Motive ; One Last Day ; Going Viral

by Dustin Stevens

  Chapter Eighteen

  I’m not sure which of us feels more uncomfortable right now. Me, seated in a hardback black chair, my hands folded in my lap, or Terry Weinberg on the opposite side of his desk. Dressed in a pinstripe suit with a red tie, unease is splashed across his features as he stares back at us.

  It has been there since he first walked around the back corner and saw us standing there, his only response being the word, “You.”

  The sole person in the room with even a modicum of ease is Quasi, slouched down in the chair beside me. His posture matches Weinberg’s, his elbows resting on the arms of the chair, his fingers laced over his stomach. He stares across the desk without looking at me, peering intently at the back of Weinberg’s computer monitor.

  If he really is comfortable or simply doesn’t understand the situation, I can’t be sure, though I’m guessing the latter.

  “Mr. Weinberg,” I manage, prickly heat puncturing my entire chest. “Thank you for seeing us like this today.”

  His eyes bulge a bit at the opening remarks, the sentiment obvious that he didn’t really have a choice, though he doesn’t vocalize it. Instead, he nods the top of his head a bit and extends his left arm in front of him, folding it back at the elbow. On his wrist is a watch that probably costs more than the car we drove here in.

  “I’m sorry, but I have another meeting in ten minutes. A conference call in New York to update them on how everything is going.”

  My head rocks up and down in quick sequence, every fiber of me eager to gulp down the blatant lie.

  “Oh, okay. We’ll be quick then. The place does look great, by the way.”

  His hand slowly returns into position, the same look on his face. “Thank you.”

  The words do not match his tone or his expression.

  “So, I assume you’re here about the manuscript you dropped off a while back,” he begins.

  Inside me, a handful of different emotions explode at once. I am relieved that he is taking the lead, hopeful that he knows why I am here and is willing to address it head-on. At the same time, his demeanor brings with it a healthy dose of dread. He has clearly read it and made no attempt to contact me about it.

  “We are,” I manage, the two words coming out in a croak.

  Beside me I can sense Quasi glance my way, though he remains silent.

  A long, slow sigh rolls out from Weinberg as he turns to glance out the window. In the distance, the Cumberland River rolls by LP Field, the giant stadium empty and quiet on this winter morning.

  “I won’t sugarcoat it,” he says. “It was crap.”

  He turns his head back to face me, his features still void of expression.

  “Let me guess, first manuscript?”

  All air has been driven from my body. My spine has extended itself into a rigid pole propping me up, the rest of me wanting to slide from the chair and the room without hearing another word.

  I nod, but can’t find any words to reply.

  He matches the nod. “Thought so.”

  The blood drains from my face, the sweat staining my skin now beginning to feel cold. I force myself to continue looking at him, but still do not respond.

  “And I’ll tell you why,” he says, raising his hands and running them over his cheeks. “Pacing issues, character development, even your use of details – sometimes too heavy, sometimes none at all.”

  The words ring hollow in my ears. I know they are entering my mind and in some capacity being absorbed, though right now every bit of me is just numb. Everything I had hoped for, had envisioned, is completely gone. More than once in the preceding months I have wondered if I was delusional, pushing forward with this notion.

  Now I know it to be true.

  “I’m not telling you this to be mean,” he says, waving one hand at me while the other slaps down on his thigh. “I apologize if it’s coming across that way. Those are common first-timer mistakes. Hell, some authors I worked with still had trouble with those things well into their third, fourth, fifth novels.”

  I know he is saying these things in an effort to allow me to save face, though they do little to pull me from the trance I am in.

  To my left, Quasi is moving back and forth between us like a spectator at a tennis match, his presence only barely registering with me.

  “Okay,” I manage, nodding a bit.

  “The big thing, though,” he says, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the edge of the desk. Mid-sentence he pauses, peering right at me. “Let me ask, how old are you Charles?”

  The mention of my name jolts something within me, pulling me a bit forward out of the haze. No matter how much I don’t like what he is saying to me, he is attempting to engage me in conversation. I owe us both the decency of interacting.

  “Twenty-eight,” I say, my voice sounding the strongest it has since arriving.

  “Well, there you go,” he replies, a tiny hint of a smile crossing his face.

  He leans back and again folds his hands over his stomach, the tension of the previous moment broken.

  “The key to writing, or singing, or dancing, or doing anything creative, is understanding. Some people call it passion, some call it experience, but I like to call it understanding.

  “In order for you to really say what you want to with your work, to convey it in a way that your audience will connect with, there has to be a level of understanding. You get what I’m saying?”

  A vague flash of recognition goes off somewhere in the back of my mind, though I twist my head a bit to the side. I don’t know exactly what he means, and I don’t want to leave without finding out.

  “Your character,” he says, “John? James.”

  I nod in affirmation.

  “James fires guns and beats guys up and has sex with women and smokes cigars and a lot of other very cool stuff,” he says, “but let me ask, have you ever done any of those things?”

  My lips come together tight as I stare back at him before looking down at my lap.

  “Exactly,” he says, “and that comes across in your writing. You tell me about lighting up a cigar, but not the taste of that sweet, bitter smoke filling your lungs. Not the smell of it clinging to his coat for days afterward. You know what I’m saying?”

  “Details,” I whisper, nodding.

  “Understanding,” he corrects.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Friday, January 21st, 2015

  1:12 pm

  I have no intention of slowing. Deep in the memory, I don’t even notice Pearson stop typing, not until her thin arm extends out from behind the computer and brings the recording on her iPad to a stop do I even realize what is happening.

  “What?” I ask.

  Her fingers line up in a straight row on the side of the computer screen, the nails flashing a bit of white as she nudges it over to the side.

  Out from behind it, she stares back at me, her eyes wide.

  “What?” I repeat.

  “Look, I know this is your story,” she begins.

  Already I know where this is going and force myself not to react. I know that in the next couple of moments she is going to call me a liar, say that I am trying to conflate my own mystique, but I must be careful not to exude hostility in any way.

  “And that given your situation,” she says, pausing just a bit on the last word, “there might be a tendency to romanticize things a bit...”

  How anything I have told her thus far, or will tell her, can be construed as romanticized I’m not sure, but I let her continue without comment.

  “...but if this is ever going to be printed – anywhere - it has to be historically accurate.”

  I bristle slightly at the insinuation that I am only here to narrate a well-crafted puff piece. My mouth opens, the urge to simultaneously tell her to go to hell and that she can check everything I’ve just said passing through me.

  It remains agape, though no sound comes out as a realization hits.

  There is no way for her to verif
y the conversation. The other two people in the room are both gone.

  “Ms. Pearson,” I say, my body remaining reclined in my seat, “I promise you, I have nothing to gain from making up this conversation.”

  “Still,” she presses, “I know I may look young, but I’ve been doing this a long time.”

  I know exactly how old she is and how long she has been doing this. Neither fact played into my decision to request her in the slightest.

  “Do you honestly expect me to believe that you barged into a respected agent’s office – twice - and that he not only didn’t kick you out, but actually sat down and offered you guidance?”

  Without realizing it, a wan smile crosses my features, not in reaction to anything she has said being particularly funny, but in response to her interpretation of the story I’ve told.

  “Please,” I say, “do enlighten me. How was anything Terry Weinberg said to me guidance?”

  The question leaves her flummoxed for a moment, her features falling flat as she tries to formulate a response.

  “But, you said so yourself, just a little bit ago.”

  “No, I said he gave me advice, which is quite different,” I counter. “Guidance is a helping hand, it is mentorship, it is someone taking an interest and going out of their way on another’s behalf.”

  Pearson releases her grip on the computer and pulls her hands back, folding them in front of herself on the table. She arches an eyebrow and asks, “And that isn’t what he did?”

  “Not even a little bit,” I respond, shaking my head for effect. “What he did was tell me my book sucked. He told me it was inauthentic and lacked credibility. He called me a child and said I didn’t know what I was doing.”

  The look of disbelief fades a bit as she looks at me, remaining silent.

  “Make no mistake,” I say, “that is what the man told me. He might have couched it a little better than that, used fancier words and such, but that’s what he did.”

  Pearson remains fixed in place a moment before pushing herself back from the table. With either hand, she shoves stray strands of hair behind her ears, glancing at the screen now positioned to the side.

  “That’s what you were expecting him to say, wasn’t it?” I ask, not trying to hide a bit of amusement.

  I can see a twitch at the corner of her mouth as she attempts to hide her own smile, though she remains silent.

  “And say it, he did,” I confirm. “There were no warm and fuzzy feelings for me when I left.”

  It is clear the exchange has flustered her a bit, her face red. Again, she straightens her hair before moving the computer back into place, the entire time operating without glancing my way. Only once she is safely hidden from view do I see her eyes peek out from above the screen.

  “So, advice?”

  Rising up a little higher in my seat, I let her see my smile.

  “Advice.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Friday, February 24th, 2012

  10:12 pm

  Empty soda cans litter the floor around me. There are at least seven that I can see, their multi-colored exteriors crumpled into misshapen heaps. I know somewhere nearby there are at least twice that many, the combined efforts of a long evening by me and Quasi. Between us on the sofa is a pair of empty pizza boxes, the smell still hanging heavy.

  As it is Friday night, we have bypassed my place for his, trading out the upstairs bedroom for a basement den.

  Open to accommodate the entire underbelly of the house, the space stretches eighty feet in length, half that in width. A handful of bare metal poles act as support, positioned evenly throughout the room. Overhead, bare wooden cross beams from the main level remain exposed and stray scraps of carpet cover patches of the concrete floor.

  The back end of the place is used for family storage, housing random boxes and a Christmas tree they never bother to undecorate. Beside it is a deep freeze that gives off a persistent hum.

  The opposite side, where we now find ourselves, was converted into living quarters when Quasi graduated high school. A stack of mattresses is stacked in the corner, a dresser with drawers overflowing beside it. Along the wall is an old box television, the threadbare couch we now sit on in front of it.

  In the opposite corner is a makeshift bathroom.

  That’s it. No wall décor of any kind. Nothing at all that could be considered personality.

  We’re both long past noticing it.

  “Well, that was a disaster,” I say, shoving out a burp.

  It tastes sharp and acidic, the slightest hint of sausage present as well.

  On the opposite end of the couch Quasi nods, his attention on the television. Across the screen, William Shatner wrestles with a poorly designed villain from the original Star Trek series, an episode we’ve both seen multiple times.

  “My writing sucks and my life is boring,” I mutter, having replayed the conversation in my head a hundred times over.

  No matter how many times I try to spin it, the end result is always the same.

  Quasi pauses a full two minutes before saying anything, waiting until a commercial break arrives before rolling his head along the back of the sofa to look at me. In the last few hours, he has consumed as many calories as I have, his face red and bloated from the effort.

  “Your writing doesn’t suck, it just lacks polish.”

  “Right,” I mutter, letting him hear the derisive snort that rolls out with the response. “He said it was shit.”

  “No, he said you made common beginner mistakes,” Quasi counters. “Which, to be fair, you are a beginner.”

  My eyes narrow as I turn to look at him, not at all in the mood for someone to again point out my shortcomings. He sees the look on my face and immediately raises his hands towards me, both palms patting the air in front of him.

  “Easy now, I’m not trying to rile you up. I’m just saying, it’s not all bad.”

  “Really?” I say, my voice just a bit higher than a hiss.

  “Really,” he echoes. “He didn’t say there was anything wrong with your plot line, which I really liked. Everything he pointed out was mechanical, which can be learned.”

  Revulsion passes through me, starting in my stomach and passing up through my head in a quick pulse. It threatens to pull everything I’ve just consumed from my body as I stare at him, wondering how he could so badly misconstrue all that transpired.

  “I’m sorry, did you happen to miss the part about it lacking believability? You know, the part where he said I was a kid dabbling in stuff I knew nothing about?”

  My voice is rising, my pulse starting to surge through my temples. I don’t want to shout at Quasi, but I don’t want to be having this conversation either. I want to be given a free pass to wallow for a few days before I delete every word I wrote and forget it ever happened.

  “Which can also be fixed,” Quasi says.

  His tone is even, placating almost, as he looks back at me.

  My every impulse is to grab an empty box and beat him with it, but before acting, his words somehow find their way into my consciousness. I stare back at him, my mouth open, ready to blast into another tirade, but I manage to hold it in.

  “What do you mean?” I snap, the anger still audible in my voice, tinged with just a bit of curiosity.

  “Think about everything he said,” Quasi says. “He mentioned specifically the thing about the cigar, right?”

  I’m not sure where any of this is going, but can feel the acrimony fleeting from me.

  “Yeah?”

  “So we’re twenty-eight years old,” Quasi replies, “let’s go get some cigars.”

  Of everything Quasi could have said in this moment, nothing would have surprised me more. Gobs of responses come to mind, reasons why it is a terrible idea, why it will never work.

  Not one of them passes my lips though.

  Instead, all I manage is, “You’re right. Let’s go get some cigars.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The l
ady behind the counter rolls her eyes as she looks at us and slides the pack of Black & Mild cigarillos over in front of her. With it comes a look somewhere between disgust and disdain as she keys in the digits on the barcode without once looking down at the cash register.

  On the opposite side of the counter, Quasi and I are bunched up so tight that our arms are touching. More than once we have broken into giggles, each of us trying to keep a straight face as we stand before her.

  Any emotions I had just an hour before are now long gone. The anger, the hatred, I had for Weinberg has passed. The incredulity at Quasi trying to cheer me up has vanished.

  In their place is a sort of childlike euphoria I haven’t experienced in a long time. My gut - long the arbiter of my emotions - has no feeling of revulsion in it. Instead, it holds the sense of butterflies, a weightlessness passing through me.

  “Six-fifty,” the woman replies, the left side of her thin lips twisted up in a sneer.

  What exactly it is that has earned us her ire I can’t be certain, though at the moment, I don’t particularly care. If I had a face like hers, or was still working at a gas station at sixty, I would probably be pretty pissed off too.

  Digging into his pocket, Quasi pulls out a loose tangle of cash and peels off a five and two singles. She accepts the rumpled bills and hands back the change, flicking a book of matches at us as we thank her and back away.

  “Here, you’ll need these too.”

  Again we thank her as we retreat, both trying to hold our giddiness inside. The moment we step through the doors, we once more succumb to giggling, Quasi giving me a shove as we cross into the parking lot.

  Without even knowing why, we both start jogging for the car. Our feet slap heavy against the pavement and we both pant loudly as we go.

  Neither one of us care.

  Quasi is the first one inside the car, peeling back the plastic wrapper on the package as I wrench the passenger side door open and climb inside, slamming it closed. The smell of dried tobacco fills the interior as he tosses the plastic over the seat and pushes back the top of the paper package.