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write the best kind of interesting essays and articles about how significant
Kercher O.J. Crowstairs had been in the parade of contemporary American
letters; I d set up seminars at the Modem
Language Association conclaves; I d edit anthologies of his work, putting the
stories into fresh and insightful contexts; I d keep him alive through his
seriously considered work.
And in the bargain I d sublimate my own talent. I d spend a part of every day
living with Jimmy. I d hear his voice and finally start writing the way he
did. And if I ever ever ever figured out what it was I knew about him that
made all of his life a he, I d keep it to myself till the cancer killed me,
too.
And at last I know the nature of our friendship.
Say goodbye to Laurence Kercher O.J. Bedloe.
Django
INTRODUCTION
I wrote this story on the 8th and 9th day of November, 1977, sitting in the
front window of the Avenue Victor Hugo Bookstore in Boston.
Bill Desmond effected a sound hookup that permitted me to play the wonderful
music of the French-Algerian guitar genius, Django Reinhardt, while I worked.
Writing in the window was a promotional gimmick to bring people into the
bookstore because the owners of the shop were footing my hotel bill while I
was in Boston lecturing.
As I wrote that story, I had the strangest feeling I was being watched from a
far distance by someone no longer with us. Understand: I am a pragmatist. I do
not believe in reincarnation or messages from Beyond or ghosts or even the
Nameless Ones who lie sleeping in Ultimate Darkness. But I had a prickly
feeling all that time in the window.
And it unnerved me as I am seldom unnerved when writing. As if someone were
over my shoulder, watching anxiously to make sure I did it right.
Consequently, I had the feeling I d written the story all wrong; that I didn t
really know what I was writing; that I didn t understand my own subtext.
When the story was finished I offered it to the editors of
Galileo magazine who, not coincidentally, also own the Avenue Victor Hugo
Bookstore. They had wanted a story from me for some time, and I d promised
them the fruits of my labors in their windows. I offered the story with
trepidation.
While I am occasionally rejected by magazines, even these days, it happens
infrequently enough to scare the hell out of me when it seems possible. I
suppose one is never inured to the fear of that kind of rejection.
But they liked it, they bought it, they published it, and the story drew
sufficient praise to dull my worries. Not enough praise to flense the fear
completely, but sufficient to permit my continued arrogance.
When you re all alone out there, on the end of the typewriter, with each new
story a new appraisal by the world of whether you can still get it up or not,
arrogance and self-esteem and deep breathing are all you have.
It often looks like egomania. I assure you it s the bold coverup of the
absolutely terrified.
It was not until the story was selected--in a blind judging by Poul Anderson,
himself an excellent writer, who did not know who had written what--as the
winner of the annual
Galileo short story contest, from all the stories the magazine had published
that year, that my fears were laid to rest.
Success, no matter how complete, no matter how persistent and ongoing, cannot
totally shield us from the mortal dreads.
I wish it were otherwise, gentle readers, but the simple truth is that I am in
the box with you.
And there is always someone over your shoulder... watching.
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Django
HE STOOD in the Portobello Road and screamed up at the closed windows.
Anatole!
Anatole, hey! Come to the window! Open up, hey, Anatole! The war s started!
London, on that Sunday morning, was filled with the sound of air raid sirens.
Unearthly wailing. Foreshadowed sounds. He stood there and screamed louder.
Finally, a window on the third floor squeaked up in its tracks and Anatole s
white hair and white face were thrust out into the morning chill.
He stared down at Michel, trying to focus him with sleep-bleary eyes. He
worked his mouth to get the mugginess thinned. Are you insane? It s very
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