|
Page 72.
 Here’s proof: there is really an Unhappy Hour.
At night, a totally different sort of traffic coursed through its old veins, but it wasn’t dark yet. He escaped the stifling heat and basking streets, relieved that the day’s struggle was over, almost happy to say to himself he’d done enough and enter the leafy, sunlit half-world of suppertime in the city’s residential and hotel streets.
In the quiet, breezy stairwell of the building in which he lived, Marc opened the communal mail slot for the uppermost apartment. He sifted through envelopes large and small. The mail of his fellow renters aroused in him a mix of resentment, boredom, and joy.
He was resentful because a lot of their mail, related to their job-seeking, came from important-sounding firms eager to draft gray-suited robots with green and red ledge-ink flowing in their veins. No poets need apply.
He was bored by the company names—dry-sounding law firms, conglomerated canners, incorporated shoe design, creative(not) wretches, executive searchers, and the like.
He was downright joyous at times that he wasn’t interested in hooking up with Undulant Design, Marketing Associates, cardboard box manufacturers in Brest, a chemical company in Alsace, or anything else redolent of rumpled dark suits.
In the mailbox were several items for him. One was a postcard from Aunt Lorraine, aged sixty-seven, vacationing on the Rhône; she sent love and kisses, and he nodded to her in spirit.
He found two bills to pay, and an offer to join a book club. The Randol R. Dette Poetry Society’s current offering was Delphic Zones by one Ziskin Piedkopf. Scoffing, he decided such an esoteric name would properly baffle his roommates, even make them jealous and curious. Maybe Léopold Montblé was too esoteric, or not esoteric enough. Not a good marketing name. Too fresh, original, talented, sincere, and heartbreaking to sell sausage to stupid cattle. He slammed the item back into the common mail box, full of spite.
Ah! Here was a big manila envelope addressed to him by his misspelled name Mark, from Publishers Inc. They were, at the moment, a keyFrench poetry publisher in Strasbourg. He tore the envelope open with trembling fingers. It had been six months since he’d submitted 25 poems. He sat down on the stair step and read:
Dear MF: You write well and show much promise. However, you should know that publishing is a flihty business. Your poetry is genuine and full of a haunting classical quality and I imagine maybe we could have published. Our editors for the most part wanted to say yes but then came the marketing folks and they tell me we couldn’t possibly go ahead with an unknown. So you’ll have to keep trying with the magazines until your name becomes famous. If you’re still interested by then. My advice is keep trying. Don’t quit your day job.
Best wishes, KNG
Léopold Montblé read and re-read the letter with outrage and disbelief.
What in hell is a flihty business?
He tried to read between the lines but there was nothing there which was clear. What did they mean, calling him MF? Did they say things like this in every rejection slip? Probably a form letter.
Should he try them again, or should he simply keep trying every publisher in general and not them in particular?
Is publishing a flighty or a flitty or a filthy business?
The typos annoyed him. Who was KNG? Some sweaty elf in a business suit who was afraid to commit himself even when he thought the writer was ‘genuine’ and ‘haunting’ and ‘classical.’ Finally the Catch-22, namely, they wouldn’t publish you if you didn’t have a name and you couldn’t get a name unless you were published.
“You idiots,” he said to himself, walking heavily up the stairs.
Stallion, his black computer, like everything else in his room, sat where Léopold Montblé had left him.
Still wearing his shoes, he threw himself across the bed, rumpled bed sheets only half covering the striped mattress. Somewhere a stereo was throbbing.
He drifted heavily into sleep—the drug of recovery.
|
This generous program allows you to read half the book free. If you like it, you can buy the whole book safe, secure, and quickly at Amazon (print or e-book). The e-book is priced about like a cup of coffee (painless, fun). Thank you for reading. If you love it, tell your friends. Please post a favorable review at Amazon, Good Reads, and other online resources. If you don't care for it, please do no harm; easy refund, and just move on. Authors need your support! Thank you (JTC).
|
E-Book
|
Print Book
|
TOP
|
