Len Levinson - Without Mercy

But my mommy died when I was four, and dear old Dad never took me anywhere. So Little Lenny Levinson penned a science fiction epic about an imaginary trip to the planet Pluto, probably influenced by Buck Rogers, perhaps expressing subliminal desires to escape my somewhat Dickensian childhood.

As I wrote, the classroom seemed to vanish. I sat at the control panel of a sleek, silver space ship hurtling past suns, moons, asteroids and blazing constellations. While writing, I experienced something I can only describe today as an out-of-body, ecstatic hallucination, evidently the pure joy of self-expression.

I returned to earth, handed in the essay, and expected the usual decent grade. A few days later Miss Ribeiro praised me in front of the class and read the essay aloud, first time I’d been singled out for excellence. Maybe I’ll be a writer when I grow up, I thought.

As time passed, it seemed an impractical choice. Everyone said I’d starve to death. I decided to prepare for a realistic career, but couldn’t determine exactly what it was.

In 1954, age 19, I joined the Army for the GI Bill, assuming a Bachelor’s degree somehow would elevate me to the Middle Class. After mustering out in 1957, I enrolled at Michigan State University, East Lansing, majored in Social Science, graduated in 1961, and travelled to New York City to seek my fortune.

Drifting with the tides, in 1970 I was employed as a press agent at Solters and Sabinson, a show biz publicity agency near Times Square. Our clients included Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Bob Hope, the Beatles, Flip Wilson, Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus, Holiday on Ice, Playboy, Caesar’s Palace, numerous Broadway shows, and countless movies, among others. It was at Solters and Sabinson that certain life-transforming events occurred, ultimately convincing me to become a full-time novelist.

The wheels of the cataclysm were set in motion innocuously enough by press agent Jerry Augburn, whose desk jammed beside mine in a large, open office packed with approximately 20 hustling press agents and secretaries.

Unusual in that raucous atmosphere, Jerry was a well-mannered WASP from Muncie, Indiana with B.A. in English from Ball State U and Ph.D. from Columbia. Through some trick of fate, instead of becoming a professor, he landed in entertainment publicity. Together we represented the New York Playboy Club, and individually worked for other clients.

One day Jerry complained he wasn’t feeling well. Soon afterwards he was diagnosed with leukaemia, stopped coming to the office, and left word he didn’t want calls. A few months later he died around age 35. Intelligent, capable, good guy, husband and father—suddenly gone. Wow.

I never thought much about death until Jerry’s passing. According to Hinduism which I studied at the time, death is a normal stage through which all sentient beings pass on journeys to next incarnations. Perhaps I’d return as a chimpanzee, fish or possibly a cockroach someone would stomp.

Weeks passed; the office seemed to forget Jerry, like he never existed. Jerry’s desk was taken over by Jay Russell, press agent in his 50s, who spent his days writing column items.

One night approximately three months after Jerry’s demise, Jay and I worked late. I went home around 9pm, leaving him behind. Next morning, I learned that he died of a heart attack that night sitting on his home toilet, writing column items. I’m not making this up. That’s the story I was told. Perhaps he wrote one so funny, his heart burst with glee.

After Jay’s funeral, I reflected upon Death striking twice at the chair beside mine. Was I next on the hit parade? Meanwhile, the office returned to its usual pressure cooker atmosphere. After a few weeks Jay was forgotten like Jerry.

I was 35, looking down the road at 40. If I died at my desk or on the toilet, unquestionably I too would soon be forgotten by co-workers and clients. What was the point of busting my chops if it meant nothing in the end?

I’m not exaggerating about busting my chops. Competition for clients was ferocious. A press agent was only as good as his last media break. If it didn’t break—it never happened. If you didn’t produce steady breaks—you were on the street.

In pursuit of my paycheck, I spent substantial time on the phone asking editors and reporters to run my press releases, interview clients, and cover events. All too often they rejected my pleading, because they only had so much space, and their phones never stopped ringing from press agents’ calls, their mailboxes stuffed daily with press releases.

Gradually it dawned upon me that I was in the wrong job for my personality type. But what on earth was the right job for my personality type?

Since the fifth grade my grandest ambition remained: novelist. In light of Jerry’s and Jay’s passing, I slowly came to the life-altering realization that I didn’t want to kick the bucket without at least attempting to fulfil my highest career aspiration.

I’d already tried writing at home evenings, after working in the office, but my mind was too tired. If I wanted to be a novelist, I needed to approach it like a job, first thing in the morning, four hours on the typewriter, no distractions. That meant I’d need to quit my regular job. My savings would support me for around a year. Surely I’d appear on the bestseller list by them.

But I wasn’t totally delusional. I knew that substantial risk including possible homelessness accompanied the novelist’s life. I had no family to provide financial assistance if I hit the skids.

On the other hand, if I played it safe and remained in PR, suppressing unhappiness, I’d probably evolve into a well-pensioned, gray bearded, ex-PR semi-alcoholic residing comfortably in a West Side co-op, or gated community in Boca Raton, happily married to a former Playboy Bunny.

BUT the day inevitably would arrive when I’d be flat on my back in a hospital bed, tubes up my nose and jabbing into my arms, on the cusp of Death Itself. And knowing how my mind tends to function, I’d reproach myself viciously for not at least attempting to live my dream, since I was going to die regardless. Why not go for the gold ring of the novelist’s life, instead of getting put down daily by journalists?

After much meditation on death, heaven, hell, destiny, mendacity and art, I resigned my press agent career and threw my heart and brain cells completely into writing novels. It was the bravest, most consequential and possibly most foolish decision of my life.

You can call me shallow, immature, irresponsible and/or insane. But I never betrayed my ideal. Against the odds, I went on to write those 83 paperback novels, mostly in the high adventure category, about cops, cowboys, soldiers, spies, cab drivers, race car drivers, ordinary individuals seeking justice in an unjust world, and other lunatics, but never rose above bottom rungs of the literary ladder, and probably was considered a hack. Sometimes even I suspected myself of hackery.

One of my novels, The Bar Studs by Leonard Jordan (Fawcett) sold 95,000 copies, and I was on my way to the big time, or so I’d thought at the time. Publishers Weekly judged it: “Tough as they come, but surprisingly well done.” My next sold around 20,000.

My favorite, The Last Buffoon by Leonard Jordan (Belmont-Tower), was possibly most vulgar and disgusting novel in the history of the world. A photo of me adorned the cover, standing in a trash can in Greenwich Village, true metaphor for my so-called literary career. Amazingly, The Last Buffoon got optioned for the movies, but like most such deals, no movie was made.

Walter Zacharius, President of Kensington Publishing Corporation, took me to dinner at the Palm restaurant near the UN and said he expected my The Sergeant series by Gordon Davis, nine novels (Zebra and Bantam), to make a million dollars. But Lady Luck had other plans.