Chapter One

When I first agreed to do this interview, I thought it was for a podcast, so I figured I could literally phone it in. Apparently, you have to actually show up for a web series. I sit on set, such as it is, waiting for the host to arrive, which frankly feels a bit backwards and a little discourteous, but this is New Media—all the rules have changed, or so I’m told. Is New Media still a term that’s used today? Maybe I should read a book about it.

The fledgling talk show host walks on set and sits in the chair opposite mine. He smiles to someone behind the lights. I thought I saw a person moving around back there in the shadows. Certainly, there’s no studio audience, since this isn’t a studio…more of a storage room that as far as I can tell only stores video equipment, a couple of club chairs upholstered in matching vinyl, and wanton aspirations. The host twirls his finger in the air like an umpire signaling a homerun. I assume the camera is now rolling. Is it still called rolling when it’s a digital camera?

The host crosses his legs. “Welcome to our show. Thanks for being with us.”

Us? Other than the young woman who let me in, told me where to sit, and then promptly vanished, I haven’t seen any evidence of an us. “It’s nice to be here with all of you.”

“You have a reputation as something of a cantankerous raconteur…in the best possible sense. What’s your take on growing older?”

“You mean like a bit? Is your question meant to be a prompt for a routine on aging—that’s not really what I do. I’m a humorist…not a comedian—artist, not performing artist.”

“Yes, of course…I just thought you might like to share some insights on—”

“You’ll edit this part out, right?” I interrupt. “Or maybe we could start again.”

“No, I don’t think that’ll be necessary…let’s just press on.” The host uncrosses his legs. His polyester suit shines in the spotlight. “You’ve been writing for over—”

“I never ask anymore what someone’s problem is.”

“Pardon.”

“That’s when I first knew I was old. When I was your age, I might ask somebody acting a fool, ‘Hey, what’s your problem, fella?’ But now it’s enough for me to know that they clearly have a problem and thus ought to be avoided; it’s not my job to identify their problem. These days when I smell shit I don’t bother looking around for the source of the odor. I just get up and leave.”

The host shuffles the notecards he’s holding. “We’re known for our bluntness…it’s sort of this show’s hallmark, you might say, so I hope you don’t find this next question impertinent.”

He looks at me expectantly. “I hope not either?”

“The first two books in your Blind Eye series were quite successful. Depth of Field and Object Permanence are both beloved by readers the world over; however, your third offering failed to resonate with audiences in the same manner, and now you have a fourth installment in your series that you’ve been making the rounds to promote.”

He looks at me the same way again. “Sorry, did I miss your question? At my age, I sometimes zone out.”

“I suppose what I’m attempting to ask is if the last book wasn’t a success, why bother with another?”

“Ah…well, the truth is that you write the story you want to tell and then you try pushing it up the hill, because what the hell else are you going to do with it? I saw Sisyphus just the other day, and he says to me, ‘I thought I had it tough.’”

“So you’d say being a writer is tougher than, I don’t know, being a garbage collector?”

“No, I’m not saying that…times are tough all over.”

“Why do you think your last book wasn’t a success?”

“It wasn’t as successful as the first two, but I don’t think it was a failure either. I tried to give readers something different… something unexpected.”

“Do you think that’s what they wanted?”

I rub the back of my neck. “Expectations are a funny thing—sometimes what you think you want may not be what you really want.”

“That sounds profound-ish.”

“Anyway, the title probably didn’t help sales either.”

“The Apparent Trap.”

“Yeah,” I nod. “It seems there’s a classic kids movie called something similar.”

“And you didn’t know that?”

“I…it was mentioned to me early on, but I was dismissive. In retrospect, that might’ve been an error in judgment on my part.”

“There have been those who’ve speculated that you were aware the third installment was inferior to the first two, and you intentionally entitled it something fatuous, so that if you ever decided to write another in the series, you could blame the poor response to the previous book on the jokey title.”

“I think you—or at least those who’ve been speculating—are giving me too much credit. I’m really not as prescient as all that.”

“So what can readers expect from this fourth book—more of the same or something unexpected again? I dare say the title, Empty Spaces, sounds rather vacuous.”

“Intentionally so,” I reply. “I hope it evokes for the reader the vast distances between our atoms, which are connected by strands of energy like a net, but what are we meant to hold in that net exactly?”

“Perhaps nothing.”

“Some of us, maybe…the vapid, I suppose.”

The host rests his note cards on the arm of his chair. “You write a lot of dialogue.”

“That’s correct.”

“Which some of your readers find off-putting.”

“I think they more likely find it down-putting, at which point the people to whom you refer can no longer accurately be classified as my readers.”

“It’s been suggested that you ought to simply write screenplays instead of novels, since it seems nowadays the mark of a successful book is whether or not it’s made into a movie.”

“More’s the pity.”

“Yes, but none of your novels have ever found their way to the silver screen.”

“More’s the penurious.”

“Have you considered turning one of your dialogue-heavy stories into a stage play? I ask, because there’s an odor motif that runs through your Blind Eye books, which the reader never fully gets to appreciate, just as a moviegoer would likewise miss out on smelling such scents; however, at a theater you could have a prop master in the wings, I don’t know, spraying perfumes or burning various spices to release smells into the air that correspond with the fragrances from your stories.”

“I’m incensed at your suggestion. I jest…no, that selfsame proposal has been tendered before, but honestly plays always seem a bit stagey to me. On the rare occasion when I attend the theater, I inevitably feel more like I’m there to satisfy the needs of the actors than they’re there to satisfy mine. Meanwhile, all the people around me in the audience appear to be seeing something that I’m not, or at least putting on their own performance and pretending to, leaving me feeling like the only one in the congregation who’s not sensing the Holy Spirit. People talk about how transformative theater can be, and it makes me wonder what those theatergoers were like before their transformation into snobs who gush pretentious nonsense. Simply put, theater ruins people, and if it’s what our culture is going to hang its hat on, then I submit that we just don’t deserve to wear a hat.”

“Then you’re opposed to the idea?”

“Resolutely so…although, it’s never a good idea to say never.”

The host lets out a long sigh as he consults his note cards once more. “Don’t worry, we’ll edit this part out.” After a few moments he returns his note cards to the arm of his chair just as they had been before. “I read once that you don’t read very much.”

“I believe what I said in the print interview to which you’re likely referring is that one reads fiction for truth and nonfiction for reality. Finding no truth in contemporary fiction, I prefer to read for reality, though I often find the subject distasteful.”

“So then you just don’t read novels—why?”

“The themes of novelists writing today aren’t worth the time it takes to suss them out. Inevitably, they’re either too abstruse, which is probably why they weren’t the subjects of essays or some other more straightforward writing in the first place, or they won’t stand up on their own so they need to be couched in a multifaceted story that can be endlessly interpreted and thus never clearly understood—just like the Bible—in which case all your left with is the source material for some future cult.”

He flips a card over. “You once said, and I quote: ‘The Bible was intentionally designed to be both inscrutable and incoherent, so it could either be used as the basis for an impenetrable contract or a cult’s constitution.’”

“Yes, I suppose I did say that—one says a lot of things when one has a career as long and checkered as mine. What your interview style lacks in originality it makes up for in research, I’ll give you that.”

“Do you often feel as if you have nothing new to say?”

“I’d be more inclined to say something new if I felt people had actually listened to the old things I’d said before.”

“Maybe it’s not so much that audiences aren’t listening but more that they’re no longer listening to you.”

“Says the talk show host who literally doesn’t have an audience.”

“I’d wager that my show has been listened to by more people than your last audiobook.”

“That’s not really a fair comparison…my understanding is that most people play programs like this for the background noise while they’re busy doing other things. As far as I can surmise, your show caters to listeners who’re too preoccupied to actually listen.”

The host rolls his eyes. “Let’s shift gears, shall we? You started out as a mystery writer. If you were going to murder someone in real life, how would you do it?”

“If I had a mind to torture them to death, I’d have them come here.”

“I wanted to like you. How come I don’t?”

“I’m as divisive as black licorice.”

“I had hopes that you’d become a friend of the show—a regular guest.”

“Anything is possible, though I know people usually mean that in a good way.”

The host turns a final card. “I have one last question for you.”

“What’re you trying to do, write a thesis or something? I do happen to think you’re correct about one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Nothing…I just wanted your attention so that I could ask you a question—do you smell something?” I rise to leave. “Perhaps you can come by the theater when we open so the prop master can hook you up to the ventilation system for that pivotal outhouse scene.”

The host tosses his cards into the air. “All’s well that ends well.”

“Well, we all die in the end, so I’m not too sure about that.”