damn well hadn’t, any more than Louise had stayed together with
“Well, then, you don’t need to worry about lunch.” Gabe put money on the table. “Come on. Let’s get back to work.”
“Why not? — and thanks. Maybe it’ll take my mind off things.”
“Hope so. But that’s not why I said it. I want my cancer fix, and I’ll get it on the way back to the station.” Gabe gave forth with a theatrical sigh. “Hard times for a smoker these days. If you’re in a building that’s not your own house, they’ll bust you for lighting up. I tell you, man, it’s almost easier to smoke dope.”
Colin kept his mouth shut tight. Every one of his children used weed-Vanessa less than her brothers, but she did, too. The only good thing about it, he thought as he and Gabe tramped along Hesperus toward the station, was that the smoke smelled better than tobacco. Gabe wouldn’t even have agreed with him about that.
* * *
Some people set out to be writers from the time they were small. Marshall wasn’t any of them. He’d chosen creative writing as a major at UCSB because it would let him stay in school an extra quarter or two. He’d submitted for the first time because that prof made him do it.
And he’d got accepted because. . Maybe God knew why. Marshall had no idea.
He’d sold several more stories after the first one, too. He was good enough to be a professional writer. That much seemed plain. What also seemed plain, unfortunately, was that he wasn’t good enough, or maybe productive enough, or maybe just lucky enough, to make a living at it.
That was how come he’d wasted so much time babysitting his tiny half-brother, a kid whose very existence weirded him out. His father gruffly insisted that time you got paid for wasn’t time wasted. Marshall wasn’t convinced. Dad didn’t care. The next time Dad cared about Marshall’s opinions would be the first.
Now, though, Mom was out of work herself. That meant she had much less need for babysitting services. It also meant Marshall’s income tanked.
Dad did not approve. Marshall had to care about Dad’s opinions, because the house belonged to Dad. His old man was willing-not eager, but willing-to feed him and let him keep sleeping there as long as he looked for work. And, with a cop’s relentless thoroughness, Dad checked up on him to make sure he did.
Some of the interrogations were almost as sharp as if he were under suspicion of knocking over a McDonald’s. He complained about it once: “The state unemployment office isn’t as tough as you are!”
His father just looked at him. Somehow, Dad could make his blunt features do an amazing impression of a snapping turtle. “The unemployment office doesn’t have you sleeping under its roof,” he said tonelessly. “I darn well do. If you aren’t happy about the situation, you’re welcome to pack your bags and go somewhere else.”
Marshall shut up. Without money, where was he supposed to go? He could sleep in his car. . Yeah, right, the car he couldn’t afford to gas up. Or he could apartment-surf among his friends. Only most of them were in the same boat. They were crashing on one another, or back with their folks, or seeing what sleeping in their cars was like.
Everybody was in that same boat. Trouble was, it was the
Marshall pointed that out, with profane embellishments. Dad went right on looking as if he were paddling along in the Mississippi, waiting for a fish to swim by so he could bite it in half. “I know it’s hard to find anything,” he said when Marshall ran down. “But you’ve got to try. Vanessa’s trying.”
“She sure is,” Marshall agreed. Having his big sister home again had not proved an unmixed blessing.
Dad stopped doing reptile impersonations and looked quite humanly pained at the pun. “She’s looking for work,” he said, so there could be no possible misunderstanding. “She’s looking hard, too. The least you can do is try as hard as she does.”
“She’s not writing,” Marshall said.
“Look, son, it’s great that you’ve sold some things. I’m proud of you for that. I’m bust-my-buttons proud,” his father said. “But you aren’t exactly James Michener yet.”
“I hope not! Isn’t he dead?” Marshall said.
“You’re not George Carlin, either, and he’s dead, too,” Dad said. There he surprised his son-Marshall would have bet he’d name Bill Cosby. Even dead, even after a long, successful career alive, Carlin seemed too edgy, too freaky, to appeal to a cop. You never could tell, could you? Dad went on, “Neither one of them died broke, though, and neither one of them needed to scuffle for an outside job. Till you don’t need to, you’re gonna scuffle.”
So Marshall scuffled. Every once in a while, he got a day’s work moving stuff off a truck and into a warehouse or out of the back of a store and into a truck. That didn’t happen very often, though. Most of the guys who got those jobs were browner than he was and spoke Spanish. The people who did the hiring figured those guys were less likely to piss and moan about doing hard work, wouldn’t complain about their shitty wages, and wouldn’t start yelling about workers’ compensation if they screwed up their backs.
They were right, too. They knew it. So did Marshall. And so did the brown, Spanish-speaking guys who got hired instead of him. Their part of the deal was to do as they were told and shut up about it.
He tried to get a job that would let him write. By now, he had enough sales to put together a decent resume. No large American corporation seemed to be looking for anybody who could turn out a respectable short story, though. No small American business seemed to be looking for anyone with that skill set, either.
Jesus H. Christ, no escaped lunatics seemed to be looking for somebody who could crank out a respectable short story. Well, no: a few lunatics remained on the loose. They ran the e-publications and print magazines that occasionally-much too occasionally, as far as Marshall was concerned-bought the stories he did write.
He kept sending stuff to
He hated getting rejected. He never would have submitted the first story that sold if Professor Bolger hadn’t required it. In high school, he hadn’t dated much because he hated it when girls turned him down. This was the same kind of thing, and the noes hurt just about as much.
He had dated. Eventually, he got too horny not to. When a girl let him get lucky, the reward made up for all the failures that came before it. Now he felt the same way when an editor let him get lucky.
Here, for once, he’d gone someplace Vanessa wouldn’t follow-or wouldn’t push ahead of him. Vanessa could get into a revolving door behind you and come out in front. But she said, “I couldn’t stand people telling me no all the goddamn time.”
“They don’t tell you no all the time,” Marshall said. “Sometimes they tell you yes. That’s the payoff.”
She shook her head. “Too much of one, not enough of the other.”
He didn’t want to argue with her, so he let it alone. Arguing was her thing, not his. She’d argue at the drop of a hat, and she’d drop the hat herself if she needed to. But deliberately put herself in a spot where she might get rejected? That, no.
Of course, when she dated she was the one getting the attention, not the one giving it. She wasn’t used to coming on to somebody and getting shot down in flames. Maybe that had something to do with how she felt.
He was a writer. He called himself one, anyhow. The world believed him, to the extent that it was willing to give him money for what he wrote. It didn’t give him as much as he wanted or needed, but it gave him some, so it did believe him. And he had no idea what went on inside his sister’s head, even if she was somebody he’d known his whole life.
Did other writers, real writers, writers who honest to God made a living slapping words on paper, feel the same way? If they didn’t, how could they know? If they did, how could they write so well? Questions came easy. He wished he knew where God, or Whoever, stashed the answers.
