Manny scurried along the sidewalk, the hum of the city helping to hurry him along. The streets paved away from his steps like an endless treadmill, narrowing into the distance. A perception of depth that was dizzying if one focused on it for too long. Rows of buildings of interchangeable heights and textures populated the sides of the streets as if some giant force had chock-a-blocked them into place and might decide at any moment to reach down from above and rearrange them.
It was already ten ’til and he didn’t want to be shut out because he arrived late. Tightening his grip on the hand-me-down satchel, he hurried up the steps and through the hotel promenade, his worn second-hand Safeway sliders gripping and screeching the highly polished tiles. The high pitched echoes visibly annoyed the security team waiting in the now empty foyer to assess the potential threat he represented. Upon presenting his ticket, a scrupulous guard proceeded to give his bag an overly thorough search. Trying not to watch, Manny imagined that the guard sensed the urgency of the moment and wanted to further frustrate him by taking his sweet ass time.
Manny was used to people messing with him. It only added fuel to the fire if he played into their games and he had learnt the hard way that patience choked the flames. So he busied himself by straightening his frumpy clothes and smoothing back his dirty brown mane, the sweat from his hustle helping to hold his hair in place.
The guard paused when he found the main compartment and looked up at Manny with a sardonic grin, dark eyes squinting. He watched the unwitting wannabe McCarthyite examine the stack of pages pulled partially from the bag. Manny could only shrug his shoulders and squeak, “manuscript,” at the sight of it. He said the word more like a question as if he himself were unsure of the legitimacy of what he was carrying.
Abandoning his militancy as if a foreign advance of reason had encroached upon his vapid soul, the guard mumbled under his breath. “Whatever.” Shaking his head, he crammed the bundle of papers back into the satchel and waived him through. As Manny shuffled away, he could hear the laughter of men blocking the hold within themselves where compassion might find grip.
There was a palpable buzz in the auditorium. Manny scanned the expanse of seats for an opening near the front but could find none. As he stood in the isle, clamped in confundancy, the doors closed behind him and the lights went low. Someone cursed and another whisper-shouted. “Sit down man.”
Finding the nearest seat, and clutching his satchel close to his chest, Manny sat with a rumph. Dust motes shot up and energy drink fueled attendees leaned back, waiving their hands in panic as if one more particle of dust would push them over the edge. The edge of what, Manny had no idea. He took little notice of them. He would not be distracted from his mission.
His plan was simple: Attend the presentation being given by his favorite author Charlie Mastapuliuk. Pay the extra for a level 3 backstage pass, no one-on-one access to the author but front-ish of the line for autographs. He would show Mr. Mastapuliuk his manuscript and explain the impact of his story, and that would be it. If only he could get him to read the first line of the first paragraph of the first page, that would be all the great man would need to see.
The presentation did not disappoint. C-Mas, as he was known to his admirers, gave a riveting yet humorous talk to the scores of aspiring writers and adoring fans. He graciously answered only a few questions before ending the presentation, much to the disappointment of the crowd.
The backstage mixer was an utter disappointment as Manny waited for his face time with C-Mas. He had no desire to make small talk and apparently no one dared approach him. He speculated as to why but after realizing his anti-perspirant had decided not to work, he knew it wouldn’t have mattered how witty or how charming he tried to be. No amount of guile could overcome a repellant case of body odor. Manny chuckled to himself thinking that there was no one here more guileless than himself.
Annnnyway.
After checking his phone for the 74th time, he was relieved to hear the announcement that it was time for the line to queue up heading into the heavily monitored autograph area. Clutching his satchel, Manny shook with excitement like he had just stepped out on to the frigid tundra without a Patagonia puffy jacket. When his turn came, he stepped up to the table and froze in place, his jaw working but nothing coming out.
C-Mas looked up and chuckled. “It’s ok man. Relax. Do you have something you’d like me to sign?”
Manny shook his head, “N-no … well … y-yea … not really … b-but … ” The worlds came out in a low monotone like someone tapping the same out-of-tune piano key over and over.
C-Mas gave him quizzical look, then turned his hands up as if to ask, ‘Why are you here?’
Manny gathered himself, breathed in deep and plunged his hands into his satchel. The thick manuscript stack made a loud smack on the table. C-Mas leaned back, raising his hands palms away, and stared at the papers. The page on top was blank except for a round coffee mug stain and one small word in the center: <Title>
C-Mas looked back up at the kid, gave him a hard look softened by a thin lipped smile. “I couldn’t review your manuscript even if I wanted to. Them’s the rules kid. Don’t you have something else for me to sign?”
Manny froze again, then managed to monotone some more. “P-please, just read the first line … you’ll see that…”
Before he could finish, a monitor materialized behind C-Mas. “You get at least one of these at every signing I bet.” He said it with a conspiratorial mocky-ness about him that sub-texted to Manny’s mental mobile phone, you’re on the wrong side of the table, loser. The monitor then set his glare on Manny, shaking his head, no.
Manny deflated as if the neighborhood bully had just poked a hole in his red rubber kickball. The people behind him began to make comments. C-Mas looked up at the scared young man and relaxed his shoulders, smiling a little more, shaking his head. Unwilling to embarrass a fan of his work any further, the writer of legends looked down and rummaged through a crate he had stashed under the table and pulled a copy of one his newest books out. He flipped the cover open, wrote a brief note, signed it, and handed it to Manny with a nod of approval. “Here ya go kid.” Manny accepted the offer, mouth agape. Handling the book as if it were a figment of his imagination that would crumble to dust at any moment, he gently slid it into his satchel.
The supervising monitor looked at Manny and said, “Okay now collect your stack of papers and move on or we will have to help you do so, okay?” Mr. mocky-monitor drew out the second okaaaaay like he was talking to a petulant kindergartener.
Manny watched as C-Mas turned his head and cut a glare at the monitor as if to say, ‘hey asshole, don’t be mean. Can’t you see he’s just a nervous kid?’
Manny observed the exchange and understood. He also noticed that the monitor did not get it. The polyester vested supervisor looked like he had about as much compassion as a crazed hyena tearing the last bits of a scavenged carcass from the mouths of his starving young.
Finding some inner strength in the presence of the man he most respected, Manny stood his ground. Looking the monitor right back into his uncaring eyes, Manny’s imagination infused his demeanor with words he dared not say out loud. You don’t scare me. I find you mostly pathetic. Can’t you see, this was my shot? You self-righteous jerk with a capital J. Manny stood motionless a few seconds longer than he should have, joining his idol in a non-verbal communication style protest.
Objections from behind began to grow more prolific.
“Come on man.”
“Let’s move it.”
“Duuuuude.”
The hyena-esque monitor continued to glare as his hand fell to his radio. C-Mas was busying himself with the crate below the table, ignoring the monitor, pretending not to be involved. But Manny did notice small hints of a smile on the edges of his idol’s expression and knew he had somehow made an impression. The right impression. He had not won the fight but had landed a respectable blow and now, it was time to relent.
Before monitor man could draw his radio from the hip holster, Manny nodded, “fine,” but thought to himself, enjoy ruling your pitiful fiefdom. Without another word or another look at C-Mas he collected his manuscript, turned and shuffled away, shoving his most prized possession into the tattered satchel. As he left, he heard someone from the line snicker, “adios, douchebag.”
More snickers as he was directed across the room towards a side door, where another guard stood, his large frame filling the opening like an oval peg in a rectangular hole. After a moment’s deliberation, as if debating whether or not Manny should be freed from this his most embarrassing moment of the year, the guard stepped aside then told Manny to go down the hall and exit through the door at the end. Before Manny passed through, he turned and glanced back to hear the next guy in line ask C-Mas, “Hey you got a book for me too?”
Then more shouts, “yea how about us?”
The din began to grow as he stepped through into the hall. The guard motioned for him to move towards the exit and turned his attention back to the autograph room. His radio began to chatter, and the guard grabbed it mouthing some inaudible reply into the static. After a few steps Manny paused again when he heard the commotion back inside begin to intensify. Then something crashed, voices were shouting. The door guard rushed back inside the autograph room and the pneumatic door slammed shut, leaving Manny alone in the hall. Silence reigned now as if he had suddenly been plunged into a small concrete block pool with a polished tile bottom and a popcorn ceiling surface which appeared to be an apt representation of the literary ceiling he now realized he would never break through. The noises from without his hallway tomb were only muffled voices now of a life that could have been.
Spent and crushed with disappointment, he stepped into a recessed doorway, leaned on the wall, and slid to the floor. His head fell forward to his knees and he began to sob softly in the shadows.
After several minutes, Manny analyzed the past few months.
Aaaaagain.
His manuscript had been rejected by every agent and publisher he had submitted it to. Dozens. He had lost track. This had been his last best chance. He had spent what remained of his savings for admission. C-Mas was known to be charitable to aspiring writers and Manny thought for sure if he would just read the first line… but no. That would not happen now. Manny pulled the manuscript from his satchel and began leafing through, his fingers flitting along the curled corners. But after a few seconds he surrendered. Having given up and given in to his worst fears of failure, he leaned his head back, lightly knocking it against the wall. Tears streaming, he eyed the trash can across the hall and his face hardened with a steely determination. Fuck it, Manny reflected. He considered for the first time that perhaps he should just give up on his questionably quixotic quest for the quintessential literary qualification: publication.
Before he could make his move, the door from the autograph room burst open and noise of the mayhem from within shocked Manny from his contemplations. From his seat in the dark recess, he turned his head and watched as a guard shoved C-Mas through the door and told him to stay put while they took care of this. The door closed and Manny was left alone in the hallway with his own personal Kafka, his Faulkner to the Hemingway aspirants of the world. But before he could muster the strength to stand, C-Mas looked the opposite way and began to walk. A few quick steps and he pushed through a door. The sign above displayed the male symbol for the men’s room. It made him wonder if he had the guts to follow.
Manny managed to stand, clutching the thick manuscript in one hand. Steadying his satchel with the other, he straightened his spine and walked towards the bathroom door. He moved with deliberate steps like his feet had been cast in concrete shoes. He hunched as he passed the autograph room exit, giving it a wary glance as if the polyester vested police force might burst through, handheld radios drawn. But he pressed on, left foot right foot. Reaching the bathroom door, Manny paused thinking, maybe I should wait until he comes out. In that moment the door flew open and C-Mas emerged.
Startled, Manny stumbled backwards and flailed his arms. The manuscript collapsed in his grip and exploded from his hand in a noisy shower of pages.
Manny looked into the eyes of his idol in horror, then fell to his knees and started gathering papers. “I-I’m sorry C-Mas. I didn’t mean to…”
At the sight of this same terrified kid now floundering on the floor in front of him, C-mas sighed. Fuck it. He told himself. And despite the legal precedent, put forth by the Buchwald ruling, instructing contractually obligated authors to never touch an unsolicited manuscript, he decided to take a chance and knelt down to help. “It’s okay kid. And do me a favor. Don’t call me C-Mas. You can call me Charlie. Or my friends call me Chuck.”
“Charlie.” Manny repeated. “Chuck. T-thank you. Thanks.” He said the words without kowtowing but kept his gaze down while sweeping with his arms to pull strewn pages back to him.
In a moment of silence, the two men working to clean up, the normalcy of a simple task seemed to calm them both. Level the playing field. Honest labor acting as the ultimate equalizer. Both men realizing there is a depth to humanity that transcends the confines of the concrete structure they found themselves trapped within. They were simply humans longing for a bit of the inherent cooperation that had been necessary for survival in the wilderness from which humanity sprang.
Chuck looked down at a page. A word jumped out at him: Seizemerically.
He tilted the page towards Manny and repeated the word. “Seizemerically?”
Without looking up as he gathered his papers, Manny just began talking. “Yea, sometimes I take liberties with typical words and combine them to distill a concept down to its essence. It gives readers a small puzzle to figure out as they read.” He seemed relaxed within the further distraction of discussing the mechanics of his writing technique as he organized his pages.
Chuck raised an eyebrow in interest, turned his mouth in a thoughtful expression then gave Manny an assessing nod. Then he looked back down at the page and started reading. Within a few seconds he was rapt by the passage. Upon finishing he looked up at the kid who was busy sorting through the scattered pages and hadn’t noticed. Chuck rested on his haunches, holding the paper, and regarded the kid for a moment with an approving grin. He held out the page. “That is a unique approach.”
Manny stopped and looked up, clutching papers in his hands. Frozen once again in disbelief he just muttered. “Huh?” Did he mean unique as in keep your day job; or unique as in keep working on it kid you might have something here? Shivering with nervousness, he wished now more than ever he had that Patagonia puffy jacket.
The door opened and polyester monitor man lolloped out. He too froze as he absorbed the scene. “Mr. Mastapukick, I’m sorry I didn’t know…”
Chuck stood, clutching a handful of papers, and cut him off. “It’s okay, I was just talking to the kid here.”
Manny relaxed back on his knees and feet, his hands also full of papers, and fell to his thighs. He could not look the man in the eyes, but allowed himself a small smile for the first time that day.
“And it’s Mastapuliuk not masta-poo-kick.” Chuck said.
Out of Chuck’s direct line of sight, the monitor rolled his eyes. “Sorry.”
Turning to face him, the honored guest set to putting poly-vest-boy together. “That’s okay. I bet you get one of those pesky names wrong at just about every event, don’t you?”
Admonished, the guard looked down as he stepped back and swept his arm towards the door. “We are ready for you now.”
Chuck turned back, looked at Manny and handed him his pages. “Keep writing kid. Better yet, keep reading.”
Manny could only stare as he left and mutter mono-tonally. “O-okay.”
Chuck smiled tightly and grunted, “hmph,” before walking off. He slowed to give the monitor a hard glare as he snapped his lapels and then disappeared inside.
Manny went back to cleaning up and, after a moment, a frown consumed his face. Whatever. Unique? You meant crappy didn’t you? Manny began to mumble as he stuffed papers into his satchel. “Probably just bein’ nice…”
The monitor watched Chuck go then turned back to Manny with a harsh expression and snarled his warning, “If you are not out of here in ten seconds you bumbling little shit…”
Manny raised a hand in surrender, pulled the remaining pages together in a pile and crammed them into his satchel. He didn’t look back as he ran knock-kneed down the hall towards the exit. Bursting out into the light of day, Manny stumbled to the nearest bench and hunched over it, steadying himself with one hand. The smell of the city hit him and he gagged reflexively. Losing strength in his arm he finally allowed himself to sit. In a daze, he simply stared back down the way he came, mouth agape. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then removed the signed copy of Chuck’s book from his knapsack.
He stared at it for a very long moment. Then, ventilating his pent up frustration, he hurled it towards the building. The book bounced off the brick wall and fell to the ground, pages fluttering in the wind. “Asshole!” He cried through mounting tears, not sure if he had directed the insult towards himself or his idol … or both. He regarded the manuscript, now disorganized in the folds of his bag, and vowed to burn it when he got home. No one would read it. Then he stood, buckling the straps of his hand-me-down satchel, and prepared to leave.
…
A few minutes earlier, Artie had been observing the boy in front of him holding up the autograph line. He had found his nervous tension a little amusing. While he was slightly annoyed by the extra wait time like everyone else, he mostly just felt sorry for the kid. When the people behind him had begun snickering and making comments, he had turned around and gave them a cross look as if to say. “Shut up.”
When the scuffle broke out over the books, Artie had stepped aside and put his hands up. The security guards had paid him no mind as they broke up the two jerks who’d started it and escorted them out. It had seemed like several minutes too long before C-mas returned to the signing. Artie had been advanced to next in line, collected his signature, relayed his thanks, and went about leaving through the same door Manny had used.
Artie hustled towards the exit. He was going to be late for work and didn’t want to push it. As he heaved open the door leading outside, the light struck his eyes and he hesitated in the open doorway for a moment, shielding his face with one hand. Just then, a book flew across his line of site and into the wall. From around the corner of the wing wall which hid the sender from view, he heard a voice scream. “Asshole!”
Puzzled, Artie walked up to look down at the book. It was laying part open, pages flopping the breeze. He looked over and saw a familiar figure, the boy who had been in line in front of him. He was looking out into the city with his back to Artie. He bent to pick up the book and regarded the cover for a minute. He quickly realized it was the book that C-mas had given the kid. He shook his head and huffed, why would he throw it away like that? Apparently, Artie realized, the kid had taken the rejection of his manuscript a little too hard. Don’t most people know that authors never reviewed or accepted those things at signing events anyway?
Remembering that C-mas had signed it, Artie flipped to the signature page and read it to himself.
‘You got guts kid, whether you realize it or not.
Email my agent the first ten pages via below address.
Subject: Holding up Chuck’s line
Chucks.agent@writeyourassoff.com’
Artie’s eyes widened. He flipped the book closed and held it with both hands, thinking how much it might be worth. There were thousands of writers who would pay good money to have contact information for C-mas and his agent. He narrowed his eyes, but before his conscience could let him take a step, he turned back to the kid. He saw that his head now hung low between his shoulders, as if someone had tied a ninety pound weight to it. Artie looked down at the book and tightened his lips in resolve. Then he turned to the kid.
“Hey, did you drop this?”
Manny turned around and gave him a dejected look. He couldn’t answer, only sniff and wipe his nose on his shirtsleeve as he risked a glance at the book he had just jettisoned in a fit of bitterness.
With earnest, Artie walked up and handed it to him. “I think you ought to read the inscription.”