The Saturday Evening Post returned “The Typewriter” with a form rejection letter two weeks after he submitted it. The New Yorker took another week. When he reread the dog-eared manuscript, he no longer liked it. He circled those passages he might use later and threw away the rest.
He never used any of it, however, and in no time at all the story was forgotten. There was no place for it in his second novel.
It happened this way:
The Woolworth’s near P.S. 187 became his rendezvous place with Ellen Curry. It wasn’t on his way home from the paper, but she hadn’t offered her phone number and he was too rusty at the game to work up the courage to ask. By the time she gave it, the meetings had become a habit. On Tuesdays and Thursdays he left the office just before class let out. She would show him her latest assignment and he would make suggestions that would never occur to Tharp.
A week before Christmas, they waited twenty minutes for a booth. Standing in line, he read a descriptive piece she’d written. “You need to cut down on the adjectives.”
“How can I write description without adjectives?”
“I didn’t say don’t use any. Three per noun is less effective than one.”
“I never thought of it that way.”
“Anyway, that’s what my editors said. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence they paid by the word.”
“I should be paying you.”
“Save your money. You’re not really a writer, you know.”
“I told you that the first night.”
“I saw it the first night. I was afraid if I agreed with you, you’d slap my face.”
“Women are always doing that in your stories. I’ve never slapped anyone. I don’t know a woman who has.”
“Me neither, come to think. I wrote a lot of scenes I wouldn’t now.”
A man got up from a booth to pay his check. They took possession and waited while the counterman wiped down the table. When he left, Jacob had an epiphany. “How the hell did you get hold of my stories?”
“My roommate’s father died recently. When she went home to help her mother clean out his things, she found boxes of magazines in the garage. He was saving them for the paper drive, but then the war ended. Ann was going to throw them away, but I asked if I could have them. I had a hunch. My favorite is ‘Dead Before Dawn.’”
He smiled. “Mine, too. It’s the only time an editor used my title.”
“Is that the only reason?”
“After I’ve had a chance to cool off, nothing I write satisfies me. By then it’s too late, because the story’s already in print and the check’s cashed.” He paused. “I threw away the typewriter story.”
“Oh, you shouldn’t have done that!”
“I should never have sent it out. At least this time I spared myself public embarrassment.”
“What you’re saying is I’m a lousy critic.”
“You didn’t read the story I had in mind when I wrote it. Nothing ever turns out the way I want.”
“You’re too hard on yourself.”
“Tell that to the Post and the New Yorker.”
“They’re not the only magazines in the world.”
“They will be, if things go on the way they have. Want to see a movie sometime?”
She paused in the midst of lighting a cigarette, shook out the match. “Did you just ask me for a date? You said it so fast I’m not sure.”
“It’s like ripping off a Band-Aid; one shrill scream and you’re in the clear.”
“I’d love to. Feel free to scream any time.”
Someone cleared his throat: A man waiting in line with a woman at his side. Jacob and Ellen had finished eating.
As he helped her on with her coat, a familiar-looking color scheme caught his eye. He turned for a better look.
“Son of a bitch.”
She turned her head to stare. “What? My arm’s tangled in the sleeve.”
“Not you.” He went to the wooden rack that had replaced the pulp magazines at the end of the counter and snatched out one of the gaudy books on display. It was the Blue Devil Books edition of Chinese Checkers, “by Jack Holly.”
“Hey, hey!” Ira Winderspear rose into the awkward crouch diners at 21 assumed to greet visitors to their booth. He had a bloody steak in front of him and a napkin tucked under his chin.
Jacob didn’t shake his hand. “Talk fast, Ira. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t call the Bunco Squad.”
“Hell, kid. I’ll give you a thousand.” The agent dropped back onto his seat, reached inside a breast pocket, and handed him a check made out to Jacob Heppleman in the amount of $1,089.84. It was signed by Winderspear.
“Your first royalty, kid. I took out my ten percent.”
He stared at the check in his hands. “How can there be royalties already? I never got any the first time around.”
“Different world, kid. It’s almost 1947. Book’s in its third printing.”
“I never authorized a first.”
“That’s the thing. I didn’t get around to asking Elk not to publish. Where would I start? ‘Heppleman didn’t exactly sign the contract’? Un-fucking-professional.”
Jacob felt all kinds of a fool, seething in a public place with money in his fist. Still … but Winderspear was first to fill the gap in the conversation.
“Listen, kid, I got a meeting uptown like I said on the phone, so we’ll save time and say you said you’re sorry and I said buy me a beer sometime.” He produced a pencil and notebook, scribbled something on a sheet, and tore it off. “He’s expecting you at two. Here’s the address.”
“He who?”
“Jeez, you sound like a cross between a jackass and a hoot owl. Robin Elk, that’s who. He’s Blue Devil Books.”
“You made an appointment without asking me?”
“He wants the meeting. I’ve been stalling him a couple weeks. Your old number’s disconnected. You forgot to give me your new one.”
“Why would I fire you and then give you my phone number?”
“How should I know? I told you I’m not used to getting canned. Your luck went south right after, didn’t it? Fess up.”
He had the evidence of Ellen to refute that; but he wasn’t about to share that information. Winderspear misread his silence. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“What have I got to talk about with Elk? It’s your job to dicker with publishers, not mine.”
“That’s pre-war thinking. These days the writer’s part of the package. Look at this guy Stratton, writes the Lash Logan private eye books? Got his ugly kisser on a million back covers. That could be you.”
“Who says I want that?”
“So tell Elk. Get going or you’ll be late. You don’t want to make a bad impression first shot out of the box.”