Show Business is Murder

had come this far sprinting underwater through blood, and a single damned key wasn’t going to stop him. He saw he was at the bottom of the last sheet of paper, and the words had slowed from a torrent to a trickle, but still they came relentlessly.

They hoistecl me up with strong arms onto my metal bircl, the angel of heaven which woulcl commancl me through the wincls ancl the rains ancl bear me home. Bear me home to the smell of hospitals with forever walls of white ancl to my mother’s kitchen ancl the full breastecl sobs ancl vicarious embrace of Wencly Wilcler, a woman grayecl past the age which she sharecl with my mother to the clawn of a new sunset. Ancl they bore me on, these strong arms, to a forgotten hero’s welcome, ancl to half paracles where they clressecl me in recl, white ancl blue. Because that’s what I was. A

The paper ran out. The stack, the whole stack was out and gone, and with all the tears gone from his eyes, all the sobs racked from his chest, Janson had a word, a single word, left stuck in his throat. He yelled once, a hoarse, frightened choke, and pushed back from the typewriter, sending it and the crates crashing to the floor. Stumbling into the hallway, he found what he was looking for, a crumpled-up page from a newspaper that was lodged in the wall beneath some pipes to keep the cold air at bay. He pulled it out and smoothed it flat on the wall. There was an advertisement on the back side with some blank space at the top, and he ripped out a small segment of the grayish-white paper and returned to his room.

He sank to his haunches and righted the typewriter, noticing, as if for the first time, the blood sprayed through it. Turning the small blank piece of newspaper to meet the keys, he typed his final word.

The weight, a weight he had been living with for so long that he felt it as a part of himself, lifted slowly from his aching shoulders. He left the word in the jaws of the typewriter and fell to his back on the mattress, the rotating paddles of the fan breaking up the neon flickers into dove-like featherings across his face and bare chest. He cried a different cry this time, a softer cry. The tears were just as resonant with pain, but they cleansed him. They fell like a late autumn snow, blanketing Janson Tanker as he fell into an exhausted sleep.

HIS FEET HURT like hell by the time he got there, but he felt better overall. Lighter, somehow. It had been weeks since the exorcism, and although he didn’t have his story (manuscript), he knew that his demons were laid out on paper, and contained in words and sentences.

He grimaced when he saw the security cop, a large mustached man with neat hair flipped back at the front. He felt a wave of disgust as he recalled his “escort” to the street, the cop’s meaty hand closing on his forearm. The humiliation had left a red stain on his cheeks, and the blush returned as he entered the building. He skulked past the cop, both of them pretending they did not recognize each other.

Please let him give me something for the book, he prayed. Anything, even an option fee for the rights like Barry explained. Just don’t let him give me nothing.

The receptionist was much nicer this time, and then he was up and up and being buzzed through, once again, to the office of Adam Diamond.

He was on the phone. “I need the writing samples. Damn right I’m getting aggravated-his new script’s in every office and I don’t have a fucking file on him? Find them. Make it.” Adam hung up the phone, shook his head, and raised his eyes to Janson’s. His left hand twitched around on the desk, searching for the duo balls. “Hello, Janson. Now I’d imagine you’re pretty tense so I’ll cut the bullshit and let you know where you’re at. When I first read your manuscript, I was a little hesitant. We have two rules right now about material: no Vietnam, no AIDS. Now your manuscript was good-I’m not saying it’s not good, I’m not saying you’re not a talented writer. You just have to understand that when it’s all said and done, nobody wants to see another Vietnam movie right now. It’s the material, it’s not you.”

Adam’s last sentence struck Janson like a blow. Realization settled in, fluttering like a black sheet over his expectations. It’s the material, it’s not you. It echoed until it pounded in his ears. When he could finally hear again, he was not surprised to find that Adam had not stopped speaking.

“-and a more likable protagonist. I mean, are we supposed to like this guy? It’s tough to sympathize with someone who kicks an old friend to the wolves, you know what I’m saying? We need more of a stud for the hero. When it’s all said and done, every guy who reads this book’s gotta want to be him, every chick’s gotta want to fuck him. Stupid? Of course. But that’s how this industry runs. It’s a stupid industry because it caters to a stupid populace.

“Now don’t be discouraged. This went a long way-what with it being (I assume) your first piece, and you having no professional editor. Everyone likes your style, likes your writing, just not the material.” Adam leaned forward and recited, again, the phrase that he had uttered across his desk to countless writers. “It’s the material, not you they don’t like.” It had an aged quality, the phrase, as if it had been stored in oak wine barrels, only brought out to be savored from time to time. Adam hoped it didn’t sound as rehearsed to Janson as it did to himself. As trite with repetition. His fingers dug the jade balls out of their intricate case, and the chimes sang to him quietly as he spun them in his hand.

Janson was quiet. And cool nights with stars laid out like holes clear through to heaven. It slipped away, it all slowly slipped away like sand through an hourglass and suddenly he was pale and thin and so, so tired. His mind filled as if with the rust-tinged water from the sink in the corner of his room, and he saw his years unfold slowly before him, a series of small checks on the first Wednesday of every month, checks that stretched about three weeks wide. The town that was not a city was whisked away by the short deft movements of Adam’s hands. Whisked away. And yet the city remained.

Adam saw Janson’s green eyes go dull and he worried, for a moment, that he would have a crier on his hands. He shifted in his large leather chair, rolling to his left side, and casually checked the clock on his desk. It was 12:57. He had a one o’clock.

He tried to soften his voice, but it sounded effeminate even to his ears. “When it’s all said and done, we think you’re talented, Jaston. I will personally read anything you write. I just think you need to shift your subject matter around a little. Vietnam is out, it’s old. Nobody wants to see another Vietnam film, read another Vietnam book. You know what’s huge right now?”

He leaned forward, imparting a precious jewel of knowledge, a stock market tip, the secret password. Even the air seemed to wait on him as the clock on his desk moved silently to one o’clock. “Women’s road movies.” Adam was quiet, letting the magnitude of his pronouncement settle around the room. “They’re selling left and right this year. I think if you work in that direction, with your talent, we could really go somewhere.”

There was a moment of awkward silence that stretched an eternity in the distance between the two men. Janson waited for the watch to flick out from its cover. It did. Adam cleared his throat. “I’m really sorry, I’ve got another meeting right now.” Another silence.

The bastard’s going to make this difficult for me, Adam thought. “Any questions I can answer, anything I can help you with before you leave?”

“Yes,” Janson said. “My name is Janson, not Jaston.” He rose to his feet, running a hand up the scruff on his neck and along the ridge of his jaw. He leaned over the desk and plucked his tattered story from the other papers. A memo floated loose from atop the stack and fluttered down like a feather to Adam’s desk, but neither man turned his eyes to the distraction. They kept them locked, until Adam felt that his would bruise on the hardness of Janson’s. Janson squinted slightly, and Adam felt him looking over and through him before he turned.

“Oh yeah. I forgot to tell you. There’s a part missing at the end of the manuscript. Maybe even just a word.”

“Yeah,” Janson said. “There is.”

The door clicked softly behind him as he exited, and Adam’s breath left him in a rush of relief. He felt better with the door between them.

JANSON WALKED OUT onto the crowded New York streets and filled his lungs with the moist New York air. Clutching his story tightly under his arm, he turned into the crowd, losing himself in the bustling sea of elbows and shoulders. It was a long walk to his apartment and an even longer walk home, and his feet ached with each touch of the concrete. The buildings rose in firm spires about him, and as his feet pattered on the sidewalk, somewhere, miles and mountains away in a lost town, a wisp of smoke curled from a country fireplace and made its way sleepily up the chimney to the darkened sky above.

Fred Menace, Commie for Hire by STEVE HOCKENSMITH