Chapter 13

Yesterday I heard from the agent who was reading my first novel, Malthusian Cockroaches. He didn’t like it. He said my characters didn’t sound like high school Freshmen, that he didn’t believe any high school offered Economics (even though mine did, and since it was a rural high school in Alaska, I figured an urban high school in a middle-classed suburb of Chicago surely would, but whatever) and that it didn’t hold his interest. I don’t care if they’re going to an economics class or a history class, so that can change. And I can make them sound less mature. I guess I’ll have to get to work on that.

Still, it was disappointing to hear someone say they have no interest in representing something I have worked three years on and have had many others tell you they can’t wait to see it in print because of what it’s about. I wish I knew more about what the problem was, but the agent said he had a lot of other things to work on and so he didn’t have time for me. I guess that’s what I get for being introduced to him by a mutual acquaintance rather than working my ass off like other new writers. The other explanation is that I sent out the work before it was ready, which is likely, since I’ve only had one person read it. I had planned to get others to read the book and help me with it before I sent it out. Now I definitely will. Still, it’s disappointing.

Writers live in a world ruled by disappointment. We wouldn’t have become writers if we hadn’t been disappointed by something. Life, lost loves, lack of love. And then, when we decide to become writers, we are disappointed to hear in workshops that our characters are too flat, the plot unbelievable, the symbolism too symbolic, the dialogue too stiff, and any number of other problems you would have never thought of outside workshops. Then let’s suppose you have the story “finished.” First of all, you rarely have a story finished, so you are disappointed every time you pick up the story to see it is not as good as you want it. Then you decide it is “good enough” - usually by having a number of people say it’s finished, that it and you are genius, etc. -- and you send it out to a half dozen magazines (if it is a short story) only to receive a half dozen rejections. Then you look at it again, try to figure out what’s wrong with it, fix a word or two, then send it out to another half dozen places. To be rejected. Repeat as instructed.

Then the glorious day comes when you finally get your short story published in a tiny literary magazine that can only afford to pay you three contributor’s copies, and when you get it, your name is wrong in the table of contents, and the editor has revised the story, changing dialogue and dialect, altering description, making the story as much hers as it was yours -- all without your permission, destroying what you perceive to be the integrity of the piece. This disappointment is almost as bad as having never been accepted at all.

That’s why Michel and Sarah both knew about disappointment. They were both writers, and so had experienced all the disappointments peculiar to writers, as well as the disappointments of life. Sarah was disappointed by every boyfriend she had -- except one (forget about Kim -- he’s in the future) -- and she disappointed herself by letting him get away.

She was in love with Robert, but did not think Robert was in love with her. He had never said he loved her, though they were friends and went places together -- dinner, the movies, the occasional bar. She had told him she loved him, and he always smiled, reached out his hand for her jaw, and gave her a quick kiss on the lips. Frustrated, Sarah began dating other people.

That’s when she met Matthew. He was handsome, went places with her, and told her he loved her. She still went places with Robert, but he never seemed jealous when she wanted to go out with other men. But when she started seeing Matthew, he went to her apartment and told her he loved her.

How could he do this to her? There had been so many opportunities before she met Matthew, and now he had to come over her apartment and tell her he loved her? Where was he before Matthew? She had loved him -- still loved him, though she would never tell him that -- but he was too late. She was with Matthew, and it wouldn’t be fair to him -- especially since she loved him. Robert hung his head, and tears trickled down his cheeks. “I’m sorry,” he said, and walked out of her apartment. Sarah wanted to run after him, but felt it would be too much like a romantic movie if she did, so she let him go.

A month later, Robert was seeing someone else. Sarah saw him with his new girlfriend at the movies. She was now alone, having broke up with Matthew after he crashed into her parked car while driving drunk to her apartment. Robert smiled and waved. Sarah returned the favor, but didn’t say anything, turning away as she stood in line.

Michel mostly disappointed himself. He didn’t understand women and didn’t care to. He lost every girlfriend he had because of it. He kissed a guy once, to see what it was like -- if he could make anything come out of it -- but the man’s mustache tickled his lips when he kissed him, and that bothered him, so he didn’t go any further. Whenever he was in a new relationship with a woman, he wondered if he should have gone through with it. He was a man. He understood men. Surely he could get along with them better than he did with women. But then, he always heard his gay friends saying how they wished they were straight, because they didn’t understand men, so he decided nobody understood anybody, so you might as well fuck who you like. But most of Michel’s disappointments came in being unable to has sex with someone he was really attracted to. Until he met Pat and Jessie. Until he was given permission to sleep with Jessie, he had never realized he was attracted to little girls. Once he had been with Jessie, though, he found he could not get enough of her. Pat didn’t care. She had plenty of other lovers.