Karl Wagner - Why Not You and I?

On its second time out, the newly revised Iron Night sold to Fairlane, who expressed interest in an immediate sequel. The $2 500 advance was rather more than the sum total of Harrington’s career earnings as an author up until then, and he was sufficiently assured of financial success to quit his job at the U-Sav-Here and send tidings to Nordgren that he was now a full-time professional writer. His letter crossed in the mail with Nordgren’s; Trevor had just sold Out of the Past to McGinnis & Parry.

McGinnis & Parry elected to change the title to The Sending and went on to market it as “an occult thriller that out-chills The Exorcist! ” They also proclaimed it to be Nordgren’s first novel, but it was after all his first hardcover. Harrington received an advance copy (sent by Nordgren) and took personally Trevor’s dedication to “all my fellow laborers in the vineyard.” He really did intend to read it sometime soon.

They were very much a pair of young lions at the Second World Fantasy Convention in New York in 1976. Harrington decided to attend it after Nordgren’s invitation to put him up for a few days afterward at his place (an appalling dump in Greenwich Village which Trevor swore was haunted by the ghost of Lenny Bruce) and show him around. Nordgren himself was a native of Wisconsin who had been living in The City (he managed to pronounce the capitals) since student days at Columbia; he professed no desire to return to the Midwest.

They were together on a panel— Harrington’s first — designated “Fantasy’s New Faces”—although privately comparing notes with the other panelists revealed that their mean date of first publication was about eight years past. The panel was rather a dismal affair. The moderator had obviously never heard of Damon Harrington, introduced him as “our new Robert E. Howard,” and referred to him as David Harrington throughout the panel. Most of the discussion was taken over by something called Martin E. Binkley, who had managed to publish three stories in minor fanzines and to insinuate himself onto the panel. Nordgren was quite drunk at the outset and continued to coax fresh Jack Daniel’s and ice from a pretty blonde in the audience. By the end of the hour he was offering outrageous rebuttals to Binkley’s self-serving pontification; the fans were loudly applauding, the moderator lost all control, and the panel nearly finished with a brawl.

That evening found Nordgren’s state of mind somewhat mellower, if no closer to sobriety. He and Harrington slouched together behind a folding table at the meet-the-pros autographing party, while Nordgren’s blonde cupbearer proudly continued her service.

“Together again!” Harrington toasted, raising the drink Nordgren had paid for.

“The show must go on,” Nordgren rejoined. He looked about the same as he had two years ago, although the straining pearl buttons on his denim shirt bespoke a burgeoning beer-belly. Harrington had in the interim shaved his beard, trimmed his hair to the parted-in-the-middle-blown-dry look, and just now he was wearing a new denim leisure suit.

Fairlane had contributed two dozen copies of Iron Night , free to the first lucky autograph seekers, so for about fifteen minutes Harrington was kept busy. He grew tired of explaining to unconcerned fans that the novel was set in a post-nuclear holocaust future, and that it was not at all “In the Conan tradition!” as the cover proclaimed. After that, he managed to inscribe two copies of New Dimensions and three of Orbit over the next half hour.

Nordgren did quite a brisk trade in comparison, autographing a dozen copies of The Sending (on sale in the hucksters’ room), as many copies of Acid Test (which had begun to gather a cult reputation), and a surprising number of short stories and essays from various magazines and anthologies. The room was crowded, hot, and after an hour Nordgren was patently bored and restive. In the jostled intervals between callers at their table, he stared moodily at the long lines queued up before the tables of the mighty.

“Do you ever wonder why we do this?” he asked Harrington.

“For fame, acclaim — not to mention a free drink?”

“Piss on it. Why do we put ourselves on display just so an effusive mob of lunatic fringe fans can gape at us and tell us how great we are and beg an autograph and ask about our theories of politics and religion?”

“You swiped that last from the Kinks,” Damon accused.

“Rock stars. Movie stars. Sci-fi stars. What’s the difference? We’re all hustling for as much acclaim and attention as we can wring out of the masses. Admit it! If we were pure artists, you and I and the rest of the grasping lot would be home sweating over a typewriter tonight. Why aren’t we?”

“Is that intended to be rhetorical?”

“All right, I’ll tell you why, said he, finishing his drink.” Nordgren finished his drink, dug another ten-dollar bill out of his jeans, and poked it toward his cupbearer.

“It’s because we’re all vampires.”

“Sweetheart, better make that mo Bloody Marys!” Harrington called after her.

“I’m serious, Damon,” Nordgren persisted, pausing to scrawl something across a copy of The Sending. “We’re the psychic vampires beloved of fiction. We need all these fans, all this gaudy adulation. We derive energy from it all.”

He handed the book back to its owner. “Have you read this?”

The fan was embarrassed. “No, sir — I just today bought it.” He continued bravely: “But a friend of mine sat up all night reading it, and she said it gave her nightmares for a week!”

“So you see, Damon,” Nordgren nodded. He pointed a finger at the fan. “I now possess a bit of your frightened friend’s soul. And when you read The Sending, I shall possess a fragment of your soul as well.”

The blonde returned bearing drinks, and the stricken fan made his escape.

“So you see, Damon,” Nordgren asserted. “They read our books, and all their attention is directed toward the creations of our hungry imaginations. We absorb a little psychic energy each time they read us; we grow stronger and stronger with each new book, each new printing, and each new fiction. And see — like proper vampire fodder, our victims adore us and beg for more.”

Trevor squinted at the blonde’s name badge. “Julie, my love, how long have I known you?”

“Since we met in the elevator this morning,” she remembered. “Julie, my love. Would you like to drop up to my room with me now and peruse my erotic etchings?”

“Okay. You going to sign your book for me?”

“As you see, Damon.” Nordgren pushed back his chair. “The vampire’s victims are most willing. I hereby appoint you my proxy and empower you to sign anything that crosses this table in my name. Good night.”

Harrington found himself staring at two Bloody Marys.

The visit with Nordgren in New York was a lot of fun, and Damon promised to return Trevor’s hospitality when the World Fantasy Convention came to Los Angeles the following year. Aside from the convention, Harrington’s visit was chiefly remarkable for two other things — Nordgren’s almost embroiling them in a street fight with a youth gang in front of the Hilton, and their mutual acquisition of an agent.

“Damon, my man,” Nordgren introduced them. “Someone I’d like you to meet. A boxer needs a manager, and a writer needs an agent. There is Helen Hohenstein, and she’s the goddamn smartest, meanest, and best-looking agent in New York. Helen, love, this is our young Robert E. Howard.”

“I saw your panel,” she said.

“Sorry about that,” Harrington said.

Helen Hohenstein was a petite woman of about forty whose doll-like face was offset by shrewd eyes — Harrington balked at deeming them predatory. She had passed through the revolving door in various editorial positions at various publishers, and she was now starting her own literary agency, specializing in science fiction and fantasy. She looked as if she could handle herself well under about any situation, and probably already had. Harrington felt almost intimidated by her, besides not especially willing to sacrifice 10 per cent of his meager earnings, but Nordgren was insistent.