***
I shake my head, thinking He did it. He really did it. He got published and, at 833 pages, he must have even found the hands-off editor he wanted, the kind he didn't think he'd ever get.
I set the newspaper aside and return to my research report. But I can't concentrate, the numbers jumbling around in my head, the sentences scattering. Every time I try to focus on Jigsaw's operating cash flows or latest strategic initiatives, my thoughts drift back to Wheatyard.
He really did it, I repeat to myself, and before long I become so lost in reverie that profit margins and forecasts and bold corporate pronouncements no longer hold my attention. Instead I think about Wheatyard and what he once implored, no, demanded that I do.
I push aside the computer printouts and regulatory filings, and take the uppermost sheaf and turn it over, exposing its blank reverse. From my briefcase I remove a slender box which contains a handcrafted wooden pen, a gift from a lovely young woman who thinks far too highly of me, given how few times we've managed to go out together with the punishing schedules we both endure. Giving me this pen after only a half-dozen dates, she must see more in me than just another sell-side stock analyst. Maybe she's right. Maybe there's a future outside of this business—which I already have doubts about—or even a future for her and me, though I can't predict either possibility any more accurately than I can forecast the next quarterly earnings per share of Jigsaw Software Solutions. After glancing to the north for a moment, toward a towering flour mill and mammoth grain elevators which echo the industry that first put the Twin Cities on the map, I finally put pen to paper.
A brief scene, a snatch of dialogue, and soon the question—Is Jigsaw Software Solutions a good long-term investment for Preston Jeffers' high-net-worth clients?—no longer seems quite so important. Of course it still matters, since my job is to answer that question and that job pays the bills, but suddenly it's no longer my complete focus. Soon I'm writing, and the sentences spill out in fits and starts, none of them perfect but together, collectively, hinting at something else. Maybe something better.
I have finally put pen to paper, and there might not be any turning back.
Wheatyard once prodded me to start writing, to help me find what I might become. Not unlike the way I prodded him to compromise and cooperate with that editor, to see his book appear in print. As I write, I smile at the thought of my small part in Wheatyard finding what he himself might become.
Moments earlier, in the few seconds between reading that sidebar announcement and unsheathing the pen, it occurred to me that it really doesn't matter if Wheatyard's book sells, or only gets raves from the critics, or gets any attention at all. Whether the world notices him or not, Elmer Glaciers Wheatyard—if that is indeed his real name—will still be down in Tillsburg in that falling-down ranch house, sitting in front of that old Smith-Corona and churning out ream after ream of his willfully dense fiction.
It's how Wheatyard lives. And why.
***
My deepest thanks to: Ben Tanzer, Nick Ostdick, Jason Fisk, Paul Lamble and Mel Bosworth, writer-brothers in arms; Richard Grayson, Christine Sneed, Kirby Gann, Andrew Ervin, Frank Jump, Shelley Wright and Dan Curley, friends and mentors who helped me realize there is much more to life than crunching numbers; John Kenyon, for his helpful take on early Guided by Voices; Pablo D'Stair, who took a chance on a humble story that nagged me incessantly for more than seven years; my parents, Dorothy and John Anderson, who taught me to keep my options open and never settle; anyone anywhere who has ever fed my hunger for literature; and, most important of all, my wife Julie and daughter Maddie, who are my very best reasons for living.
And to every Wheatyard out there who is struggling to publish their first book: chin up. Keep believing and persevere, and rewards will someday follow.
***
Peter Anderson's short stories have appeared in many fine venues, including Storyglossia, THE2NDHAND, RAGAD, Midwestern Gothic and the collections On the Clock: Contemporary Short Stories of Work (Bottom Dog Press, 2010) and Daddy Cool: An Anthology of Writing by Fathers For & About Kids (Artistically Declined Press, 2013). A financial professional by trade, he writes fiction to ease the crushing monotony of corporate life. He lives and writes in Joliet, Illinois. Wheatyard is his first published book but, with any luck, not his last.
More information is available at his author site (www.wheatyard.com) and blog (www.petelit.com).
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends