Worst Blog Post Ever

I had a request to update ye olde blog – not much exciting is happening in my life, in case you missed it here’s a quick recap.

- I moved to St. Louis to be closer to a group of my really good friends. I’m currently living with a certain Michael Kralik, my homeboy from high school. We live in an apartment that makes all of our clothes smell like smoke. So far it’s been really good, I’m enjoying a steady diet of tomato soup, PB&J, and Rainbow Chips Deluxe. 

- Another reason I moved to St. Louis is my step-dad’s sister-in-law offered me a part time job. The job is working for her as a writer/research assistant. She is writing a textbook for law schools about divorce mediation and I’m trying to help her with that. Yeah, I don’t know what I’m doing, and no, I don’t know why she hired me, but I’ll try to get back to you on it. I think my time might be short as I wrote the first chapter comparing ways to legally divorce to different types of used cars. 

- I haven’t heard back from any of the grad schools I applied to, but I was REALLY excited to hear that one of the schools I applied to was in record range for number of applications received…wah waaaaah. If anyone is buying refrigerators save the box for me – I might need it in a couple months to live in.

The downside to being a writer/researcher is that I spend hours upon hours in my apartment reading writing and staring at walls. It’s pretty amazing in that I can set my own schedule, but also really lame because I have nothing to do when work is slow. By “when work is slow” I actually mean all the time, seeing as last week I put 4 hours into the textbook project. My step-aunt is super busy, so sometimes there is a lag between me submitting stuff and her getting back to me. Sometimes I get mad at myself because I do all the work in a day and then have nothing to do.

But there is good news on the horizon. I have a job interview this week for a part-time membership associate position at a local YMCA. What doth a Membership Associate do you query? Basically I’d answer phones and give people towels. It’s actually really good because I majored in Busy Work with a concentration in Towel Fetching in college. I’m glad all that tuition money and time is going to use. Wah Waaaaah... It’d actually be a pretty cool job, and I was hoping to actually get certified in CPR while I was working there and could actually move up to Physical Equipment Supervisor – which basically means “Guy Who Towels of Exercise Machines.” I think making the transition from handing out towels to using them on machines will be my goal for the first few months.

I've also signed up for this movie extra list serve. So basically I sign up and put my picture online and then 'casting directors' can look me up if they have a need for a "tall, albino who likes Emo music." It's pretty ridiculous and I expect to get no work from it, but they are shooting a George Clooney movie in St. Louis in February, so I figure if they need 100s of extras I could probably be one of the 100s. I guess they are shooting Cold Case down here too soon, so I'm pretty much going to be a movie star in like a week. Don't worry, I won't forget the little people when I'm rich and famous. If you're over 5'6", however, your status as a little person is suspect and you will be duly forgotten.

Yeah, like I said, my life is pretty boring. I had an awesome weekend in Chicago last weekend, but it was absolutely free of awkward incidents, so it's not good blog fodder. If you want to read more I'm posting one of the short stories I wrote. It's really long and supposed to be funny...don't know if it's successful. I also didn't proofread it thoroughly so it's probably full of errors. After that sales pitch, check it out if you want: 


Memoirs of a Gay Shaw

Sebastian Shaw didn’t have a life worth writing about, but fruitless efforts never seemed to hinder him. He was waiting anxiously in the foyer of his suburban home for the book review that was due to come out that very morning. The local arts editor, Maybelle Shaw (no relation to Sebastian), had received a copy of the book earlier in the week from Seymour and had promised to run the review in the Arts and Entertainment section of the Thursday newspaper. The Sniderville Gazette had a readership of almost 40,000 and the review could make or break the epic tale of his rise to superstardom as a television anchorman.
The whole idea for the memoir had been Seymour’s, but Seymour very regularly had ideas that no one followed through with. His wife had catalogued in her head the most audacious ones, including suspending a teaspoon from the coffee pot, so that when one poured the coffee, it could automatically segue into stirring in the sugar. It was at a local fundraiser when Seymour had very drunkenly and loudly voiced his thoughts on a memoir written by Sebastian. 
“Woulden it be graaate,” he said taking a break to take a sip of his Whiskey-Coke, “woulden it be graaate if you wrote about bein a news repooper for TV?”
Sebastian, who didn’t drink but always took himself seriously, asked Seymour to repeat the idea. Seymour had already forgotten, but after some prodding remembered and continued:
“I’m in pooblishing, ura in newsrepooping, why not getta gether?”
The following twenty minutes consisted of Sebastian cataloguing the events of his life, starting with his humble upbringing in a Minnesota suburb, his achievements in high school football, his college years, his desire to be an actor which had turned to his anchorman gig, his marriage and other events that would make him publishable.
“Youva been tellin’ the weather for twunty five years! People would love to know about the you. The loooove it!”
Sebastian knew they would. It was one of the greatest ideas he had ever heard. It was immediately after the fundraiser that he had gone home and turned on his computer. 
Tried to turn on his computer. 
Eventually he had to call his son and ask him how to turn it on.
“I need to write, son!”
“What’re you writing, Dad?”
“My memoirs?”
“Your what?”
The response would be one he received constantly for the next eight months. 
“I’m sorry I have to get home to work on my memoirs.”
“Your what?”
It didn’t help that Sebastian attempted a French pronunciation of the word which turned into the more chaotic tones of a drunken Irishman; the end result was that the word sounded more like “memoowus” which as a word doesn’t exist.
Sebastian had hunt and pecked religiously for three weeks pounding out the first part of his memoowus which were about his childhood and high school years. Never much of a writer, the book was careening to becoming a long and equally ploddy high school journaling assignment. A small bit of it remains:

Kelly Gerome was the prettiest girl in school. Her prettiness was like the sun on a wet grassy flower. Just looking at her got my heart running like Jesse Owens from the Nazis.

The political incorrectness along with the nonsense analogies were the first thing to go when Seymour (sobered up but still gung-ho about the undertaking) suggested that Sebastian hire a ghost writer. Sebastian thought the idea was ridiculous and that “anyone could write a book”, but on Seymour’s insistence, Sebastian began to look for someone to tell the story of himself in a more politically correct and literary form.
Steven Mince was chosen more by Darwinian Natural Selection than anything else. He was the only one who applied. 
“You’re name?” Asked Sebastian in his most newsanchory voice.
“Mince, sir. Steven Mince.”
“What experience do you have?”
“A lot, sir. I have been a freelance writer for almost ten years. I’ve written for six publications and had poetry published. I have won writing awards—”
Sebastian, who had not been listening to anything, waved his hand to stop him. Mince, who was used to being stopped, ignored, and generally treated not to exist, had patiently and obediently ceased speaking.
“And what qualifies you to tell my memoowus?” Sebastian said flipping carelessly through some of his sample material.
Sebastian, hesitating for a long moment, pushed his glasses onto his hawk bill nose and very softly asked, “Your what?”
The relationship proved to be egalitarian, however, the two men bound in fraternity by two important facts, one of which being that neither had any idea what he was doing. Mince had done freelance work: for the Sniderville Shopper, circulation of 45. He had had his work in six publications, one of which was a self-published (read: Xeroxed and passed around his office). And he had won awards: one for best work of fiction in Miss Hammerly’s eighth grade English class. In his ten years at his real job as an inventory manager at the Hank’s Hardware in Ogdenville (just down Route 45 from Sniderville) he had written numerous short stories and poems that detailed the life of an inventory manager in Ogdenville. He knew how to communicate ideas.
But so do some gorillas.
The other trait the two men had in common was the magnitude of their dream for the project. Sebastian saw it as a sprawling epic, from the pastures of Minnesota, to the sprawling pastures and cornfields of Indiana. He imagined telling the tales of his fight to the top of the newsroom hierarchy, starting as a lowly production assistant and getting his first big break on the story of a sewage pipe eruption in Cornland (just down Highway 151 from Sniderville). He couldn’t wait to describe in detail, the first time he interviewed Governor Quincy, or the first time he was recognized on the streets as the anchorman. He would stay awake all night and write down his memories from high school football games, college parties, and social soirees in Sniderville. He even brought out his wedding video so he could remember what the day was like. His life was important, it was grandiose, it was amazing, it was epic. Mince, likewise, saw this as the modern American epic – the tale of the everyman, the ballad of the quotidian gentleman. He read through the first drafts of Sebastian’s work and his mind painted vivid scenes of a childhood fighting for paternal attention, of high school sporting glory and romance. He read the passage about Kelly Gerome and instantaneously composed a three page ballad to supplant the section. 

Kelly Gerome with prettiness unbound
Strolling down hallways for me to found

The two men schemed and plotted and worked and wrote and sweat and cried together. The finished product Memoirs of a Gay Shaw was not the story of one man but of two: A tale of two men writing and reliving (and largely fabricating) a human existence.
It was, in fact, Mince that Sebastian was waiting for to bring the paper with the review.
Titania Shaw entered the foyer reading a copy of Redbook and only noticed her husband when the two happened to collide.
“What are you doing, Dear?” She said in her mellifluous voice.
Sebastian ran his eyes over her quickly taking a quick inventory of why they had not had intercourse in the past 9 months: her slippered feet, her pink dressing gown that hid the bulges of her aging body, her old, veiny hands, her sagging breasts, her black dyed hair, her face that in the most flattering of lighting looked like that of a horse.
He sighed dramatically.
“Why are you pacing around?” She had already lost interest, but stubbornness demanded her to at least extract an answer from her uninteresting husband.
“The review comes out today.”
“Review?”
“For the book?”
“Another Grisham novel?”
“My book, Dearest,” he said resuming his quick pace around the foyer.
Satisfied, Titania laughed girlishly, and then proceeded to plod up the stairs to the second floor of the house. She had little interest in her husband’s book, having lived through most of his insipid life with him, she had little desire to relive it. He had given her a copy of the completed work before it went to publication, which she had promptly slid into her underwear drawer and forgot about. The topic had come up at a later time but she had merely talked about it, using words like “insightful” and “honest” to describe the pages she had never read. She could not imagine what would make anyone want to read it, and decided to join the throng of those who never would.
The reason Sebastian had given her the book to read before publication was because it detailed the affair he had with a newsroom intern five years before. Albeit the entire affair was made up and he had never actually slept with Shadira Gupta, but he wanted to her to know that people would think he had. In the book, the tryst was described in sixteen pages of heroic couplets that detailed everything from their first encounter in the break room, to their break up on location at the Nara Valley Waterworks Facility (Just off Highway 6 from Sniderville.) In actuality, Laura Kemp was a half Indian, half American girl who had worked in the newsroom for six weeks eight years before. Sebastian had talked to her three times and had made her the object of his fantasies. The scene in which Mince described their poetic first sexual encounter outside the Jiffy Burger, had merely been a fantasy he had had while coming home from work and was picking up a quick snack.
It was this he was thinking about when the doorbell rang.
His heavy feet pounding forward, Sebastian threw open the door revealing Mince standing with a newspaper in the early light of day.
“What does it say, Mince? What does it say?!” He grabbed the small gentleman and threw him into the foyer.
Mince stumbled several steps and let out a loud grumble.
“Owwwuww!” He said petulantly.
Sebastian grabbed him and set him upright. Very nervously he took the paper and began to fumble through it.
“Did you read it, Mince? What did it say?” He continued to fumble through the paper, sheets of it tumbling to the floor. Mince, carefully watching him, saw the Arts Section fall out and glide across the room to the front door. Walking over to it, Mince picked it up and began to read:
“Memoirs of a Gay Shaw proves to be just what one would expect from the life of Sebastian Shaw: a riveting rollercoaster of ribald redundancy and the most rheumatoid of remembrances.”
Mince looked up at Shaw who was looking earnestly at Mince.
“What does it mean, Mincy?”
“Well, technically, I don’t know, Sebastian.”
Mince was constantly and irritatingly not knowing things. 
“Well what a tremendous shock.” He grumbled. “What else does it say?”
Mince began again, “This reviewer sees the endeavor as a vivuesvescent stroll through the most qandarkan of lives, richly detailed but suffering from perhaps a bit to clandestine and insipid a loquacity.”
The two men again stared at each other.
“You don’t know, do you?” Asked Sebastian frowning.
Mince shook his head.
“But it’s so pretentious people have to take it seriously...” Sebastian bit his thumb. “I mean it has to be right about whatever it is saying.”
Mince pushed his glasses up his nose. “Well, I think it’s good.”
Sebastian smiled. “Really?”
“And I think it’s bad too.”
“Oh…really?”
“I think it’s both.” Mince took out a handkerchief from his pocket and delicately wiped his nose. “But I really don’t know, Sebastian.”
Sebastian ripped the paper from Mince’s hands and ran his eyes over the rest of the article. At the top of the page was a large picture of the cover of the book, Sebastian beaming with his arms thrown open. Next to it, and only slightly smaller, was a picture of Maybelle, her triple chins hoisted upwards in the most erudite of poses.
“We have to talk to her, Mincy.”
“What, Sebastian?”
“We have to go and see her, see what she thought about it.”
Mince, never one wanting to ruffle any feathers, coughed softly. “Well, it says right here, Sebastian.” Mince took the paper from him again and read aloud: “The life of Sebastian Shaw is one of rollercoasting efficacy. The bizarre breaks into poetry, while jarring and painful to read, are welcome breaks from the fumbling, cacophony of prose that inundates the reader from page one.”
“What does that mean, then?” Sebastian asked wiping his forehead with the back of his hand.
“She doesn’t like it.”
Mince gently handed the paper to Sebastian. He slowly began pacing around the room.
“Well, that’s all the more reason to go and ask her, Mincy!”
Mince turned around and gave him a doleful look just as the telephone began to ring. Sebastian looked at Mince with terror, wondering if somehow that was Maybelle Shaw and she was calling him to scold him about his memoowas. For three tense rings, they waited before Titania was braying down the stairs.
“Darling, it’s Seymour. He wants to speak with you.”
Sebastian looked at Mince, who looked even more miserable. The two quickly walked into the kitchen and Sebastian picked up the phone.
“Seymour?”
There was a pause. Sebastian looked at Mince. The two held questioning gazes before Seymour began to chirp on the other end.
“Sorry, Shaw, I was stirring the sugar into my coffee and the spoon dropped off.”
“Oh, of course.”
“Well!”
“Well?”
“Well…”
“Well?”
“What do you think?”
Sebastian again looked at Mince, who was now massaging his temples. “I think it’s interesting.”
“It is interesting.” 
Sebastian sighed deeply wondering what to say.
“I think it’s going to be a best seller!” Seymour laughed loudly. “You can’t buy publicity like Shaw gave us.” 
“You think it’s good?”
“Who the hell cares? No one understands that shit she writes anyway; the important thing is that people see that it’s your memwus and they get interested.” Like Sebatian, Seymour had a knack for butchering the word ‘memoirs’ so that Webster himself wouldn’t recognize it. “I don’t know what,” he could hear Seymour fumbling on the other end, “Sorry! I don’t know what, ‘masterfully told with one eye on incompetence and the other on skullduggery’ means but it sounds fun! People like fun!”
“People do like fun…”
“Absolutely! I think this article will get people out for your book signing this weekend. They’ll show up in gaggles!”
“You think…?”
“Absolutely.”
There was a long pause.
“Well…”
“Well?”
“Well, I better be going Shaw, but I’ll see you tomorrow for the signing.”
“Yes.”
Seymour laughed loudly and hung up the phone. Sebastian sighed and turned to Mince.
“He thinks it is great publicity.”
Mince shrugged. “Maybe.”
Sebastian, breathed in deeply and then put his arm around Mince’s shoulders.
“Let’s go see her, Mincy.”
“Who, Mr. Shaw?”
“Shaw.”
“That’s what I said, Mr. Shaw.”
“No Maybelle Shaw. I need to find out what she didn’t seem to like.”
Mince sighed and pushed his glasses up on his nose. “Oh, I don’t know, Sebastian. Couldn’t we just let it go?”

***

Maybelle Shaw’s office was a small broom closet sized room at the Sniderville Gazette office. On the walls Maybelle had hung pictures of herself and the great artists she had met in the area – Louise Bumpkin, State Pie Champion, Mark Reely, local playright and accomplished fiddle player, her son, Travis Shaw, with his rock band The Angsty Aardvarks. Lined along the wall were boxes of papers with no specific purpose – some of them had just been in the office since she took over six years before. Since she had no room due to the boxes, many of her actual necessary objects – her briefcase, jacket, purse, and her coffee mug, were piled on top of boxes. Since it was very easy to lose these objects among the piles of papers, there were now a total of 12 coffee mugs, two winter and three spring jackets, and two purses lost under boxes, or settled between them. In addition to these objects, other parts of the room were piled high with all the books she had read or reviewed during her time at the Gazette, these were stacked so high in some parts of the room, that they looked as if they were merely part of the wall rather than separate, discriminate objects. Her desk mirrored the disarray of the rest of the room, piled high with other papers, half-eaten fruit and the three novels she was to review in the next two weeks. Her thirteenth coffee mug was on top of Sebastian’s novel currently, and Maybelle was chewing on a fruit bar that she had had stored in her desk for the past several months. It was with a look of total shock that she received Steven Mince and Sebastian Shaw when the office intern showed them into her broom closet.
“Hello, Miss Shaw.”
Maybelle jumped up and stuck out a chubby hand. Sebastian took it and shook amicably. Mince followed suit, but Maybelle had already dropped her hand and was motioning to the one small chair (under six novels) that was in front of her desk.
“Please make yourself comfortable.”
Mince and Sebastian awkwardly looked at each other and then began removing the books. Not wanting to seem rude and not wanting to appear awkward, the two men shared the seat, sitting sideways to make room for the other. Maybelle, unaccustomed to entertaining ripped her fruit bar in half and offered it to the two men.
“No, thank you, Mrs. Shaw.”
“Miss Shaw,” she corrected quickly, putting the bar down on a stack of invoices from May 2004.
“Miss Shaw, I apologize.” Sebastian immediately sensing her desperation eyed her in the most lascivious manner he could concoct. “We are so sorry to disturb you.”
Maybelle blushed and ripped a bite from her fruit bar. “It’s quite all right. Who are you gentlemen?”
Mince shifted ninety degrees so that he was facing Maybelle and stuck out a hand. 
“Steven Mince,” he said as warmly as he could. Maybelle took his hand without ever looking away from Sebastian.
“And who are you, sir?”
Sebastian smiled ruefully and put out his hand. Rather than shaking it as Maybelle assumed he would, the old lothario took it in his hand and kissed it lightly. The effort it took to bend forward, however, displaced Mince enough to cause him to tumble from the chair.
Neither Shaw noticed.
“Oh! So charming,” said Maybelle turning red enough to elicit a caution around so many flammable materials. “What can I do for you two gentleman?”
Shaw leaned forward, never removing his gaze from Maybelle. Mince picked himself from the floor and decided it best to just stand awkwardly rather than sit and risk another bruise on his ass.
“I believe you just reviewed my book, Miss Shaw.”
“Did it run in today’s paper?” Her voice rather than lift at the end of the question was brought down to a warm, erotic simmer.
“Was that a question?” Mince asked pushing his glasses up.
Both Shaws ignored him.
“Yes, Miss, it was in today’s paper.” Sebastian began to trace his finger on Maybelle’s desk. “If you remember, it was my memoowus.”
“Your what?”
“Memoirs,” said Mince eyeing the mess of the office. “His memoirs. The title is Memoirs of a Gay Shaw.”
Miss Shaw suppressed a shudder. “Why, yes. I did review that particular…piece of writing.” 
Sebastian leaned in closer. “What did you think?”
Maybelle’s mind went into overdrive, trying to come up with the most euphemistic way of voice her complete and utter loathing of the book in question. Her original review of the book had actually been refused because it had been too scathing. The editor of the Sniderville Gazette was actually a close friend of Sebastian Shaw’s and did not want anything too awful written about him. He asked her to tone down the language, the personal attacks, the condescending tone, and her emphatic mission at the conclusion of the article for no one, ever, ever, regardless of any bet, need, or pressing desire to ever buy, read, or even skim the back cover of the book. A small part of it remains:

In this reviewer’s opinion, the book in question is nothing more than self-serving drivel. Long passages dedicated to personal achievements no more important than another man’s daily defecation, this book is full of nothing but bores, snores, and frustrations.

Maybelle had curbed the aggression of the first draft, using more ambiguous language and generally nonsensical tones to mirror the book’s complete ineptitude. 
“It was interesting,” she said, finally settling on an adjective that wasn’t too incriminating. 
“How so?” Sebastian asked leaning ever nearer. All attraction on Maybelle’s end, however, had dissolved with the admission of his authorship of the book. She very gently began to roll her desk chair backwards to draw away from Sebastian’s gaze. Mince was busy reading the titles on the books stacked against Maybelle’s wall.
“Well,” she said inching back even farther, “for starters, the book isn’t even about you being a…” Maybelle hesitated trying to think of a euphemism for having sex with other men. “You liking other people like you.” She said settling.
“What do you mean, Maybelle?” He asked sitting more stiffly.
“Well, the title, you see, it implies…it implies that as a man you have a tendency towards liking other people like you.”
“Well, of course, I like other people who like me! Who doesn’t?”
Mince very gently leaned into Sebastian’s ear and whispered something to him. Sebastian laughed heartily and again leaned towards Maybelle.
“We thought some people might confuse the meaning of the title,” he said condescendingly, “it means “Happy Shaw.” My life is happy so it means it in that way. Didn’t you read the asterisk?”
The title of the book was Seymour’s idea. It had come to him one morning when he was dusting the bookcase with old newspapers (another of his ideas). He had come across his wife’s copy of Memoirs of a Geisha and immediately thought it would be humorous to name Seymour’s book after that one. It was funny and rather inspired, Sebastian thought so too. Mince had had reservations about it, not so much for its implications toward sexual orientation, but rather because he had wanted to call the book Sebastian Shaw: The Life and Struggles of an American News Legend. He thought that the epic quality of the book would only be demeaned by naming it as a cheap joke. He had finally conceded, however, when no one paid attention to his protestations, or his protestations about no one listening to his protestations. One of Seymour’s partners saw trouble with the title and asked that Seymour change it. Seymour and Sebastian together refuted the suggestion and instead settled on merely putting an asterisk on the word ‘Gay’, making the reader turn to the back cover to understand that Sebastian Shaw was not, in fact, a homosexual, but rather just a happy gentleman. The asterisk actually read:

*The use of the word ‘gay’ here does not connote Shaw’s sexual orientation, but rather is a description of his life as a happy* man. 

The second asterisk was again at the request of Seymour’s partner. He suggested that people don’t want to read memoirs about happy people, but about tortured, alcoholic, drug addicts with love children in other states. Seymour agreed and inserted the second asterisk as a qualification on the word happy. The second asterisk reads as follows:

*By happy the author merely means an overall state of mind as he is presently. The happiness described is only arrived at after a long, torturous life full of numerous obstacles.

Everyone had been satisfied by the asterisk compromise and the book had gone to print. Well, everyone that is except for Maybelle Shaw.
“I understand,” she said after Sebastian’s lengthy explanation. “But it is rather confusing for a reader.”
Sebastian guffawed. “Well, really, if that’s the only complaint you have, then I can see that you are just a bigot.”
Maybelle jumped and quickly qualified herself. “That is not at all my only complaint, Mr. Shaw, it is just the first and most glaring.” She hesitated again thinking of another euphemism. “I really have no real problems with people like that, you see.”
Sebastian, however, was already up on his feet and trying to squeeze out of the office. He nearly knocked of Mince trying to shuffle around him.
“Well, I will tell my dear friend and your editor, Mr. Phipps, about your intolerance and inability to write articles.” With this final statement he tried to slam the door, but merely slammed it on Mince’s foot. Mince squealed and, not wanting to seem awkward, spun and followed Sebastian out the door.

***

The book signing was scheduled at a large chain bookshop in town called Pendleton’s. The owner of the store was yet another friend of Sebastian’s and had said he wouldn’t dream of having Sebastian sign his book anywhere else. When Mince and Sebastian arrived (four hours early) they had found the table already set out, a huge cardboard cutout of Sebastian with his arms thrown open set alongside it. Sebastian loved it and chose to sit behind the table for the four hours they were there early. Mince chose to spend the time in the poetry section reading selections from Gertrude Stein. A half hour before the ceremony was scheduled, Seymour arrived, his usual dapper self, carrying a box full of copies of the book.
“Well, Sebastian! It’s the big day!”
“It is, Seymour!”
The two men laughed heartily. Mince, not one for laughing, merely coughed softly.
“Stevey, would you mind getting the rest of the books out of my car?” Seymour threw a set of keys at Mince and then sat down on the signing desk. Immediately Sebastian and Seymour were engaged in conversation and cared little for the whining Mince who was beginning to shuffle out to Seymour’s car.
It was nearly dusk and the lights were beginning to come on in the parking lot. A line of cars was pulling in to the strip mall. Mince wondered if they were all for the book signing. The way he thought, it was only a matter of time before people discovered his genius and he was getting book deals from a New York publisher. For Mince it wasn’t something that might happen but rather a matter of when – when he would ascend to the list of the top writers of their age. As he threw open the back door of Seymour’s minivan, he ran over some of the more profound lines that had made their way into Sebastian’s book:

The backseat of his Land Rover
Windows steamed and love pouring over
Into the night.
A love so profound, so electric in intensity
It lit up the sign of the Burger called Jiffy.
A love was born.

Wondering what he would choose to call his future butler after his first novel was published, Mince didn’t notice when a car started driving quickly toward him. He did notice when it collided with his backside. The box of books flew into the air and Mince came slamming down on the hood of the car. 
“Ow,” he said in an effeminate grunt.
The driver of the car slid her enormous rump out of the seat and waddled toward Mince.
“ARE YOU OKAY?!” She screamed as if running him over had made him deaf.
Mince very gingerly sat up and slid himself off of the hood. He groaned and held his side, which felt, very appropriately, as if it had just been hit by a mid-sized Buick.
“I don’t know,” he said gasping between waves of pain.
“Let me call an ambulance!” The woman pulled out a cell phone and began frantically dialing. In an act of desperation Mince grabbed the phone and hurtled it across the parking lot.
The woman looked at him in shock. “What was that for?”
“This is my night woman. No one is taking it away from me.” At that point Mince raised himself in his most heroic stance and looked into the eyes of the car driver. He gasped again as he saw the distinct triple chins of Maybelle Shaw.
“What are you doing here?”
Maybelle, who had paid no attention to Mince in her office, had no idea who he was.
“I’m hear for the book signing,” she said nervously.
Mince gave her a surly stare. “You said you hated the book.”
At last the synapse in Maybelle’s head fired and she gasped. “Oh! You were with Mr. Shaw today.”
“Indeed, Madame.” Mince sniffed loudly. Mice, normally the victim of crippling self-doubt, now felt none after being crippled. Being hit by a car for some reason empowered him in a way that he had never experienced. He could say whatever he wanted and she would have pay attention, acquiesce, agree, or show sympathy. She hit him with a car for christsake. She had no room to argue. Emboldened, he sniffed again and said sharply, “Again, what are you doing here?”
“Well,” said Maybelle hesitatingly, “I didn’t want – you know I felt bad about the whole thing. I wanted to get my book signed and apologize.”
Mince shook his head. He was about to make a strong judgmental statement towards her when the pain overtook him and he collapsed onto the hood of her LeSabre. Maybelle, having had no CPR or medical training since college, immediately panicked and started wailing for help at the top of her voice. A group of well-dressed gentleman, just exiting their three separate Lexuses (Lexi?) dashed toward the woman howling in terror across the parking lot.
“What happened?” One of them asked quickly rolling up his sleeves. 
“I- I –I,” the man was wildly attractive and Maybelle was too ashamed to admit she had in fact drove into him with her car. She continued to stutter while one of the other gentleman took out a business card and presented it to her.
“I’m a lawyer. What happened?”
Maybelle fainted. 
The three men looked at each other and wondered what they were going to do with the current mess: one Buick, one woman roughly the size of killer whale, and the thin gentleman who was lying arched over the front hood, in probably the same position that he had been forced into with initial contact from the car. They looked at each other and awkwardly smiled – it was a relief when they saw a fat man with a bushy mustache charge out of the bookstore towards the accident yelling something loudly.
“Mince!” He bellowed. “Where are the books?” His pace slowed as he saw the group gathered around the dented mid-size luxury sedan. “What’s going on out here? Where’s Mince?”
The lawyer stepped forward. “There seems to have been an accident.”
“An accident?” Seymour looked around and saw Mince sprawled over the hood, his back arching over the hood ornament. He said nothing and turned his eyes to the group of men gathered around the massacre. It was only when he looked past them and saw the box of books toppled over that he showed any emotion.
“Oh, Mince! What are we going to do with a box of books short? I had the most marvelous idea of building a pyramid.”
One of the other men stepped forward. “Sir, do you know this man? He might need some medical attention…”
“He’s fine!” Seymour walked over to Mince and shook him roughly. With a sigh of pain Mince’s eyes opened.
“Ouwiwiuwuwiwu,” he said batting his eyes.
“See! He’s fine, gentleman. Thank you.” With as much care as an elephant charging through a china shop, Seymour pulled Mince up and began to drag him towards the minivan.
“Help me with some more of these boxes, Mincey!” Seymour let go of Mince and popped the latch for the trunk. Inevitably, it the back door of the minivan popped open and collided with Mince’s forehead, sending him toppling backward and into the arms of the lawyer.
“He’s always fooling around,” Seymour laughed heartily. “Can you gentleman help me with these books.” Seymour pulled out a box and put it into the arms of one of the other men. The man took it without question and merely looked at the other two. Seymour smiled and laughed loudly. “Wake up the fat girl too! I bet she can carry more than all of you pantywaists.”
Ten minutes later all six of them were standing in the bookstore, Mince and Maybelle a bit more dazed than the rest. The owner of the bookstore was frantically running around in circles accomplishing nothing but exhausting everyone associated with the small event.
“Put that here! Seymour did you find the thing?”
“What thing?”
“Oh gawd!” 
The owner was off and running and everyone else was left standing wondering how vitally important this ‘thing’ really was.
“Oh, well,” said Seymour, “like I said, I have this wonderful idea about stacking the books into a pyramid!”
Somehow the three gentlemen from the parking lot were pulled into helping stack the pyramid while Seymour and Sebastian blustered about how many people were going to show up for the event. Maybelle was trying to support herself on a nearby bookcase and Mince had given up and collapsed on a heap near the bargain book bin.
In actuality Sebastian and Seymour were very close to the truth. The book signing was turning into a real event. People from all over the county had jumped into their cars and driven upwards of 100 miles to see the author, anchorman and hero. The two largest demographics attracted to the event being geriatrics and homosexuals. Old people came to see a real local celebrity. Many of them retired and finding nothing to do at 5 pm but turn on their televisions and watch the local news, had formed imaginary relationships with the anchors, commenting to their husband or wife about the change in hairstyle, choice of wardrobe and cackling along with jokes the anchors dropped in their casual banter before the end of the show. Many felt that they were actually friends with Sebastian Shaw – that in his twenty years at the local station they had formed a relationship with that he would recognize as soon as he saw them with their books.
“Oh, Ethel! How are Debbie and John? Did you enjoy your trip to Branson?” 
They would banter back and forth and promise to have coffee or tea at a later date to discuss the other anchors as well as exchange complaints about skateboarders, gas prices and the Internet.
As previously stated homosexuals also were a large contingent of those attending the book singing. The three men who had helped Mince and Maybelle were all homosexuals from the community. They had arrived to show support for Sebastian and is public coming out. A newsletter had gone out to the thriving gay population in Sniderville to promote people to go out and show solidarity with their famous brother:
“It is at a point like this when our community is most needed – when we must rise up to show support, to strengthen and to honor those who make their faces public to our movement. A man like Sebastian Shaw will greatly help our cause, and in turn we must help him reintegrate himself as an open homosexual in our community.”
In actuality, Sebastian Shaw wasn’t even sure that homosexuals really existed. To him they were characters on television shows and interior decorators. It was of wide belief to Sebastian that the two homomagnetic poles of New York and San Francisco sucked all of them away from the Midwest. Occasionally one would find a straggler, but they were always in route to the poles and therefore only an infinitesimal threat to the structures of the heterosexual, Christian centered family and economic structures thriving in his part of the country. 
That is why it was such a shock when Edgar Benton gave Sebastian his book and began to speak.
“I think you’re very brave, Mr. Shaw,” Edgar said beaming. “You’ll really help our movement in this area.”
“What movement is that?” Sebastian bellowed in his news anchor voice, applying the last thrash of his signature onto the book cover. 
“Well, sir, you’re out now.”
“I always leave the house at least once a day.”
“No,” said Edgar biting his nails, “I mean you’re out.”
Had Mince been conscious he could have helped Sebastian figure this one out, but seeing as he was leaning against a bookcase with Maybelle gently rubbing his head and apologizing, Sebastian was left to his own devices.
“I don’t know what you mean.” 
Edgar smiled. “Being gay, Mr. Shaw. Coming out.”
Sebastian broke into an enormous grin. “Well, son…” he said, but had no time to finish because Seymour was barking behind him.
“Move the line! There are people waiting!”
Edgar moved along and Sebastian was left chuckling to himself as another geriatric couple ambled up to him.
The rest of the signing continued in the same way, with homosexual men and women sandwiched between elderly couples for a look at the great Sebastian Shaw. Sebastian loved seeing the bright faces of all of them, beaming at him as he ran his pen over their book covers and made trite conversation.
“And how old are you, Young Lady?” He would ask the homeliest and oldest looking women in line. “My memoowus might be a little risqué for a girl your age.” 
“Your what?” 
The book signing was a tremendous success, by the end, Sebastian had signed over 300 books, the bookstore had seen a record profit day, and Mince and Maybelle had fallen into a kind of handicapped romance after their incident with the car.
“It turned out okay, huh, Sebastian!” Seymour laughed.
“A resounding success!”
What none of them saw, however, was the camera crew from Sebastian’s old television station that had been parked outside the bookstore during the book signing. They didn’t hear the interviews of over thirty people, half of them proclaiming the wonders of Sebastian’s news career, and the other half espousing their respect for his bravery at coming out to the world in a book.
By the time Sebastian got home from the bookstore, his wife had her bags backed and was heading to her sisters.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” She wailed theatrically – subduing her ecstasy until she could get out to the car. “Married to a gay man!”
Sebastian, in shock, didn’t even move as she pushed him aside and pounded out the door. He had expected a strong reaction from his made up affair Shadira Gupta, but not to his being gay.
Was he gay?
Since when?
Turning on the television his questions were answered as people paraded through and told of their appreciation for his bravery. At first he was mortified, but in several moments he realized that it wasn’t bad at all – people were calling him brave, they were talking about how good a news anchor he was – he was famous! These people had read his book, they had gotten to know him on the page – they had seen who he was in black and white. Perhaps they knew more about him than he knew about him. 
That night Sebastian lay on his couch, never turning out the light, never slipping off his shoes or his sportcoat, never adjusting the pillows or turning down the television set. He merely sat and stared into the gleaming tube in front of him. At the center of his consciousness was the question of his identity. Who was he if he wasn’t who he said he was in the book about who he was that people interpreted him to be as he is as he didn’t think he was? It was simple question, yet one he had little success in answering. He thought of his wife, her chilling affection, her widening body, her disregard for his opinions on subjects such as the best way to make rye toast or who really should have won the freestyle swimming event in the 1992 Olympics. In a moment of romance he would have run after her, proclaiming his love and bringing her back to the house for a night of rambunctious love-making; but the truth was the romance had been rung out of their marriage at a time so long ago that neither could go back to the roots. There was a wringing twist when Sebastian was promoted to head anchor, a twist when he had started losing hair on his head and gaining it on his back, there were twists with each new club that his wife joined, twists with menopause. Sebastian closed his eyes to sigh but ended up falling deeply into sleep.
He was awoken early the next morning by the ringing and clanging of his phone.
“Hello,” Sebastian said in his early morning voice. 
There was a loud guffaw at the other end of the phone. “Hello, friend! How you doin?”
“I don’t know, Seymour,” said Sebastian sadly. “I just don’t know.”
Seymour laughed again and then cleared his throat. He had not slept all night, fielding telephone calls from media outlets across the country. People wanted Sebastian. They wanted him on television shows, on news shows, and on magazines. They wanted him in newsprint, in pictures and in person at bookstores across the country. A national publisher had called Seymour before he even arrived home from the bookstore offering a huge sum for publishing rights to Sebastian’s book.
“You,” said Seymour emphatically, “are famous, my friend.”
In the contemplation of his life during the night, he had lost sight of the sharp, simple truth. 
“What do you mean?” He asked shaking sleep from his voice. “Seymour, what’s going on?”
“Well,” said Seymour chuckling mirthfully, “let me tell you about an idea, I have.”
It was a matter of weeks before Sebastian was on talk shows across the country. He sat in the cushioned chairs and talked about himself, about his life, about his ex-wife (now happily romancing a 45 year-old gym instructor) and his quest to come out.
“Well, you know” Sebastian would say tearing up, “the truth just had to come out. It always has a way of finding a place to run. Just like Jesse Owen at the Olympics.”
In over thirty media stops, including magazine and newspaper articles, Sebastian became an overnight sensation. People across the nation were talking about his life, about the emergence of Sebastian Shaw. Oddly enough, however, what very little people discussed or brought up was his book. Copies flew off of store shelves, but no one actually read it. In fact, aside from Maybelle, Mince, Sebastian and Seymour, there was perhaps no one on the Earth who perused all of its 547 pages. There were many who valiantly attempted, but it was always by page seventy, during the sonnet about Seymour’s third grade love, that interest was lost.
It was six weeks, 1 million copies of the book sold, 22 television and 12 newspaper interviews later that the flurry died and Sebastian, Mince and Seymour were sitting in the emptiness of Sebastian’s new three story home.
“You have nothing for next week, Seymour?”
Seymour shook his head. “Nothing. I think it’s run its course, Sebastian.”
Sebastian sighed. “What about the sequel?”
Mince coughed, “Well, I don’t know, Sebastian. It’s hard to write another biography when you’ve only lived six months after the first one was published.”
“He’s right, Sebastian,” said Maybelle (Now Mrs. Mince), “maybe you could write something else.”
“Children’s books are big,” piped in Seymour.
Sebastian shook his head. “I hate children.”
“It’s a good thing you’re gay then,” said Maybelle holding his hand.
“I think I’m over that too,” said Sebastian quickly. “Gay people are so very often gay. Not one of them is interested in women. None of them would look at pornography with me. “
The group nodded.
After a prolonged silence Seymour got up and went to the kitchen to take some Tums. Mince, Mrs. Mince and Seymour were left in the vast emptiness of his new dining room that seated thirty-seven. Looking over his shoulder Seymour cautiously turned around and smiled at Mince.
“You know, Mince, I have an idea.”
Mince pricked up. “What is it, Seymour?”
“Well,” Seymour chuckled, “what about a book about man who is writing a book for someone else.” He touched his nose.
“What do mean?” Asked Maybelle.
Seymour smiled and leaned closer. “A book about how you wrote Sebastian’s book. We can call it The Ghost Writer!”
Mince jumped.
Maybelle groaned, knowing she would be reviewing the mess after it was finished.
“That’s brilliant!” Mince was on his feet. “There are so many people who would want to know of the experience of writing about other people’s experience!”
Seymour laughed loudly. “A huge hit! Sebastian could do publicity with you. It might even be bigger than – ” Seymour thought very hard. “It’d be bigger than that other book you just wrote.”
Mince, however, had not paid any attention. Already in his mind the first Canto of his epic was taking form.

Oh muses of memoirs! Fall on me today!
Tell the story of the story about the story I wrote for pay!

When Sebastian re-entered the room he found it even more empty than on previous occasions. He thought very little of it, however, he was very interested in asking out this waitress he had seen the previous evening.