Way it didn’t happen. Chairperson says “… is Robert Bermmeister for his novel Scorch, published by…” “I can’t believe it,” he says to his wife, kissing her. “I can’t believe it, this is impossible,” he yells to the table. The editor’s hugging the publisher. She jumps out of her chair and runs around the table to Rob and hugs him. “Do you believe it, do you believe it?” he says to her. “I mean, being a finalist was more than enough, right? But this, it’s crazy, how’d we do it?” and she says “You deserved it, silly,” and he says “Ah, those blessed judges, I could kiss them all.” The publisher’s stretching across the table to shake his hand and can only reach his elbow and squeezes it. “Stand, Robert, stand,” and he says “Me?” and the publisher says “Sure, you, you have to go up there and make a speech and take your bows,” and he says “Me, a speech? I didn’t think I’d win. This is ridiculous, I’ve never been so happy,” and he stands, waves to the applause, yells to his wife “What do I do, what do I say?” and she says “Whatever you want to, it’s your moment, though just be nice,” and he says “You’re right,” kisses her, turns to the editor to kiss her and is blinded by the spotlight, shields his eyes, a voice from the podium says “Come on up here to be officially congratulated and to accept your statuette and check, Robert, please come up, as you’re also delaying the entrée,” and the crowd laughs, and two young women, probably AFF workers, take his arms, one says “Follow us, sir,” and they escort him around the tables to the stage, people seated and standing pat his back, arms, someone musses his hair, and he looks at the guy and doesn’t know him but smiles at him, grab his hands as he passes, say “Wonderful,” “Congratulations,” “Bravo, Robert,” “Glad you got it, terrific book,” he turns to some of them and recognizes no one, keeps smiling, is near to crying, reaches the stage, woman holding his right arm says “There are four steps altogether, Mr. Bermmeister, and they’re awfully steep, so be careful,” and he says “Thanks, got a cane? Only kidding, thanks very much,” and they let go of him, and he walks up the steps and over to the podium, shakes the chairperson’s extended hand, hand of the president of AFF, two other people’s, all four say “Congratulations, Robert,” the president gives him the statuette and check and says “When they’re done applauding, please say something,” and Rob steps up to the mike, looks out, bows, waves, too many lights, wants to see his wife but can’t make her out, glasses are wet, dries them with a handkerchief, they’re stained now and even worse to see out of than before, breathes hard on the lenses and then rubs them on his jacket sleeve, applause is dying down, looks up, smiles, puts the check away, takes the paper with notes out of his pocket and holds it below the podium and reads it, nothing he can use and has to remember to call Ned sometime in the next hour, what’s he going to say now? Just thanks to everyone and get off of here, looks up, sees his wife, and she waves at him, he blows a kiss to her, “That’s my wife I did that to, I want you to understand,” people laugh, then the room’s quiet except for some buzzing, flash bulbs, cameras clicking, ice in glasses tinkling, everyone’s seated, and he says “Thank you. Really, thanks. Everyone. I can’t believe this,” holding up the statuette and patting the jacket pocket with the check, then realizes they wouldn’t know what that means. “I mean, I’m beginning to but it’s still hard. That’s what I yelled when I first heard”—can’t come up with her name—“the chairperson say my book won; how it couldn’t be possible. I thought anyone else but me. They were all so deserving. Each of the other four finalists deserved it and, in my mind, more so than I. It’s true; it’s what I thought. You can ask my wife; she’s honest to the core and wouldn’t lie about this for me. So this is all so maddeningly surprising, really. Not maddeningly; it’s just crazy, crazily surprising and silencing, beyond words. I didn’t, as you see, prepare a speech because I didn’t expect to win, honestly. In fact, if any of you saw me peeking at a piece of paper below the podium before, it was my losing speech if anyone was going to ask me for one. It’s the truth, or sort of. I prepared it for the book review editor of the Boston Globe who wanted me to call, win, lose or draw, or if somehow the foundation had made a mistake by listing me as one of the finalists. I won’t read it now, self-ridiculingly funny as it might possibly be, because it’d be too absurd to,” and someone shouts “Go, read it,” and he says “No, thanks but no, I’d rather fail at extemporization than at preparedness,” and some people laugh and applaud. “Does that mean I’m through or should be? Anyway, before I go let me just give my thanks. I know I’m only supposed to have five minutes to speak, and I’ve already blown a couple of them. So my deepest thanks to my wife, my kids, my mother for her encouragement, my father, may he rest in peace, for giving me the necessary discouragement I think every writer needs to keep him going with his work, and also a sense of humor and lots of stories. My mother again for encouraging me to read, for knowing all the words when I didn’t, and during my early writing years and later ones too—I just didn’t want to give my dad more praise than her, in what I said before—for never giving up on me, always encouraging. And the publisher, of course, Lawrence Terngull, and my editor, Sissie Lassner—please, she should take a bow. Without her I doubt the book would have been published and she even designed the cover and did the layout and everything like that. She’s at my table; please, if you could get the light on her,” and a spotlight finds the table, there’s applause, she stands, waves, blows a kiss to him with both hands. “And Jeffrey Baker for loaning me his tux, Pic ’N Pay, or is it Pick and Pay? for having black dress shoes for twelve bucks, which I’ll probably only wear this one time in my life. And finally the, well, my wife Jane again, though I could never say enough about her, all of it nice. And I said the publisher, but for backing this agentless worstselling author and especially in so large and expensive a book to produce. And the typesetters or printers or whatever they are and also the copyreader and proofreader for having to deal with those endless paragraphs and oddly constructed sentences and intentional misspellings and such. And finally the judges, the foundation, all of you for coming here, and the manual typewriter, erasable paper and pencil eraser, and Mr. Cavalieri, the one person in Boston who’s still able to fix my aging typewriter and find the parts. Thank you, I’m so happy I can’t tell you how much,” and steps back from the podium, is applauded, shakes hands with the four people on stage, “Very nice,” “Very natural,” “A shot in the arm to all of us,” “Congratulations again, Robert,” leaves. As he’s going down the steps he thinks why didn’t he can all that thanks crap and mention that writer who’s in hiding because of the Iranian death threat he’s under for his book? Just to say “Don’t forget, besides the monstrous horror against him, it’s also an abomination against all culture and civilization, we should do something about it, all we can, keep writing and speaking out and using whatever power we have and getting literary and all those kinds of organizations here to do the same thing against it and in every way possible pressure our government to do something, like a complete trade embargo and economic sanctions against Iran, if they’re not the same thing, and other people and organizations of other countries to pressure their governments and labor unions and such and pressure the UN also till the sentence is lifted and the guy can do what the hell he wants with his life, like walk along the street again with his kid without thinking he’s going to get stabbed or shot and the kid too,” is escorted by the same young women to his table, back patted, slapped, arms squeezed, “Damn,” he thinks, “that’s what I should have said, plus a few quick start-off thanks, instead of rattling on so foolishly and self-depreciatively, what a chance, what a dud,” hands grabbed and shaked till one time he almost drops the statuette, good, who needs the stupid ugly thing, and where’s he going to put it anyway except in some out-of-the-way storage place so he can never see it again? Someone pops up in front of him, blocking his way, and says “Mind signing your book, Mr. Bermmeister? It’ll take a second,” and holds out the book and a pen and he says “You bet, and thanks for buyin
g it,” and the man says “You’re welcome—actually, I didn’t buy it, it was a book trade between your house and mine—we fielded one of the other finalists, Buckley’s Ye Who Enter Here,” and he says “Looks like my house got the best of the deal, since that was some book,” and the man says “I’m not taking sides in this,” and Rob signs his name and then says “Oops, I forgot to ask to whom,” and the man says “Sally, and the date if you don’t mind—November 28th,” and he writes above his name “To Sally, via the fella who gave me the book to sign for you, best and thanx,” and puts the date after his name and someone says “What’re you doing, Robert, writing a short story?” and he says “Just an appreciative inscription—I at first thought he bought this too-expensive book—I’m only kidding,” he says to the man and hands him the book back, gets to his table. “I hope he wasn’t offended,” he thinks. Spotlight’s on the table, people crowded around, most of them reporters and photographers, judging by their equipment and clothes. “So how do you feel, Mr. Bermmeister?” one asks, and he says “Feel? Just great, what do you think? Great. Totally unexpected, winning it. What a bunch of writers to beat out. I mean, they’re not really beat out. Their books are there to be read and revered—reveered, how do you say the bloody word?—for a long time, and it might take them a little longer, maybe because they’re more complex, before they surpass my book’s recognition. But my head’s still swimming from the surprise and excitement of the announcement, so if you don’t mind, nothing more than what I said up there till my head’s cleared.” He sits. “Oh boy,” he says low to his wife, taking her hand and kissing it, cameras click, “this is too much—am I sure my fly’s zipped up, I don’t have drool on my lips?—I need a drink,” and she hands him his glass, “I don’t know why I didn’t think I could get it myself,” and she says while he’s drinking “Go easy for now, and listen, get used to this, and tonight’s attention will probably be the worst,” main course is on all the surrounding tables and is now put before them, he’s hungry and picks up his knife and fork when a reporter asks “What do you think of the food, Robert—taste any better now that you’ve won?” and he says “Food? Who can eat? And again, I’m so nervous and excited I’m afraid it’ll go in my lap, ruining Jeffrey Baker’s new tux and costing me a fortune to clean it or replace. He’s a writer, by the way, who lives down the street from me,” and a woman says “Mr. Bermmeister, sorry to interrupt your meal, though the kitchen will keep your plate warm—and all you newspeople if you wish—would you come to the Louis the Fourteenth room for a brief press conference?” and he says “Sure thing, I guess,” stands, whispers to his wife “Where you think the losers go, the Sixteenth?” kisses her, then whispers “It is Louis Seize who got his head chopped off, in case I gotta make a joke, right?” and she nods, he follows the woman, in the corridor outside the ballroom he sees Pond from a distance and shouts “Pond, Lemuel, hi, it’s me, I’m sorry, and I meant every word I said about you up there—you know—the rest of you and especially you,” reporters take this down, he says to the one closest “Oh Christ, look at me, how does anyone like me win such an award? I can’t even speak,” and Pond waves without smiling, it seems, though he can’t really tell because of his big beard, and goes into, he sees when the door opens, the men’s room. “Doesn’t look happy, I don’t think,” he says to the AFF woman. “Well, why would he be? I doubt I would be too.” Goes into the Louis Quatorze room. TV lights go on when they enter. Two cameras, few microphones on a lectern, reporters, maybe twenty of them, and the AFF woman points to where he’s supposed to stand and says “Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Bermmeister,” and he says “Heilo, thanks for being here, I hope I haven’t disturbed your meal. Well, I’m ready for whatever from you, not that anything I say here will be the last word, meaning, that I really, in all this excitement again, haven’t the wherewithal—not that, but the intelligence, the thinking cap—on, you know—to convey any articulate statements and sentiments about anything but my painfully tight shoes and borrowed tux, but shoot. Not literally, but go ahead, I’m ready, and sorry for my silly jokes—feeble tries at them, rather,” and a woman says “We understand, Robert, and we’ll do our best to refine what you say if it doesn’t come out well. You’re still a bit overexcited, no excuses needed—so be as informal and as much yourself as you want,” and he says “Though what I said before wasn’t recorded, was it? Because if it was—,” and she says “Don’t worry. If it’s on tape it won’t be used and will be erased or destroyed—that’s not what we’re interested in,” and he says “So what are you then? I mean—,” and she says “Basically, from my standpoint, sir, in an abridged version of the acceptance speech you made, since we only have so much air time for the story, and some of us were setting up here and didn’t get it for radio or TV. And then some elaboration, if you will, and perhaps even in-depth exploration to things pertaining to your writing and the award that the other reporters might ask you and maybe even me too, okay? Okay, let’s start, for I’d love to get it on the eleven o’clock, and I think some of the print people have deadlines of their own,” and there’s a pause, “Face the camera please, sir,” and he does and she makes some hand signals to the camera crew, then says “Mr. Bermmeister, well, how do you feel about winning the award?” and he says “Just what I said in there,” pointing to the door, “I—” and she cuts him off and says “I should have told you this, Bob. Robert? How do you go by?” “Either.” “Well, pretend it’s the first time you’re saying it, so no ‘just-what-I-said’s’ please or pointing, since no one watching will know what you’re pointing at,” and he says “Make everything seem as if it only just happened, which it almost just did, but I got it. All right. I’m shocked, surprised—” and she says “Wait’ll I ask the question, Bob. Now,” hand signals to the crew, “Mr. Bermmeister, how do you feel about winning it?” and he says “Surprised, shocked, very surprised, almost incredibly so. Totally unexpected, and excited. It was unexpected, and I’m excited because for me it was so unexpected, to the point where I was made speechless. No, that’s not exactly so. Moment it happened I yelled out ‘It can’t be,’ or something like that. ‘Impossible. This is. Wake me up.’ My wife would remember the exact words. To tell you the truth, and I know I’m going on too much with this, it was more than enough, although perhaps not to my publisher, though he was quite ecstatic enough, though who wouldn’t be and particularly when your company’s that small and new and never had a major success, though we both thought that as long as I was nominated and it was going to somebody…oh, where was I? Lost my train of thought. You’ll have to edit and splice, whatever the term is, to make sense of this or just do it over. For I was saying something about how being a finalist was more than enough for my publisher and me, though as long as—” and she says “Let me ask you this, and we’re still running. Why are you so shocked and surprised, as you said? After all the acclaim your book’s received so far, you don’t believe it deserves the award?” and he says “What acclaim? There was the nomination, of course, but almost no reviews, though okay, it’s only been out a month. Four, to date, and only one from a prepublication review service, so five altogether. We thought the nomination would generate more, though maybe that’s what got us the four newspaper reviews. And of those, only two—possibly three, if I stretch the praise a little on that one and sidestep what can be construed as complaints—were good, but certainly not smashingly so. But you know, but you wouldn’t, but it’s almost always been like that, minus the nomination and award and two or three reviews, for all my books when they were published. Day of publication with those it was as if the publisher just dropped the book off the George Washington Bridge and you watched it sink. But if there was a passing barge or boat below—the rare chance of that happening, is what I mean, though which must’ve in this case—and it hit someone on the head, then maybe there’d be some attention given to it, like a feature news piece with the lead ‘Book Beans Boatman,’ or something. So what I’m saying is that other than for the nomination and
now the award, and maybe the one fairly good review it got in my city and leap-from-nowhere articles that same paper gave me—but something like that’s almost de rigueur, if you know what I mean: hometown always wants the hometown boy to make good, if he hasn’t been insulting to it, for it looks good for the hometown—there hasn’t been any acclaim. And does my book deserve the award, I think you asked? Who am I to say which book does? Maybe them all, and also some books that weren’t nominated—certainly some of those—and I just got lucky, that’s all, but it’s probably more than that, though what, I don’t know. Not that I’m disputing the judges’ judgment, you understand. I’m grateful—eternally, or as far as that goes—I mean it, for something like this, if you know how to live with it, can’t do anything but good for the book. And a real writer…ah, forget what a real writer thinks, says, how he acts, that kind of business, as if I were one. But you know, your book can win for the wrong as well as the right reasons. Maybe less chance of that happening with five judges, which is why they have that number, but every so often there can be a fluke there too. For someone can see something really good in it that wasn’t intended, in or under the writer’s mind, and if that person has a strong personality or persuasive delivery or is preeminent in his field or just famous for any reason, really, and the others aren’t well known and are weak or just easily manipulated or swayed, this person can convince them this is there when it’s not, and what do you do about that? Protest that someone raved about your work and then got the rest of them to, for the wrong reasons he saw into it or just said to show his power or ability to persuade or to test out how compelling his preeminence or fame is? I’m not being very clear, am I?” and she says “No no, it’s okay, but—” and he says “When my sentences get too long, I lose touch with what I started out to say. There, that was a clear one and ended with a monosyllable, my favorite way. But I’m also too excited, surprised, since this award just happened, didn’t it? And besides that, I’ve had nothing to eat since breakfast, and that wasn’t much—toasted English muffin, margarine because they didn’t have butter, and black coffee—for my publisher’s been carting me around town all day signing books, a new experience for me and which I’m sure also came out of the nomination and possibility that I might win, and then I don’t know—wait, here I go again with my long sentences—what the heck happened to lunch. Maybe—good, I stopped—maybe that was the English muffin and coffee on the run, and breakfast was just toast. And I also, at the cocktail reception just before the awards dinner, had, with just a couple of skimpy hors d’oeuvres—” and he suddenly sees his editor beside one of the cameras, waving her hand across her mouth for him, he thinks, not to say what he was going to and then making motions to drink several quick shots and shaking her head right after. “Well, like that,” he says. “For being hungry and a bit tired, I have to admit—they really moved me around today—can make one, me, confused and nervous and thus inarticulate and unintelligible too.” “Okay, that ought to do it,” she says. “Thanks, Bob,” and the TV lights go out, and another reporter, holding a pen and pad, says “What will you do now that you’ve won, Mr. Bermmeister?” and he says “Do? Finish my dinner tonight, but I know you mean something different. But I hardly started it, and I mentioned my hunger, so if my plate’s still there, and probably—no, no doubt—call my kids and my mother and wife’s folks to tell them I’ve won. I told them I’d call, but only if I won, so I also told them not to expect to hear from me. And I don’t know, I guess there’ll be some celebrations somewhere, at least where I teach, and oh yeah, and this is probably the most important thing—in ways, the only important thing in what I’ll do with the award…I wish, I’m not a publicity seeker but I wish the cameras were still on for this but that’s okay, do what you want,” and waits a few seconds for the woman TV interviewer to react but her back’s still turned to him while she talks to another woman and the cameras and lighting equipment are being torn down…“Anyway, if it’s possible, to use my win as a platform—I don’t know if that’s the way to say it—but for the novelist, the Indian living in England, on the lam, really, lying low, constantly guarded by English cops…oh, God, I suddenly forgot his name but it’ll come, but the one the Iranian government and Islamic fundamentalists there…the mullahs…all, really, together, for you know, one doesn’t operate without the other in that country, and both groups, religious and political…well, they’re interchangeable and the same, aren’t they? and both feverishly behind it…the ransom for his assassination, calling on every Moslem in the world, or at least of their sect—I mean, is that supposed to be religious?—and then not rescinding the call even after the guy—” and the reporter says “You mean, to use your platform to speak out against this threat,” and he says “Yes yes yes, but not a platform, but what’s his name? I feel lousy I can’t come up with it. I mean, he’s a first-rate writer, tremendous, one of the world’s best, maybe not with that book, but that’s not my point—but that also, my memory lapse with his name probably has to do with the excitement tonight and my hunger and tiredness—oh, I’m not making myself clear,” and the reporter says “Don’t worry about that. And about this writer, there already are, if I’m not mistaken, many well-known writers and writing organizations—the Authors League, for one—doing something along these lines. Though one more voice, and surely someone of your stature now, won’t hurt the cause. But my question was somewhat more mundane than that. Will your publisher, because of your new stature, be sending you on the road with your book now that it’s won? Any special appearances—TV, for instance—and do you think this attention will change you from the relatively unknown but hard-working, demanding craftsman you’ve been to someone whose new-found celebrity will stop him from getting to his work as much as he wants?” and he says “No question it won’t. And my publisher’s just a small guy so I doubt—small in the sense his house is; his publishing house; he’s actually about six-four or -five—I doubt they have anything expensive planned for me like a book tour. But ask the editor there, Miss Lassner,” and points to her and she says “We’ve lots of plans, lots. Rob has a great smile and disposition and has promised to be generous with his time for a short while, so it’s a whole new ballgame now, I say happily,” and another reporter says “Bob, you really don’t use a word processor? For up on the stage before you said—the sound wasn’t too good so I didn’t catch it all—but about a manual typewriter,” and he says “Manual, sure; tried and true. I like the keyboard action of it, what can I say? I’m like a pianist on my machine, banging out my anger and frustrations and such, not that that’s what a pianist does—it’s different, of course, and some of what I bang out’s even positive. But it’s what I learned on, though self-taught learned, and the word processor—three fingers, I mean, my typing, and if my left thumb’s especially dexterous that day—or maybe it’s the right,” and he types in the air with both hands, “the left, then that thumb on the space bar. But the word processor—well you know, those things are complicated and cold, which’d take weeks out of my work to learn how to use—months, forever. And with their justified margins and perfect print, well, looking so good on the screen it makes you feel your work’s maybe that good too, so, illusions, things done before they’re done, besides your eyes. But if I was starting out today, say—a kid just out of college, a newsperson like you, but your age and my sex, with nothing at the paper or radio or TV station but processors to work on, or even a semi-whiz at computers or electronics, so with some feel of what runs those things, well then of course…anyway, manuals are what I do and am used to, and they’re also light and one piece, not three separate sections to sling over your shoulders when you travel and weigh you down, and I can even clean the keys myself, use the vacuum cleaner to suck up the dust out of the chassis, and so on,” and other questions—“Why the title Scorch?” and he says “Because I didn’t want to call it Bernard—the main character’s given name,” when the reporter looks confused, and the reporter says “What do you mean?” and he says
“I would’ve said ‘Christian’ but he’s not. Just kidding, I know what you asked, but you know, scorch, what the word reverberates—did I say ‘reverberates’? ‘Resonates’ is what I meant—that everything in the book or just about goes up, is hot. Not sent up but that too in a way…it’s supposed to be a fiery book, a dry, sizzling, burning, fast, even an excoriating book, but I’m also not very adept at explaining about myself or my work, just as I’m probably not at anything—explaining, I’m saying”—all of which are innocuous and slight and he feels he answers insufficiently and insipidly if sometimes stupidly because of his tries at humor or plain speech or eloquence with fancy words, and then the reporters thank him—not one thing did I answer right, he thinks, not one except maybe the title thing…no, nothing, which will make people think who see or read the interview or hear it on radio “This fop wrote that book? Not one I’m going to borrow or buy.” A couple of them wish him good luck, and one says “Hope you make a killing,” another, when the others are no longer near, says “Off the record, Bob, with your family and job and all the other chores every responsible adult has to do, how have you been able to write so much? I’m a novelist too, albeit not as successful,” and he says “I just hack away at it but not like a hack, chip by chip if I have to, ten to fifteen minutes at a time lots of times plus a coupla weekend hours when my wife and I spell each other, and you can print that if you want,” and the reporter says “No, that was just for me, thanks,” and he returns to the table with the editor, apologizing for bringing her into it when he could see she didn’t want to and for giving such a sappy interview, and she says “What are you saying? Any publicity is good publicity so long as you don’t cuss out America too sharply or say you’ve a liking for little boys or girls. And yours was fine—your great smile, your words, one could see the serious writer’s mind working—we must have sold another thousand copies from it,” and he says “You can’t mean that; I was a grade-A schmuck,” and she says “Cross my heart and hope you get a Sunday Times Magazine article—it was real and informative. So, sold books or not, which isn’t the goal, I do mean it; you’ll be great on tour.” He sits down, kisses his wife, says “It went lousy, a spoof if I’d been spoofing, a fiasco because I wasn’t,” breaks a roll, reporter pulls a chair up, sits down and turns on a tape recorder and says “Mr. Bermmeister,” and he says “Really, just want to eat, and everything I have to say about my work is in the work and that sort of standard writer thing, and the rest of it should be—how I’m now feeling—on my face,” and the reporter says “What I’d love are your spoken thoughts of how you feel tonight but not on a stage to a thousand people or in front of cameras and a dozen other newsmen, which become events and can alter the truth of what you have to say,” and he says “Well, great then, I feel great of course, what do you think?” and the reporter’s motioning with his hands “More, more,” and he says “Humbled also—not humbled, that’s bull, or at least for me, but something—but you see? I can’t speak about these things. My wife can do it better for me than I can but she won’t want to”—she’s shaking her head. “Or my editor, publisher”—they’re both waving him off—“or the waiter,” and he grabs the arm of the passing waiter, who says “Your main dish, sir? We brought it back, but I’ll bring it out now,” and he says “No, yes, I mean, I’d like my food, I’m starving, but talk to this reporter, tell him what vintage wine we’re having, how writers and their like probably tend to get smashed at these affairs—the free booze, lavish food, in the air all that perfume, the rich well-bred gentlefolk in their million-buck tuxes and skimpy gowns, fish that don’t swim, clams that don’t dry, jeez, what do you expect of us or at least me?—we’re night-on-the-town, go-on-a-toot kind of guys, a day off from heavy construction work and whistling at passing girls, you could say, but who like to overdo the laboriousness of their labors and their commonplaceness and bad manners, as you can see, even when they don’t win, if I’m making myself clear,” and the reporter says “I think I got the message,” and he says “Then you tell me,” and the reporter says “You know. But this is still a good chance, Robert, for a small book. We go to a large number of educated people—it’s public radio, syndicated—so good book buyers,” and he looks at the editor, she’s nodding, and the publisher, whose look and finger-pointing say “Anything she says goes,” and he says into the mike “Okay, truth is, I am humbled, honestly, or at least feel small in comparison to the largeness of the honor. It’s a fine thing to win, totally unexpected, a bigger shock than being nominated,” the reporter’s eyes are turned up to the ceiling as if this is all so trivial, “and I feel great about it. It may be the best moment of my writing life, in fact. Certainly the best thing that’s ever happened to my work and maybe in the order of my personal thrills or whatever you want to call them—excitements, kicks, gratifications, fications, bliss—it comes after the birth of my first child, then the second, but I’m talking about when they happened, the baby suddenly out. Then my marriage ceremony and after that when my wife said she’d marry me and then when I first learned she was pregnant the first time and then the publication, rather the phone call from my first publisher saying they were taking my first book, which was actually my fifth or sixth book-length manuscript but the first to be taken. And the order that tonight’s excitement comes in shouldn’t be after the birth of my first but after them all, ending with the first book’s acceptance and maybe even ending, and then comes tonight’s, with the time I got a telegram from my U.S. senator—I didn’t have a phone then, couldn’t afford one—saying I’d won an N.E.A. grant in fiction when I’d given up getting any recognition or money for my work and was almost dead broke, and I think, for the first of several times in my life, about ready to give the whole writing thing up,” and the reporter’s smiling now, got what he came for, and says “That’s wonderful, the twists life takes, then how things turn out; anything else?” and he’s about to say something—how this award’s particularly fulfilling, coming with a long complex book he didn’t think anyone would take and being published by a small press—when a waiter sets down his plate, and he thanks him and points to his glass with an expression “Some more?” and the waiter signals with his fingers to someone and a waitress hurries over and pours wine into his glass, and the reporter says “So you were about to tell me something else, Robert?” and he says “I was going to say how rewarding the award is in other ways. For instance that it makes my mother and kids and wife and her folks so happy—it will, when they hear it. My wife, of course, sitting right next to me, has. In fact, my kids, oh my gosh, I forgot—excuse me but you have enough, don’t you?—but watch what a good poppa I am for I gotta call and tell them I won before they go to sleep, otherwise they’ll never forgive me,” and his wife says “It isn’t too late?” and he says “If it is, the sitter will say so, and really,” to the reporter, “I also have to check up on the sitter to see she’s working out all right,” and leaves the room, foundation person is suddenly alongside and accompanies him, and he says “Really, you don’t have to, I’ll be right back, and what good am I in there anyway now? And they won’t let you into the men’s room, and I think I can find the phones—where are they,” looking around the corridor, “you know?” and she takes him to a bank of them, stands a little off to the side, and he says “Really, this is personal and I tend to talk loud—I won’t fly away—my wife’s still there and our coats are checked,” and she goes and he calls the hotel. “They’re sleeping,” the sitter says, “—no they’re not, they’re up, must’ve heard your rings or me talking,” and his daughter gets on, “You win, Daddy?” and he says “Believe it or not, kid, I did,” and she shouts “Piers, Daddy won, we can go to FAO Schwarz tomorrow, get up, let’s celebrate—can we, Daddy?” and he says “Okay, for a moment. Tell the sitter, Miss Marlene, or I will, you can each have one of those overpriced cans of ginger ale in the little fridge—she too, but nothing else,” and while his daughter’s telling the sitter about the sodas and bag each of nuts or chips, “my fath
er said so,” his son gets on and says “I love you too, Dada, you have very good luck,” and he says “I know, amazing; the babysitter nice?” and his son says “Very; she tells great stories,” and he says “Good. Now kiss-kiss for the two of you from Mommy and me and don’t eat all the chips or nuts right before sleep—bad tummy stuff—and put Miss Marlene on,” and the sitter says “My felicitations, mister—we prayed for it here, the three of us in an innocent untheological way. Now it’ll make it more troublesome getting them to bed again but, considering what caused it, it’s worth it and we shall persevere and win—you’ll be here by 11:30, please?” and he calls his mother, she says hello, and he says “It’s me, Mom, Robert, did I wake you?” and she says “So-so, I could feel better. Anything wrong with you or your family?—it’s so late,” and he says “I did wake you then, huh?” and she says “No, I was dozing, what’s wrong, the children okay?” and he says “I told you I’d call if I won,” and she says “Won what?” and he says “The book prize,” and she says “I must have forgot—for what?” and he says “My book, the novel, Scorch,” and she says “The one you gave me? I love it. I’m going to start reading it tomorrow. I’ve been a little out of sorts lately to start it till now. But I show it to everyone every time they come here and they all think it’s beautiful looking and it’s so big, they call it a brick, everyone,” and he says “Well listen, Mom, they had a contest—I’m saying, a gala, tonight, this foundation did, with an awards ceremony at the Plaza. I told you but you must’ve forgot, there were five nominees and, you know, I sent you articles about it—the Times, etcetera—and my book took first prize. Actually, the only prize,” and she says “That’s wonderful, you make me proud, all my children do. Now I’m a little tired, dear, do you mind?” and he says “I’m sorry, I didn’t think it was so late—I’ll call tomorrow, and we’ll come see you next week and go out for lunch to celebrate,” and she says “If I’m up to it, that would be nice.” He calls his in-laws, and his mother-in-law says “It’s been on the radio, darling, it’s wonderful,” and he says “So fast? It just happened, or almost. And Jane’s okay, having a great time, and kids are fine, but, just out of curiosity, how did the newscast word it?” and she says “That you won this complicated award’s name and the book’s title—if you’d sneezed and someone quickly said ‘God bless you,’ you would have missed it,” and in the background his father-in-law says “Offer Robert my own congratulations and tell him a friend’s already called us and others are probably dialing now and that tomorrow I’m going to each of the bookstores here to see if because of this news any more copies have been sold. I’ve been watching the shelves and so far the same number of books have been there,” and she starts to repeat it, but he says “Thanks, I heard.” He calls the Globe reporter at home collect and says “First off I want you to know I tried charging this call to my home number, but the operator said I couldn’t unless someone was there to vouch for me,” and the reporter says “Don’t fret, man, the paper phoned me the fantastic news, and I’m honored you even took to contacting me when you have to have so much else to do,” and he says “You? You? The guy who made me and my publisher feel, till this big nomination deal came along, that the book was actually published once it came out? Come off it, we owe you tons,” and the reporter says “Thanks, much too kind, but long as you did phone, I have twenty minutes to get the story in, which without your call would have been sort of a dead impersonal account of your win, so tell me how you feel,” and he says “Still gratified and astonished beyond all measure, expectation and belief, and why? Because I was happily satisfied with just being a nominee, and I thought any of the other writers would get it, not only because of the high quality of their work and that they’re much better known but also because I didn’t think mine was that much or really even good enough to be published. But that’s what I’ve thought about all my works when I finished them and they came out, so it’s probably, in part, what I need to feel in order to start and then continue a new one,” and the reporter says “You proved yourself wrong with this one, bub, but fine, you gave me exactly what I needed for the article. But on the lighter side…your tux and new dress shoes—you didn’t feel, as you said you would, ridiculous and crippled in them?” and he says “Everything went perfectly—I even remembered how to tie a bow tie, and it’s still in place,” and the reporter says “Nice, nice, I like that. One quickie, Rob, and we’re gone. Think the entire experience will change your life or even, that word you love to hate, your lifestyle?” and he says “Certainly—and hey, I’m getting good at this, aren’t I? which is when I should start watching out—but certainly a prize of this magnitude would change the life of any writer who isn’t dead, and I’ll fight it every step of the way till I’m successful at not letting this new institutional success affect me. Because I’m not a speechmaker, prize-committee member—that’s ‘prize-committee’ with a hyphen—organization joiner, panel or symposium participant or a spokesman for anything, including my own work. But if the prize does give the book a lot more sales and me, ultimately, the economic independence to do more of what I want to and maybe even a lighter teaching load for the same pay at my university, that’ll be just dandy, for the only change I want in the style of my life is to find more time to read, think and write and spend more time with my family,” and the reporter says “Couldn’t be better—consider the article your first job ad,” and he goes back to the table, plate’s gone, desert’s there melting. “Maybe at the hotel I’ll room-service up a sandwich or steak,” he says to his wife. “I can afford to do that one night in my life, can’t I, even if I have to eat it in the bathroom, and what more deserving time than tonight?” and she says “Don’t look at me to stop you,” and he says “And champagne—not the little splits in the fridge but a whole big fancy French bottle if that cheap hotel’s got it,” and she says “Stick with the sandwich and maybe a good refrigerator beer.” Later there’s a reception for the nominees, judges, officials and heavy donors, he undoes his bow tie and lets it hang, and a photographer for a publishing trade journal says “Mind if I take you like that—it’ll look like the fitting end to an emotionally and physically hard day,” he is asked to sign several copies of Scorch that had been part of each table’s center display, along with a gardenia floating in a bowl and a rusty tin cup of sharpened pencils and paper clips, his publisher says “Let’s blow everything we’re going to earn with your book and go to Elaine’s for a nightcap and snack and chats with some of their famous literary clientele or at least a peek—you’re our entrée,” but he says they have to relieve the babysitter, do, kids are asleep, has a sandwich sent up and has it with a couple of foreign beers, they make love, again early next morning, around seven the phone rings, it’s the editor, “Just got a call they want you at a TV studio for national viewing, a limo could pick you up in half an hour, can you make it?” and he says “I’ve really nothing to wear but a smelly dress shirt and those wrinkled corduroy pants and old sports jacket I wore to those bookstores yesterday and the reading the other night,” and she says “That’s the costume—don’t even splash water on your hair or brush it back till it’s flat, we want you to completely look the part—only kidding…Mr. Terngull came with about a dozen shirts and pairs of socks so how about one each of his, though he’s almost twice your size?” interview with a Times cultural affairs reporter later that day about his origins, antecedents, influences, aims with this book, future writing plans, feelings about his years of general obscurity and near poverty and now sudden recognition and perhaps wealth and fame, articles and profiles on him, book sells well, paperback, number of translations in a year, all his out-of-print novels and story collections republished in a unified edition, his school gives him a paid year off and tenure, and when he comes back he only has to teach one semester a year, gives readings around the country once a month at ten times what he got before, State Department tour through Eastern Europe and then Latin America, is invited to a literary festival in Japan, a symposium on the a
rts and censorship in Spain, is offered so much money to teach for a week at a summer writing conference that he can’t turn it down, finishes the long short story he started before he got the award, plot’s too melodramatic, language all wrong, has an agent now who sells it to a major magazine, thinks maybe he’s not a short story writer anymore and should go back to what he did best or at least won him the award, starts lots of novels, tries writing plays, does an appreciation of a Norwegian writer he met at the Japanese festival and whose work he thinks just so-so but whom he’s come to like and know and places it in a prestigious literary journal, on commission writes an essay on what it’s like to be a cellar writer, as he calls it, and after so many years down there to suddenly come out into the light with a band playing and crowd waiting and much confetti thrown at him and applause and then, because this isn’t his natural environment, to feel he needs to retreat back into his hole, it takes nearly four years to finish a short novel, which he does between travels, appearances, essays and reviews, his new publisher thinks it inferior to Scorch and a bit too short to publish alone, but they’ll do it since they already paid him a sizable advance, while going over the copyedited manuscript he changes his mind about publishing it and returns the advance and tells the editor this novel isn’t the right one to follow Scorch, which anyway maybe wasn’t as good as he and lots of other people thought, “Maybe,” he says, “just to change things around a little, the next one should be a collection of stories or essays,” turns the novel into a short story, and the agent sells it, and no one he knows whose opinion he admires and trusts seems to like it, starts another novel, pecks away at it for years, puts it down, works on something else, takes it up, and so on, tries writing film treatments and scripts for lots of money but never gets the hang of it, possibly because he hates the restrictions and rules of the form and usually movies themselves, every so often reads an article about artistic prizes and what the big ones can do to the artist, some are able to overcome this ironic handicap and continue to grow in their work, most though repeat their old works or just don’t produce much or at all and, if they still feel the compulsion to create, do so in related but less demanding fields, something dries them up, sometimes their family life breaks up, and occasionally the artist himself cracks up, psychologists and critics and scholars are asked about this and give all sorts of reasons and interpretations, “It’s conceivable they only had one or two important things to say and only one or two original ways to say it, were fortunate to win the awards, and after that were afraid to parrot or parody themselves,” “Why look at it as a negative phenomenon? Perhaps in the prize-winning work they felt they did it all and didn’t see any point to continue creating, or just wanted an easier avocation, since art is hard,” “It might be they don’t think they deserve the acclaim and now feel sufficient guilt to stifle their work,” “Fame works strangely and often unfathomably on the subconscious, for the good or bad,” “It’s possible the individual artist fears that once he’s on top of his craft the critics will look for things to pick at or savage in his work that they never would have thought of touching on before, to bring him down a few pegs, for malevolent reasons, or because they think they’re actually helping him and he’s a big enough person now to take the assault or simply to ignore it,” he thinks maybe they’re all right, maybe only some are, though no two seem to agree with each other, tells his wife he wishes he could return to teaching full-time, for he just doesn’t have enough to do the other eight months of the year, “Well,” she says, “I’m sure it can be arranged.”
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