Moonshine – Tim Rees

MOONSHINE a short story by Tim Rees

Maybe it’s this city? Could be I’m addicted to this buzz – this race to get ahead? I arrived here to sign a publishing contract with the intention of returning on the next flight home. Ten years and seven novels later I remain entangled in the web of New York.

Okay, so I moan about the weather here, too cold in winter and, like now, sweltering in summer – like living in a furnace! But whoosh! New York! New York! Yes I still sing the song and marvel that I’m here. I still gaze up at the Empire State to see it reach for infinity, jaw agape every time. Typical Brit. My name is Roger Winger and I’m a successful novelist – well, that is to say that my stories have found a big international audience, but successful? … Mmmmm? Suppose it depends upon perspective… Before I had money, success meant getting my hands on the stuff. Now I’ve got money, success means acceptance and respect. I have an abundance of both from the reading public, but from my peers…?

Lost in thought, I suddenly remember I’ve a meeting to attend and my agent is not a woman to be kept waiting in a bar. I quicken my step and turn off Lexington. The Irish Bar is ten long strides and I escape the roasting oven that is Manhattan.

Ah! There’s Felicity sat on a tall stool like she’s stranded. A barman’s cleaning glasses, talking to a small group at the far end, but the rest of the bar echoes on emptiness.

I peck at the cheek she’s lifted to the luxurious Arctic breeze humming from the air-conditioning and grunt “hi” whilst looking intently at the tall glass of freshly squeezed orange juice standing untouched in front of her. The glass is frosted and a crushed iceberg waters the deep orange to half way. It looks good, and I tell myself to have one and remain sober, but somehow the word “Guinness” pops from my mouth the moment the barman nods in my direction.

Felicity narrows her eyes and twists her mouth in accusation. I ignore the look and offer a feeble “sorry I’m late.”

She’s an attractive woman in her own way – a no-messing, minimum make-up face forged on strong character rather than classic beauty. She’s power-dressed to the hilt, so I hesitate to mouth sexy, but she does have a potent feminine sensuality. I like that. Early on in our professional relationship there was a moment when our mutual like spilled over to intimacy, but… well… Anyway, the mutual like persists and we’re still pally even though I’m a bit of an embarrassment to her professional sensibilities because my material is at the pop end of the market. She has more literary authors on her books, but they don’t earn her as much green paper ego fuel, so I’m tolerated.

“Rathbones want to sign you for six more books,” she opens bluntly. “They’ve offered six and a half million, but I’m going to hold out for eight, seven at the very minimum.”

“I don’t want to tie my hands to deadlines, you know that,” I pooh-pooh pompously, knowing that will be the requirement at that figure. I’m already a millionaire who’s lost count, so financial seduction is a toothless ploy – A Welsh boy with principles, that’s me!

Felicity sniffs. She wants her fifteen percent and is annoyed at my depriving her of a grotesquely fat cheque.

“How about that marine wildlife project you’re sponsoring? Bet it could use the money,” she gently jabs.

I laugh loudly. The Guinness has been placed on a mat in front of me. I swallow half in two gulps. Coffee coloured froth forms a moustache. Felicity cocks an eye and wipes my mouth with a napkin.

“Thanks,” I grin. “Look, I admit it’s tempting-” I force my tone deeper, more business like “-but it’s a promise I made to myself. They’ll want those six novels in six years, meaning I’ll have to rush write. Hate that. Whatever you and your literati mates think, I take my stories seriously. They’re my babies. Forcing their development to meet the publisher’s deadline will result in them achieving less than their potential. Neither of us want that…?”

She sips her orange then rattles the ice in thought, searching a way to tiptoe around my objection.

“They’ll agree to stretch deadlines… Surely there’s six more books in you where Jason Cole puts the world to rights?” A patronising twitch tweaks the corner of her mouth, itching to take hold and provoke me more boldly, but she keeps tight control. I can almost see fifteen percent hauling back the reins.

“So now you’re eager I write Jason Cole stories? That’s a new one!”

She meets my eyes and the condescending flicker is shunted by Oscar-winning sincerity. “Your readers love him. He’s good genre.”

“Thanks a bunch.”

“Oh, come on, don’t sulk. I know you’re capable of…well, deeper stuff,” she soothes. “I’ve read your short stories…”

My stomach is tightening. Increasingly I feel an argument coming on. “So get the short stories published!” I challenge.

She takes another sip of orange and pinches the bridge of her prominent nose. “You know I’d happily traipse them around the publishing houses, but it would have to be under a pseudonym. You’ve established a massive readership for your thrillers under your real name”

“Yeah! Right! Roger Winger the hack!”

Felicity touches my shoulder and beams a placating smile. “Let’s not fight over this again. We can’t force the industry to play by your rules. The marketing machine is too powerful to resist. You’re an established author with a readership demanding certain criteria. You’re a massive success because the system works, so don’t expect the industry to feel sorry for you. All I’m saying is that we can publish different styles, but we have to do it under a different name. From Roger Winger readers expect… well, a particular genre. Deal with it…”

“Genre! I hate that word!” Spittle showers her. “Sorry,” is a terse and insincere apology. She wipes a hand over her eye and flicks it as if she’s dripping. I sigh and meet her eyes, seeking out the bond that binds us as pals rather than professionals. I see it’s reflected back and relax. “I am sorry,” I insist with genuine feeling.

“Genre is only a word,” Felicity smiles. “You writers are just too sensitive…” Her eyes are openly laughing; a mocking ‘call to arms’. I know the look; I’ll rant and she’ll pacify me with logic. The truth is it’s the core of our excellent working relationship. Maybe I should have grabbed her when I’d had the chance? She’d never married – career came first. I’d married, divorced and been taken to the cleaners – twice!

I open with a passive statement. “There’s nothing wrong with the word, I don’t have a problem with the word, it’s the way your posh-frock, literati mates utter it with contempt that gets up my-”

“-Now then…” She twitches her nose in gentle warning. “There’s no need to disparage my professional colleagues,” she smiles, brushing my long hair over my ears and away from my face before continuing, “Literature’s a writer’s unique, often experimental voice. Genre, on the other hand, defines an established storyline, plot structure, that demands certain criteria. It’s only used in reference to a particular type of story.”

“Bull!” I explode. “The word’s used to pigeonhole works perceived inferior; stuff from writer’s like me.”

“Come on! I’ve just admitted you can write literature, it’s just not evident in your novels.”

“The fantasy versus reality argument? In my view it’s potential reality V slice of life, imagination versus real life experience-”

“-Okay,” Felicity halts. “I’ve heard it already. You finish by explaining how Einstein used his imagination to conclude that E=MC^2. I admitted you had a point before! Too many times! I will go on to argue there’s intelligence at work in literature that’s not evident in genre. You agreed with me last time?”

“No I didn’t,” I protest, but weakly – Okay, so I didn’t need the hassle that day. I slump in my tall bar stool and guzzle the remaining half of the Guinness. The barman notes the drained contents and winks that he has another ready. I thirstily accept the liquid-coal-on-a-snowy-day and hand over the ransom.

“Cheers, Rog,” he says, using my first name like we’re buddies from way back. Do I know all New York bar staff, or is it that they know me? Strange. When you’re a recognised face, these things get confused.

“Explain your use of the word ‘intelligence’ to me again,” I propose, my tone pleasant with a merest trace of acid. “Just to re-acquaint myself with your educated perspective.”

She rests her chin in her bridged hands for a second. “Well composed original prose, inspired and inspirational… You know?”

I allow my lips to belie the faintest smile. “With bags of similes and metaphors, yeah? So you’re saying that, let’s say, Clancy and Grisham write less than intelligent stories or tell their stories less than intelligently?”

“No they’re good storytellers. I read them myself when I read for pleasure-“

“-Ah!” I interrupt. “The suggestion here is that your main literary diet is less than pleasurable?”

“Don’t twist my words,” Felicity grimaces, but she knew I had her on the ropes. “I derive a great deal of pleasure from reading well written prose, you know that.”

“But when you feel like a good story you pick up Clancy or Grisham?”

“Or you,” she smiles, widening her eyes innocently.

“You’re a hypocrite,” I accuse too bluntly and immediately feel guilty. She is, after all, a friend.

“No I’m not.” Her voice sounds unperturbed, but she shrugs on her oblique, professional facade, which I read as evidence I’ve hit a nerve. “Unfortunately I’ve read all the last century’s great literary novelists like Lawrence, Hemingway and Woolf etcetera…”

“Okay,” I add enthusiastically. “All great storytellers, granted. Every writer aspires to their genius, but some of us prefer to inject pace, pace demands dynamic images and language and definitely less prose. It’s not that we don’t like or can’t write prose, there’s just no room for it in a thriller unless one needs to slow pace, and I for one enjoy writing a thriller. I like developing a concept into a plot. I like the energy of each scene having to have purpose rather than allowing a character to ramble on about some self-indulgent philosophy. My characters have a job to do and they get on and do it.”

“That’s fine then. You’re good at it, stick to it. But if you want your work viewed seriously, get away from the he-man-hero. Write a book where the lead character is a professor who solves some universal crisis?”

I begrudgingly mutter a “maybe”, but am unconvinced. I want to push this…

“Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote ‘Tarzan’,” I sigh disconsolately. “A fictional he-man turned legend. Great character. Forget the films, the stories are a provocative study of one man’s evolution resulting in a profound misanthropy. Now it’s pigeonholed ‘boys adventure’! What a waste! The basic concept alone challenges most adults! Then we have Ian Fleming’s ‘Bond’, a character that’s entertained generations!”

“Great escapism. I agree.” Felicity purses her lips. “But don’t ask me to take them seriously.”

“Why not! They inspire individual’s to aspire! The two characters are virtual icons!”

“Yes but-“

“-But nothing! What makes a great writer? The prose or the story?”

“Come on,” Felicity soothes with a chuckle. “You telling me that Fleming was a great writer? It’s the films that have made ‘Bond’ the icon. Same with ‘Tarzan’”

“My point is, it’s the story that’s all-important. ‘Bond’ wouldn’t be ‘Bond’ in anything less than a great story! You have to be one damn good writer to communicate a story to a mass audience; both Fleming and Burroughs achieved that…”

Felicity remains silent and sips her orange. I’m on a roll.

“I’m not saying the bigger the audience the better the writer, but I do say the bigger the audience the better the storyteller, and the foundation of fiction is good storytelling. So why are writers communicating to wide popular audiences made to feel like third rate hacks? Look at Clancy and Grisham? Pooh-poohed as irrelevant writers, yet their only crime is telling a good story.”

“Yes, but publishing also has to be about good writing first and foremost.”

“I’m published, so by your definition I suppose that must mean I’m a good writer?”

“Of course,” she openly laughs. “My new home at Long Island is due to the fact you’re a damn great writer.”

“Yet you also agree with your colleagues when my work is condemned as irrelevant genre?”

“No I don’t. I argue that inside every novel you’ve written is a moral significance desperate to get out.” Her laughter at her own joke sings like china bells. I’m forced to smile. It is genuinely funny. She’s in full flow now and loving every minute. “But I explain you’re happy reaching a less educated – I mean, more popular audience,” she finished, almost stumbling on the faux pas.

I wasn’t about to let it ride. “There we have it! The snob factor!”

“Not at all. Literary taste is like wine, we all prefer different vintages.” She utters the sentence with blatant snobby delight and pats her own back in punctuation.

“Yeah, right! But when you want to get pissed, you dive into something with a bit more zap, like a good Clancy, Grisham or…?” Reference to my own work is lost in my own laughter.

“That’s it!” She erupts in jubilation. “You guys write the moonshine!”

“Yeah! To satisfy your prohibitionist lust!” I finish the second Guinness quickly. The next is already sliding along the bar.

“So do we accept seven to eight mil?” She asks, her whole demeanour one of total innocence.

I’m on my third Guinness. “Okay, go for it,” I sigh. “I’ll write another six books you and your mates can laugh at. Then I’m off to buy an island in a remote corner of the Indian Ocean and write literature to make your toes curl.”

THE END

Tim’s Amazon Author Page is here: http://author.to/TimRees

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