“Could you please sign my copy, Mr. Losser?”
“Why certainly, Madam – nyuh, nyuh.”
“It’s for my poor ol’ mother. She practically never gets out of the house… unless, of course, El Maestro happens to be in town.”
“Perfectly understood there, my dear. Who should I make it out to?”
“Mrs. Herbert A. Hound Dog Face of Peoria, Illinois.”
Next, steps up a tall, pear-shaped man in heavy framed glasses and accompanied by a woman half his size.
“Just sign right there, Welsh,” says the man, opening the book to the back inside cover and holding it out like a plate of hot food in front of Losser’s fat face.
“Righty dighty…” then, looking more closely and flipping it around to the front cover, “Hey, this isn’t my work… It’s, it’s a book about owls or other!!!”
“Yeah, it’s kind of a sequel to your crow book, only with owls.”
“Jim thought it would fit well with your writing, almost like collaboration, only in two different editions,” the half-sized woman says from behind her husband’s back.”
“That’s right. Just sign there inside the back cover?”
“Er, rubbity dub… I can’t do that, errr, and I won’t by golly. It’s not right, decent or proper.”
“Oh dear, Jim, maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.”
“I don’t see what the problem is,” says the pear shape, standing arms akimbo, “Just sign the back cover and we’ll leave.”
“You don’t seem to understand, my good fellow, er ruba dubb, bubb. I’ve got a reputation to uphold, and not just that of a published author. Did you know, for instance, that I once worked as an adjunct faculty member at a little-known American college, hmm? Or that I’ve travelled extensively in pursuit of various interests…?
“No, I didn’t.”
“Well, then I might add that I’m a public relations counselor, accomplished speaker and corporate trainer. I was also chief editor of the Kyiv Poster, Vidal Sassoon publications and this, and that…”
“Jim, I think we’d better get going.”
“You see,” Losser continues, now standing and pointing his finger toward an imaginary audience in awe of his presentation skills and general persona, “I’ve always preferred the life of a well-versed generalist over that of a specialist…”
Meanwhile, in the bathroom of a finely furnished flat not far from the Kyiv-based bookstore where Losser is holding audience, Boss Lard makes faces in front of a mirror.
“Gosh dammit! I can’t do it, I tell ya!”
“Try holding your breath.”
Lard, butt-naked but for a pair of suspenders strapped across his flabby chest, is attempting to strike a pose not altogether unfamiliar to readers of his once regular PR publications, in which he was often portrayed staring blankly into the upper margins of the page while holding out an index finger as if to say “Gotcha”, and thus apparently capturing the attention of an otherwise uninterested intended audience, which would then hopefully assume that this sixty-something showman with an airbrushed body build could somehow save their company from certain ruin or at least public disgrace by concocting, disseminating and endlessly regurgitating the ultimate PR message.
“I’m telling you, I’ve lost it. It’s like some sneaky son of a bitch snuck into my closet and stole it while I was taking a shit…”
“Well, you can always go back to the ‘70s look – you know, the cabbage patch of curls and wildly unbuttoned collar… I hear leisure suits are even coming back into style…”
“Dammit Henna. Don’t patronize me. I ain’t got what I had, which replaced what I’d had before I got it. Got it?”
“Boss,” smirks the shameless redhead, whose short-cropped hair makes her look like a unisex stand-in from a stage production of Lord of the Flies. She’s sitting cross-legged and painting her nails: “You don’t think…?”
“You’re damn right, I do. It was Losser!? His signature’s all over this theft and I’m left holding the bag – an empty bag that used to be full of me, ALL me! I blame myself, of course. I’d had the sports cars and boats, then my own business and a young wife. Why did I need a lapdog, I ask ya?”
“To kiss your ass?”
“You got it, sister, and he puckered right up with a pursed puss set on smooching the shorts off me. Should have known I couldn’t trust him. He laughed at every joke, loved my every idea, and did his damndest to keep everyone but the cleaning lady as far away from me as he could. They say a dog’s a man’s best friend, but that don’t apply to no lapper. No siree! And he took it all: the arched in askance stance, the finger pointing at nothing in particular, even the tight-top ‘90s hairdo, although the son of bitch is bald. Shit, he’s wearing suspenders now, and an expensive tie. One-upped me with the goatee, too. I’m bankrupt, Henna, out of an image and thus out of a job.”
Presently, back at the Kyiv-based bookstore…
“Sign the fookin back cover, you nyu good phony.”
“Jim, I really think we ought to leave.”
“All I wanted was an autograph in the back of my owl book. Was that really too much to ask for?”
A dark bottle is dropped, breaking and spewing an inexpensive British lager across the floor. Sweaty Tank Top, clearly intoxicated, is led out of a side entrance by two security guards against little noticeable resistance.
The hubbub from the still significant line of book holders continues.
“I knew him when he still worked at the Poster,” says one man.
“No kidding,” says another.
“Yeah, everything he touched turned to shit – especially in written form.”
“Excuse me, but could you spare some change for a chicken sandwich,” comes another voice from the line.
“Ask someone else.”
“Billy… Billy, don’t disgrace yourself and me as well. Billy, please get up from the floor and wipe that beer off your mouth… we’re going now.”
Filed by Dirk Dickerson, August 7, 2013