by Nathan Hill
“Why would the judge listen to me?”
“He probably won’t, sir. Especially this judge. Judge Charles Brown. Goes by ‘Charlie.’ I’m not kidding you, sir, that’s really his name. He was supposed to retire next month but delayed retirement to preside over your mother’s case. I’m thinking because it’s high profile? A national story. Also he has a pretty appalling record vis-à-vis First Amendment stuff. The Honorable Charlie Brown does not have a lot of patience for dissent, let me tell you.”
“So if he won’t listen to me, why bother with this letter? Why bother calling me?”
“Because you have a somewhat respectable title, sir, and you’ve achieved a middling level of renown, and I will leave no stone unturned while there is still money in the fund. I have a reputation.”
“What is this fund?”
“As you can imagine, sir, Governor Sheldon Packer is pretty unpopular in some quarters. In certain circles, your mother is a kind of subversive hero.”
“For throwing rocks.”
“ ‘A brave soldier in the fight against Republican fascism’ was written on one of the checks I cashed. The money poured in for her defense. Enough to retain my legal counsel for upward of four months.”
“And after that?”
“I’m optimistic we can reach a deal, sir, before then. Will you help us?”
“Why should I? Why should I help her? This is so typical.”
“What’s typical, sir?”
“My mother’s whole big mystery—going to college, and protesting, and getting arrested—I never knew any of that. It’s one more secret she never told me.”
“I’m sure she had her reasons, sir.”
“I want no part of this.”
“I should say your mother really direly needs help right now.”
“I’m not going to write a letter, and I don’t care if she goes to prison.”
“But she’s your mother, sir. She birthed you and, not to put too fine a point on it, suckled you.”
“She abandoned me and my father. She left without a word. She stopped being my mother then, as far as I’m concerned.”
“No lingering hope for a reunion? No deep longing for a maternal figure in a life that feels hollowed out and void without her?”
“I have to go.”
“She gave birth to you. She kissed your owies. Cut up your sandwich into little bits. Do you or do you not want someone in your life who remembers your birthday?”
“I’m hanging up now. Goodbye.”
6
SAMUEL IS LISTENING to cappuccino-related whooshing at an airport coffee shop when he receives the first message concerning Laura Pottsdam. It’s from his dean, the plague scholar. I met with a student of yours, she writes. She had some strange accusations. Did you really tell her she was stupid? And Samuel skims the rest of the letter and feels himself physically sinking into his chair. I’m frankly shocked at your impropriety. Ms. Pottsdam doesn’t seem stupid to me. I allowed her to rewrite her paper for full credit. We must discuss this immediately.
He’s at a coffee shop across from a gate where a midday flight to Los Angeles will begin boarding in about fifteen minutes. He’s there for a meeting with Guy Periwinkle, his editor and publisher. Above him is a television, currently muted, tuned to a news program showing Samuel’s mother throwing rocks at Governor Packer.
He tries to ignore it. He listens to the omnibus sounds around him: coffee orders shouted, intercom announcements about the current threat level and not leaving one’s bags unattended, kids crying, froth and steam, bubbling milk. Just next to the coffee shop is a shoeshine stand—two chairs elevated like thrones, beneath which is this guy who will shine your shoes. He’s a black man who’s currently reading a book, dressed in the uniform required of his job: suspenders, newsboy cap, a vaguely turn-of-the-century ensemble. Samuel is waiting for Periwinkle, who wants a shoeshine but is hesitating.
“I’m an exquisitely dressed white guy,” Periwinkle says, staring at the man at the shoeshine stand. “He is a minority in regressive costume.”
“And this matters why?” Samuel says.
“I don’t like the image. I hate that visual.”
Periwinkle is in Chicago this afternoon but on his way to L.A. His assistant had called to say he wanted a meeting, but the only time he had available was at the airport. So the assistant purchased Samuel an airline ticket, a one-way to Milwaukee which, the assistant explained, Samuel could use if he wanted but was really just to get him inside security.
Periwinkle eyes the shoeshine guy. “You know what the real problem is? The real problem is cell-phone cameras.”
“I’ve never had a shoeshine in my life.”
“Stop wearing sneakers,” Periwinkle says, and he doesn’t look at Samuel’s feet when he says this. Meaning that in the few minutes they’d spent together at the airport, Periwinkle had gathered and assimilated the fact of Samuel’s cheap shoes. And several other facts, probably.
Samuel always feels this way around his publisher: a little unseemly in comparison, a little derelict. Periwinkle looks about forty years old but he’s actually the same age as Samuel’s father: in his mid-sixties. He seems to be fighting time by being cooler than it. He carries himself in an erect and stiff and regal manner—it’s like he thinks of himself as an expensive and tightly wrapped birthday present. His thin shoes are severe and Italian-looking and have little ski jumps at the tips. His waistline seems about eight inches smaller than that of any other adult male in the airport. The knot in his necktie is as tight and hard as an acorn. His lightly graying hair is shaved to what seems to be a perfect and uniform one-centimeter length. Samuel always feels, standing next to him, baggy and big. Clothes bought off the rack and ill-fitting, probably a size too large. Whereas Periwinkle’s tight-fitting suit sculpts his body into clean angles and straight lines, Samuel’s shape seems blobbier.
Periwinkle is like a flashlight aimed at all your shortcomings. He makes you think consciously of the image you are projecting of yourself. For example, Samuel’s typical order at a coffee shop is a cappuccino. With Periwinkle, he ordered a green tea. Because a cappuccino seemed like a cliché, and he thought a green tea would have a higher Periwinkle approval rating.
Periwinkle, meanwhile, ordered a cappuccino.
“I’m headed to L.A.,” he says. “Gonna be on the set for the new Molly video.”
“Molly Miller?” Samuel says. “The singer?”
“Yeah. She’s a client. Whatever. She has a new video. A new album. Guest appearance on a sitcom. Reality show in the pipeline. And a celebrity memoir, which is the reason I’m going out there. The working title is Mistakes I’ve Made So Far.”
“Isn’t she like sixteen years old?”
“Officially seventeen. But really she’s twenty-five.”
“No kidding?”
“In real life. Keep that to yourself.”
“What’s the book about?”
“It’s tricky. You want it blasé enough that it won’t hurt her image, but it can’t be boring because she has to come off as glamorous. You want it smart enough that people won’t say it’s bubblegum pop sold to twelve-year-olds, but not too smart because twelve-year-olds are of course the principal audience. And obviously all celebrity memoirs need one big confession.”
“They do?”
“Definitely, yes. Something we can give the newspapers and magazines ahead of the pub date to generate buzz. Something juicy to get people talking. That’s why I’m going to L.A. We’re brainstorming. She’s doing pickups on her music video. Comes out in a few days. Some fucking stupid shitty song. Here’s the chorus: ‘You have got to represent!’ ”
“Catchy. Have you decided on a confession?”
“I am strongly in favor of an innocently small episode of lesbianism. An experimental time in junior high. A special friend, a few kisses. You know. Not enough to turn off the parents but hopefully enough to get us some rainbow-flag awards. She’s already got the t
ween market, but if she could get the gays too?” And here Periwinkle pantomimes with his hands something small exploding into something large. “Boom,” he says.
It was Periwinkle who’d given Samuel his big break, Periwinkle who had plucked Samuel out of obscurity and given him an enormous book contract. Samuel had been in college then, and Periwinkle was visiting campuses all over the country looking for authors to sign for a new imprint that featured the work of young prodigies. He recruited Samuel after having read only one short story. Then he placed that story in one of the big magazines. Then offered a book contract that paid Samuel an exorbitant amount of money. All Samuel had to do was write the book.
Which of course he never did. That was a decade ago. This is the first conversation he’s had with his publisher in years.
“So how’s the book business?” Samuel says.
“The book business. Hah. That’s funny. I’m not really in the book business anymore. Not in the traditional sense.” He fishes a business card from his briefcase. Guy Periwinkle: Interest Maker—no logo, no contact information.
“I’m in the manufacturing business now,” Periwinkle says. “I build things.”
“But not books.”
“Books. Sure. But mostly I build interest. Attention. Allure. A book is just packaging, just a container. This is what I’ve realized. The mistake people in the book business make is they think their job is to build good containers. Saying you’re in the book business is like a winemaker saying he’s in the bottle business. What we’re actually building is interest. A book is simply one shape that interest can take when we scale and leverage it.”
Above them, the Packer Attacker video has come to the point where security guards are rushing toward Samuel’s mother, about to tackle her. Samuel turns away.
“I’m more like into multimodal cross-platform synergy,” Periwinkle says. “My company was swallowed long ago by another publisher, which was swallowed in turn by a bigger one, and so on, like those Darwin fish stickers you see on car bumpers. Now we’re owned by a multinational conglomerate with interests in trade book publishing, cable television, radio broadcasting, music recording, media distribution, film production, political consulting, image management, publicity, advertising, magazines, printing, and rights. Plus shipping, I think? Somewhere in there?”
“That sounds complicated.”
“Imagine me as the calm center around which all our media operations tornado.”
Periwinkle looks at the television above them and watches the Packer Attacker video replayed for the dozenth time. In a small window on the left side of the screen, the show’s conservative anchor is saying something, who knows what.
“Hey!” Periwinkle shouts at a barista. “Could you turn this up?”
Seconds later the television is unmuted. They hear the anchor ask whether the Packer attack is an isolated incident or a sign of things to come.
“Oh, definitely a sign of things to come,” says one of the guests. “This is what liberals do when they’re trapped in a corner. They attack.”
“It’s really not all that different from, say, Germany in the late thirties,” says another guest. “It’s like, you know, first they came for the patriots, and I did not speak out.”
“Right!” says the anchor. “If we don’t speak out, nobody’s going to be left when they come for us. We have to stop this now.”
Heads nod all around. Cut to commercial.
“Oh, man,” says Periwinkle, shaking his head and smiling. “The Packer Attacker. That’s a woman I’d like to know better. That’s a story I’d love to tell.”
Samuel sips his drink and says nothing. The tea steeped for too long and has gone a little bitter.
Periwinkle checks his watch and glances at the gate, where people have begun to hover—not quite in line but poised to dart into one, should a line form.
“How’s work?” Periwinkle says. “You still teaching?”
“For now.”
“At that…place?”
“Yes, same school.”
“What do you make, like thirty grand? Let me give you some advice. Can I give you some advice?”
“Okay.”
“Get out of the country, dude.”
“Sorry?”
“Seriously. Find yourself a nice third-world developing nation and go make a killing.”
“I could do that?”
“Yes, absolutely. My brother does that. Teaches high-school math and coaches soccer in Jakarta. Before that, Hong Kong. Before that, Abu Dhabi. Private schools. Kids are mostly the children of government and business elite. He makes two hundred grand a year plus housing plus a car plus a driver. You get a car and a chauffeur at that school of yours?”
“No.”
“I swear to god anyone with half an education who stays in America to teach is suffering some kind of psychosis. In China, Indonesia, the Philippines, the Middle East they’re desperate for people like you. You could have your pick. In America you’re underpaid and overworked and insulted by politicians and unappreciated by students. There, you’d be a goddamn hero. That’s advice, me to you.”
“Thanks.”
“You should take it too. Because I have bad news, buddy.”
“You do.”
Big sigh, big clownish frown as Periwinkle nods his head. “I’m sorry, but we’re gonna have to cancel your contract. That’s what I came here to tell you. You promised us a book.”
“And I’m working on it.”
“We paid you a fairly large advance for a book, and you have not delivered said book.”
“I hit a snag. A little writer’s block. It’s coming along.”
“We are invoking the nondelivery clause in our contract, whereby the publisher may demand reimbursement for any advance payments if the product is never provided. In other words? You’re gonna have to pay us back. I wanted to tell you in person.”
“In person. At a coffee shop. At the airport.”
“Of course, in the event you cannot pay us back, we’ll have to sue you. My company will be filing papers next week with the New York State Supreme Court.”
“But the book’s coming along. I’m writing again.”
“And that’s excellent news for you! Because we relinquish all rights on any material related to said book, so you can do whatever you want with it. And we wish you the very best of luck with that.”
“How much are you suing me for?”
“The amount of the advance, plus interest, plus legal fees. The upside here is that we’re not taking a loss on you, which cannot be said for many of our other recent investments. So don’t feel too bad for us. You still have the money, yes?”
“No. Of course not. I bought a house.”
“How much do you owe on the house?”
“Three hundred grand.”
“And how much is the house now worth?”
“Like, eighty?”
“Hah! Only in America, am I right?”
“Look. I’m sorry it’s taken so long. I’ll finish the book soon. I promise.”
“How do I say this delicately? We actually don’t want the book anymore. We signed that contract in a different world.”
“How is it different?”
“Primarily, you’re not famous anymore. We needed to strike while the iron was hot. Your iron, my friend, is ice cold. But also the country has moved on. Your quaint story about childhood love was appropriate pre-9/11, but now? Now it’s a little quiet for the times, a little incongruous. And—no offense?—there’s nothing terribly interesting about you.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t take that the wrong way. It’s a one-in-a-million person who can sustain the kind of interest I specialize in.”
“I can’t possibly afford to pay that money back.”
“It’s an easy fix, dude. Foreclose on the house, hide your assets, declare bankruptcy, move to Jakarta.”
The intercom crackles: First-class passengers to Los Angeles can now begin bo
arding. Periwinkle smoothes his suit. “That’s me,” he says. He slugs the rest of his coffee and stands up. “Listen, I wish things were different. I really do. I wish we didn’t have to do this. If only there was something you could offer, something of interest?”
Samuel knows he has one thing yet to give, one thing of value. It’s the only thing he has for Periwinkle. It is, right now, the only interesting thing about him.
“What if I told you I had a new book,” Samuel says. “A different book.”
“Then I would say we had another complaint in our civil suit against you. That when you were contracted to write a book for us, you were secretly working on a book for someone else.”
“I haven’t been working on it at all. Haven’t written a word.”
“Then in what way is it a ‘book’?”
“It’s not. It’s more like a pitch. Do you want to hear the pitch?”
“Sure. Fire away.”
“It’s sort of a celebrity tell-all.”
“Okay. Who’s the celebrity?”
“The Packer Attacker.”
“Yeah, right. We sent a scout. She’s not talking. It’s a dead end.”
“What if I told you that she was my mother?”
7
SO THIS IS THE PLAN. They agree to it at the airport. Samuel will fulfill his contract with the publisher by writing a book about his mother—a biography, an exposé, a tell-all.
“A sordid tale of sex and violence,” Periwinkle says, “written by the son she abandoned? Hell yeah, I could sell that.”
The book will describe Faye Andresen’s sleazy past in the protest movement, her time as a prostitute, how she abandoned her family and went into hiding and only came out to terrorize Governor Packer.
“We’d have to get the book out before the election, for obvious marketing reasons,” Periwinkle says. “And Packer will have to come off as an American hero. A kind of folksy messiah. You okay with that?”
“Fine.”
“We have those pages finished already, actually.”
“What do you mean finished?” Samuel says.
