Joe Alone

Joe twiddled his thumbs and tapped his heel on the carpet, waiting. He tried not to look at the large mirror stretching lengthways across the wall to his left. He’d made that mistake twice already as he sat in the cold metal fold-out chair. He needed a haircut. He’d known it for weeks, but his looks never took precedence over his classes, his job, or his writing. So, he placed reminders in the back of his mind, pushing them to the bottom of his to-do list. The problem with his list is that he never reached the bottom. Not that the list was long, it just took him longer than it should have. Walking to school took him twenty-five minutes instead of fifteen. Mopping bathroom floors took him two hours instead of three-quarters of one. Drudging through the task of homework took him several hours when counting the occasional social media and nap breaks. He wasn’t a busy body, he just liked to take his time.

Now, the small Asian woman looked at him from across the table, she wouldn’t look him in the eye. Instead, her dark eyes went up all the way to the giant cowlick on top of his head. Her lips pressed together in a thin, straight line, and she looked back down at the manuscript in her lap. His manuscript: a story he’d been working on for the last three years. He’d taken his time with writing it like he did with all things.

He moved his itchy butt side to side on the cold metal. The fold-out chair was an awkward addition to the room. The table looked like it was mahogany, the mirror on the wall easily cost a few hundred dollars, and even the rug, a peach wool, softer than the mattress he slept on, looked expensive.

She shook her head for an awkward minute and a half, frowning, wrote a note in the side, and placed it face down with a sigh. His thumbs stopped twiddling.

“So, your problems are many fold. First, you have too many clichés.”

“Clichés?”

“Yes. For instance, your story begins with ‘There was life in the beginning, and there always was life thereafter.’ We won’t go into your mistake with passive voice, but let’s discuss the cliché of talking as though your story was biblical. A lot of anxious and young and proud boys like yourself want to write this epic story, but unfortunately, they all begin in the same way. The fact that this is a prologue makes the experience even worse. It’s like you want to bore your reader to death before they even begin the story.”

Joe opened his mouth. His heart was beating fast enough that it took him a second to decide on how to respond. “I haven’t read any stories like that.”

“Oh trust me, baby, there are many like it. I reject thousands a week.”

Joe did not know how to respond. “But… aren’t there a lot of books with prologues? Nearly every book I’ve read…” He thought of the prologue in “Crazy Rich Asian Sexaholics”.

“No honey, that’s not true at all. The books I okay, hardly ever have prologues. I understand you want to be a bestseller, but you got to fix the little things first.”

“But—” Joe began, but the first editor cut him off. 

“We don’t have a lot of time, let me just tell you a couple of more things you need to change. Now in the chapter heading I’ve written ‘rewrite entire first chapter,’ but I want you to know that I did for a reason. Apart from the clichés and passive voice, your story in general doesn’t work. No one is looking to read another fantasy, or another JRR Tolkien knock off. You have to make it marketable, and right now your story is long—” 

“It’s only sixty thousand—” Joe interjected but stopped when the editor held up her finger. 

“Let me finish. It’s boring, okay? People are looking to buy reading material with marketable characters and story. Your characters hardly have any flaws, you have not one leading woman character, and I might assume most of the characters in the story are blonde boys like yourself. You don’t even mention anyone having darker skin. Frankly, it’s quite ignorant to not have some kind of racial diversity in your story, and that’s world-building 101, baby. I hope you understand what I’m trying to say.”

Though it felt like his heart had been run through with a bare bodkin, he managed a nod. “Y-yes, but—”

“Look, I’d love to help you, but I’m a busy woman. I have to get back to my publisher, by three, and I still have two more pitches to go. Good luck with your story.”

Joe watched her dumbly as she stood up and walked to the door. He tried to stand as well but he stepped on his own shoelace and stumbled back. The lady did not even turn to acknowledge him. He might as well had been a ghost. 

He took several deep breaths and picked up the manuscript with shaky fingers. “Oh well,” he muttered, trying to console himself. “I have another pitch coming up.”

As she had stated, she had written “REWRITE” in red ink above the title. Joe searched through the rest of the page. Blank. 

At two o’clock Joe had his second critique. This one had cost him forty-five dollars, and though he did not know much about the woman, he assumed she was a highly sought after editor, working for a larger publishing company. He felt his nerves rise again with the elevator as it reached the third floor. He walked stepped out into the hallway and she stepped out from the opposite elevator: a blonde, tall, slender, and attractive woman.   

“You must be Joe,” she said with a coy smile. 

Joe smiled back, though it felt wrong, and nodded. “Yes.”

“Walk with me?”

He followed her into the room, which was an exact replica of the one he’d just been in, and she held the door open for him like a gentlewoman. Her confident business-like posture made his heart race, and the heat rose to his cheeks.

“Sit down,” she commanded. 

He did in another aluminum fold out chair, and she did at the same moment. 

“Well, why don’t you hand me the manuscript and pitch your book while I skim through it? That way we have more time to talk.”

Joe slid the second copy of his first chapter across the table. 

“Well, the story is about a young man trying to become—I mean a boy trying to become a man and follow in his father’s footsteps, but his evil cousin, this evil kind of, uh, wizard, kills his father and takes over the kingdom.” 

She nodded. “I see. Have you seen the books we publish?”

He nodded back. “I saw your website. I really liked Debbie’s story, about the woman who hunts monsters.”

She interrupted. “You know we don’t have any high fantasy books like the one you’re describing.”

“Oh, yeah. I just read that you were looking, possibly, for fantasy books. It was stated in the pitch session description.”

“Well, we might consider it. But only if it was a worthy story. You don’t want to be the publisher that rejected Shaggy Mason. A fantasy book like that would obviously catch our eye. But can you really compare yourself to that?”

“Well, um…” he stumbled with his answer, but she didn’t wait long.

“Have you written anything else perhaps? Any stories with Chinese folklore, maybe?”

He stumbled over his answer again. He wasn’t usually such an oaf. “I, no, not anything like that yet.” He didn’t know why he had to add the word “yet?” Perhaps it made him sound like a harder worker: someone who had written dozens of stories and could whip one up about Chinese folklore in a few days. Ah, yes, Chinese folklore would be so easy. I already have an outline for that. But he only had the one story. Lying about it wouldn’t get him any closer to publishing.

“You know what we need. We need a story like that one that just became a movie. Filthy Rich Asian Woman, you know? A story that has diversity. Something that doesn’t rely on the same old thing. We need to stop selling to the nerds in their mother’s basements. Give us a romance, with real characters, and real conflict. Who wouldn’t want to be with apart of a rich Asian family, right? Enough with the white male leads. We’ve had enough of that.”

“So…” he said once she finished. “If I wrote something with an Asian woman…”

She stopped him. “Well, let’s be realistic. You’re not an Asian woman, so no one is going to believe you. I mean, how could a white man write about a woman?”

“Oh,” he said, looking down at the manuscript in his lap.

“Here,” she leaned over the table. He tried not to look down the front of her shirt as he accepted the card she offered him. “Keep your manuscript just in case. But if you think you might want to write a story that will really sell, here’s my card. Now I gotta go. Busy business, you know?”

He nodded, and she walked past him. Once again, he was the ghost in the room. He looked to the mirror on the wall and once again saw his ridiculous cowlick. His scalp was exposed beneath the curled patch, making him look more like a man who was losing his hair, but he was only nineteen.

He stood up and walked out of the room. There were people waiting at the elevator. Two of them were the publishers he’d just pitched to. They didn’t look his way. When the elevator arrived, he and the five other people waiting piled in. A long four seconds passed without a word. The blonde woman glanced at the short Asian one.

“Maxy, is that you? I didn’t know you were coming to this place.”

Maxy smiled, but somehow she didn’t manage to bend her lips. Rather, the thin line of her lips stretched a bit wider.

“Ah, yes, Bria. How’s your house?”

“We’re getting started. Got our feet beneath us, but you know how the competition is. Do you always come to this conference? It seems kind of small for a big publisher like yourself.”

“No, I don’t,” Maxy replied. “This was the first time, and I don’t think I’ll come back. Not enough innovation here.”

“That’s definitely true. It’s hard to find an innovative writer.”

The elevator opened and the people spilled out into the hotel lobby. The two women walked away without so much as a “goodbye” to each other.

Joe walked out the rotating glass door with his manuscript in hand. He remembered the pride he felt when he completed the story. It was unlike any feeling he’d ever had.

Snowflakes drifted from gray clouds above, and a cold breeze rushed by, making his face pale and his cheeks turn pink. The cold stung, and he lifted the hood of his sweater to block the chill. He looked down at the manuscript with the red words “REWRITE” on its face. The title was insignificant to the large red ink covering it, like some giant smashing ants.

A crowd of people stepped out of the hotel, and he rolled up the hundred sheets of paper and stuck it into his sweater pocket. He’d been proud of the story. Now he hoped no one noticed. As he walked down the sidewalk, he dropped the roll of paper into a silver trashcan by the rotating door. Maybe he was too slow. Maybe writing wasn’t his thing. It didn’t really matter either way. He moved too slow; he wasted too much time.

The wind was at his back, urging him home.

“Why bother?” he muttered to himself. It was time for a change. He pulled out his phone and looked at his notes. He had a schedule written out.

6-8 am work

9-10 Chemistry 101

11:30-1:00 Eng. 150

2-4 Math

6-9pm work

He highlighted the text and deleted it. The app closed, and he pressed the green phone before dialing a number. It rang four times before someone picked up on the other end.

“Hey, dad. How’re doing?”

His dad sounded tired. “Fine. Is this important?”

“Maybe not that important. I just wanted you to know beforehand. I’ve thought about it, and I can’t do this anymore. I’m quitting my job, and I’m dropping out of school.”

The phone was silent, then the speaker clicked and hummed a dead tone. His dad wasn’t happy: not a surprise. He hung up.

He didn’t have a plan. Soon, he wouldn’t have a job. He looked through his contacts and chose the one that read “Building Janitorial”. As it rang, his steps lengthened. He was moving faster, fast enough to pass people on the sidewalk. He passed a group of college girls chatting and laughing. He passed an old couple walking arm in arm. He passed a man wearing a fedora and carrying a black briefcase.

The phone rang twice, thrice, and before the fourth ring, he was running down the street past the cars stopped at the streetlight. Nothing was good, but he didn’t feel bad. The snowflakes fell as though they’d been dumped by buckets from the tops of buildings. The wind nipped at his nose. He didn’t have a plan, but he was on his own. At last, he grinned. Indeed, he was on his own.