XIII
“Inliterature, of course,” Ginger Horton was saying, “thebestwriting comes out of theheart, andnotthehead!”
“I’llbuy that!” agreed Guy Grand, coming forward on his big chair in ready interest, his voice going a bit taut with feeling as he continued:
“Formymoney the best ... thevery bestdarn writing is done right out of the old guts, by God!” And he gave his budding paunch a short slap to strengthen his meaning.
“Good Heavens,” said Esther crouching forward into a sea of giggles.
“Andno rewrite!” said Guy strongly, “... right out of the old guts onto the goddamn paper!”
“Guy!” exclaimed Agnes, “really!” It was well known that Ginger Hortondidwrite—wrote unceasingly—relentless torrents of a deeply introspective prose.
“Sorry,” muttered Grand, sitting back again, “get a bit carried away sometimes, I expect.”
“Feeling and passion!” agreed Ginger Horton in a shriek. “Of course most of the nasty little people around don’t feel athing!Not a single thing!”
“Interesting you should bring that up,” said Guy, reaching in his coat pocket and withdrawing a small memo-book, which he thumbed through as he continued:
“Fellow I met on the train—I won’t mention his name if you don’t mind, because the thing is still pretty much on the drawing board, so to speak ... but I can tell youthis: he’s one of the top-brass along ‘Publishers’ Row’—well, we got to talking, one thing and another, and he offered to let me in on a new scheme of his. How sound it is Idon’tknow, but he’s willing to let me in on the ground floor—atsecond-story prices, of course—” added Guy with a good-natured chuckle. “Andthere’syour old six-and-sevenagain, but, still and all, that’s to be expected in the investment game. Well, his scheme—and I’d like to put out a feeler on it—is to issue a series of Do-It-Yourself Portables ... theDo-It-Yourself Shakespeare, theD.H. Do-It-Yourself Lawrence, and so on.”
“What on earth—” Ginger began crossly.
“Hisidea,” said Guy, “—and I don’t pretend to know how sound it is—is to issue the regular texts of well-known works, with certain words, images, bits of dialogue, and what have you, leftblank... just spaces there, you see ... whichthe reader fills in.”
“Well, I never—” said Ginger irately.
“Oh yes, here we are,” said Grand, evidently finding the place he was looking for in the memo-book, “Yes, now here’s some of his promotional copy ... rough draft, mind you ... let’s see, yes, this is for Kafka’sDo-It-Yourself Trial. Goes like this:
‘Now you too can experience that same marvelous torment of ambiguity and haunting glimpse of eternal beauty which tore this strange artist’s soul apart and stalked him to his very grave! Complete with optional imagery selector, master word table andwriter’s-specialball-point pen, thirty-five cents.’”
‘Now you too can experience that same marvelous torment of ambiguity and haunting glimpse of eternal beauty which tore this strange artist’s soul apart and stalked him to his very grave! Complete with optional imagery selector, master word table andwriter’s-specialball-point pen, thirty-five cents.’”
Ginger Horton made a gurgling sound of anger preparatory to speaking, but Guy was quick to press on:
“And here we are for theLook Homeward (Yourself) Angel:
‘Hey there, reader-writer—how would you like to spew your entrails right out onto a priceless Sarouk carpet?!? Huh? Right in the middle of somebody’s living room with everyone watching? Huh? Well, by golly, youcan, etcetera, etcetera.’
‘Hey there, reader-writer—how would you like to spew your entrails right out onto a priceless Sarouk carpet?!? Huh? Right in the middle of somebody’s living room with everyone watching? Huh? Well, by golly, youcan, etcetera, etcetera.’
“As I say, it’s rough-draft copy, of course—needs tightening up, brightening up—but what’s your feeling on it, Ginger? Think it might spell ‘blast-off’ in the hearts of Mr. and Mrs. Front Porch?”
“What? Well I wouldn’t put a ... asingle centinto it!” said Ginger with considerable emphasis.
“Oh it’s just too dreadful, Guy,” exclaimed Agnes. “You mustn’t.”
“Hmm. I suppose you’re right,” said Guy, “... hard to say really.Mightcatch on—might not ... just wanted to put out a feeler or two on it. Always best to keep an open mind in the investment game.”
*****
Grand had a bit of fun when he engaged a man to smash crackers with a sledge-hammer in Times Square.
The stout fellow arrived with his gear—a box ofsaltine crackers and a sixty-pound sledge—at precisely 9A.M.and “set up shop,” as Guy expressed it, just outside the subway entrance on Forty-Second Street, the busiest thoroughfare in the world at this particular hour.
Dressed in khaki and wearing a tin hat, the curious man forged his way through the deluge of people pouring out of the subway, and then in the very midst of the surging throng, opened the brass-studded pouch attached to his belt, extracted a single saltine cracker, and stooped over to place it carefully on the sidewalk.
“Watch yourself!” he shouted as he stood up, gesturing impatiently. “Keep clear! Mind your step!” And then, raising the hammer to shoulder height, he brought it down in one horrendous blow on the cracker—not only smashing it to dust, but also producing several rather large cracks in the sidewalk.
Within a few minutes the area was swollen with onlookers—all but the nearest of whom had to crane their heads wildly or leap up and down to get a glimpse of the man in the tin hat now as he squatted to examine the almost invisible dust of the cracker. “Sure mashed it, didn’t it?” he muttered, as to himself, in a professional manner.
“What’d he say?” demanded several people urgently of those near the operation.
“Said it ‘suremashedit,’” someone explained.
“‘Mashedit’?” snorted another. “Boy, you can saythatagain!”
Guy Grand was on the scene as well, observing the diverse comments and sometimes joining in.
“Hey, how come you doin’ that?” he asked directly of the man in the tin hat.
The man laid out another cracker, placing it with great care.
“This?” he said, standing and raising the big sledge. “Oh, this is all technical.”
“What’s he say?”
“Says it’s technical.”
“What?”
“Technical.”
“Yeah, well, what’s that he’s hitting with the hammer? What is that? It looks like acracker.”
“Naw, what’d he hit acrackerfor—you kiddin’?”
“Boy, look how that sledge busts up the sidewalk! Man, that’s somesledgehe’s got there!”
Within a very short time indeed, the gathering had spilled over into the street, interfering with the traffic there and causing the tough Forty-Second Street cop to wade growling into the heart of the crowd. “Okay, break it up!” he kept saying. “Shove off!” And when he reached the center where the operation was being carried out, he stood for a long while with his cappushed back on his head, hands on hips, and a nasty frown on his face, as he watched the man in the tin hat smash a few more crackers with the giant sledge.
“Are you workin’ for thecity, bud?” he finally asked in an irate voice.
“That’s right,” said the tin-hat man without looking up. “City planning. This is technical.”
“Yeah,” said the cop, “well, you sure picked a hell of a place to do it, that’s all I got to say.” Then, adjusting his cap, he started pushing at the crowd.
“Okay, let’s keep movin’!” he shouted. “Break it up here! Get on to work! This is technical—shove off!”
Diversion is at a premium at this hour however, and the crowd was not to be dispersed so easily. After a while the hoses had to be brought. When the ruse was discovered, Grand had a spot of bother clearing it.