John Barth - The Development

I could have raised my hand, but of course did not. Among the things of which my lunchmates were unaware was that our Triumphantly Synthesizing student's senior-year output included two items that would not appear in her portfolio: a story of mine that she had submitted under her name to three good quarterlies simultaneously, without editing or revising it, as what she termed a "control" (all three had rejected it, as then had she), and one of her own under my name, programmatically imitative of my style, subject matter, and thematic preoccupations, but evidently superior to her model, as it was promptly accepted for publication by a lesser but still worthy periodical.

Consider it a thank-you for all you've done for me, the girl explained by e-mail when I (1) received the lit mag's baffling acceptance letter (she'd supplied my Heron Bay Estates address on the obligatory self-addressed stamped envelope), (2) made a puzzled inquiry of the editor, (3) quickly surmised what was afoot, (4) canceled the publication (at least under my name), (5) provided the actual author's name and address in case the magazine was still interested (it was, but would need to Inquire Further), and (6) demanded from that author an explanation of this latest jaw-dropper. XOXO Mwah! her message signed off, cklause2@strat-coll.edu.

Mwah my fat ass! I messaged back, demanding now both apology and cross-her-heart promise of no further such embarrassments — and at once regretted that angry imperative, to which she responded, Just name the time and place, Coach. ( And yours isn't all that fat, by the way: You shd see mine these days!;- )

Aiyiyiyiyi: How to get out of this me-made mess, and this mess of a nonstory about it by Who Knows Whom: a "story" that opened so George Newett — like, with a serene little disquisition on Eastern Shore river and place names; that proceeded smoothly through a half-dozen pages on Stratford College and it's problematical Bard Award, establishing en route it's newly retired narrator/ protagonist and his not-yet-retired wife/colleague — and that then derailed just when it ought really to have got going, with the introduction of Conflict in the form of Troublesomely Brilliant Student "Cassandra Klause"? Should FOF Newett now commit his maiden adultery, so to speak, by humping one of his not-quite-ex students — at her initiative, to be sure, but still… — thereby blighting both his long happy marriage and his academic retirement, disgusting his colleagues and grown-up children, but perhaps reactivating (for what they're worth) his so-long-quiescent creative energies? And if so, so what? Or ought we to have the guy come to his moral senses (if necessary, since we've seen thus far no incontestable sign of his being seriously tempted by "CK"'s flagrances) and not only decline her seductive overtures but terminate altogether their somewhat sicko connection, make a clean breast of it to his faithful, so-patient Amanda before that breast gets irrevocably soiled, and content himself with his writerly Failed-Old-Farthood and his inarguably good works as teacher and coach of future FOFs? But again: If so, so what?

Or could/should it turn out to be at least possibly the case that nothing thus far here narrated has been the (actual, nonfictive) case? And if so…?

"Well of course it hasn't been, dumdum!" he imagines his frisky new sex mate teasing as he mounts her latest cleverly lettered performance piece, Bartlett's Defamiliarized Quotations, [by] " Gosh & Golly, " the two of them on all fours on the faux-oriental living room rug in her new apartment, rented with a bit of her Shakespeare Prize money and her earnings as editorial assistant to Professor Franklin Lee. "Do I need to remind you, of all people, that this whole she-bang is a made-up story? There is no 'Cassie-Ass Klause' or Georgie-Boy Newett! No you, no me, no Frankie-Pank Lee! No StratColl dot e-d-u, nor any Bard Award! All just freaking fictions! So sock it to me, Coach! Unh! Unh! "

Yes, well: No thanks, chérie; not even in an Effing Fiction. And as for the question with which you're now about to pull the rug from under your narrator — How to wrap up a longish story that has no proper plot development anyhow? A story that for all one knows (or cares) may be being written by Not-Yet-Failed Fictionist Franklin Lee, say: beneath his corduroy camouflage a less straitjacketed writer than some mistake him to be, ha-ha, and longtime secret lover of a certain poet-colleague of his, ha-ha-ha, as well as of her pathetic husband's ex-protégée "CK," ha-ha-ha-ha!…?

No problem, mate (ha-ha-ha-ha-ha & UNH!) …:

THE END

Respectfully submitted to the Shakespeare Prize Committee [by]

" Hook R. Crook "

(Copywrong ☺ Twenty-Something [G. I. Newett])

1. Hors D'oeuvres and Appetizers

"Hey, Rob! Hey, Shirley! Come on in, guys!"

"And the Beckers are right behind us. Hi-ho, Debbie! Hi-ho, Peter!"

"Come in, come in. Nametags on the table there, everybody. Drinks in the kitchen, goodies in the dining room and out on the deck. Yo there, Jeff and Marsha!"

"You made your taco dip, Sandy! Hooray! And Shirley brought those jalapeño thingies that Pete can't keep hands off of. Come on in, Tom and Patsy!"

TIME: The late afternoon/early evening of a blossom-rich late-May North Temperate Zone Saturday, half-a-dozen-plus springtimes into the new millennium. Warm enough for open doors and windows and for use of decks and patios, but not yet sultry enough to require air conditioning, and still too early for serious mosquitoes.

"So, did you folks see the Sold sign on the Feltons' place?"

"No! Since when?"

"Since this morning, Tom Hardison tells us. We'll ask Jeff Pitt when he and Marsha get here; he'll know what's what."

"The poor Feltons! We still can't get over it!"

"Lots of questions still unanswered there, for sure. Where d'you want this smoked bluefish spread, Deb?"

"In my mouth, just as soon as possible! Here, I'll take it; you guys go get yourself a drink. Hey there, Ashtons!"

PLACE: 908 Cattail Court, Rockfish Reach, Heron Bay Estates, Stratford, Avon County, upper Eastern Shore of Maryland, 21600: an ample and solidly constructed two-story hip-roofed dormer-windowed Dutch-colonial-style dwelling of white brick with black shutters and doors, slate roof, flagstone front walk and porch and patio, on "Rockfish Reach," off Heron Creek, off the Matahannock River, off Chesapeake Bay, off the North Atlantic Ocean, etc.

"So, Doctor Pete, what's your take on the latest bad news from Baghdad?"

"You know what I think, Tom. What all of us ivory-tower-liberal academics think: that we had no business grabbing that tar baby in the first place, but our president lied us into there and now we're stuck with it. Here's to you, friend."

"Yeah, well. Cheers? Hey, Peg, we all love our great new mailboxes! You guys did a terrific job!"

"Didn't they, though? Those old wooden ones were just rotting away."

"And these new cast-metal jobs are even handsomer than the ones in Spartina Pointe. Good work, guys."

"You're quite welcome. Thanks for this, Deb and Pete and everybody. Mmm! "

"So where're the Pitts, I wonder?"

"Speak of the devil! Hi there, Marsha; hi-ho, Jeff! And you-all are…?"

OCCASION: The now-traditional season-opening progressive dinner in Heron Bay's Rockfish Reach subdivision, a pleasantly laid out and landscaped two-decade-old neighborhood of some four dozen houses in various architectural styles, typically three-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath affairs with attached two-car garage, screened or open porches, decks and/or patios, perhaps a basement, perhaps a boat dock, all on low-lying, marsh-fringed acre-and-a-half lots. Of the nearly fifty families who call the place home, most are empty-or all-but-empty-nesters, their children grown and flown. About half are more or less retired, although some still work out of home offices. Perhaps a third have second homes elsewhere, in the Baltimore/Washington or Wilmington/Philadelphia areas where they once worked, or in the Florida coastal developments whereto they migrate with other East Coast snowbirds for the winter. Half a dozen of the most community-spirited from the Reach's Shoreside Drive and it's adjacent Cattail and Loblolly Courts function as a neighborhood association, planning such community events and improvements as those above-mentioned dark green cast-metal mailboxes (paid for by a special assessment), the midsummer Rockfish Reach BYOB sunset cruise down the Matahannock from the Heron Bay Marina, and the fall picnic (in one of HBE's two pavilioned waterside parks) that unofficially closes the season unofficially opened by the progressive dinner, here in early progress.