A Muse, some Sunshine, and a Bug.

[KB.]

“One writes to make a home for oneself, on paper, in time, and in others' minds.”

~Alfred Kazin

About two months ago I got an email from a publishing agent from a major book label. If you’ve ever read a book or two you’ve probably read something published by them. The letter alone was nice. The gentleman left a phone number and I called. We talked. He called me and I called him. It was like going out on a first date, and then a second date, then meeting up at the other’s person’s house instead of at a neutral location.

Things were going great. I was being flirted with in an economic sense. Finally he popped the question, “Well Kevin if you are interested I have a contract made out that entails the monetary advance and less important legal matters. All I need you to do is sign it and we can get this started.”

“All I need you to do is sign it.” He didn’t say a damn thing about reading it. I told him to mail it to me. I needed some time to think. The next day, he sent it priority mail, I get the contract. It was pretty substantial. My head started hurting as I read the print but then I saw the $$’s on about the 14th page.

I’ve never had **** I didn’t work for. I’ve had money before but never for long. I saw that comma, and the two digits in front of it, and I had to sit down. Those two digits were real damn close to being three digits. Suddenly I found myself in Italy, in Vernazza. I was tan and I was wearing a nice clean white shirt and a pair of jeans that fit, I was barefoot sitting at a table outside of a cozy little house over looking the sea. I could smell the salt in the air and I could smell the flavors of real Italian food being cooked.

I saw a beautiful dark haired woman with eyes the color and size of the olives that were practically falling off of the trees that were giving me shade from the warm sun. She was smiling as she cooked lasagna from scratch using fresh vegetables from the market down the street. She didn’t need a recipe she was working straight from the heart. I could smell the bread baking and I waved at the old lady across the alley as she hung her wash out to dry.

Did you know that Vernazza has no automobile traffic? There is a lot at the edge of town where you have to park if you are fool enough to even worry about a vehicle.

Those images flashed through my head in seconds. I looked back at the numbers and then I looked at my promised percentage of sales. I thought about that warm Mediterranean sun and a town of 1,000 people with no cars on its streets. I went outside to have a smoke before I looked at this contract some more.

I would be giving up all rights to my stories. I would be giving up any rights to have a say in how they were edited and published. I would be at the mercy of a corporation. I called an old friend in Houston who actually has some experience in contractual law and I faxed the contract to him. He told me not to sign it unless I wanted to basically give someone I had never met the ability to re-write every thing I have written.

Damn that.

So there I was back in dreary West Tennessee the closest thing to an ocean front view being a cabin at Beech Lake, which I can’t afford.

I sent emails about once a week up until this week. The agent informed me that he was still reading the newer stories that I was emailing him.

I called the publisher Tuesday night and I told him that there was no way I could sign the contract in its current state. I wanted some details concerning, “minor literary details that the company thinks would be better suited for popular reading.”

He wanted me to change alcohol to cocaine or maybe meth. He said that alcohol wasn’t “glamorous” anymore. That it wasn’t the 20’s and it wasn’t Gatsby. He wanted me to change a relationship so that it ended with scandal instead of just, well, ending. He told me that people would like it more if she had done something “bad” and that the worse it was the better. He told me that my newer stories were too soft and to just leave the newest “Muse” out of it. That the little “baby girl” wasn’t important.

Let me state for the record that when he used the word “Muse” in his sneering tone I wanted to snatch his rotten little soul out of him. When he told me to leave the “baby girl” out of it I told him to go **** himself.

I closed my cell phone and I looked at those numbers one more time. I thought about never having to explain the difference between a damn plasma and LCD television ever again and I thought about not having to punch a time clock.

I walked into my living room and I looked at a half done picture frame just needing some tape to hold things in place. I looked at those pictures and I saw that woman that started it all. I saw her smiling and I thought about him wanting me to turn her into some meth or coke addict. I thought about how much she means to me. I thought about how I hold no woman higher than her. I thought about who she is. To me. Muse.

I climbed my stairs and I sat down at this computer and I clicked on a picture of a dark haired beauty; a woman who knows me better than any living soul in this world. I looked at the picture of a woman who could read a story of mine and know exactly what I was trying to say even if I didn’t. A woman who when things get a little rough never fails to tell me that if I need anything she is there. Forever my friend. I looked at a picture of a woman who fell in love with a man who was still, and still is, in love with another woman.

He wanted me turn her into something else. He wanted me to make her unfaithful or worse.

I thought about the letter she wrote to a woman in St. Louis and I thought about Monday afternoon’s at my favorite local bar. I thought about who she is. To me. Sunshine.

I walked back downstairs and I sat on my couch. The first piece of furniture I have owned in Thirty years. I flipped through a photo album filled with pictures of a baby girl smiling, crying, giving kisses, slobbering all over the place, and looking like what we should all try and be. I looked at pictures of her mom and I looked at pictures of me grinning like a fool because I was holding a child in my arms.

I looked through those photos for hours and I read a letter I wrote to that child, over, and over, and over. I thought about how she changed my life as much and more than anyone ever had. I thought about who she is. To me. Addy bug.

I thought about that man telling me to have fun selling televisions for the rest of my life.

I opened up my cell phone and I called him back. When he answered the phone he didn’t wait for me to start talking, he said, “I see you have thought about things and decided to “work’ with me.”

“Nope, I just wanted to reiterate the “go **** yourself” one more time.”

Click

I tore that contract up and flushed it down the damn toilet.

They are my stories. They are my friends. I may have to share them with people I don’t know and I can’t claim them as my own as far as flesh and blood is concerned, but no one changes who they are to me. No one disparages them or who they are to me. Villas in Vernazza can never be as warm as a satisfied mind.

If anything changes it will be the doing of they and I not some stranger over the phone. You can’t hold my memories for ransom.

A Muse, some Sunshine, and a Bug.

Watch for it, crazier things have happened. If you ever see me on Oprah and she starts asking me questions about truth and fiction I’ll probably tell her to kiss my ass.

KB



The story I am writing exists, written in absolutely perfect fashion, some place, in the air. All I must do is find it, and copy it.

~Jules Renard

[RedGlitter]

:-6

[weeder]

This is why I like you. Why I relate to you. What I saw in you, early on. You have integrity, and an amazing soul. It is also why, yes,... you will probably always be poor. Poor, in dollars that is, but so much richer than so many walking the earth. Have a wonderful holiday season Kevin. There is nothing like Christmas with a child in the house. Love, Weeder