Jonathan Lethem - The Fortress of Solitude

I paused, then, to set it up.

“Yeah?”

“They kept him another seven years .”

“You’re killing me, Dylan.”

“It goes on and on. In the sixties he re-forms the Prisonaires again, this time with a white guy in the group-it’s the era of integration now. But the other prisoners don’t like it, he gets attacked in the yard. Later he gets out again and marries a white woman, and the cops arrest him for walking down the street with her-”

“Stop, okay? Stop. Don’t tell me any more.”

Jared had been growing steadily more agitated for some time, and now he sprang from his seat, bugged his eyes, and paced to the desk.

“Is something the matter?”

“Everything’s great, Dylan. It’s just-who else knows about this?”

“You’re the first.” I assumed this was the answer Jared had to hear. Needless to say, the Prisonaires story had only been sitting around for thirty-odd years, waiting to be plucked up. It didn’t belong to me. For all I knew another writer was turning in a polished third draft of his version in the office next door.

I dared ask, “You like it?”

“Are you kidding? It’s pure dynamite. I’m just thinking, okay? I’ve got to think. This is Friday, right?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Okay, practically speaking, that means I’m not going to find anybody until Monday.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“Where are you going from here?”

I suspected ForbiddenCon wasn’t a reply Jared would easily make sense of. It wasn’t that easy for me to make sense of myself. “Back to my hotel.”

“Don’t shit me.”

“I’m not.”

“Because a part of me, wow, a part of me doesn’t want to let you out of my office until I know what we’re doing with this, until I get something from you that I can take into a meeting and a promise you’ll give me a couple of days from the weekend. Forty-eight hours at least. Do you want a tissue, mister?”

“Sure.” I’d tear-streaked my face, evoking Johnny Bragg’s dilemma. I wonder how many of Jared’s pitches wept in this office. Maybe all of us, by the end.

Jared plopped his tissue box on my love seat, then leaned over his desk, onto the intercom.

“Mike?”

“Yes?”

“Mike, I just heard something great . This is what I’m always telling you-you never know how it’s going to happen. Some boat-guy’s friend just walks into my office and it’s this writer Dylan and Dylan has something really great, really really great.”

“That’s incredible,” said Mike.

“No, it’s really incredible.”

“Wow.”

“Mike, I need Dylan’s agent right now .”

“Sure.”

Jared turned from the desk. “I know this is moving fast but I just want to say, Dylan, you and I are going to be putting our kids through college on this.”

“Okay.” I blew my nose.

“If I can’t make this movie I’m going to kill myself.”

“I guess that means you have to make the movie.”

“That’s exactly what it means. Holy shit.” He was amazed at himself, understandably. Large events were occurring, and he was at their center. “I need something on paper.”

“I don’t have much written down,” I bluffed.

“I need to be able to explain. I have to make other people get it. I need something on paper, like what you said. What you said was so amazing. It has to be like that.”

“It wouldn’t take long.”

“You’re saying there’s nothing ?”

“Not yet.”

“This is bad, Dylan. I really, really need this so I can make someone else see.”

The intercom clicked. “Jared?”

“What?”

“I don’t have an agent for Dylan.”

“I thought I told you always to get contact information. You remember me telling you that?”

“It’s my fault,” I stage-whispered, wanting to protect Mike.

Jared released the intercom. “I’m not into games,” he said.

“Neither am I. Just let me call my agent first, okay?” I had no agent, nor the remotest notion where I’d begin looking for one. “He doesn’t actually know a lot about this whole thing.”

“If you think I’m letting you walk out of my office with this movie in your head you’re crazy . I need something from you, Dylan. Don’t screw me, man. This is my movie. I feel this one.”

“It’s great,” I said, holding up my hands, hoping to slow the madness. “We’re both excited. Just tell me what should happen next.”

“Call your agent from here.”

“What?”

He held up both hands. “Sit at my desk. I promise I won’t listen. I’ll go out in the hall.” He paced madly. “Just sit and call him from here.”

“I-”

“I’m giving you my office, man. Go. Sit.”

There was no refusing. I took his chair. He shut himself out in Mike’s antechamber, first pointing at me from behind the half-closed door. “Tell him I’m holding you hostage until I have something I can take into a meeting.”

“Okay.”

When he’d sealed the door I dialed my home number. It rang through to the machine, of course. Abby was at school. I hung up without leaving a message, then retrieved my address book and rang Randolph Treadwell at the Weekly . I got him.

“Help,” I said.

“You had the meeting?”

“I’m in the meeting. He left the room so I could call my agent, only I don’t have an agent. I’m at his desk.”

“Interesting.” Randolph ’s voice was neutral.

“Is Jared always so, uh, volatile?”

“I don’t really know him that well. Why?”

“He’s seems to think we’re about to have a baby together. A solid-gold baby.”

“That’s the way these things go,” said Randolph, unimpressed. “It’s sort of like a faucet. If it’s on, it gushes. Now you have to keep it open.”

“Thanks for the advice.”

“You want to come by the office after this? How long are you in town?”

“I have to go see my dad, in Anaheim.”

“What’s he doing in Anaheim?”

Jared barreled through the door. “I gotta go.” I hung up the phone.

“What’s the ending?” said Jared.

“Sorry?”

“I was trying to do it for Mike, the whole thing, the black guys, the jail, Elvis. And I forgot if you told me the ending.”

“I… think we didn’t get to the ending,” I said carefully.

“And?”

“Well, Johnny Bragg was in and out of prison a couple more times, I think. He made music whenever he could. No big hits, though.”

“The Prisonaires?”

“They died, I think.”

“Could we have, like, a big comeback ?”

I shrugged a why not? I couldn’t bring myself to pronounce the words, though. Was there any aspect of Johnny Bragg’s story I hadn’t dishonored by my pitch? What further harm would a little comeback bring? Or a big one?

“What about Elvis? Elvis is really important to this whole thing. That was a really great part, when Elvis visits and you were crying, remember?”

Maybe Elvis could return and bust the warden in the jaw, then personally break Bragg out of prison. Or the two of them, Bragg and Presley, could be shackled together at the ankles and sent to break up rocks. The singing would be amazing, anyway.

“Well, the story doesn’t really have a big ending,” I said. “It just sort of goes on and on. I’m sure we can figure out a good place to end it, though. Maybe Johnny Bragg walking through the gates, a free man. The last time.”

“It has to be good.”

“It can be good.”

“Do they catch the guys who really did it?”

“Did what?”

“You know, killed all those women.”