A few days after Jim took me for a ride I was reading the school paper and noticed that there was going to be a book signing on campus. It was a young author, never before published, who happened to be local. The book was apparently a success and the mysterious writer, who had used a pseudonym, would be signing. It sounded interesting. Maintaining my habit of unpredictability, I decided to skip class to go to the library and check it out.
The lobby was crowded with penetrating chatter and people with cashmere coats holding mochas. I weaved through the mass and found a display housing the books. This title had a nice, simple cover, and wasn't very large. I picked one up and began flipping through it.
As soon as my eyes uncovered a word an elbow struck my back, almost knocking me to the ground. It was a young woman with a red scarf who was now on the floor in front of my feet. She sneered at me as I helped her up, and instantly continued her rush into the crowd towards the author. I reached down to pick up the book, which had fallen to the ground. The corner of the cover was bent..."just my luck," I thought. "You break it, you buy it." I hoped it wasn't terrible, but decided there were far worse things than even a drivelous addition to my poetry collection.
I huddled to a safe spot next to the display and found the beginning of a random poem somewhere near the middle. The words were instantly comforting and familiar...more so than almost anything I had ever read. I was taken off-guard, and identified with the author immediately, as if he had read my mind. It was that feeling of connection, one that I had felt with authors before. We probably had some similar influences, or maybe loved the same women (as William Godwin and I had). Still, I was not accustomed to empathizing with an author so easily...it was almost like I had already studied his work. As I continued reading the words they became increasingly seemly. And suddenly it hit me...
They were my words.
How could I have forgotten? I remembered writing that poem in high school after Lily broke up with me. How was this possible? I read another poem...it was mine too. All of them were mine. I looked around. The crowd was jammed against the back corner of the room.
The dread began as a prick in my chest and then slowly enveloped my entire body.
They were mostly the intimate poems I had written to Vanessa (not included in this memoir). They blanketed every page as I flipped through hastily. I remembered laboring over every word. Some names had changed, but the content was exactly the same. Page after page of my soul ripped from my heart and smacked onto a few bound sheets of paper.
A moment later the dread changed to something I had seldom experienced before...one of numb detachment. I began to slip outside of myself as I did in the shower between Heather and Maria, as I did after my appointment with Linda. I somehow found myself desperate to reject the truth as if removing it from my consciousness was the only solution. I searched carefully for that small glimmer of hope...the one that pinched me and said it was all a dream. It was not an intentional decision, but a subtle inclination, and one I fought against.
I was driven to irrationally in escaping the plagiarism much like I was driven to escape Vanessa. Both could destroy me if I let them...if I let my inclinations run wild. I wished we could reign entirely over our sentiments...yet, what a sad world that would be. I arrested my imagination. Compared to the secret passion that made those poems possible, the plagiarism was insignificant. I decided that if someone else felt the need to steal my 15 minutes, they deserved the luke warm disappointment. I didn't care for those minutes anyway.
I stood on my toes, but was still not tall enough to spot the author with such impeccable taste. I slowly inched forward through the mass until I was only a few feet away. There he was.
It was Jim.
Signing away, holding the book open with a designer watch's wrist.
He noticed me.
"Oh! Magnus, there you are." Obviously, "Magnus" wasn't used in the book.
He stood.
"Hey buddy, come here, I have something very important to tell you. Excuse me, folks..."
Jim and I walked through a little hallway to a secluded corner under a staircase. As much as I told myself to relax I was paralyzed with shock and betrayal, hardly able to move. Yes, I had posted them on my blog, but they were not really for public viewing, and they certainly weren't for publication. He spoke with a hushed voice.
"Magnus, the girls and I put this together for you. It's a surprise...what do you think? It's all your poetry, your genius. Isn't it marvelous?"
"Jim, I did not give you or anyone permission to print these."
"Magnus, just relax and let me explain. The book is a collection of your best stuff. We know you too well. We've read your blog. We knew you would never publish your work. You would hoard it to yourself..."
"Jim, that's ridiculous. It was posted on my blog for all to see."
"Yes, but you would never have marketed it...made it a success. Words like this must be showcased...brought before the public's eye to be enjoyed and cherished. Huh, blogs in general have proven almost universal defamation of character by the character's own hand. They are little better than an insult to those rampaging droves, each with overactive fingers...both of them. Your writing deserves more, Magnus. But, you will appreciate that it is much more than that..."
"I cannot appreciate this in any respect."
"No, but only because we failed. You were not supposed to find out. We scheduled this time because you have class. Magnus, we were taking part in your fantasy. We were actors on your stage. Remember how you so fluently explained the scourge of money, fame, and power? With such eloquence you described how a famous person is imprisoned by their fame...bound to the shackles of the populus. You spoke so truthfully on the nature of wealth...that hammer of demolition when in the hands of one who had not earned it....its temptations. And, of course, power...how it all leads to the scourge of power, the most loathsome of human conditions, the most seductive. If only I had your willpower, Magnus, to resist these things entirely. I do not, but grant me one shred of mercy for doing what my conscience requires...for believing in your words enough to distribute them. Magnus, the world must know that he exists, a man of such will. The world must know there is one man without a gun to his back, walking whatever line he is told."
I had never seen this side of Jim. He was suddenly a differnt person altogether, a person I liked quite a bit more. But, I suspected he was pandering to my sensibilities. He had reason to contrive the most audacious lie at this point, and something told me he was capable of doing it. I asked him how it got started.
"I admit, it didn't start quite so innocently, and I never expected it to go this far. I posted some of your work on my blog as my own. I was trying to get someone's attention and didn't think it could hurt. Then, to my surprise, my little Internet crush happened to be an executive at a major publishing house and offered to purchase it from me. He was so impressed with your writing that he proposed a significant advance for more material."
He saw me look at the cover. It was apparently written by "H. G. Albert."
"It's just a pseudonym...my uncle Al suggested it. I am signing as the author for other reasons. Magnus, I just cannot admit to him that I lied...the publisher. I've grown to care for James quite a lot, and he would certainly think much less of me if he knew I had done this. He would not understand unless I was given your consent, and I dare not ask for such a thing."
"I am afraid I cannot give you that. Not now. Yet, I do not want to reveal my identity, Jim, because I did not write them for everyone. These poems were personal. These words are my heart bleeding for Vanessa, to Vanessa. I fear they will not be interpreted in the way I intended. This is why no one must know they were mine. But, if you claim them, I cannot stop you. When you feel ashamed and unworthy of your lover, I am not to blame. I hope there was some money in this for you..."
"Well, Magnus, there was actually some money involved. You have earned it fairly. I was going to give this to you earlier, in the car, but I forgot. Here ya go..."
Jim pulled five $100 bills from his wallet and handed them to me.
"I gave each of the girls the same amount."
"The girls?"
"You didn't write those poems on your own, Magnus. They sort of felt like they were the inspiration, you know?"
I thought about it. Indeed, I wrote many poems among the chaos of temptation that surrounded me. My words were often the pain that boiled over after forcing myself from Linda, or even simply experiencing the shocking every-day demeanor of Stacy. These curiosities drove me mad with speculation and wonder. They forced expression, but only through the most veiled means possible...as if plain disclosure of my sentiments was sacrilege. But, in all of them was a constant theme, and that was Vanessa. But not even Vanessa has earned the rights to my writing...
"I'm sorry, Jim, but no one can honestly claim the text but me. Since I deny authorship, I cannot claim the cash you've acquired from it, and have no control what you do with it, but the writing is mine for you to steal. I can tell you that Vanessa was my primary inspiration..."
"I know that Vanessa is dear to you, Magnus, but she was not the only one writing in that blog."
"Excuse me?"
"Magnus, the plan was to allow you to write free from the confines of recognition. We needed to house you in an isolated bubble free from the scourges of interest. You wrote on several occasions that interest antagonizes art. Well, we were protecting your art from the corrupting afflictions of wealth, money and power. In this way we could extract the purity from your being, knowing it held some seblance of truth. It was the only way...the exact way you prescribed, remember? You asked us to do this one time in your blog, although you never wanted to catch us."
"Jim, I think you are taking it a bit far. These are only words, not commands."
"But they hold such truth that they became just that. We wanted more, but knew we could only do it surreptitiously, as you instructed. We had such a great thing going. It is such a disappointment that you discovered our little conspiricy, or we may have released more books. Your hands seem to flow endlessly with the proper nudging. Your very best writing was always accompanied by some outrageous encounter, or perhaps a message from Vanessa. Only some of those messages were actually written by Vanessa. The girls took turns...sometimes Maria, sometimes Stacy...Magnus, sometimes me."
The words penetrated like a machete across the neck.
"You?!"
"I sorta got into it. I'm sorry. I figured that might bother you, so I wasn't going to say anything."
I stood shocked in disbelief. It was the most heartbreaking sense of betrayal. I wanted to shrink to the size of an atom. He continued...
"When we began to approach one of the publisher's deadlines it was time to turn up the heat. You were awfully consistent with providing excellent material when given appropriate inspirations."
"But what about Linda, the pink sweaters, the Nirvana clue? I thought I verified everything. It was so true without a shadow of a doubt..."
"I'm afraid we were more sophisticated than you might care to know."
"I want it, Jim. I want it all."
"All the girls had one special clue for you to discover. It was either letters on their scarf or a particular brand of boots. They were flaunting these clues at you for weeks. They were vague enough so that cracking the code wouldn't be easy, but if you did, you would find their blog. That was when we knew we had you. You discovered Vanessa's blog first, so we knew you were paying close attention to her for some reason. I still can't believe you didn't pick up on the other clues..."
"You can't be serious."
"I'm afraid so, my friend. I confess that I also arranged the wardrobe. You know, the pink sweaters, and so forth. We truly didn't mean for it to go so far. We found ourselves dependent upon you to keep pumping out poetry. Linda gets a cut for harvesting some of your mind. She refused to speak of the things you told her in confidence, but we extracted enough out of her to discover what would push your buttons. We did not ask her to seduce you, but were not suprised she did when you called her to make an appontment. That one got the stanzas flowing."
"So, this was all a game...to place me in awkward situations so that I would blab something for you to publish?"
"Well, that's not all. These girls don't follow directions very well, and certainly wouldn't have listened to me. They are genuinely smitten with you it seems. They didn't see any sense in sabotaging one another, so they sort of combined forces and took me along as their fashion expert and liaison. You never actually plainly revealed that Vanessa was your weakness. These girls all suspected it was themselves. They certainly wouldn't have rolled out of bed for morning runs otherwise. I really had little to do with all this other than to work with the publisher, write a few lines on Vanessa's blog, and tell the girls what to wear. Fashion is sort of my main thing, and I was sort of thrilled with the opportunity.
Yes, everything the girls did was basically an effort to inspire you, Magnus. They knew you were trapped in your chaste prison. Each wanted desperately to win your love, and whether they loved you already or not, they ended up loving you. They all wanted to be the one to force you to break your self-imposed chains. You can't blame them for that, can you? It just so happens that the more bold they got, the better your writing became. The publisher kept asking me for more material. The girls were driven to extract the words from your heart with their love, their bodies, and the vast excesses of their imagination. They were only doing what they desired to be doing...their truest inclinations. Sure I gave them a few bucks out of it, but that was just a bonus. Their real fruits of their labor were harrowing poetry of obsession, suffering, struggle, and passion. They really only cared for your poetry...maybe some love and affection if you were so moved. They wanted to be your muse, Magnus. And, you let them."
"What about the professors? The grades?"
"Look, I don't know everything they did and I don't want to know. Take it easy and enjoy the money. I have a feeling there will be a lot more where that came from. You have a golden pen, Magnus, and I'm just here to make sure it doesn't all go to waste."
I was falling deep into sadness. Vanessa...those weren't her words I had been reading? Who had I fallen for, really? Who had captured my life so well and spun it into a carnival of insanity? Well, I knew it was Vanessa, but I also knew it hadn't been only Vanessa. I looked at the $500. It was worthless. It was less than worthless. Accepting money for my most intimate thoughts was sickening. "So it doesn't go to waste." So what doesn't go to waste? He saw me looking at the bills.
"I promise there is much more where that came from, Magnus. This book is selling like hotcakes."
I thought about his clothing, which was now more cosmopolitan than ever. I thought about the new sports car. It was all coming together. I started to feel ill. I handed the bills back to Jim.
"Magnus, keep it, please."
I looked at it for a moment and changed my mind. I put it in my pocket. Hey, it is 500 bucks if he's handing it out. And, it's certainly better in my hands than his.
"Jim, those words were not for sale. This is robbery, and I know it is my fault for not locking the gate. Sell the book if you want, but know that I have nothing to do with this peep show of yours. The author of this book doesn't exist."
I walked back to my room, enraged, thinking of Vanessa, the others.
Well, here I was. I had become a whore. I could not write like that for everyone. I could not spill my deepest thoughts with a person so removed from all this, could I? It would be completely out of context. False even. Could a stranger understand my sadness? What about Vanessa? I wondered if the key to her heart was the money flowing into her hands from the publisher. The thought filled me with sadness. I looked at the back of the book.
Archon PublishingI had been plundered...of my time, my effort, my body, my honor, and my heart. I could feel the wrenching of despair rumble deep inside. I could not let it win.
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