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Thursday 27 October 2011

Making the cut

Tall and gangly, Henry Fulton looked as though he’d missed more than one meal during the past month.  His clothes were loose as well as old and frayed, even his dark gray overcoat.  Fulton’s black hair was long and unwashed.  Truth be told, he hadn’t been able to afford a haircut in eight months, nor a bottle of shampoo in two.  Even his old fashioned, black-rimmed glasses were held together with nothing more than a strip of Scotch tape.  To the people who met him, he looked like a poor man’s version of Stephen King, especially when they discovered he was a writer of horror fiction.  Fulton liked to think that any resemblance to the Maestro had more to do with his carefree smile and friendly attitude than it did with anything else.
Still, Fulton had to admit his smile was beginning to wane as the challenges of making it in the writing business overwhelmed him at times.  He had no trouble writing a short story.  Hell, writing was the easy part.  In many ways it was a form of therapy that helped him to cope with the problems of day-to-day living.  The difficult part was in the selling and marketing of his fiction.  That’s what gave him migraines and caused him to freeze in his tracks for minutes at a time, staring blankly at nothing.  It was in those infrequent moments that Fulton questioned his own sanity at wanting to be a creator of fiction.  Sometimes he didn’t even know the difference between reality and fiction.
That scared him a little.           
Anyway, as the old saying went, he was taking lemons and turning them into lemon aid.  At least that’s what he thought.
                                                      ******
Fulton had just spent four hours driving from Beaufort, North Carolina to Chapel Hill.   It was home for the University of North Carolina and the Carolina Tar Heels basketball team, not mention where Dr. Jonathan Taylor, an associate professor of English literature, lived.
Taylor was the publisher and editor of By the Moonlight magazine, which was one of the best publications of horror fiction in the countryIf you were able to get your story accepted by the magazine, it meant you were finally there as a horror writer.  Fulton had sent twelve of them during the past three years (one for every quarterly period) and had received a total of twelve rejections.  No problem.  That was part of being a writer.  You had to accept rejection right off the bat with a big smile because every beginning writer experienced it.
Yeah, right.
He’d received the last rejection earlier in the day, and it was the one that finally broke the camel’s back.     
The e-mail had come just before lunch, ruining his appetite for a baloney and cheese sandwich.  It also hit a raw nerve inside of Fulton.  It was another failure, and it had caused his hands to shake uncontrollably with rage.  He knew his face must have turned several shades of red over Dr. Taylor’s simple statement—Sorry, but your story didn’t make the cut.  It was the same goddamn statement he’d been e-mailed eleven times before over a three-year period of time.
After calming down, Fulton had Googled for Dr. Jonathan Taylor’s home address on the Internet, checking the online real estate deeds for Chapel Hill and eventually finding the one for his house.  After that, he’d checked Map Quest and found out exactly where his house was located in the university town.
Dressed in his best clothes (meaning they weren’t ancient and threadbare) and with everything he needed packed inside a cheap briefcase, Fulton had hopped into his beat-up Honda Civic and headed out of the historical, waterfront community.  It was a 180-mile journey to the home of the man who’d refused to see the talent in his writing.  The cost for gasoline would go on a credit card, and he’d worry about making the monthly payments in thirty days.  Right now, all Fulton wanted was an opportunity to face the editor and find out why all of his stories had been rejected.    
That was all.
If Dr. Taylor would just give him fifteen minutes of his time and be honest with him, maybe Fulton could find out what was wrong and fix the problem with careful, methodical rewrites.  After all, how can you correct your mistakes if you don’t know what your mistakes are?
That was the plan in his jumbled-up mind.    
                                                       ****** 
Except for the falling snow, the drive to Chapel Hill had been uneventful and even monotonous.  Fulton had used the time to rehearse what he was going to say to Dr. Taylor once they met.  He suspected the professor would be surprised at having a writer show up at his doorstep to complain about rejection slips.  Whatever Taylor’s reaction, he hoped it would lead to a resolution of some kind.   
Once Fulton made it into Chapel Hill, it took him twenty minutes to find the editor’s one-story brick house on East Franklin Street.  Franklin was the town’s main drag, and the place was situated directly across from the university’s campus.  It was dark by then and still snowing, but Fulton kept driving along Franklin, until he eventually came to a pizzeria on the same side of the street.  He parked in front of the establishment and then walked the three blocks back to Taylor’s home, carrying his briefcase like a salesman on his way to one last appointment before calling it a night.  
Since it was only a few days before Christmas, many of the homes and businesses on East Franklin Street were decorated for the holidays with brightly-colored lights strung around the outside of the structures, plus Santa Claus and Frosty the Snowman plastic figures in the windows, or jammed into the snow-covered lawns.
Fulton paid little attention to them.  He had other things on his mind.
In fact, he was nervous as hell as he walked through the wet slush on the sidewalk, knowing his five-year-old dress shoes would be ruined before the night was over.  At least the wool overcoat helped to keep him warm.  All he had on beneath the coat was a pair of black summer dress slacks from Sears & Roebuck and a short-sleeved knit shirt that had seen better days.
He tried breathing the cold air deep into his lungs and then out again, but it didn’t do any good.
Screw it, Fulton thought.  No guts, no glory. 
When he reached the Taylor residence, Fulton saw it was no different from the other small homes he’d just passed.  It was a one-story, black shingled, brick house with a driveway out front and a tiny square yard that had a fat Santa Claus stuck into the ground beside a red sled and several plastic reindeer.  The white snow made the scene look almost picturesque.
In the driveway was a purple PT Cruiser with snow packed on the hood and roof.  Fulton walked past the automobile and then took a detour up the nearly hidden walkway that led from the driveway to the front door.  He tried not to slip and fall, knowing it wouldn’t look good for his hopeful meeting with Dr. Taylor.  Heading up the steps to the porch, he took another deep breath and hesitantly rang the doorbell.
Fulton waited a minute and then rang it again.
I’m coming!” a voice yelled from inside the house.
The front door opened with the speed of something being sucked into a black hole, and a middle-aged man suddenly stood there before Fulton.  He was wearing pale blue pajamas and an opened blue cotton bathrobe, staring warily at the young man through the storm glass door.   
“What do you want?” Taylor demanded.
The man sounded as if he had a frog struggling to climb out of his throat.  The thin brown hair on his head was combed back, but tuffs of it were standing out to the sides as if they were awnings for his large ears.  His brown eyes were puffy from the lack of sleep, and his nose looked red from having been blown too many times.   He coughed wickedly at Fulton and sprayed the glass in front of him with tiny drops of spittle.   
“Are you Dr. Jonathan Taylor?” Fulton asked.  “Are you the editor of By the Moonlight magazine?”   
“Yes to both questions,” the man said.     
“My name’s Henry Fulton.  It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“What do you want?” Taylor repeated.  “If you’re selling something, you can head over to the neighbors house because I’m not interested.”  
“No, I’m not selling anything.”
“Then allow me to take another guess,” the professor said, urgently scratching his right ear.  “You’re a writer who sent a story to my magazine.   It was rejected and now you want to know why.”   
“How did you know?” Fulton said, surprised.
“Do you think your story is the only one I’ve rejected?’ Taylor asked.  “The magazine gets three hundred submissions for every issue, but only has room for twelve short stories.  You do the math, Mr. Fulton.”   
“Could I come in for a few minutes?”
“No,” Taylor said.  He then brought his other hand up and sneezed into a white Kleenex, nearly blowing a hole through it.  “Listen, I’m sorry if your story got rejected.  It wasn’t anything personal.  But, no, you can’t come in.  Please go back to wherever you came from.”
“Why won’t you let me come in?  I drove four hours, hoping for fifteen minutes of your time.”
“Because I have the flu and I feel like shit.”
Taylor brought his hand back up and blew his nose into the wet piece of tissue, then stuffed it down into the pocket of his bathrobe as if he was hiding a secret treasure.
“Listen, I was eating some chicken noodle soup in the living room when you rang the doorbell,” he continued.  “I was also watching the first season of The Walking Dead on DVD.   I like The Walking Dead, and I want to go back to watching it, but without you tagging along.  Do you mind?”
“Please, Dr. Taylor.” 
“No.” 
Taylor suddenly cocked his head to the side and stared at Fulton with unexpected amusement.  His eyes grew wide as if he’d just realized something extremely vital to his existence.
“You look like Stephen King,” he said, smiling at the realization.
“So I’ve been told.”
“And you’re a struggling horror writer, too.”
“Yes, sir.”
            “Ah, what the hell,” Taylor said, shaking his head.  He then opened the storm door for his uninvited guest.  “Okay, you can come in for a few minutes.  I can’t turn away Stephen King from my door, can I?”
“No, I guess not,” Fulton said.   
“Okay, you have your fifteen minutes to pester me.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet, Mr. Fulton.”
The writer stepped past the professor into the tiny foyer and waited for him to close the front doors.  He then followed Dr. Taylor down a short hallway and into a warm, cozy living room with a log-burning fireplace.  Two of the walls were lined with floor-to-ceiling bookcases.  There was a large Plasma Screen television parked against one wall, directly across from a thick-cushioned brown couch with a matching loveseat to the left.  In front of the couch was a long mahogany coffee table with copies of By the Moonlight sitting on top.  To the right of the magazines was a bowl of chicken noodle soup.   As Taylor set back down on the couch, he switched off the TV and DVD player with a remote, and then picked up the bowl of soup so he could finish eating it.
Fulton walked casually over to the bookcases with curiosity.  He wanted to see what type of books the professor enjoyed reading.
“Is your family home?” he asked.
“I’m a confirmed bachelor,” Taylor replied.
“Oh, I didn’t know.”
“Talk,” Taylor said as he spooned more soup into his opened mouth.
“Hey, you have all of Stephen King’s novels in hardcover,” Fulton said in amazement.  “Are they first editions?”
“Yes, they are,” Taylor replied.  “Most of them are signed by the author.  The clock is ticking, Mr. Fulton, and you now have twelve minutes left.  You didn’t drive all the way to Chapel Hill just to admire my book collection, did you?”
“No.” 
“Then tell me what you want.”
“I’ve brought a new story for you to read.  It’s only eight pages long.  If you don’t like it, give me something more definite to deal with than the usual “Sorry, but this story didn’t make the cut” routine.     
“I’m not in the mood for reading,” Taylor said.
“But—“
“I remember your name.  I e-mailed you a rejection notice this morning, didn’t I?”
“Yes.”
“Sorry about that,” Taylor said, sipping soup from his spoon.  “How many stories have you submitted to By the Moonlight?”
“That was the twelve one.”   
“That’s a lot.  And I rejected all of them?”
“Yes, you did.”
“Well, I did like the most recent one you sent,” Taylor said.    
“You liked it?”
“Yes, the story was well written,” he said.  “You created some very vivid characters and it was suspenseful in a number of places.  Unfortunately, I guessed the ending about the hitchhiker.  You gave a lot away in the first couple of paragraphs.”  The professor took out a new Kleenex from his other pocket and blew his nose again, sounding like a foghorn on the Chesapeake Bay.  “It was a good story, but somewhat predictable.  I get a dozen of them every month.  Still, I saw some talent there.  You’re improving as a writer.”
“Why didn’t you say something in your e-mail?”
“I sent out thirty-five rejection notices this morning and was short of time.”
 “Then please read my newest story,” Fulton said.  “It’s titled, Making the Cut, and it’s about a writer who confronts the editor of a horror magazine, who’s been rejecting his stories for over a year.”
“Huh?”
“You’ll like it.”
Taylor turned around on the couch and stared at Fulton for a moment as he digested the scenario of the story.  Then, he gave the writer a big smile and said, “You know that premise does sound rather interesting.  Let me take a look at the damn thing.  I owe you that much for the long drive here.”   
Fulton smiled back at the editor as he quickly unsnapped the top of his briefcase and took out the hard copy of the short story.  He walked over to the man and handed him the paper-clipped pages.
“I’ll be checking out your book collection while you read it,” Fulton said.
“Don’t steal anything.”
“If I snatch a book off the shelf, it will be On Writing by Stephen King,” Fulton said as he stepped back over to the bookcases and examined the different titles more closely.  “I would love to have an autographed copy of that.”
“Then I’ll check to make sure it’s still there when you leave,” Taylor said, starting in on the first page of the short story.  “I have to watch my graduate students when they come over for weekend barbecues.  They always want to borrow my books and then they never return them.  I think they’re selling the damn things on E-bay.” 
                                                         ******
It took less than ten minutes for the professor to read through the short story.  Once it was finished, he re-read it a second time.
“This is good!” Taylor finally said.
“You actually like it?”
“Yes, I do, Mr. Fulton,” he said.  “You were right to have me read it.  This is much better than the other stories you’ve sent.  I would only suggest one little change to make it a great piece of dark fiction.”
“What?”
“Kill off the editor,” Taylor stated.    
“You’re joking, right?”   
“No,” he said.  “It would give your story the much-needed twist at the end.  No one would see it coming.”
“You want me to kill off the editor?” Fulton asked.  “But the editor is finally going to buy a story from the lead character.”
“Yeah, but that’s the twist, don’t you see,” Taylor said.  “This writer is so frustrated at all the rejection slips he’s received, that he goes over the bend and kills the editor right at the moment he sells a story.”  Taylor paused to put the papers down on the coffee table and to have another spoonful of soup.  Then—“Make that one change in your story, and I’ll buy it for the May issue of By the Moonlight magazine.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“You do have talent,” the professor said.  “It was only a matter of time before you wrote something good enough to make the cut.”
“Thank you,” Fulton said with sincerity as he took out a big carving knife from his briefcase.  Moving quietly over to the back of the couch, he set the fake leather case down on the carpet and grabbed Dr. Taylor from behind.  He twisted the sick man’s face hard to the left, and then slid the sharp edge of the steel blade across his neck with one swift stroke.  The blade cut the carotid arteries, leaving a large gaping mouth below the chin as blood sprayed outward onto the pages of the short story and the top of the coffee table.  “I think I just made the cut with that, too.” 
Fulton laughed at his own cruel joke.
Then, as Dr. Taylor fell over onto the cushion, gagging loudly and griping his throat in a futile effort to staunch the flow of blood, Fulton used the blue bathrobe to clean the blood off the knife.  He put the murder weapon back into the briefcase and then stepped around to the front of the couch.  Picking up the blood-stained pages of his story, he stepped over to the fireplace and tossed them into the flickering flames.  It didn’t take long for the pieces of paper to burn.  When Fulton was satisfied with their destruction, he went back to the bookcase, took down the copy of On Writing, and stuck it into his briefcase.  If he was going to have anybody teach him how to write, it would be the Maestro himself.  He knew the only way to become a better author was by learning from the true masters.
Fulton walked back over to the side of the couch and stared down at Taylor, watching as the man swiftly bled out.  He could see the life draining from the editor’s dark eyes.  Red splashes of blood were everywhere: the couch, the carpet, the coffee table, in the soup, and, of course, on the front of the bathrobe.   
“Many thanks for the book,” Fulton said.  “I’ll always treasure it.  And, thank you for your sound advice on making the cut.”
Getting a small dishtowel from the kitchen, Fulton used it to open and close the two doors as he left the residence.  He didn’t want to leave any fingerprints on the doorknobs.  Once he was outside on the porch, he wiped the doorbell clean and then placed the towel in his coat pocket.  He whistled happily all the way back to his car, thinking about the new ending for his short story.  Once he got back home to Beaufort, he’d get on his computer and change the ending, and maybe…just maybe, send it to Cemetery Dance Magazine.