Ghost Town by Richard W. Jennings

Author:Richard W. Jennings
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

A Book Deal

I ALREADY FELT GUILTY about lying to my imaginary friend about the chances of his poems ever getting published. Now, when I thought about it, I had no reason left to live. I was a total washout. A liar, a loser, and a clumsy, absent-minded, self-absorbed oaf. I'd really blown it this time. I'd ripped all of Chief Leopard Frog's carefully crafted poems into packing material.

Yi, yi, yi, yi, yi! I thought. Bring on the spiders! Bring on the bees! Let me take my own portrait with a ghost camera!

I deserved to be the last kid in Paisley, Kansas.

Who could possibly want me for a friend?

After a sleepless night in my nest, I got up the next morning and sent a letter to Milton Swartzman.

Dear Mr. Swartzman:

Sixty "lucky" authentic Indian-carved bee tree burls are en route to you by Sushi Shipping Services. I expect you will receive them within your lifetime.

You will note that each is carefully packed in layers of paper to protect it from damage from rough seas and careless dockworkers. As it turns out, wadded up within this protective paper are the very poems that my friend wants published in a volume to be titled Burl Hives: Poems by Chief Leopard Frog, Sac and Fox Tribe, Paisley, Kansas.

Please don't ask me how the mix-up happened, as I feel bad enough as it is. Also don't give me any advice about the title because the author is adamant about his goofball choice.

You will recall that you said it would cost about three hundred dollars to print my friend's book. How many copies? And how will you handle distribution and national television appearances? Do you know Oprah? My mother watches her show all the time.

I am prepared to give up my three-hundred-dollar compensation for the talismans if we can work out a book deal Please note, however, that I still need the money. As you suggested, I'm keeping an eye out for a famous-looking pumpkin. So far, I've got one that seems to be shaping up to look like the Wal-Mart smiley face. What would that be worth to you?

Sincerely,

Spencer Adams Honesty

Paisley, Kansas

A fortnight passed.

By now, September had just about sung its song.

Uncle Milton replied.

Dear Kid:

If all I do is exchange letters with you, how do you expect me to get any work done? No sign of your talismans yet, but I know the shipping line and they're as reliable as they come in this part of the world. I could do the book for the price we've agreed and print five hundred copies, which is all that the poetry world can possibly swallow, even if we were talking about the poet laureate of the Cayman Islands. I will send a dozen of them out for review to the leading journals and newspapers, hold back fifty copies for my catalog—it's definitely something you thought you'd never find—and send the remainder to you and your friend to peddle from the trunk of your car, which is basically the way poetry is meant to be distributed.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.