Ghost Writer

I've always been a light sleeper, so even though it was three in the morning, I picked up the phone on the second ring. I was staying at my mom's house next to the diner I was running after my dad's death until I could unload it on some naive dreamer or, more likely, a new immigrant--like my parents were when they bought Chubby's back in 1968. Mom was in the next room and I didn't want her to wake up. She's always been a very light sleeper, like me. My dad could sleep through anything. "Yeah", I croaked. "Who is,,," Mom still had a rotary phone with no caller ID."What?! You're sleeping already? Young guy like you?" Outside,a couple of dogs howled,probably digging through the garbage bins outside Chubby's. I hadn't talked to Hershel Einstein in decades, but I recognized him immediately. His voice sounded tired and distant, dry and weightless as autumn leaves in a windy storm. " Sorry Hersh, but it's three in the morning." "It's only midnight here in LA, kiddo..Anyway, I thought about you today and about how bad things went last time you came down here...." He seemed short of breath and barely alive. "Don't worry about it Hersh. That was ages ago.," "Sorry Jim. Hersh had to go lie down. He's exhausted." "Hi Cheryl," I said carefully. I had never trusted her. She reminded me of the scary, controlling maids in old black and white movies. " It would mean a lot to Hersh if you came for a visit." Traffic roared down the highway next to Chubby's, shaking my parents' tiny old house. "Let me think about it,okay?" "Alright Cheryl." I called Jenny the next day. She couldn't believe Hersh had called me. She was the one who got me into science fiction in the first place, when I was eleven and she was sixteen and babysitting me while my parents were at Chubby's until two in the morning seven days a week. She introduced me to Simon and Garfunkel, Aretha Franklin, and "The Strange Region" where I first saw "Dream Lover", Hersh's mind-blowing story about an astronaut falling in love with a seductive alien who turns out to be a omnivorous beast. I was hooked! I read all of Einstein's books and magazine stories even though they were a little much for a twelve-thirteen year old. I'd look at pictures of him in magazines the way my friends would look at centerfolds, copying his hairstyle and the sharp Members Only windbreakers he wore. I even started to smoke a pipe the way he did, getting me into a lot of trouble when my parents started suspecting that I was smoking pot or hashish. It took a while to calm them down and convince them that I was just enjoying the sophisticated flavor and aroma of My Blend Number 76...the same blend Einstein smoked. I started writing science fiction and fantasy stories and won the Winnipeg Free Press Youth short story competition when I was 17. First prize was a trip for two to IdaCon in Coeur d'Alene,Idaho. Jenny and I drove there in her dad's 1969 Pontiac Laurentian. We convinced my parents that we were just spending time at her parents' cottage at the lake. It was all kind of disappointing,though. I had built up Einstein to be a literary combination of James Bond and Steve Reeves, but he turned out to be a pipe smoking Fonzie. I guess that happens with most people we put on a pedestal. He also couldn't leave Jenny alone or keep his hands off her, which is why we left after a couple days, even though IdaCon lasted a week. I did get some good writing advice from him though and met some of his writing friends and students, so I started going down regularly and staying at Hersh's secluded mansion--the Mayan Temple of Mars--which was like a science fiction version of Xanadu. It was a good education for a writer and it helped me improve my writing to the point that I published a few stories and won a few more writing contests, but not to the level that I could make a career of it. I also started noticing that some of Hersh's stories reminded me of some of his friends' writing I had seen during our informal critique sessions. Jenny couldn't believe I was actually thinking of going down to LA. "Don't you remember what a creep he was?" she said. "People change. I think he really feels bad about that. Maybe he wants to make amends before it's too late." I got to Einstein's house just before nightfall. It was not as impressive as I remembered. Very faded and worn and some of the marble steps had jagged cuts as if some huge animal with sharp claws had attacked the property. "Welcome Jim. Thank you so much for coming. Hersh will be so pleased. Jon Beauville and Werner Grass are already here.," "Aren't they both..." I started. I was sure that Beauville and Grass had both been dead for at least ten years--I had read their obituaries in Starlog. Cheryl pretended not to hear me and turned to lead me to Einstein's office. Dust swirled in the fading sunlight streaming through the stained glass window over the front door. The smell of My Blend Number 76 became stronger as we approached the office. I had read that Hersh had given up smoking a pipe after his first heart attack. Hersh had decorated his office so that it was a perfect recreation of the tobacco department of Higbee's in downtown Cleveland in the 1950s. Einstein's father had managed the tobacco department until his fatal heart attack in 1950, when Hersh was fourteen. Izzy Einstein's death has haunted Hersh since then. "Welcome Jim. Glad you came." Hersh croaked . He had shrunk and could hardly stand. He sat back down behind the ancient desk and groaned in pain and exhaustion. Cheryl came up silently behind me and put her cold hand on my shoulder. A shudder of fear and confusion ran through my suddenly stiff body. I felt nauseated and had to struggle to move my legs. It was like waking up with sleep paralysis. I started to lose consciousness and felt the sensation of falling down a dark opening in the floor. I woke up, I don't know how much later, at a worn wooden desk, my feet both chained to a heavy banker's chair. I was typing on an old manual Olivetti typewriter. The click-clack of old manual typewriters echoed all around me in the huge concrete chamber. I made out Werner Grass and Jon Beauville at the adjacent tables, typing away mindlessly like animatronic figures in an amusement park. The other writers were hidden in the shadows of the dungeon. Einstein and Cheryl looked down at us from the office. "Keep writing, guys" she smirked, " your masterpieces will live forever." Einstein stood next to her, mute and inanimate, holding her hand.