3 July 2012

Another of my new ventures awaiting your approval :) Apologies if the format of it goes a bit squew-whiff but obviously sending Opi be email isn't a skill of mine and the apostrophes tend to go walkabouts.

All one can do on a computer is click with impatience. Click once, click twice, double click. Click the stop button, the refresh button. Perhaps if you’'re feeling adventurous cntrl, alt, delete. Then click and whizz the mouse about the screen some more. All the more frustrating when the page loads and one is faced with a snotty, monocled man. Mr. New Yorker. We meet again.

This was the encounter Pete had one night. The clouds hung low over the horizon, a night when you could feel the electricity in the air, smell it hanging heavy all about you. When clouds rolled in to smother the last charge of the Light Brigade. Such a scene where writers make an attempt at pathetic fallacy. Although I may have fooled you otherwise, I am not one of them. I am merely stating the facts and these facts just so happen to portray the exact emotions Pete was feeling. But then, if pathetic fallacy here is a coincidence, then was it employed by Dickens, Eliot and the Brontës by coincidence? Is our whole existence a coincidence? What is that strange old thing we call exsistence? Does Pete even exist? Do you? I shall leave you to ponder over that while I crack on with the story.

As I said before I was so rudely interrupted by my unruly subconscious (I shall be its master some day) this was the encounter Pete had one night. He was too busy to observe some unknown narrator'’s coincidental crack at pathetic fallacy. For he was being smirked at, side on, by some pretentious twerp in a top hat and collar.

'Oh, look at this will you gentlemen.’' He seemed to sneer, a thousand or so pixels aged 87. ‘'Some poor fellow off the street has decided to try and join our elite gang. Oh, Geoffrey, just look at his attire. My stable hand wore better. Of course, before I used the automobile more frequently. Egad! I haven'’t required the services of a stable hand since 1907. That was when I saw my wife more frequently in the boudoir. I think we all know what happened there, my good fellows, hmm?'’ Then he chuckled, in that grandiose way that one could only imagine such a lavishly attired cartoon would. Guffawing champagne, caviar, expensive goat kid gloves and a showy Fifth Avenue mansion with no stable hand needing paying.

And Pete grumbled back. '‘Look at you. I’'ll show you with your monocle and your top hat and your automobile. You with your free weekend bags for subscribers only. You with your bogus selection process, publishing established race horses with their laurels in their stalls over the untrained colts. Giving us only one opportunity a year to try and win a break. You who simply concludes that one WILL subscribe to your magazine then has the cheek to charge them for your archives if they don’'t; taunting them with a picture of the piece they so eagerly seek. You, the epitome of prestige and privilege, exclusivity and birthright, with jokes about your wife shared through screens of cigar smoke and brandy fumes, a bunch of cowards in the back rooms of gentlemen’'s’ clubs.’'

Pete had tried several times to get a story published in The New Yorker but it always seemed that Updike or Murakami snatched his place from his fingertips instead. He’'d written several angry letters, not only to the magazine but even to Updike himself, telling him to lay off the little fish and go fry the cod. Whatever he meant by that. It had just sounded like a good phrase to put in, something witty and artistic. Perhaps that was his downfall, no meaning just frills. No substance. Well, The New Yorker didn'’t seem to care anyway. They just put him in the slush pile.

It would appear that Pete was a product of a conspiracy generation. No trust in the government and their choices. Politicians conning the working man behind his back. Covering up tracks of UFO’s and getting their people involved in wars with their brothers and treaties with their enemies. In his mind, in his generation’s mind, the Moon Landing was simply a glorified episode of The Thunderbirds. 9/11 was a massive ploy by the government. They hadn’'t even killed Bin Laden, conveniently dumping his body in the ‘'ocean’' when they really held him in a plush house with Gaddafi, Elvis and Charlie Chaplin for the sheer fun of it. That would be an interesting tea party.

No, in Pete’'s paranoid mind the whole world was out to get him, out to bring him down and shackle him to the ground. Out to stop him from soaring from his cigarette-stained, boozy, angst-filled lair swimming in grunge music and flip-flops. He wasn’t quite sure of the reason but the truth was out there. And yes, it was being hidden by the government. It was his job to discover it, spread it and ‘stick it to the man’.

Yet, alas, opportunity brings opposition. How could he stick it when the pompous old shadow of Mr. New Yorker, made ten feet taller by his ridiculous hat, stood in his way? Their ‘selection process’ seemed to brush over him every time. Each time he thought he had a winner he got an email back, asserting his status as a failure. But only in Mr. New Yorker'’s eyes. His mum said he was special. The only things he had been able to think up for months were childish insults directed at his computer screen. His computer history was filled with The New Yorker URLs but not to bathe in the literary glory or partake in political banter. No, to direct pathetic, derogatory comments to the timeless man in the corner.

'Your hat looks funny. The Hatter would not approve. I bet Lewis Carroll is turning in his grave.'’

With a sigh, he folded down the screen for the night. When would he have his platform? When would he have his time? When would his voice be heard in the broiling sea of mediocrity, amongst the desperate cries of ‘'Pick me!’' from the slowly freezing survivors of society’'s Titanic, searching, hoping in vain for Ambition’'s lifeboat? And then it hit him. ~ Henry Erne was an old friend from college and now was a cofounder of one of the largest media publishing firms in New York, Lynhauser and Erne. He too knew the sting of failure and denial; he had also sent several short stories for publishing in The New Yorker. But, instead of moping and groaning and sending nasty letters full of aquatic metaphors he did something about it. He set up his own printing firm, with some help from his incredibly wealthy parents. His company’'s bestselling magazine was Literary Patisserie, a place where purely undiscovered writers with no agents and no book deals could be showcased, of which he was the editor. The appeal of his magazine knew no bounds, reaching average Joes, wizened intellectuals and Wall Street giants and grappling for victory against the age-old New Yorker.

He had not been made bitter and sulky by his failure to be recognised in Mr. New Yorker’'s circles and had instead become proactive. He was neither cynical nor suspicious nor paranoid about anything, a cloudy silver-lining kind of guy. A literary genius of a businessman. And he too had found his voice, for each month upon the magazine'’s publication there was a page dedicated to The Editor’s Mind, where he could publish his stories.

He was, without a question, a gifted storyteller. He could twist any situation, however ugly, into a beautiful piece of craftsmanship at the flick of a pen. Many deemed him a demi-god but he brushed this off so as not to become bigheaded. He hadn’'t forgotten his roots either. He knew who he was and really rather thought of himself as a dime in a dozen, simply normal, nothing outstanding at all. He just believed he had found the right time. He had a penchant for wearing Argyle knit socks and playing the piccolo. And he hadn’'t forgotten his old college brothers.

This was something Pete hoped to capitalise upon. He called Erne up, hoping for a fresh new start in the literary pond, where one day he too could be told to stop picking on the little fish and to go fry a cod. ‘'Hello, could I speak to Mr Erne please?’' He was put through to Erne’'s office where he heard a voice he hadn’t heard in ten years.

‘'Well, hello there Pete. Long time, no see eh? What can I do for you?’'

‘'Well, H, I’'ve run into a spot of trouble...'

'You want me to bail you out don’'t you? How much is bail?’'

‘'No, no. I’'m not in jail. I’'ve run into a spot of trouble. With The New Yorker.’'

‘'Oh.’' Erne exclaimed, taken aback. ‘'I never knew you were being printed in The New Yorker. Is it a copyright issue?’'

‘'No, more a print issue.’'

'‘Do continue.’'

'‘They haven’'t printed me yet.’' He was met with a hearty chuckle from down the line.

‘'Oh, Pete. You’'ve been trying ten years and you still haven’'t been published in The New Yorker? I would have thought you’'d have lost hope by the second.’'

‘'Not this one, no. That’'s Si you’re thinking of.’'

'‘Oh yes, Si. Great guy. Mad, but great.’'

‘'Well, most mad people are. I’'m pretty sure Poe was off his rocker. And Plath. And Woolf. And pretty much any genius you come across.’'

‘'Preach it brother.'’ Erne replied in a wrinkle. ‘'Well, what can I do you for then?’'

'‘I was wondering if there was perhaps room for a New Yorker Reject amongst your pages. I would very much appreciate it.’'

'‘Well, if you had have come to me first then of course there would be. But, since you went first to the enemy camp, I’'m afraid I’m going to have to disappoint you. Besides, so many people are sending stuff in nowadays, we won’'t have a slot until June next year.’'

'‘June next year?’'

‘'Mm-hmm.’'

‘'Really?’' There was silence down the phone line.

‘'No!'’ Erne cried out in glee, a statement which was probably audible in Brooklyn all the way from his office on Barclay Street. ‘'Of course we can make room for you, always room for a brother. And I admire you for trying the hard way instead of sitting back and using

DelilahPretentious Twerps Like Me • Opuss № I