Underwood, Scotch, and Wry

by Brian D. Meeks

  Arthur asked, “So, what are the finer points of Twitter?”

  Wen said, “Let’s brainstorm.” She began banging on her laptop.

  “How about we start with some brain light raining,” Arthur suggested.

  Wen wrinkled her nose and said, “We should talk about hashtags.”

  “What’s a hashtag?”

  Kurt said, “It is a way to group tweets.”

  Arthur’s blank expression spoke volumes.

  Kurt continued, “If you’re watching Glee alone at home and do a search with a octothorpe - that’s what we call a hashtag - you’ll find all the tweets relating to the show.”

  “Interesting. So if I wanted to find people who like Harper Lee, I would just put her name after a pound sign?” Arthur asked.

  Wen said, “Let me try.” A moment later she spun around her computer. “See, there are mostly quotes from To Kill a Mockingbird, but I’m sure those people all like her writing.”

  Lawrence said, “We should probably discuss junk followers, too.”

  Arthur asked, “What’s a junk follower?”

  “Someone that just wants you to follow them back.”

  “What’s wrong with following people back?”

  “Nothing, but the spammers don’t really care what you are tweeting or talking about. They just want you to click on their links and promote their crap.”

  “Those bastards!”

  “You joke, but if one is serious about building a following, they just clutter up things.”

  “Did you get that Wen?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Good, now why would someone tweet in the first place?”

  A. said, “You wrote a book, right?”

  “An earlier version of me did, yes.”

  “How did you get sales?”

  “They trickled in, but I have no idea from where.”

  “But you got royalties, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, imagine that people who like your book followed you on Twitter.”

  “I can do that.”

  “Now, let’s say you have 10,000 fans who follow and you’re about to release a new book.”

  “Unlikely, but I’m with you.”

  “You could tell them the launch date; you could interact with readers, thus making them more loyal; or you could find new readers by tweeting interesting stuff about your life.”

  “So, a well-built twitter following, without junk followers, is a marketing tool?”

  Lawrence broke in, “Yes, but you need to avoid being marketing all the time. People hate that.”

  Arthur nodded, “I would hate that.”

  Wen asked, “How do all of you feel about ‘Pls RT’?”

  Everyone but Arthur seemed to dislike the concept. He remained nonplussed. Wen asked, “Do you know what I mean, Dr. Byrne?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Lawrence said, “It is when people beg you to retweet their tweet.”

  “Why would anyone retweet something that has already been said once?”

  Wen said, “You have to understand that the only people who see your tweets are the ones who follow you.”

  “I can see that.”

  “So, let’s say you tweet something about a new book. One of your 10,000 followers takes that tweet and retweets it to their 100 followers because they adore your writing, and it extends your reach.”

  A. said, “Retweets also show people you are not just a one-way street.”

  “Okay, A., you’ve lost me.”

  A. continued, “People are more likely to help you with your goals if you help them with theirs.”

  “Is everyone selling something?”

  Lawrence said, “No, a lot of people just like hanging out but maybe they have a friend who just put up a new blog post, and they want to help him promote it. If you help, they will appreciate it.”

  Wen said, “Which brings up a good point...”

  “I’m not sure how many more good points I can digest.”

  “...you want to be careful about blindly tweeting something with a link, especially blog posts, because it might be something you don’t want to endorse.”

  “A retweet equals an endorsement?”

  A. said, “Do you want to retweet an article about a Nazi who kicks babies and eats unicorns?”

  “I am definitely con Nazis, pro unicorns, and indifferent towards baby kicking...are they kicking for distance or accuracy?”

  “Distance.”

  “Is that measured in yards or with the crazy metric system?”

  Donna brought over the fresh scotch and said, “Sorry, it got busy, and I’m short-handed.”

  “Well, in the interest of making your life easier, why don’t I order another now and you get it to me whenever it suits you.”

  “You’re a doll.”

  “You mind tweeting that…gorgeous?”

  Donna walked away with a little extra swing in her hips. Arthur watched and it was apparent that the impromptu meeting had been adjourned. He had lost interest in social media.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Eric walked over to Arthur and his TAs, beer in hand, and asked to nobody in particular, “How did it go today?”

  Wen said, “He was fantastic.” Everyone but Arthur agreed.

  Arthur stood and said, “I’m going to go hang out and have grown-up time. Toodles.”

  Eric said, “Don’t listen to him, he isn’t always this gruff...usually it is much worse.”

  Arthur made a noise that could easily be described as guttural contempt and wandered off. The bar was, among other things, a wonderful collection of alcoves and nooks with a fair number of crannies thrown in for good measure. If one wanted to revel with the masses, that was fine, but a somewhat quiet conversation could be had as well.

  The booth, Arthur’s favorite, was far enough away from the main bar that few ventured past. The waitresses always knew where he was, and that was what mattered. Eric joined his friend, ordered a pitcher, and asked, “So what’s the real scoop? What did you talk about?”

  “I mostly just made it up as I went along. Told everyone to set up a Twitter account and, if they didn’t, they would be judged harshly before God Almighty.”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “Okay, I may not have mentioned any religious deity, but it was implied.”

  “And did you put the fear of God into your students?”

  “They cheered when I left the stage mostly because class was going to end early.”

  A waitress brought a pitcher and an extra glass. She left and a woman in a nice blouse and skirt took her place by the table and said, “I’m not sure that was why they were cheering.”

  Eric said, “Hello.”

  “Hi, I’m Emily. I sat in on the class. I must say, your friend here put on quite the show.”

  Arthur looked at her and couldn’t think of anything snarky to say, so he went with, “Thanks. Would you like to join us?”

  “Sure.”

  She slid into the booth next to Eric, and he said, “You’re a bit more...mature, than most of our students.”

  “I’m a new associate professor in the French department. Today was my first day of class.”

  Arthur said, “Welcome to our fine institution of higher learning, well, institution at least.”

  “I’m pleased to be here.”

  The next half hour was filled with the rudimentary question and answer session that one finds when meeting new people. Arthur didn’t like new people, but Eric seemed quite enchanted with Emily. Eric impressed easily. Arthur did have to admit she was nice looking.

  He made every effort to keep his “Arthurness” to a minimum for Eric’s sake. When it seemed that a reasonable amount of politeness had been exchanged, Arthur excused himself and snuck out the back door to go home.

  The walk was nice. One of the fraternities was grilling something that smelled terrific. Arthur found himself trying to accurately describe the aroma in his mind as
he used to do when he was writing. He liked to include passing references for each of the five senses in his works. It was a small detail and likely unappreciated by most, but Arthur wasn’t writing for most people; he was writing for one.

  The walk up to his porch was interrupted by a tiny “Meow.”

  “I see we meet again small, furry one.”

  The black kitten rubbed against his leg and purred.

  “Didn’t we already discuss that I have nothing for you?”

  The next meow was considerably sadder. The purring stopped. The cat curled up on the first step and laid its head on its paws.

  Arthur looked at the little beast, swore, and turned around to head to the store a few blocks down. He was hungry anyway.

  He bought a large Coke, two sandwiches, and two cans of cat food. When he got back to the house, the little cat was still on the step. He opened a can of cat food and said, “Okay, you’ve worn me down. Here, you can start on this. I’ll get you some water, but don’t think it means we’re friends.”

  The cat buried his face in the can of food. It was gone before Arthur returned with a small dish of water. There was much purring. He gave the cat the second can before going into microwave his chicken and Swiss sandwich.

  Arthur then did something he hadn’t considered doing in years: he sat down at his typewriter. He didn’t use it but did find the motivation to wind a frighteningly empty piece of paper into his old friend. The keys remained quiet for two hours. He finally typed a single word, Monday.

  “That’ll do for now,” he said and went to bed. The day had started much earlier than he would have liked. Though he only had one class the next day, he sensed that Wen would find him. She was vastly easier to tolerate when rested...or so he assumed.

  Sometime during the night a storm came up. Something woke him, and he got up. The clock said the bars had just closed, and he heard a little sound outside. “Okay, you can stay here tonight, but don’t get any funny ideas.”

  Arthur was pretty sure he would need to do some shopping for his new roommate because, much like Wen, the little black feline seemed unwilling to listen to reason. He patted the kitten on the head and said, “I’ll be calling you Maltese. It suits you. Sleep well, little one.” He left Maltese on the couch and went back to bed.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Arthur grabbed the phone and looked at the screen. He wasn’t surprised. “I may not know much about this terrible thing you’ve made me buy, but I do know how to use it to tell time. Why would you be calling me at 7:38 am on a Thursday?”

  “I’ve already been running. It is a beautiful day out, and I thought an early start might be a good idea.”

  “I was having a delightful dream involving several Romanian contortionists doing things that are illegal in a number of highly regarded states. If you hang up now, I might be able to convince them to return to my land of nod.”

  “We should get together and do some more work on Twitter.”

  Arthur rolled onto his back. Out of his peripheral vision he saw that his house guest had decided the couch wasn’t fluffy enough. “I’ve got errands to run.”

  “What errands?”

  “I am out of eggs and coffee, and I was considering finding someone who might be willing to abduct and torture a small Asian woman I know who has wronged me.”

  “You’ll be happy to know that you have 83 followers.”

  “I’m not sure I’m willing to be their leader. Will I need a flag?”

  “Most of them are students, but a few, I think, are readers. Have you checked Twitter today?”

  “No, as I said, there were Romanians who were bendy and...”

  “Well, you should check now.”

  “If I promise to look at Twitter and marvel at my meteoric rise to the lofty ranks of high double digits, will you hang up?”

  “Do you think I should come over so that we can get to work?”

  “I think you should...no, I don’t think you should come over. I’m hanging up now. I have stuff to do.”

  “You want me to help?”

  Having gone to bed early, Arthur didn’t feel nearly as bad as he did most mornings, but he didn’t want to encourage this sort of behavior, so he said, “I’ll be fine. You need to make sure that all the TAs run through their class list, find out who has signed up, and, at noon, count the number of people they have followed within the class.”

  “I know; we’ve talked about how we’re going to do it. Lawrence has a plan that should make it easy.”

  “That is excellent. Now, I need to go.”

  “Okay, I’ll talk to you later when you aren’t such a grumpy pants.”

  “Fine, I’ll be available late July, 2019,” he said. He thought he heard her giggle before she hung up.

  A tail smacked him on the forehead. “Don’t you start.”

  Maltese purred.

  Arthur petted the fur ball and let the sting of morning subside. After ten minutes of kitty time, he was ready to get started.

  Two hours later he was placing various feline sundry items in the Triumph. Good deeds were not his way, but the cat seemed to bring a certain level of low-tech to his new high tech world. He would feed the cat, and, on occasion, the little furry mess would do something cute. It was a reasonable exchange of goods for services.

  His phone rang.

  “Hello,” he said, somewhat thankful it wasn’t Wen.

  “Dr. Byrne, how are you today?”

  “I’m fine, and you, Mary?”

  “I just wanted to ask that you stop in my office for a little chat after your class today.”

  “How did you get this number? I just got the phone.”

  “We need to discuss your antics yesterday. I’m afraid I have some very disturbing reports.”

  “Did you get them from Wen?”

  “Very disturbing reports. Your attitude reflects poorly on this school and on me as dean. Are you trying to embarrass me?”

  “One of the features I do like on this phone is...” and he hung up on her. Arthur turned the key and was greeted with a feeble attempt at starting. He shrugged and tried again. Nothing. “Damn you, karma. If I promise to never do anything nice again, will you please start the fucking car?”

  Karma didn’t respond.

  Arthur, remembering what Wen had said about the woman that lives in his phone, asked Siri for a tow truck. She suggested Dwayne’s Towing.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The shirt and truck both had “Dwayne” written on them. Arthur said, “You must be Dwayne.”

  “Yes, sir,” he said looking at the car. “She’s a beauty. What’s the trouble?”

  “She is giving me grief...women.”

  Dwayne laughed. “You mind popping the hood?”

  “Not at all.”

  Dwayne seemed to give his baby a good physical. Arthur knew less about the workings of his car than he did about the internet.

  Dwayne said, “I’m not sure, but one of the battery cables is a little loose.” A few minutes later, he said, “Try it now.”

  Arthur turned the key and his charming little car struggled then started. He got out and shook Dwayne’s hand. “Thanks so much. I’m glad it wasn’t anything serious.”

  “No problem.”

  “How much do I owe you?”

  “I was actually driving right past here on the way to the shop, so your timing couldn’t have been better. How does ten bucks sound?”

  “It sounds low. Let’s say twenty. Do you take plastic?”

  “Sure do. I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone negotiate up,” he said, looking at the card. “Are you any relation to the author?”

  “It depends upon who you’re thinking about.”

  “There’s a writer, Arthur Byrne.”

  “Then yes.”

  “I picked up your book a few years back. Nice job.”

  “You are too kind.”

  “You have anything new coming out?” he asked, handing back the card.

  �
�No, now I mostly just teach. It is what one does when one forgets how to write.”

  “I doubt you’ve forgotten. I bet you just have a loose battery cable.”

  “Dwayne, you should be the writer. And thanks again.”

  Maltese seemed interested in his return. Three loud meows told Arthur that the cat wanted to investigate the food first. The toys could wait. While his guest dined, he set up the litter box in the back bedroom and put the scratching post under the table with his typewriter.

  He had been thinking about getting a plant for a few years. This was better. The cat squared away, Arthur headed to campus. It was too nice a day to drive, so he walked. He dreaded the meeting with Mary and decided he wasn’t the least bit interested in her time table.

  Her secretary said, “You’re not expected until...”

  “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition,” and he blew past her, knocked twice, and entered.

  The dean was reading some reports and looked up. She removed the reading glasses from her beak and made a show of cleaning the lenses. She didn’t invite him to sit. With a squint of derision, she said, “Our meeting isn’t scheduled until...”

  “I was in the neighborhood, smelled baked goods, and thought I’d check out the gingerbread house. I was told not to eat anything or the...” he paused. “Well, rumor has it the punishment is severe.”

  “The only thing more grim than your sense of humor is the disgusting display you put on for your first day of class.”

  “I got an ovation.”

  She shook several pieces of paper and said, “I had a few people look on, and the overwhelming majority of the reports were negative. Shall I read you some of the comments?”

  “I’ll wait until the Cliff’s Notes come out.”

  “I quote, ‘He was sitting among the students and began ranting like a lunatic.’”

  Arthur started typing something on his phone.

  She tried to ignore his rudeness and continued, “And then it was reported that you, ‘showed disregard for the scheduled class time by leaving early...’ What are you doing? Would you mind NOT texting while we are having a discussion?”