by Ted Heller
I walked into Florian in the only sport jacket I had that still fit me, and it didn’t even fit me that well. I’d gotten a slightly shorter haircut for the occasion: mostly gone now were the Depardieu Return of Martin Guerre, Late Middle Ages bangs I’d been sporting since childhood. I arrived five minutes late but saw instantly that I was one of only five people there, not including the wait staff. I didn’t recognize the other four invitees—they looked like tourists fresh off a train—who were huddled and giggling together at a banquette.
There were about thirty tables; each table had three stacks of Saucier: A Bitch in the Kitchen on it. There were also gimmick recipe cards, deftly designed and index-card-sized, near the books, each one bearing a small portrait of Jill Conway. The recipes appeared at first glance to be legitimate but ultimately were not: a recipe for braised short ribs, for example, was the real thing but the last ingredient was: “Add two teaspoons of venom.” For bouillabaisse, the final instructions were: “Stir in 2 ounces nitric acid. Stir and serve hot.” And so on.
I ordered a glass of white wine and hung out alone at the bar, waiting for other people to appear. Most likely, I wouldn’t know them, but at least I could hide better among them and not look so pathetically alone. I thought about leaving but couldn’t: I had to be here and had to schmooze and network.
I drank my first glass of wine slowly and after twenty minutes got another one. Only three more people showed up. I made a call on my cell phone to Wifey, told her that this party was miserable and that I had nobody to talk to. I waited another fifteen minutes, only five more people showed up, I called Harry Carver in L.A. but he didn’t have time to talk to me.
I sat down at a banquette by myself and looked at a copy of Saucier. I recalled, with a giggle, how when I was invited onto the NPR show Fresh Air to talk about Plague I’d sent Lonnie Beale rather than go on myself since he had done such a great job filling in for me at my one bookstore reading. Lonnie must have been terrific again because my Amazon ranking soared to an all-time high of 357 after the show aired. Perhaps the NPR staff had found me out and that’s why I wasn’t invited back for Love: A Horror Story.
(Maybe Lonnie should just start writing my books for me, too.)
I was on my third glass of wine and there was no relief in sight. Where was Beverly Martin? Where were the publishing types? Where was Jill Conway so she could thank me for my blurb and tell me as she was shook my hand, “Oh my God . . . I loved Plague Boy soooo much!” Whether said sincerely or not, that’s what I needed to hear.
By the time I finished the fourth glass, there were about thirty-five people inside the place. I went to the bar, ordered a fifth and saw, near where the bar met the kitchen, a computer. The idea struck me: maybe I could get a few hands in, maybe I could vanish temporarily from the dismal world. I could find Artsy, Second, Cookie, or History Babe and joke the time away.
I drank the fifth glass in less than thirty seconds. Un vin blanche, si’l vous plait. No wonder the bartenders in Paris looked at me like I was a jerk.
“Nobody’s using that computer now?” I asked one of the bartenders.
He said no and I got a sixth vin blanche.
I swung around and saw Bev Martin enter . . . she was holding the hand of a frizzy-haired guy with glasses so chic, so architectonic, and so magenta that they only barely registered in my consciousness. He was the latest entry in the Boyfriend of the Month Club . . . but any man with post-futuristic eyewear like that required a lot of attention, and she simply liked discussions about Magic Realism too much for that (the names Borges, Barth, Barthes, and Barthelme would no doubt be shrieked in their ear-splitting breakup fight). I gave them two more weeks as a couple. A few others entered. Most of them were in publishing, you could tell just by looking at them. Every profession has its own uniform with its own nuances. Real estate people (the leather coats with the belts), lawyers (the vests, the bulky briefcases), editors (gray clothing, the nerdy glasses). Why not just tattoo your forehead: I am a lawyer and thrive on the misfortunes of others. I sell real estate and am an inveterate snake. I edit books but people don’t read anymore, they watch dumb-ass reality TV on their cellphones.
I walked up to Bev and she introduced me to Kurt, her boyfriend, an editor at a lit Web site that I told him I visited religiously but had never heard of.
“So when is Jill getting here?” I asked Bev.
“Any minute it should be, I’d say.”
She asked me if I’d contacted Ross F. Carpenter and I said I had but that there were complications. She didn’t mention Dead on Arrival itself, which I imagined she’d already dragged to the trash on her computer. Kurt, who was a good three inches shorter than Bev, told me, “I haven’t read your book but I’m meaning to.” I reminded him that I’d in fact written two books, and that was it, he was through with me. I could see myself transforming from a human being to a dog turd in his eyes.
Beverly and Kurt drifted away and waiters in black floated by with trays of finger food and I asked them to come to me first and then gobbled up half the tray. I got another glass of wine, downed it with one gulp. After the Times and Time and the Globe boiled me alive (and all of them gave away my surprise ending!), nobody wanted to talk to me. A leper I was. A financially bankrupt blind leper with SARS and Bird Flu and Tourette’s Syndrome and oozing sores and sporting a glass eye and a prosthetic limb with mongoloid triplet kids . . . cursed with all these afflictions I had become the sort of human being who sweet, compassionate people in polite society go miles out of their way to avoid. At work people didn’t talk to me. Lonnie and Harry Carver didn’t return my calls and Toby Kwimper sent me an e-mail that said: “Frank, I’m so sorry.” It was all over and everybody knew it but me. The ship, Micheal Ray Richardson once said of the Knicks, be sinkin’. Mine had sunk, too . . . everybody had leapt off but I was the last moron standing on the deck, hoping it would float again.
“Hey, I need to use the computer for a minute,” I said to the bartender. “It’s urgent.”
None of my buddies were online but I played three hands, playing as the leathery-skinned Cowboy: I lost $300 the first hand, folded the second, won $600 the next hand with two 9s and two 5s. Up $300 in four minutes. Then Artsy Painter Gal showed up, told me how nice I looked in chaps and snakeskin boots. I told her I was at a book party and couldn’t stay. I played two more hands. I felt a pat on my back and turned around and saw it was Toby Kwimper.
“Frank!” he said, surprised to see me. He may have seen the screen.
“I’ll be right with you,” I said.
I told APG I had to go and would see her soon. “Sure, Tex,” she said.
I spent ten minutes with Toby and he told me about how much he was enjoying golfing every day and not working in publishing anymore. His wife was a pediatrician and they’d be okay. “I’ll figure something out,” he told me. I was happy for him but it was sad to see what had happened and devastating to know that it was me who’d wrought it. (I felt so guilty and sad for him that I had trouble looking him in the eye.) Toby asked if I knew Jill Conway and I told him I hadn’t met her but that I’d blurbed the book and that’s why I was here.
“You blurbed the book?” he asked me.
“Yeah,” I told him. “I attempted to come up with something reasonably clever.”
We spoke for another two minutes, then separated, but not before he introduced me to his successor, Scott Heyward, who shook my hand limply, wiped my sweat off on his pants, and walked away. I knew exactly what Scott was thinking: So this is Frank Dixon, the guy who drove our legendary editor Jerome Selby to blow his brains out. I’m getting far away from him.
I went back to the computer and played two more hands. Artsy was gone.
When I turned around I saw Toby picking up a copy of Saucier and looking at the jacket.
I noticed a few people from my old publishing house, including the Publisher himself: he saw me and smiled like he had a mouthful of razor blades. (Or maybe he didn’t recognize me w
ith my new shorter haircut and new ten pounds.) None of them wanted to talk to me. . . . I was a dark cave they didn’t want to walk into, a narrow ledge they didn’t want to stand on. I understood.
I wasn’t going to network with any editors or publishers here. It wouldn’t work. I was damaged goods.
I pretended to make another cell phone call, just so I wouldn’t look like such a loser. Toward that same end, I sent myself a gibberish-laden text message, then read it, and responded in kind a minute later. Then while I was calling Wifey I overheard a conversation between four people sitting at a nearby banquette. They were the first people at the party, the tourists who’d made it there before I did. They were Jill Conway’s cousins, it turned out, up from Baltimore for the week of the party.
“You’re Jill’s cousins?” I said, slurring my words just a bit.
“Yes, we all are,” said Cousin Lena. They were all in their thirties and very friendly.
“I’m Frank Dixon,” I told them.
“Okay,” Cousin Nick said. He was the tallest of them and the only male.
“I blurbed her book,” I explained.
“Oh!!!!” they all said in unison.
“So you’re a writer too?” Cousin Nick said.
I admitted I was.
“And what have you written?” Cousin Tina asked me.
I told them I’d written Plague Boy and Love: A Horror Story and they’d never heard of either book. I was used to that and no longer did it elicit a wince.
Cousin Nick picked up a copy of Saucier and began examining it.
“Jill is a big fan of my first book,” I told the Cousins sheepishly.
“Are you sure you blrrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbkbkb?” I heard Cousin Nick say. He was drowned out by music suddenly coming on and by the din of the crowd, which was now up to a very loud hundred or so people.
“Huh?” I asked him. I turned to Cousin Lena and said: “Hey, when Jill shows up, tell her I said hello. I’m gonna leave now. Will you tell her that Frank Dixon said hello.”
“Are you sure you blurbed the book?” Cousin Nick asked me. He had the book open on his lap.
They began talking among themselves, about what they were going to do tomorrow in New York. Take in a museum. See Central Park. Don’t wanna get mugged though. Hee-hee.
I picked up a copy of Saucier. I flipped it over, looked at the back of the jacket.
There was a brief two-paragraph description of the book, then three blurbs, including one from Beverly Martin: “Not only the sharpest and funniest book written by a woman about working and food that I’ve read in years, but the funniest book written by anyone about anything.” Mario Batali had even weighed in: “I’d never hire Jill Conway to work for me, but I would read any book she ever wrote. Saucier is hysterical, sharp and very tart.”
I was nowhere to be found.
We could go down to Ground Zero. But that’s depressing, I don’t want to see that. How about going on the Circle Line? I’d like to go to Saks. Is there anything in Brooklyn?
My blurb hadn’t been used. It wasn’t there.
Because I didn’t count. Nobody had any idea of who I was, so why bother using it?
I walked away to a corner and drank another glass of wine and nearly wept in the dark.
Jill Conway finally showed up, all in slimming black, got applauded, made the rounds. Her face glowed, her eyes sparkled, her smile lit up the room. It was her night. I overheard people wondering who would play who in the movie version.
Anne Hathaway would just be so perfect. . . . No, it simply has to be Reese! . . . No! Scarlett!
Toby Kwimper introduced Jill to me and her face remained expressionless when she heard my name. I said, “I’m Frank Dixon!” but maybe she hadn’t heard it above the music and the clamor of the hundred sets of wind-up chattering teeth and her own ego bubbling over.
“I wrote Plague Boy!” I reminded Jill, having to yell right into her ear. “Beverly Martin told me it’s one of your favorite books? That you have whole chapters memorized?”
She shrugged, leaned in and yelled back: “Huh? Vague Toy???” She shrugged again and shook her head, dumbstruck. She was still crinkling her nose when she was whisked away by Abigail Prentice, whose job it had once been to remove me from such awkward situations.
She had no idea who I was. My books meant nothing to her.
Crossing the street two minutes later, a meat truck almost ran me over but swerved at the last instant. “You fuckin’ idiot!” the driver yelled at me. Just as I was about to yell back and deny it, I realized he was right.
When I got home, Cynthia was asleep and I went online right away.
I went to the small $5-$10 blind rooms, where people came to the tables with only $300 or so. These were the little guys, the ants, the nervous newbies who were just feeling their way around playing for real dough. I wiped a few of them out and apologized for it, then moved up to a table in Medium and played one-on-one with a stranger, a German guy named Hamburg Deluxe. He’d come to the table with $3,000 and ten minutes later he had not one pfucking pfennig. I played at a small table for twenty minutes in High and thrashed the three other players so badly they all quit at once. I went to another table and wiped everyone out. . . . They were just giving me their money and it didn’t even seem like they were really trying. For the first time ever I went to the Ultra-High No-Limit tables, where all the players have cantaloupes for balls. A player named SaniFlush, who many on the site called the Master of Disaster and who was arguably the most feared and talented player on the site—his stack was over $900K at the time—was there. I played one hand with him, won $6,000 with only two 8s and left. I went to a 5 Card Draw table and crushed the five people in there. A guy said to me, “Hey, you’re too good,” and I told him, “Yeah, I sure am.” I played Omaha—I barely knew the rules—and won some more. I won and won and won and it felt terrific. I was stomping over everything and everyone, crushing and destroying and mowing down all that I saw. So this, I marveled, is how postal workers feel when they return with a machine gun to the scene of their disgruntlement and spray everybody to shreds.
By the time I logged off, at 3 a.m., my stack was up to $50,000.
PART II
Flop
($250,000)
7
Chills
I had made $50,000 at online poker in less than six months. It was more than I’d gotten for Love: A Horror Story, which took two grueling years to write. And playing poker wasn’t work, not even close. It was a game! I remember a ludicrous statement by the much-beloved and vastly overrated sports writer Red Smith about how writing a column was like “sitting down at a typewriter and opening a vein.” And how many writers, when they’re not griping about their legions of demons, have described a blank page as terrifying? You’ll never once hear a housepainter describe an unpainted wall as terrifying. If a blank page is terrifying, then what is it like when someone puts a gun to your head and cocks the trigger or the bank is foreclosing or the doctor tells you your brain tumor is the size of a Titleist golf ball? If rattling off a column about the Dodgers defeating the Giants 5–2 was really like opening a vein, then perhaps Mr. Smith should have sought a different, less terrifying line of work and preferably not at the Red Cross.
In June I quit my job completely. There was no point in even working half-days.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Diane Warren, my boss, asked me in her office.
“Yes,” I said. “Completely sure.”
“And how is the book coming?”
She meant the Trilogy, of course . . . but I forgot which part of the Triad I’d once told her I was writing: did Diane think I was writing Book I and Wifey think I was writing Book II? Or did Diane think I was writing Book II and Wifey think I was writing Book I?
The truth was, of course, the whole trilogy was already written. Long ago.
“It’s coming along.”
She swiveled back to face her computer, but I wasn’t through. A working
stiff doesn’t get a chance to do this that often in his life so I wanted to milk it for all it was worth.
“And then there’s the movie, of course . . .”
“Oh yes,” she asked, turning back to me. “How’s that coming?”
I told Diane what I understood to be the truth: Pacer Burton was going to direct Plague: The Movie; the script had been written and was making the rounds with actors’ agents. I sprinkled in a dash of untruth: the budget was $150 million, stars were foaming at the mouth to be a part of it. Tom Cruise, Leonardo DiCaprio, Cate Blanchett, Cameron Diaz, and Judi Dench would drop whatever they were doing if the project got the green light.
She turned to her computer again, where an Excel spreadsheet awaited her perusal.
Diane was a little too unruffled to see me go, and it bothered me. But she had no idea (until she reads this) that I was playing poker on company time.
(And now the truth can be told: the Diane who was my boss and the Diane I once caught in flagrante delicto with my little brother are one and the same. At the end of my job interview, years before, she shook my hand and said: “You know, I’ve never quite forgiven you for walking in on me and your brother that time.” WTF?)
I had now escaped the clutches of Writer Diablo Numero Uno. I was free! Free as a bird, like the Jonathans and Davids and Chabons and Shteyngarts and Jay Easton McEllisses. No more real work, no more offices, no more bosses. Free at last!
But it was poker, not literature, that had unchained me. That wasn’t the plan.
The week I quit I vowed to myself: Now that I’m free, I’ll start writing again. Sure, I’ll sneak in a hand of Texas Hold’em every now and then, maybe win a few thousand here and there, but I’ll write a book. I lied to my boss and my wife about writing one, so that will compel me to actually do it! I was like a bride-to-be buying a wedding gown three sizes too small, hoping that in two months I’d lose the weight and be able to squeeze into it.
