“I’ve been working on this book.”
I have lots of writer friends. We’re all thick as flies on the corpse of the novelistic institution. Joel Macrade, (pronounced, with typical French haughtiness, Ma-crad) is this particular one who has kindly met me at a bar to discuss my first collection of short stories. He picks at a goatee that looks like barb-wire. He’s recklessly allowed his glass of Scotch in the vicinity of my virginal manuscript. “This thing,” he says, once the under-educated waitress has turned on her heels, “this GENRE thing,” (saying genre with a drawing-up of the lips, like saying gonorrhea.) “Some of your stories are- I would say- on a similar commercial wave-length as my book.”
“COMMERCIAL?” I snarl within the protective confines of my imagination. “May I join you in having a sip of your magically powerful Scotch that has transported you to an alternate land in which wealth and literature frolic merrily on the fields?” But, as usual, by the time I have crafted my tortuous comeback, conversational detours make it impractical. Joel Macrade, (pronounced, with typical French haughtiness, Ma-crad) is exposing at length on how even he has taken the market into consideration:
“And so this book I’ve been working on, I have to wrestle with the compromise, but there are certain moments in it- the space station explodes towards the end, and there’s an- I would be the first to admit- scene with the lesbian aliens that appeals- perhaps- to prurient interests. But see, I think the foremost duty of a writer is to- well yes write- but be READ. And so believe me it is not from a podium that I tell you some of these stories are too mainstream, too approachable. It’s an insecure beginner’s tactic. I sympathize.”
“Approachable?” I say shyly. “But, did you read that one where the punctuation made the dialogue nearly unreadable? You know, I tried real hard to make it completely unreadable.”
“The one about the writers talking, yes,” Joel Macrade says. “How very excruciatingly meta. If I am forced to read- don’t take this personal, this is a pandemic- but I am not wittingly reading another story in which writers ejaculate over their own craft. I find it an admission of complete ineptitude- parochialistic. No more stories about writers struggling with a novel, or writer’s block, or about failing to distinguish fact from fiction in their complicated sex lives.” (He snatches his glass and much as I feared it has left behind a Saturnian, expanding water ring that edges towards the sole copy of my manuscript, for I am but a poor boy and printing services surprisingly prohibitive. He scratches his goatee as he sips the Scotch and it is a marvel of coordination.) “And what is it,” he says, nostrils suddenly flaring as the waitress interrupts the neutrality of the bar’s faux-wood-wall , “who is perpetuating this rumor about writers having complicated sex lives? We’re all sexy like plumbers- and less useful around the house.”
“Did you like any of my sto-”
“So this thing I’m working on, this genre thing,” oh my God I think I am caught on a time loop with Joel Macrade, “it is at least courageous in the way it embraces the fact that it is not some high minded attempt to re-bake the crumbling cookie of Western civilization. You would be wise to learn from that. And what is it with your quasi-Walt-Whitman-Biblical intro? My eyes rolled so far back I was glaring at my cerebellum. You have no story here to back that nonsense up. I went- indulge me in an amusing recollection- to the carnival when I was 9 and a true believer, expected Satan to hop out of every mirror. The bearded lady had unfortunately shaved that morning. I suppose ‘World’s Tallest Man’ is a pleasant alternative to ‘Sad Middle Aged Man with Malfunctioning Pituitary Gland.’ The two headed goat- well, the barker explained that they had extirpated the second head- it had been a matter of the animal’s continued welfare.”
Joel Macrade allows his full weight to rest back on his chair. “Point is: that intro is a barker at a sad sideshow. But you’re young. There’s some neat lines in here. You know that line you have- how did it go? ‘Writing about truth is like drinking about sobriety.’ I found it amusingly accurate. If only it wasn’t so self-reflexive. I think- and it is my humble opinion- what a lie, humility produces no opinions- I think your stories will be better once you accept you’re just hoping someone will be entertained enough to buy them.”
“Are they?” I say- I didn’t say it, the defeated, crushed automaton carriage of my bones and muscles did. “Are they entertaining enough to be bought?”
Joel Macrade, (what a bastard! May roaches defile all his orifices!) gives this question some thought: “Are you asking me what I would pay for them?,” he shakes the depleted Scotch glass, and icy slivers slide down the see-sawing bottom. “I am a fellow writer, remember. My money is reserved for alcohol. I can’t afford to buy BOOKS.”
As I, wounded, pick up my paper-bound failure, ( all those plots that no one will gently unfold, all those characters that might just drift, unemployed, like the lower classes during recession), my fellow writer friend finally notices we’re not all equally immune to disdain, and softening he says:
“I suppose I would pay five bucks- if you’re going to get all capitalistic about it.”
Again, let the angelic chorus resound: what a bastard! I have no respect for him. I know I said he was my friend. But I only said that because I am a liar. Joel Macrade is no friend of mine. As long as we’re rolling with the disclosures: he is not even real. Entirely fictional.
