I’m a writer, first and foremost. Some day, I’ll be making my living at it.”
Marlene snorted. “When pigs have wings. So you’ve had one story published in one of those crummy science-fiction magazines you buy, which is another big waste of money, although not as big as a computer. What they paid you for that dumb story didn’t even cover the cost of the postage you spent on sending it to the other magazines that rejected it first.”
She knew that because Malcolm had told her. It would not have been true if he had sent the story to the science-fiction magazines first, instead of wasting time and stamps sending it to Harper’s, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Esquire, Playboy, and so on. Always start at the top, Malcolm believed. The ones at the top always rejected everything of his, after which he sent his stories where they belonged, to the magazines that specialized in the sort of fiction he wrote. Unfortunately, they always rejected his stories, too.
Except for “Time’s Razor,” which one of them bought. Marlene was not impressed. One hundred dollars seemed to Malcolm to be a large amount of money for a short story. To Marlene, it was insignificant. After she had said so often enough, Malcolm found himself beginning to think of it as pretty insignificant, too.
Marlene never read any of his work before he submitted it. When he asked her to, just so he could get her opinion of it, she refused. However, he had sold “Time’s Razor” before they started dating, so she did read it in its published form — after sneering at the cover of the magazine it was published in.
“Mildly entertaining,” she pronounced. “Very mildly.” Then she flipped through a few pages to another short story in the same issue. “I read this one, too. ‘Morphometasis.’ It’s a Kafka parody by some guy named —” naturally “— Joe Hoffman. Really good. Now, that guy can write!”
Thank you so very much, companion of my bosom.
Malcolm snatched the magazine back and returned it to its place of honor, which was an otherwise empty shelf of the wooden bookcase in his study, the shelf destined to hold the published works of Malcolm Erskine — at least, until the hoped-for time when the published works outgrew that shelf and required a second shelf. And a third...
Even when that magazine was joined by another containing a Malcolm Erskine story (and no Joe Hoffman story in that issue), and then by a novel, and then by a second novel, and then by a third — all paperback, admittedly, but two of them resulting in some lukewarm praise from a couple of reviewers in obscure Sunday newspapers — Marlene was not impressed.
“When you can get enough money from one of those things to buy me a new car,” she had said, “then I’ll be impressed. Or a new house. Or when I see your name on the bestseller lists, maybe then. But not because of this.” And she gestured in a dismissing sort of way toward the bookshelf with the two magazines and the three paperback books neatly standing on the left-hand side of it. With that gesture, the five publications seemed to shrink in Malcolm’s eyes, and what loomed was the amount of empty space on the shelf.
It didn’t help that the second magazine was the sleazy men’s publication which embarrassed even Malcolm. Nor did it help when Marlene finally met Joe Hoffman and she immediately told Malcolm that Hoffman was not only what a writer should be but what a man should be, too.
Later, in the grungy little apartment to which the divorce had reduced him, Malcolm was limited to using his bedroom as his study as well, and there was room for only one bookcase, a small put-it-together-yourself thing of scratched and dented and rusted metal that he had picked up at a thrift store. It sagged and leaned and swayed dangerously, and it was completely inadequate to his needs. Nonetheless, he still reserved one shelf for nothing but the published works of Malcolm Erskine, and the smallness of the bookcase made the collection of those works look, if not more impressive than they had looked in the large, sturdy wooden bookcase in what had been his home, then at least less unimpressive. Or so he told himself.
Less unimpressive, Malcolm repeated to himself. The story of my life. From unimpressive to less unimpressive. Ever on the upward path, until, eventually, in the fullness of time and the glory of my fulfillment, I’ll become really, truly, seriously not unimpressive at all.
At least now that he was living on his own he could watch Felicia Finewine as much as he wanted to.
She was a television journalist who came as close to being Malcolm’s dream girl as any television journalist ever had. Sometimes she read the news, sometimes she interviewed celebrities, sometimes she reported from interesting places and said interesting things about them. Malcolm didn’t care what she did. He had watched her fervently for years, although during his marriage to Marlene he had only done so when Ms. Maleficent was out of the house.
Felicia was on tonight, interviewing some celebrity who didn’t deserve to be in the same room as her. Malcolm deserved to be there. Malcolm deserved even more than that. For now, he’d have to be content with watching her.
Every now and then, Malcolm went through a phase where he tried to convince himself that Felicia Finewine and all the other desirable women on television weren’t real, that they were actually nothing but digital constructs, simulations, created by super-secret, immensely advanced computers programmed by sadists who were, he had to admit, far better programmers than he would ever be. Such women couldn’t exist in the real world, couldn’t breathe and walk and talk and — oh, most terribly painful thought of all! — condescend to have sex with mortal men none of whom was named Malcolm Erskine.
But even when he did manage to come close to convincing himself that that was true, it didn’t lessen his anguish at the knowledge that no such woman would ever condescend to have sex with him. Not as he was now, anyway.
If Felicia Finewine was real — as of course he knew she was — then he could keep dreaming that some day he would achieve a level of celebrity sufficient to attract her interest and that then... then... then...
He never grew tired of those fantasies. He did grow tired of the fact that they remained fantasies.
It was another reason to keep working at his writing, though.
He turned on the television and sat impatiently, drumming his fingers on the arm of his broken-down couch, squirming in his seat, enduring the last ten minutes of some endless, pointless program about the nasty doings of the recently installed President Longlegs. Malcolm hated politics at the best of times. It had nothing to do with him. As far as he could see, it had nothing to do with any real people. It existed mainly to provide employment to political commentators and, right now, to delay the appearance on his television screen of the glorious Felicia.
At last the dreary political nonsense came to an end, and then the string of commercials following that was over, and there she was, Felicia Finewine.
Oh, Felicia! Oh, that hair! Oh, that dusky skin! Oh, that mouth! Oh, those dark eyes! Oh, those luscious, round, full, perfect vowels!
Felicia smiled widely at the camera, and Malcolm’s heart skipped a beat. “Before I begin tonight’s program,” she said, her voice filling him with warmth and happiness, “I’d like to inject a personal note.” She held up her left hand to display a monstrous diamond in a jewel-encrusted ring on her third finger. “I just got engaged today!” She giggled. “To a really wonderful guy. He’s a big time pro athlete, and he’s really,” she blushed and looked down at the floor, “really big.”
Malcolm’s heart skipped three beats. Oh, Felicia! Oh, no! How could you do this to me? Why couldn’t you wait till I managed to get famous? You were going to interview me and fall in love with me and fling your arms around me and —
And then he noticed who tonight’s guest was, the interviewee, sitting in the other armchair, his foul knees almost touching Felicia’s exquisite ones, his eyes fixed on her chest, his hands clutching the chair’s arms fiercely, almost as fiercely as Malcolm clutched the a
rm of his couch: Milo Grossbuck! The evil alien invader from a nauseating star system!
“Tonight’s guest,” Felicia said brightly, “is a true titan of American industry, Mr. Milo Grossbuck, the Big Guy of Western Bell Universal Telecommunications Incorporated, one of our premier companies. Or, as he’s more widely known in the rough-and-tumble, shoot-from-the-hip, wild-and-wooly world of telecommunications in the Western states, Big,” she paused for a moment and breathed twice rapidly, “Buck.”
“But you can call me Big,” Grossbuck said oilily.
Felicia laughed charmingly, as she always did, although for once Malcolm saw no charm in it. Malcolm, in fact, ground his teeth.
“But tonight,” Felicia said, “we asked you to come here, not to talk about the telecommunications industry that you serve so well, fascinating though that subject is. Tonight, you’re here to talk about your new book.”
“What?” Malcolm shrieked.
“Yes, that’s right, Felicious. Felicia. First, this is a good opportunity. I have an announcement. In keeping with our evolving nature, we’re changing our name.”
Felicia looked confused. “From Grossbuck?”
“No, no!” Grossbuck boomed out a hearty laugh and slapped his knee. Then he slapped Felicia’s knee.
Malcolm ground his teeth.
A book!
A knee touch!
A nuclear explosion! Now!
“Not my name. My company’s name. As of the first of next month, we’ll be known as Western Magna Comm.” He pronounced the name as though it portended a shaking of the earth.
“Jesus Christ,” Malcolm groaned. “And the new company cheer will be Magna! Bull!”
“We even have a company cheer to go along with that,” Grossbuck said. “Wingledoog.”
“Of course,” Felicia said. “That’s very exciting.”
“We’re gonna be leaner. Meaner. Keener. Neener, neener. Geep. We’ve also acquired a controlling interest in a couple of major newspapers, including one in our home city of Piketon. Get our word out. Sides, sides. Stories have ’em. We’ll get ours out there.”
“Now, your book,” Felicia said, holding up a thick tome with a gold and black cover with raised silver lettering that caught the studio lights and made Malcolm weep, “is called, The Big Buck Speaks: Straight Talk from a Titan of Industry.”
Grossbuck repeated happily after her, “A titan of industry.”
“I understand this book is full of hard-hitting straight talk,” Felicia said. “Strong, penetrating advice.” She paused. “That we should all take in. Big,” breathe, breathe, “Buck.”
“That’s right, that’s right,” Grossbuck said, nodding. “Real advice for real Americans. About the Founding Fathers. Capitalists. Christians. Strong men. Real men. Intelligent, thoughtful, educated, but not wimps. Like me. Played football. Ovoids. Pigskin. Get Big Government off the playing field. Netch. Bring on the competition. Best team grinds the other guys into the dirt.” He pounded the arm of his chair with his soft fist. “That’s natural law.”
“Wow! I mean, we’ll have to break for a commercial now, folks, but then we’ll be right back with the Big,” pant, pant, “Buck.”
Malcolm could bear no more. He wept as he turned off the television set.
Oh, Felicia, Felicia! I’ve been so faithful to you for all these years! How could you! With him! And you’re even engaged! I spurn you, I renounce you, you are nothing to me from this moment forward!
Oh, don’t be silly, he told himself. You’d lick her shoes if she asked you to. Which she never will. Not if you never become famous and she never has any idea who you are.
You’ll never get famous working for Western Magma or Magna or whatever the hell it is this week, he told himself. It’ll only happen through writing.
And at least you’ve still got your computer.
Marlene had expressed no interest in the machine, no resentment, even, that he had broken into the house and removed it. Of course she had known right away who had done that.
His desk, along with all the other furniture of what had been his study, was still in the house — what had been his house. Or possibly Marlene had sold it. Or possibly she had given it away. He was sure she would do that rather than let him have it. He was surprised that she hadn’t tried to get the computer back so she could do the same with it, just to spite him.
What he didn’t realize was that Marlene felt that letting Malcolm keep the computer was far crueler than keeping it from him. She imagined that every time he saw its blank screen staring accusingly at him, saying, “Fill me with words, you worthless piece of scum!” or its keyboard crying out, “Beat on me, shithead, punish me with your inadequate creative ejaculate!” he would be filled with self-hatred at his auctorial inadequacy.
How could she have known that he would, in fact, use it to write his one and only bestseller?
The first chapter of which he completed on a pleasant late Saturday afternoon in October, in the full flood of Indian Summer.
For once, the apartment was not an oven. Malcolm had opened the tiny window in the living room, at the front of the apartment, and the equally tiny window in the kitchen, at the rear, and for once air actually moved through his tomb.
Malcolm finished describing the conversation in which Lukas of Aldebaran, Malcolm’s interstellar contact via the spirit plane, explains to him the three great principles on which the Andromeda Corporation operated in ancient times:
And then Lukas spoke to me further, mind to mind, as follows:
Know, O Earthian cousin, that we believe that no customer of ours ever buys anything from us, but rather that we, the Andromeda Corporation, must sell our goods to him. It is in the nature of the cosmos itself that we must be proactive rather than reactive or retroactive, forward looking instead of backward looking, aggressive rather than regressive. We like to say, “Better a neutron star than a black hole.”
Know further, O Earthian cousin of mine, that none who works for the Andromeda Corporation is limited in the heights to which he, she, it, or they may attain. He or she or it or they is or are the only entity or entities, the only sentient outcropping or outcroppings of the Cosmic All, manifesting itself or themselves at this point in consciousness time, who can determine how high up the ladder of corporate success he or she or it or they will climb.
Malcolm pondered that paragraph for a while, wondering if he ought to rework it for clarity. In the end, he decided that the murkier his prose was, the better the book’s chances in this New Age. But he did decide to end the chapter with something he thought was rather snappy.
Or as we, your cosmic cousins, like to say, “Better to provide your own rocket thrust than to rely on a gravity assist from a passive massive object.”
And finally, O Earthian descendant of my own ancestors, stardust of my stardust, sharer of the same radiant energy which vitalizes me, know that the socioeconomic system you call “capitalism” is woven into the very woof and warp of the spacetime continuum, the fabric of the cosmos, the cloth of existence. Your holy book, the Bible, tells you so, and that is because it was written by prophets who were attuned to the Infinite All itself. The same is true of other holy books of your world, and the holy books of many, many other worlds, too. Thus you are working in perfect concert and smooth harmony with both Science and Spirit when you make all the money you can and think about making money all the time you’re awake and dream about it all night. Or as we, the very flesh of your flesh, prefer to put it, “It’s not fusion that powers the stars, or gravity that shapes the galaxies, or genetic drift that brings about the species, it’s competition!”
And then Lukas’s wonderful spirit voice faded from my mind, and I awoke from my channeling trance to the cold, pure wind of the high mountains. Snow-clad peaks marched away before me, blue-tinged by the atmosphere, darkening in the twilight, to the very edge of the world where the sun was setting in scarlet splendor!
Malcolm hesitated. Was “scarlet splendor” overdo
ing it? Was the closing exclamation mark a little too much? Then he reread the whole chapter and decided that it was all perfect as it stood. Sometimes it was best to overdo things. His long-dead cosmic cousins of the Andromeda Corporation had probably had some favorite saying on this very subject, but he was too tired just then to try to make it up.
This channeling stuff was hard work, very taxing on the imagination. He wondered how the other fakes managed to keep it up. Probably, he decided, by keeping their attention focused on the obscene sums of money they earned from it.
I think, he told himself, I will reward myself with a real dinner, cooked by someone else, eaten on dishes that someone else will wash. No beans tonight. Tonight it will be...
He thought for a while, mentally cataloguing his favorite restaurants and comparing the cost of a meal at each one to the balance left in his wallet.
Greek! he decided, delighted at his choice. Gyros and souvlaki on pita bread with feta cheese and onions and lemon soup and all kinds of other stuff! Washed down with immense quantities of beer! Yes! I deserve it!
And his favorite of all the Greek restaurants in Piketon was within walking distance, which was a very important consideration in these his carless days.
* * * * *
The joint was rocking that afternoon.
The restaurant — built on utterly flat ground but called The Acropolis anyway — consisted of three separate eating areas. To be more accurate, it had one eating area, one drinking area, and one baking area.
The first was the main dining room, which was large, light, and airy, and one of Malcolm’s favorite places.
The second was the large bar area through which customers entered the restaurant. It contained a bar of prodigious length and three pool tables. All four were heavily populated today. The noise was deafening, the air was thick with cigarette smoke, and Malcolm decided not to bother with beer because he felt drunk just from breathing the alcohol vapor as he passed through the room.
Business Secrets from the Stars Page 9