by The Blumhouse Book of Nightmares- The Haunted City (retail) (epub)
As time passed, he was more than happy to admit that V ran his life. The idea that a housekeeper could, in fact, run someone’s life was not a concession to Jackson’s lack of organization, his manhood, not a concession to any failing, but rather a boast. He spoke to V kindly, gently, but he spoke of V as a woman he possessed, owned, paid for. Chattel.
Marlene, Jackson’s editor, JB & Sons Books (since the commencement of Novel Two) was possessed of the same type of power Cline exercised. And, as well, possessed of the concern for detail that inhabits the minds of powerful people who service other powerful people. In actuality, Jackson was forty-five years old. Marlene had made five years of Jackson’s life disappear just prior to the publication of Novel Two. Jackson was to be publicly portrayed as five years younger than he was, and the people who worked for Marlene and Cline, and thus Jackson, made manifest that lie. Articles about Jackson, online musings, reviews were swept clean, people often paid off to maintain the lie. And Marlene’s ability to perform this trickery, and perform it successfully, impressed Jackson. As Marlene explained, writing a bestseller, a huge bestseller, at twenty years of age, fit a particular narrative: the twenty-year-old writer’s first novel exploding onto the scene and breaking the mold. The subsequent interviews, photos, signings, red carpets…money…fame. All quite statistically and nearly impossible at age twenty. Thus so goddamn impressive. Make the impossible possible. Marlene had the power to do that. Looking back, why the hell hadn’t Ben suggested this slight, benign falsehood? Ben Myer, his first editor, a good guy. Garrett Books, a good operation, but again, too small. And neither Ben nor Garrett Books could distinguish ethics from reality in the competitive world Jackson inhabited. Neither the man nor the company had the shark’s teeth to navigate a sea filled with other sharks. That was the reason Ben did not engage in minor conspiracies, like changing the age of his author. Jackson Grey, the wunderkind of a new brand of horror, needed power. Power to transmute his creativity, to monetize it, and more than that…How did Marlene put it? The space created for such power to reside! All these ideas of power, space, more power all emanating from one book, the explosion of success that was Novel One.
There was a sense of guilt as Jackson toyed with the idea of losing the people like Ben, like Garrett Books. However, when Cline and Marlene initially pitched Jackson the idea that he needed to rid himself of his old attorney/business manager, his old editor, old publishing house, they focused not on the past but on the future, bringing aboard the instruments of true power: Cline, Marlene, JB & Sons, the team that could forge a future. The pitch was perfect and simple and remained all these years later at the core of his consciousness: Every writer has one big novel inside his brain, his gut, his soul, and some even have the courage to write it down. Get it published. But Jackson Grey wants more. He wants greatness. And what is the point of desiring greatness if Jackson Grey does not have powerful people circling that greatness, translating it, expanding it, making certain all the bases are covered, turning desires into realities? They spoke to him in the third person. A parlor trick of course, but an ego stroke nonetheless.
Jackson needed a Cline, he needed a Marlene. He needed pure power. He craved it.
Good ol’ Ben Myer understood. And after Jackson fired his old attorney/business manager and retained Cline, Garrett Books was made to understand. Thus Cline broke the contract with Garrett; money was exchanged, as were some harsh letters from which Jackson’s eyes were shielded. Was there litigation? Jackson was kept out of it. “Everyone left the table as friends,” Cline reassured him. A simple transaction: Cline replacing someone, Garrett Books out of the picture, substituted by JB & Sons, the biggest, the best. Ben finished, replaced with Marlene. Guilt?
“These are transactions, Jackson, not lovers,” Marlene snapped at him. Snapped…affectionately. Marlene could costume admonitions, dress them up, and have them appear as care.
Guilt?
Certainly no guilt now. Cline, Marlene, JB & Sons were the stuff of bestselling novels, and all that flows from the bestselling novel flows to the bestselling author. At the time, any feelings of potential regret were assuaged (as Marlene predicted) by the wholesale success of Jackson’s second novel. Novel Two, a book that broke all records, by way of genre, sales, age of author, a host of other statistics, numbers all adding up to power, his present-day power. Guilt, nostalgia, romanticizing previous business arrangements? Those were the emotions that defined the amateur, the unsuccessful, the wannabe. The ones who bought his books, paid to see him appear in person and speak the nuggets of wisdom only an artist of Jackson’s caliber could even contemplate. Jackson was not without emotion. He valued Cline, Marlene, JB & Sons. Of course he valued Katherine. However, the idea of…meaning had long passed. What these people meant to Jackson, he did not know. They served a purpose, and, at this point in his life, he could no longer distinguish between what a human being meant to him and the purpose that human being served. The Attorney, the Editor, the Publisher, the Girlfriend. These were the titles of the people who inhabited Jackson’s life, but frankly, they were phrases, job descriptions. The people in Jackson’s life were scenery. Valuable, purposeful scenery as they related to Jackson’s task: gathering up all the ideas in his head, those horrifying, thrilling, grotesque, haunting ideas, putting them on a computer screen, constructing a book. The next novel. The next big, bestselling Jackson Grey Novel. That was the scenery’s purpose. To service the industry of Jackson Grey.
The Process: Once out of bed, dressed, V waiting patiently to pour the freshly ground and prepared coffee into Jackson’s cup, the cigarettes, the paper, the nod of appreciation to V…and Jackson Grey would begin slipping out of his own head and comfortably into the new novel. The words he used to describe himself, his career, the people, the ones he loved, or thought he loved, or thought he was supposed to love, the ones he worked with, lied about, lied to, that whole mess that cluttered Jackson’s mind? He would bury all of that, walk into his study, lock the door…and commence writing. Or as Jackson portrayed it in so many interviews and speeches, “muster the courage to begin a new book.” Jackson used this phrase frequently…in public. To the ones who paid for the nuggets of wisdom. He gave them that falsity, the “muster the courage” nugget. In reality, Jackson never thought of writing a novel as an act of courage, in fact never gave thought to his process. He simply delivered. Slipping out of his own head and easily into a new novel was Jackson’s religion, born from what he felt at the time of Novel One, many years ago: to put pen to paper and create page after page required a courageous leap of faith in himself. Now, so many successes behind him, such courage was on par with that needed to slip out of bed, and the leap of faith need be accomplished only once, and Jackson accomplished it during Novel One.
The phrase “muster the courage” had become an inside joke he shared with Marlene and Marlene’s assistant and associate editor, Lyla. They knew the score. Jackson had mastered the formula for creating a Jackson Grey Novel, and they admired, as many did, Jackson’s mastery of that particular art. Many respected his unique signature on horror and many more desired to read the bestsellers made pure from that formula.
Jackson also understood that the way in which a Jackson Grey Novel left his mind, traveled to Marlene, and ended up in a reader’s hands sounded creatively myopic to certain critics, to those who created, collected, received, and distributed opinion. Skill sets, constructions, formulas, precision, fortunes…words, ideas that led to success and money read like sin to the class of poseurs who waited, achingly, to judge him. And given our times, anyone with the desire to create and distribute opinion could do so; everyone could publish an opinion. Everyone a goddamn demi-critic, with an unreadable blog. Amateurs unable to pierce even the outermost veil of literary creation and the successful sating of an eager audience. How to explain that marriage of creativity and business? How to explain they went hand in hand? Jackson attempted to explain this on every well-paid speaking tour he booked. And he booked many. He co
uld see in their eyes their judgment, wrapped in the unspoken words “sellout” and “hack.” Why do they even show up, pay to hear me speak? On the off chance they will lock eyes with me, on the off chance their eyes will betray their disapproval? They would kill to be me. How dare they judge? Fuck critics and their blogs, their magazines and periodicals.
Fuck them!
Now it was about simply getting up and writing, which he simply got up and did. The Setting, the Routine, the Process…and the Formula. Therein lay a Jackson Grey Novel.
After the success of Novel Fourteen, reprinted in hardcover dozens of times, then to paperback, then the speeches and talks, people were, on Jackson’s behalf, again flirting with film offers. That is all Jackson knew. People. Flirting with offers. After Novel Fourteen was attributed, congratulated, celebrated, and partied to absolute death, and then reattributed, recelebrated, recongratulated, and partied yet again, Jackson “mustered the courage” to begin Novel Fifteen.
He began by reviewing the contract to write Novel Fifteen, the contract Cline had drafted for both Jackson and JB & Sons, the contract Marlene reviewed, the contract Jackson had on his desk, waiting for his signature.
All of this simply…worked. Not by happenstance; rather by formula, by intention. The right people, doing the right things, at the right time. He read many of his peers, in print interviews, and saw them on television rehashing the same canard: creativity cannot be explained. Such bullshit. Such delusion. With the proper Setting, Routine, and Process, with the correct Formula, creativity can easily be explained. Bolstering an audience’s delusions about the writer’s journey? So false. So manipulative. In truth, and even though Jackson made a good deal of his money speaking about the production of a Jackson Grey Novel, there was no great mystery in his journey, no questions really needed to be asked, no answers were required, and the delusions? Well, for the right price, to a paying audience, Jackson indulged those delusions with a private wink and a nod.
Yes, it all worked. In its own way, it all worked.
Until Novel Fifteen.
—
Monday, the seventeenth of August, the first day Jackson, living in his Setting, engaged in his Routine, buried in his Process, sticking to his Formula, attempted to begin Novel Fifteen. Immediately something was off. Jackson never stared at a blank screen for more than a few minutes. Yet there he was, doing exactly that. Staring. By eleven a.m., Jackson folded his cards. It did not seem such a big deal. That day he periodically went back into his study, sat down, and tried to start over, but again, nothing. Chalking it up to a million external realities, none of which, to be frank, were palpable, Jackson anxiously awaited Tuesday. For it was on Tuesday that Novel Fifteen would certainly come. Said prediction was far off the grid. Tuesday ended up being a practical day for Jackson. Tormenting but practical. For, on Tuesday, plans were made. Plans for Wednesday. Jackson reckoned that if the next day, Wednesday, ended in disappointment, practical steps would need to be taken. If Wednesday was mimicry of Tuesday’s hell, something was not only off, something was wrong and something needed to be done about it. Thus, Tuesday was about rationalization, speculation, and long odds. Wednesday will be just fine. The past two days? An anomaly.
Wednesday did not hold solutions. By noon on Wednesday, screen blank, “anomaly” a concept long gone, Jackson made a quick, discreet trip to Dr. Max, his internist. Dr. Max had been Jackson’s doctor for years, since Jackson moved to Carmel. And the doctor was enamored of Jackson (although he claimed to have other “celebrity” patients, Jackson doubted it). The sycophantic doctor spoke a bit too much about how the brain works, why, where, and when the synapses fire, and how they get lost, fucked up on their synaptic journey…until Jackson approached impatience. I know you have to give the speech, but we both know the end game here. Take out your little pad of paper, write down whatever meds will unfuck the synapses, let’s get on with it. Finally, Dr. Max wrote a prescription for the little pink pills that were supposed to make one concentrate. The pills they give children who daydream. The idea behind this medicine was that Jackson had too much on his mind and lacked focus. Whatever. You know nothing of me, my process, what it takes to do what I do. Just give me the script. And write it for refills. Jackson had taken these pills before.
On Wednesday he took one of the pills, then two, then three, then God knows how many; he had forgotten exactly what his doctor had told him with regard to how this medication—more important, when this medication—began doing its job. He remembered, vaguely, that the doctor had given such explanations before. He remembered these words: “People think this is ‘speed’; it’s not.” Regardless of what the pills did or were designed to do, they gave definition to his emptiness. Upon realizing that these pills were speed and would allow him no sleep, he called the doctor back and that transaction resulted in little white pills that would provide that sleep.
Too much sleep. Thursday was all about sleep. Yet it did not seem a wasted day to Jackson. Perhaps this was precisely what he needed. Unadulterated, uninterrupted sleep. For Friday, Novel Fifteen would appear on the screen. God, what have I been putting myself through these past four days? I just needed sleep. Like any other human being.
Friday, the fifth morning of Jackson’s agony, Jackson realized he was utterly unable to produce a single word, not a letter, a vowel, a consonant arcing toward the construction of Novel Fifteen. So he took a shower. The third shower he had taken in as many hours. As if the shower were a baptismal ritual, something primal, an attempt to both wash off his failure and purify his existence.
However, nothing became pure, there was no redemption, for after Jackson dried himself off, got dressed, poured himself a drink, unlocked and entered his study, it was then that he first spotted The Words blinking on his computer:
BOOKS DO NOT WRITE THEMSELVES, JACKSON GREY.
The study. Jackson’s study was an integral piece of the Setting, the Routine, the Process. This deep-leather, mahogany room contained a couch Jackson rarely sat on, bookshelves filled with bound, gilded books, never opened or read, a dedicated shelf with the first editions of his novels, walls lined with awards, photos, plaques: a veritable shrine to his success. Next to Jackson’s computer on the large hardwood desk sat a notepad and the contract for Novel Fifteen, still unsigned, and an expensive monogrammed pen. The room was off-limits to everyone, including V (unless, of course, Jackson was inside the room and V knocked on the door to bring in tea or coffee, etc.). The room was neat, no scattered papers: just the couch, the desk, the computer, password protected, a notepad, the scent of leather and wood. Precision. All part of the Process. The study was what a writer’s room should look like.
He stared at those blinking words with shock, fear, and panic. After all the accolades, the superlatives, the cash, the speaking gigs, the success that Novel Fourteen had brought, and, more to the point, after the attempted commencement of Novel Fifteen, ideas and questions that were absolutely incomprehensible to Jackson suddenly became comprehensible, possible. Everything permitted, nothing denied. Every word, gesture, act of cruelty, of contrition, of desire, of abstinence, of construction, of destruction, every act within the human realm, within Jackson Grey’s realm? Comprehensible. Possible.
BOOKS DO NOT WRITE THEMSELVES, JACKSON GREY.
Ironic, Jackson thought, how seven words could send a writer like himself, of whom there were few, straight to hell.
Jackson immediately began doing something he’d sworn to himself he’d never do. He thought about his Process. He began to veer, adding and subtracting ingredients. He changed the recipe.
What diseased bastard wrote on my computer? A practical joke? That’s sick. Impossible, as well. Rule that one out. No one gets in my study. Lock and key.
Break it down. Go back. Okay, yes. This did happen after Novel One. The first novel. Seven words did not appear on my computer, no. But there was a brief inability to begin Novel Two. How common is that? Quite. The huge pressure to obliterate the idea of the “one-
hit wonder,” as he slams into the expectations. Everybody’s expectations. That turn to speculations. What that can do to a writer! Me? Got rid of people, picked up people, traveled, overcelebrated. A megaton of pressure. It’s happened before. And it’s happening again.
Yes, Novel Two was a headache. But Novel Twos always are! And Novel Two was a bestseller! So it is supposed to happen with a second novel. Not a fifteenth!
Yes, wait, goddamn! It did happen again with Novel Seven. After hooking up with that girl who came to the Berkeley lecture. She was living in San Francisco. Invited her to move in. She was barely twenty years old. She—Celina! Celina. A muse. That’s all. Talent needs, requires, a muse. Muses. Picasso had lovers. Loved her. Nearly married her. Did I? Thank god Cline talked me out of that. Talked us both out of that! Which was smart. She was fucking with my head. I just needed a muse. Why did she not understand that? These women, these muses, they drive you, they drain you. She was an adult. Drama. Tears. Cline helped smooth things over. Gave her money. Money? Jesus, why did we give Celina my money? Nearly married—It’s always about fucking money. But that was years ago.