I sat in another publisher’s office. Potential publisher’s office. He responded by email requesting a meeting. His name was Ralph. Ralph most likely had a last name.
While waiting for Ralph to return, I scanned his office wall. Posters of authors’ quotes and covers of his published books inside ornate gold frames were strewn everywhere.
Three posters with quotes from Jane Austen were placed above a bookshelf on the wall behind his shiny, black walnut desk. It had stacks of papers strewn over it. The twelve-foot by eight-foot desk was bordered with ridiculous molding and was designed to show his exquisite taste.
The desk chair was a giant leather electric monstrosity that provided massages, a place to put a beer, USB ports, and a footrest for reclining.
From left to right, the quotes on the posters said:
“I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.”
Okay. Whatever. It could be to explain the suspiciously neat piles of paper.
“There is one thing, Emma, which a man can always do if he chooses, and that is his duty, not by maneuvering and finessing, but by vigor and resolution.”
He probably masturbates a lot.
“There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves; it is not my nature.”
And lives with his mother. In the basement. Mattress on the floor. And masturbates a lot.
The bookshelf (black walnut, too) proudly displayed about one hundred classic book titles. They were tidy and untouched by human hands.
He ordered them from Penguin’s starter collection.
Two framed photographs on the desk were artfully turned onto the unfortunate people sitting on the other side of the desk.
One said, “The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.” W. Churchill
Plus, he wears an ascot. And masturbates a lot.
“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.” M. Aurelius
And he’s lost a lot of deals.
One lone piece of paper on the desk said, with colossal lettering and designed to be read by all visitors, “I have always thirsted for knowledge; I have always been full of questions.”
Siddhartha? Really? Stop that.
The titles of the books in the frames (behind the desk, on the wall, above the shelf, under the Jane Austen posters) were illegible due to the tiny print. I stepped closer to see the book’s names and discovered the print was small due to the ridiculously long titles.
How do you sell a book with a twelve-word title?
I remembered one called “The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared.” It sold millions of copies.
Mine had a working title of “Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time.” It’s the title on my website. It’s appropriate but too long.
Should I pull an elaborate title out of my fundament?
I kicked around a few new preposterous titles while waiting for Ralph:
- My Modest Beacons of Doubt in the 20th Century vis-a-vis the Magnanimity of Nobody
- How I Survived the Monstrous Tyranny in the Dark, Lamentable Catalog of Human Crimes Committed by French Waiters
- Once Bitten, Twice Shy: One Person’s Emotionally Charged Battle Against Fleas During the Balkan War (the Second One)
- Froggy the Loveable Frog’s Rebuke of Potiphar’s Wife Before Getting Pushed Off the Top of the Sears Tower and Landing in Rush Hour Traffic
The Froggy one was a desperate throw, so I decided to keep it in my back pocket in case the first three titles were taken.
I thumbed through a book on his desk. It listed Ralph’s company as the publisher. The author capitalized a dozen words per page, most sentences ended with a preposition, and the dialogue appeared similar to a script from the Sopranos TV series.
At least I’m not going against the next Don Quixote.
Not that my manuscript was a contender for the next Pride & Prejudice. It was the product of a long-standing itch to write about my extensive travels and discuss, in a humorous way, the unsophisticated ways I dealt with depression during those travels. I had already pitched my book to three publishers, who, almost in unison, had responded with a resounding, “Yeah, well, okay, let’s see. No.”
There may be a glimmer of hope with this guy. Perhaps he’ll see the potential.
Perhaps not.
Twenty minutes after our scheduled appointment, Ralph threw his office doors open, stormed in, and sat behind his ninety-six square foot desk.
The three publishers I met attempted to look like authors whose books improved readers’ minds. They had messy hair with eight ounces of hair gel so that each stray hair would remain strategically in place. They had meticulously maintained three-day shadows, too. Their outfits came from Central Casting: baggy and untucked dress shirts, black denim jeans, scarves, loafers, sunglasses, and blue blazers. They were insufferable, pompous, terminally insecure, emotionally tenuous types who wanted to be loved and admired by the rest of us.
Ralph, to his undying credit, didn’t seem to give a rat’s ass what anyone thought. He wore a drab blue work shirt proudly displaying two-day-old coffee stains. Blood on the collar was a residue from a haphazard shaving episode. Drops of dried mustard were on his cheek.
He acknowledged my presence while sifting through some papers. His introduction to me was, “Hey. Yeah. I gotta hit the can. Sit tight.”
Nice meeting you, too.
After five minutes, he stumbled back. Residual moisture was on his face, hands, shirt tail, jacket, pants, and hair. He handed me his embossed business card and said, “Don’t order the fuckin’ Rueben from downstairs.”
Useful knowledge.
After wiping the abundant sweat off his face, Ralph pushed a pile of papers on his desk. “How’s it hanging? Tell me ‘bout the book.”
I began. “Well, it’s about the decade I took traveling the world. You were kind enough to review my manuscript and accept my meeting request…”
His phone rang. He picked it up. “Huh?” Pause. “My ass.” Pause. “Tell him he can lick my leg.” Long pause. “Yeah. Well, the guy’s a walking participation trophy. Screw ‘im.”
The caller hung up. Still shoving papers around, Ralph said, “Yeah?”
I went on. “My goal is to be interesting, unique, and funny. I haven’t read anything similar. I thought it’d be worth sharing…”
“Title?”
“‘Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time.’ It’s a working title. I’d be interested in what you might say on the subject.”
Ralph looked past me. “Too long. Keep the paragraphs for the book. Keep it short. ‘Bad Ideas, Weird History.’ Something like that.”
I smiled. “Maybe, ‘Oops, I Fucked Up Again?’ Down to five words.”
Ralph laughed out loud. “Yeah, ’The Devil Snorts Bourbon.’”
“That may work. ‘Hilariously Depressed.’ That’s short. I noticed a few on your wall have twelve-word titles. Are we changing the strategy on these things?”
“Those? They’re from the last guy. He got his ass deported to England. Total moron. Couldn’t close a door. Busy smelling his own farts instead of making a sale. Idiot.”
“You clearly miss him terribly.”
“I’m the one who fired his ass. He threatened to sue. I called the INS. Problem solved. Dumb shit. I liked the family reunion story. Hilarious. You really get hammered with Keith Richards?”
“Yup. Great guy. I’m sure meeting me was a highlight for him, too.”
In one move, Ralph reviewed the piles of paper in front of him and, using his forearm, swiped them all off the desk. “From the last guy. The moron. So’s this desk. Gonna dump it for a card table. Mind if I smoke?” Without hesitation, he lit a cigarette. I noticed the smoke detector in his office had been ripped off the ceiling. “The chick in Sweden. You were ape shit about her. Tell me the truth. Ever bang her?”
I laughed. “Not once, to the best of my recollection. If I tried, then she’d have ripped my lungs out. You need your lungs. I put her on a pedestal and didn’t want to ruin it by trying my luck. She was my hero. The goddess was never to be sullied by human hands. Well, mine, at least. I haven’t finished writing about our little Africa excursion. It was a life changer.”
Looking at the papers all over the floor, Ralph said, “The Mexico stories wrinkled me. You met some interesting women back in the day.”
I slowly shook my head. “Oh, you don’t know the half of it. Post-high school, I made it a point to meet the sickest woman in the room and strike up a lifelong relationship guaranteed to last ninety days. Wait until the next book. ‘Bad Ideas, Lousy Sex.’ That’ll sell.”
Ralph let out a loud belch, the sound of which haunts me to this day. “You sure you wanna talk about getting raped and getting the shit kicked out of you?”
I hesitated and replied, “Yup. I do. I buried it all for forty years. It’s time. I read a little to some of my old therapy groups. They approved.”
He really did read the manuscript.
Ralph nodded. “Gimme your elevator sales pitch.”
Thirty years in the corporate world taught me that elevator pitches are the key to life, liberty, and mo’ money, mo’ money, mo’ money. “It’s a semi-autobiographical account of my decade of world travels, none of which were in places you’d want a second home. The people you’ll read about are like no one you ever met. Included are amusing stories of my attempts to deal with mental illness. I wasn’t always this stunning model of well-adjusted sanity you see before you. My primary goal is for it to be interesting and different from anything you’ve ever read. I think you’ll find it funny, too.”
Ralph looked thoroughly unimpressed. “At least it’s under thirty seconds.” Pause. “There’s no primal whining in it. Good. I hate those woe-is-me books. Gives me the runs. Can’t sell that crap anymore. I’ve never known anyone to use humor to get over the shit.”
“Well, thanks to some traumatic injuries, I was depressed, psychotic, and comically delusional. And weird. A friend of mine wears a shirt saying, ‘I’m not weird. I’m gifted.’ It’s the vibe I looked for. Humor, as it turns out, isn’t an antidote to depression. Who knew?”
“You kept Jack Daniels in business. Damn. They oughta donate your liver to science.”
“I got rid of my liver years ago. More trouble than it’s worth. I sold it on eBay. How I managed not to be currently dead is beyond me. I do smell funny. I go through a car wash. Often. The ones including the spray-on wax, vacuuming, triple-foam, and clear coat sealant. And undercarriage cleaning. Definitely, undercarriage cleaning. It’s a deductible expense, I believe.”
Ralph said, “Wear my shirt next time. I usually put a little pine tree deodorizer in my shorts.”
I laughed. “Now, that is information we didn’t need. Although not a bad idea. I’ll run it by my better half.”
When his desk phone rang, he immediately answered, “Huh?” Following a pause, he barked, “Too bad, you little horse fucker.” Another pause. “Go ahead. I’ll counter-sue your fuckin’ ass. You’ll have to testify in court, but you can’t because the INS kicked your fuckin’ ass out of my country. Bitch.” He smiled and hung up. He glanced at me. “You hardly use the f-word. Good. Tired of it. Ever watch the Sopranos? I can’t watch that show anymore. Impossible. That’s all they say. Too distracting.”
“I sprinkle it in for effect. It’s more fun that way.”
He looked at me. “You went all the way to Sweden just to see a couple of Bruce Springsteen concerts. Really?”
“Yes, well. It’s an aspect of my mental illness. It’s still unresolved. There’s a drug to counter these things. It’s currently in a trial. I didn’t qualify. I was classified as, ‘Really? No.’”
The phone rang. Again. Ralph grabbed the phone.
This will be amusing.
He started the conversation with his standard professional greeting of, “Huh?” Pause. “Attorney? No shit. What’s your JIS number?” Ralph rolled his eyes. “You heard me just fine. What’s the number? What’re you, stupid? Do you even know what JIS stands for?” He was having fun. “I’ll talk to you any way I want, moron. Tell your client I don’t talk to losers pretending to be attorneys. Tell him he can kiss my rich American ass once he gets his head out of his ugly British one. Think you can remember all that? Moron?” With a huge grin, he hung up.
I like this guy.
He stared at me. “Look. Finish it. Gimme some character development. Tell me a story. Keep it simple because I’m dense.”
I responded, “I had no character. I still don’t. There’s nothing to develop.”
His phone rang. Before picking it up, he said, “No character. No book. Gimme a character, then we’ll talk.”
I stood up and shook his hand. “I probably ought to leave you to some more delicate negotiations.”
As I walked out of his office and closed the door, I heard, “Huh? Yeah, come on over. I drop you like Mike Ty…”
My marching orders were to develop one character, me, who’s hanging on by a thread. Make it funny.
So, here it is:
Another fun-loving, mentally-fraying, free-associating, sobriety-eluding, spontaneously-combusting, questionably-behaving, character-developing story of my visits to locations you should, in most cases, not go on your next family vacation. At the same time, I attempt, years later, to unravel my psychosis with a heroically patient and comical psychiatrist.
The next chapter is pure fiction. Everything after that is two parts fact, one part fiction, one part exaggeration, three parts Vodka, and a moment of silence for the Vermouth.
Please read on.
I hate Vermouth.
—THE END—
SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA AT THE TIME - the book 
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