The Next Novel ...

Working title: Term Life

On the night before his sixty-first birthday, Corson Graves sat down at his desk and counted his money—gold coins; other than the equity in his house and the signed 1^st editions in the locked glass case to the right of his desk, it was all in gold now—and when he was done, concluded, as he had the previous night, and the one before that one, that if he wasn’t dead in three years he was fucked.

With Two Weeks to Go ...

As many of you know, I predicted back in January that Mitt Romney would be the nominee for the Republicans, and that he would get beat—trounced, I believe I said—on Election Day, now only two weeks away.

Alas, there are always factors we can't account for when we go out on a limb. One of the factors I hadn't counted on (and that no one else had counted on so far as I know) was that Barack Obama would throw the first debate ...

And that Romney, of all people, would show finesse, and actually appear to care about that 47% of the population that was left strangely unmentioned by the president. And that, moreover, Romney had every intention of keeping not just these freeloaders but his own freeloaders—military contractors, Big Pharma, insurance companies, private equity types, hedge funders—everyone, pretty much, but PBS and Big Bird, flush with taxpayer dollars, this while lowering the revenues from which these payments come.

If I hadn't known better, I'd have thought he had a sensible plan to clean up the spectacular mess Obama inherited and have our economy cranking again like it was after we'd won the Second World War. Back when we had industrial power second to none, and the world, in rubble, mostly, needed it, badly. Before we were importing more than we were exporting, and the Dollar began giving way to the Chinese Yuan—at least it would, or should, if the Chinese weren't "cheating."

Back then, after the war, we had a deficit relative to GDP that was larger than now, if just barely, and yet the circumstances, as anyone, especially Mitt Romney, ought to know, were quite a lot different. Radically different. We'd emerged from a depression as a country of savers. The Defense Department was still called the War Department, and amid the crisis of war, we'd been forced to ration rather than told to shop.

Why do I mention this? Because no one in his right mind would suggest rationing to support a war or anything else these days. Not if he wanted to get elected president. Not even if you're a supposed born again fiscal conservative running on a ticket purporting to swing a meat axe at the deficit.

Thus, I hadn't counted on Moderate Mitt, Conservative Mitt, Equivocal Mitt (who was for so much before he was against so much, only to be for most of it all over again), Whatever Mitt, to so enamor "the base" by promising even more, with less revenue, than his challenger.

But no. Not only were we going to get our Cold War military back, but the farmers and Big Ag would keep getting their subsidies. Patients and bilkers alike would keep getting their full share of Medicare. And all the cost savings in Obamacare/Romneycare—eliminated (saving, once you start it, is practically as bad as rationing, and means less money going to someone who might otherwise vote for you), and yet we'd get to keep the nice parts—for, say, those with pre-existing conditions. Big bills mean big money, for someone who might vote for you. We're a country where a lot of folks make good bank on the backs of the sick, and what lunatic running for office would want to change that?

Aside from a little trimming in "discretionary" spending, we'd get to keep all the stuff paid for by the supposedly wild spending he'd been railing against for months AND we'd get a tax cut! After which, in four short years, he'd balance the budget just like Reagan and Dubya did.

Or did they quadruple and more or less double the debt, respectively?

But has it mattered, really? Dick Cheney—and what fiscal conservative other than Ron Paul doesn't love Dick Cheney?—said Reagan proved that it didn't matter. So if it doesn't matter, what's everyone worried about? And wouldn't it be nice to have everything and more, and pay less for it?

If you watched that first debate, and took Mitt seriously, that was pretty much Mitt's plan.

I hadn't counted on it ... Mitt running, at the last minute, as a spendthrift. As a guy that not only the rich could count on for charity from the taxpayers, but the old, the poor, the sick, the 47%, everyone—everyone!—would keep getting and then some, if we just voted for the conservative guy. For Mitt.

And here's another thing. I hadn't counted on a significant portion of women not thinking through the implications of having Roe versus Wade overturned, of having abortion only legal in cases of rape and incest and the health of the mother, which seems so reasonable just as long as you don't think about it at all. I hadn't counted on women, a significant number of them, apparently, not caring about what two guys named Mitt and Paul had in mind with regard to their right to make their own decisions about what happens inside their bodies and not have to stand and make their case in front of a tribunal just so they could terminate a pregnancy if they happened to get impregnated by, say, an uncle or a rapist.

I thought: if just all the women who can vote in this country said, "Are you out of your fucking mind?" and voted for the other guy, while all the men who supposedly want to take rights away from women voted for the guy who wanted to take rights away from women, the other guy—not Romney—would still win, because women have the numbers.

At this point in our history, I figured that was a pretty safe bet, that at least a strong majority would vote for the other guy, and yet ... we'll have to see.

I had counted on even the dumbest fool on the planet understanding that neither candidate is going to balance the budget in the next four years. Not even close. I had counted on most people, particularly the ones getting older, with little in the way of personal savings, not again buying into the tax-cutting to a balanced budget and more for everyone bullshit.

I used to be certain. I'm not anymore. You might say I have a bad feeling ...

Still, here's my prediction: Obama wins in a squeaker (that should have been a blow-out, but everyone loves a game 7, which I, of course, didn't count on), on the kind of strong end-game/ground-game/door-to-door fighting and all out nastiness that got Bush re-elected in 2004. It's a dirty business, for a thankless job. There will be those ironies and more for the pundits and all the rest of us to talk about as we run up our cards trying again to spend our economy into health during the holiday season.

Or ... maybe Carville was right, and Obama, for one night in Denver, saw his way out of his predicament but couldn't quite bring himself to follow through.

The writer, once again, losing out to life.

In two weeks we'll know for certain.

The Next Debate's Moderator: Samuel L. Jackson

Word had it that Sam was going to run a tight ship, and there for a while, when the candidates walked onto the stage and shook hands, smiling, trying to look taller than the other, Romney whispering to Obama that he liked the shine on his shoes, that he could see up his pant leg, and Obama retorting that Romney's fly was open, chucking him on the arm then, grinning big, waving to the crowd, "Made you look," there was hope.

They went to their podiums and Jackson leveled a hard, bad-assed expression at them both. "Listen up, Motherfuckers, cuz I'm only gonna say this once," he began. "When I say you're done talking, you're done fucking talking. Are we clear? Cuz if I gotta tell ya twice, I'll be gettin up there, Secret Service or no Secret Service, and getting goddam Yosemite Fucking Sam on your asses ..."

Hearing this, Romney's eyes got wide with excitement, an excitement he hadn't felt since he hazed that sissy with the lavender hair back in prep school. He had to admit this was more fun than Old Man Lehrer, that PBS pussy, moderating. Obama, meanwhile, simply grinned in his cool, good-natured way. It was good to have a brother up there asking the questions, keeping it fair, after the other night in Denver.

"All right, then," Jackson said when he had their attention. "First question ... How do y'all feel about two mouthy, in-your-fucking-face gay brothers from the Castro, say, gettin married and adopting some Mormon kids? Not the pretty ones, mind you—I can see you're freakin out over there, Governor—but no, we're not talking about the smart motherfuckers who when they get older we'll all be so proud of and take all the credit ... no, not them, I'm talking about the more fucked up ones, the ones nobody wants, back of the 47% corral kinda kids, you might say. What are your fucking thoughts? Governor, you getta go first."

Romney looked around, not sure whether to laugh or tell this guy to go fuck himself. He'd never told someone to go fuck himself before. He wondered if it would be exciting. "Why me? I thought we were going to talk about the economy ..."

"We'll talk about the fucking economy when I decide to, Motherfucker.  Right now, however, we're talking about two brothers—hell, since I see you're wincing, that both you motherfuckers have your assholes in a pucker, let's make it two sisters. Two hot-looking dikes—I've got a couple in mind—wanna get married and adopt some Mormon kid that no one, not even the Mormons, want—"

"Why do I have to go first?" Romney asked again, a little louder than before.

"Because you always wanna go last," Jackson replied—he'd watched the last debate. "And because I'm the moderator and I fucking said so."

Obama, who'd been cool up till now, felt it was time to speak up. He was the president after all. "Sam, come on. This isn't quiz night at some dance club in West Oakland. This is a Presidential Debate."

Jackson leaned back and folded his arms. "Answer the question."

"What if I just took the kid," Romney offered after four or five seconds of silence. "And then hired someone. What if I created a job for someone, an opportunity, of the sort one can have in this country if one works hard, if my opponent isn't raising taxes on him or her at every turn ..."

"Now there's a novel idea," Obama cut in. "I'd have figured you'd buy the orphanage and let your buddy Sheldon turn it into a casino. Have the kids work the tables. Dress the place up in neon—"

"You laugh, Mr. President, but that kind of hard scrapping ingenuity worked wonders for the Indians—I mean, of course, the Native American population that had prior to that time been beaten down with government handouts—"

"And the fucking cavalry," Jackson put in.

Romney turned to Obama. "He can't say that. He's the moderator."

Obama turned to Jackson. "Sam, you aren't the peanut gallery. You're the moderator—"

"Fine, I'm the moderator. I ask a question about homosexuals getting married and adopting undesirable little Mormons and you start talking about casinos and Indians. What's a brother to think, other than, apparently, you're both cool with it—"

"Cool with what?" Romney wondered aloud. He'd never used the word cool in that particular context before. It gave him a strange tingle.

Jackson answered, "The sisters ... gettin married ... and giving the little 47% percenter Mormon boy a home."

"No! Of course not—" Romney shot back. Was this man insane?

"So what about you?" Jackson asked Obama, who had thus far kept cool on the question.

He stammered a bit, then said, "Well, I think ... yes ... possibly. As you know, I'm the president of everyone, the president to all of America, from the richest of the rich to the dirtiest, sneakiest little weasal—" He stopped himself "But I think reasonable folks would agree, that even Governor Romney would agree, that we need to consider some of the potential complications that could arise—"

Jackson leaned back in his chair, looked up and ran his hand over his scalp. "Mr. President, I am not asking you if the sisters I have in mind can be allowed to change this little Mormon motherfucker's name to some shit like Elijah, or some goofy-assed one like yours. I'm just saying, Can These Sisters get married? Like all the rest of us poor motherfuckers, right? And by the way—" He eyed Obama knowingly "—I bet that was some anniversary you had the other night, some real joyous shit to be sure after the way you let that lyin motherfucker run all over your ass the other night—"

"Excuse me," Romney remarked indignantly. "What did he just call me? He can't say that. He can't be calling everyone a—"

"He's right," said Obama, raising his eyebrows at Jackson. That no nonsense, worn-out-being-the-president-and-having-to-listen-to-assholes-go-on-all-day-long look. "Sam ... I think we need to talk about the economy. Right now. I really do. We need to talk about jobs, and giving hope to the middle class, to the whole country and not just the sisters who want to get married and the Mormon orphans and those of us who have done well and should pay a little more. And one more thing ... if you say one more word about my anniversary, I'll be turning my wife loose on you, and she'll be putting a whup ass on yours that'll make the one she put on me the other night look like a—"

"Can we talk about the economy now?" Romney interjected petulantly. "For instance, Mr. President, tell me why, if I, or someone even richer than me, someone like Sheldon, for instance, is willing to create a job for someone, to take care of this young child you spoke of, to give just one example, so that he doesn't end up in a parade some day wearing chaps—"

Obama, ever presidential, nonetheless cut in, "Now hold on, Governor, I think we can all agree there are worse things, far worse fates that any of us could end up with, particularly if you and your running mate get elected, than going to a parade wearing chaps—"

But Romney wasn't so sure. In fact he disagreed. No, you wouldn't see his children going to a parade in chaps. If anyone he hired in the private workforce to raise a child (rather than let a couple of lesbians get their hands on him) let that child go off to a parade in chaps, well, let's just say someone's head would roll. There'd be some firing going on.

Jackson, incredulous, was heard to say, with relative calm at first, "Did I say that either of you motherfuckers could talk?"

Perhaps he said it too softly, because both Romney and Obama ignored him. As they did, repeatedly, with Jim Lehrer during the first debate. They continued on, bickering, talking over the top of each other.

"Tell me this, Mr. President, what if your girls—"

"My girls? My girls are on a tighter leash than I am. They're doing calculus right now. Either that or they're in bed—"

"Gentlemen—" Jackson tried once.

"Assuming they've finished reading their Zora Neale Hurston for the night," Obama added.

"Who?" Romney had never heard of no Zora Neale Hurston. Figured she was probably one of his aunts from Kenya.

"Gentlemen, please—" Jackson tried twice, his tone betraying annoyance. He was not in the habit of being ignored, not even by motherfuckers with armed guards.

"I have to say I'm not at all surprised," Obama said to Romney, squaring off with him, looking, to the close observer, like he might throw down with the Mitt if he kept on. After the anniversary he'd had—or rather, didn't—with Michelle after the first debate, he really wasn't in the mood for any shit tonight. "Then again, you probably had your hands full with Horatio Alger and Dale Carnegie, reading up on how Jesus hauled ass from Nazareth to Missouri just ahead of Lewis and Clark—"

Now, Romney thought, he didn't need to say that. There was no need of that. It wasn't like he was Dan Quayle going on about Jack Kennedy. "I'll have you know, Mr. President, that while you were smoking your grass and doing your blow and dreaming about your father, I was out in the business world, stealing money fair and square and without caffeine or any other dangerous drugs—"

Obama squared his jaw, stuck out his not so intimidating chest. "What say you and I go play a little basketball?"

Romney smiled and kept on. "I was pursuing the American Dream. Paying way too much in capital gains before Ronald Reagan, and the president whose name we don't speak—"

"Would you both SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Jackson shouted.

Both candidates stopped talking. Romney looked at Jackson. "Whoa." It was the first time he'd ever said the word Whoa, anywhere.

Obama, seeing one of the Secret Service snipers aiming at Jackson's head now, waved him off. "Sam," he said with all the reasonableness he could muster, "This isn't the set for "Pulp Fiction." You aren't sitting in the front seat of a car with John talking about cheeseburgers at a Paris McDonalds. This is serious. This is a Presidential Debate. And, by the way, if I don't do better at this one, something of mine is going to be in the ringer afterwards, so I'd appreciate it if—"

"You know what I think?" Romney remarked, his eyes sparkling in the lights. "I think we're going to win this election!" He remembered Walter Mondale saying the same thing at a debate with Reagan back in 1984, after he'd imagined he'd wiped the floor with the president, who was probably in the early stages of Alzeimer's at the time. At least he acted like he was. Then and after he beat Mondale in a landslide—it was a memory Romney only wanted to see out so far.

Jackson, hearing him, turned to Romney and said, "I'll bet you a hundred fucking dollars that you don't."

 Romney thought a moment, and wanting so much to be cool like the president, stepped out from behind the podium now and walked toward the front of the stage, toward the moderator's desk. He held out his hand. "Brother, you're on."

Jackson stood up. "Who the fuck you calling brother, Motherfucker?"

There was the sound of guns cocking. Lots of them. Obama, once again, made the kind of gesture he did with his girls when they started back-talking Michelle at dinner; the Secret Service stood down. "Guys," he said, "you can't be placing bets on the election. This isn't Las Vegas—" He frowned and looked to his handlers, to the sniper with the rifle. "We're not in Las Vegas, are we?"

"We're in an Alternate Universe!" someone from the crowd yelled.

Obama looked into the audience, dead into the camera as it turned out, and offered his best smile of the night. The pundits later on would say it was his best moment of the debate. "So what about gambling?" he asked—to crowd, anyone. "Can folks gamble out here, in this Alternate Universe?"

No one was sure whether they could or not. Apparently a lot of things were still getting ironed out. Laws and regulations, just how much a citizen could get by with in this Alternate Universe before it became a problem for the others. Obama looked to Romney, fearing that Mitt might try to shake hands with Jackson soul man style to seal their bet (he tried so hard—it was touching, really, as he'd told Michelle the other night, after which Michelle told him that if he ever wanted to get touched again he'd better wipe the floor with this equivocating clown tonight) and having already called the Secret Service off twice, put his arm around him, his less hapless than before challenger, and said, "Come on, Governor, time for you and me to clock out. You don't want to end up like Pete Rose, do you?"

"I can't have lesbians raising one our children," Romney confided. "The base would shackle me in a dungeon somewhere."

"It'll be fine," Obama assured him. "Sam got a little too far over his skis on that one."

"Let's make it a thousand!" Jackson shouted menacingly as the two candidates headed arm in arm into the wings.

"Are we going to have him again next time?" Romney wondered, mortified at the possibility.

"I don't think so. I heard we got Rachel Maddow next time."

Romney gasped—even while he was secretly excited. He had a thing for Rachel Maddow. It was something he'd never shared with anyone. He'd see her on the television and want to reach inside the thing and kiss her. It made no sense at all.

"Really?" he said.

"No—" Obama gave him a light elbow to the ribs and shook his head. "It's a presidential debate, Mitt. We can't be having lesbians moderating a presidential debate. Not even in an alternate universe does that happen ... yet." He watched Romney's expression and swatted him on the arm. "I'm just messing with you."

Romney chuckled nervously. It was hard to tell sometimes.

Just then two African-American knockouts, legs as long and beautiful as the dancer Stephanie Pope's, walked up, handed each of them a cosmo and walked away, holding hands.

"I like it here," Romney said, taking a sip—it was an alternate universe, after all. The rules regarding Mormons were still getting worked out.

Obama, wondering if it would hurt him to sneak a cigarette, if not a joint, had to admit he found the place agreeable as well. "Helluva a lot better than Denver," he sighed.

"All we have to do is keep it interesting," Romney reminded him.

Obama, tired, wishing it were otherwise, nevertheless raised his glass. "To a satisfying pageant!"

Cheers!

Selling the Book: The Attention-Getting Query Letter

Dear Editors:

As with the hundreds of other emails you will get today, requesting the very same, I have a novel, the working title of which is Dearly Departed, which, unlike the hundreds of other requests your wearied eyes will consider today, is actually pretty good. I won't bore you with even a line or two of details, since there are many who can write jacket copy who can't write an affecting line much less an affecting novel, so, please, to save us both time and needless torpor, read the rest of this, my query ... and then, contrary to habit and probability, write me back and ask that I send you, per the custom, fifty pages, for you to read and consider.

Having then read and considered them, ask for more. At which point you will come to the reasonable conclusion that they are quite a lot better than almost anything you see on a daily basis: that the writing is excellent, the narrative drive compelling, that, along with real-life gore, and sex, and interestingly fucked up characters getting under each other's skin in ways both nuanced and not so, there is even a well-hung midget, albeit deep into the book, one who, granted, we never actually see, but nonetheless, a well-hung midget is a well-hung midget—one I wouldn't be averse to mingling in the action a little more if it suits you.

Which is to say, on certain matters, I'm flexible.

That said, on the actual point of whether or not you decide to read and publish my book, I am not so flexible. On that point I am actually quite insistent. Which is to say: you will like and publish my pages, my novel, please, or so help me God I'll blow my fucking brains out.

Let me explain ...

But before I do, before you note my address and panic—OMG! He's from Colorado! A nutjob threatening us from the state currently at the top of the A-list for nutjobs!!! WTF!!!!—let me assure you that, should you decide NOT to publish my novel, I will NOT, I promise, shoot or otherwise harm, in any way, anyone else, this despite what would surely be considerable disappointment on my part.

Furthermore, I have a wife and two young children, and am certainly not going to blow my brains out in the house where I currently reside ...

Frankly I don't even own a firearm (for reasons that should be obvious by now), which is not to say I couldn't get one pretty easily (need I say more on THAT subject?), or that, on the contrary, I'm looking forward to my children one day getting older and looking at me, ensconsed in my study, ignoring them—"radically wasting time," as the great Annie Lamott once called it—and coming to the stark, hateful conclusion that this is why we no longer have any money, why we are having to, conceivably, sell our house and move to a small apartment far away from the fine neighborhood and school district that is currently ours, why there are no vacations to Hawaii and New York City anymore, why they can no longer partake in the kind of expensive activities that their older brothers took for granted—because Daddy is a writer who had to write a book, one that when he finally finished it he couldn't fucking sell!

Regardless of your circumstances, dear editor, you can surely understand how a responsible parent (such as the term is generally understood in our better communities) wouldn't exactly look forward to such an eventuality. Enough that he might consider, on occasion—now, for instance—doing something that many would consider a bit extreme. Especially when one considers that even if you publish my book, and it enjoys modest success (as the term is generally understood with regard to first-time literary novels), that modest success will only provide me, the writer, with enough money to pay, with any luck, next month's bills, this depending on whether someone had to go to the hospital, or the dentist, whether ice fees for hockey were due the previous month ...

And—AND—surely, you being the sensitive, at times neurotic literary type you almost certainly must be—working for free, yes? reading scores of mediocre to poor manuscripts, imagining yourself on your better days, nonetheless, as a kind of Soulmate to the Monks, in the Dark Ages, keeping literature alive!—you despair over the staggering amount of drivel, the wincingly, cringingly tepid, self-indulgent, uninspired (if occasionally "well-crafted") shit, much of it from cash-flush MFA programs, getting slung around to scores of agents and publishers like yourself, many of whom are dependent now more than ever on reading fees and handouts from those few wealthy souls who haven't already handed out all they are going to hand out to cure cancer, to feed the starving, support their candidates, their causes, not to mention the local orchestra and theater, who have, magnanimously, left a little back to support LIT-RAH-CHOOR. You have to admit you are thankful that most of them aren't readers, that they simply like the idea of supporting LIT-RAH-CHOOR, kind of like you like the idea of being an agent for, an editor of, LIT-RAH-CHOOR—

Except that on some days, my fucking God ...

Still, and despite your own unsettling moments of despair, you have to admit it would bother you if you were to find out not long after you insouciantly deleted my email query that I did in fact blow my fucking brains out. Even if I didn't do it in my home, or under a tree outside your office (think about that! you who thinks woodpeckers and pigeons are annoying), even if I went out into the woods, or way up in the mountains, and didn't make a mess that someone like Amy Adams in that movie "Sunshine Cleaners" would have to clean up (a profession, btw, should you be looking for a new one, where one can make serious bank).

It would bother you the worse for the fact that, once I was dead, someone, probably several, would actually be asking for the manuscript, looking at it, reading it, considering it, the new platforms post-suicide, the money, and wondering why no one—YOU—ever bothered to ask for it, a mere fifty pages, from a suicidal author!

Soon, all over Twitter and Facebook ... Tumbler, all those sites that have contributed to our fragmenting attention and made your particular failing, antediluvian industry an even poorer, more depressing economic bet, there would be the easy, predictable comparisons to John Kennedy Toole, who, likewise, killed himself after not being able to publish his novel ... a novel that later went on, after his mother (who doesn't come off well in the book; one must admit the pathos is heartbreaking) showed the manuscript to the estimable Walker Percy, at LSU, to win the Pulitzer Prize.

And keep in mind that the late John Kennedy Toole never had children to be ashamed of his failure, or a nice house in a desirable neighborhood in the best town in the country to raise a family and buy locally produced art, to lose—no, he was merely a misfit radically wasting his time with a Big Chief tablet in his mother's basement, trying to publish when, let's be honest, it was quite a lot easier to get published.

Keep in mind: You don't want to be that person. You want to be the person who says, Don't be an asshole! Don't run off to the mountains and kill yourself! Send me your pages to me, and I'll read them! I'll publish you! I mean, why not? Who the fuck will notice, right? We'll publish you and afterwards leave you to continue on in your Sisyphean way, to radically waste time, to make sure that your children look to your example one day and think: Fuck that, I'm going to medical school.

Only then will the success of your insensible enterprise become apparent.

Yes, you want to be the person who says all that, if not much less. Who, after publishing my novel, can go on television and maybe write a book yourself one day, telling how you saved another writer's life. Maybe put a well-hung midget in there, one with fangs. A well-hung, walking dead midget with fangs who can travel through time and has a dog who can quote Shakespeare and philosophize on a level that people who aren't terribly philosophical might think is brilliant.

You could be the person who might one day, from a podium somewhere, thank me.

Looking forward, expectantly, to your reply.

All the best,


The Author