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people would care about such a man?”
    “Listen, Jon, if I worried about what the people cared about I’d never write anything.”
    “All right. Should I bring the check over to you?”
    “No. Just put it in the mail. Tonight. Thank you.”
    “Thank you,” said Jon.
    I walked over to the typewriter and sat down. It worked right away. I typed:
    THE DRUNK WITH THE BLUE AND YELLOW SOUL
    EXTERIOR/INTERIOR—DANDY’S BAR—DAY
The CAMERA PANS DOWN FROM ABOVE; IT MOVES SLOWLY through the bar entrance and INTO THE INTERIOR BAR.
A YOUNG MAN sits on a barstool as if he had been there for eternity. He lifts his glass...
    I was into it. All you needed was the first line, then everything followed. It was always there, it only needed something to set it running.
    That bar came back to me. I remembered how you could smell the urinal from wherever you sat. You needed a drink right off to counteract that. And before you went back to that urinal you needed 4 or 5. And the people of that bar, their bodies and faces and voices came back to me. I was there again. I saw the draft beer again in that thin glass flared at the top, the white foam looking at you, bubbling just a bit. The beer was green and after the first gulp, about a fourth of the glass, you inhaled, held your breath, and you were started. The morning bartender was a good man. The dialogue came and took care of itself. I typed on and on...
    Then, the phone rang. It was long distance. It was my agent and translator from Germany, Karl Vossner. Karl loved to talk the way he thought hip Americans talked.
    “Hey, motherfucker, how ya doin’?”
    “All right, Karl, you still riding your joystick?”
    “Yeah, my ceiling is riddled with flakes of dry sperm.”
    “Good man.”
    “Thanks, baby. I learn all the good things from you. But, baby, I got good news. You wanna hear, motherfucker?”
    “Oh, yeah, yeah, baby!”
    “Well, besides whistling ‘Dixie’ out of my asshole, I’ve translated 3 of your books: poems, The Lice of Doom ; short stories, Cesspool Dreams ; and your novel, Central Station Arson .”
    “I owe you my left ball, Karl.”
    “O.K., send it airmail. But, baby, there’s more...”
    “Tell me, tell me...”
    “Well, we had a book fair here last month and I met with the 6 biggest publishers in Germany and let me tell you, they are hot for your body!”
    “My body?”
    “Your body of work, you know. Dig?”
    “I dig, baby.”
    “I got these 6 big publishers in a hotel room, I laid out the beer and the wine and the cheese and the nuts. Then I told them it would be open bidding for the advance on the 3 books. They just laughed and got into the booze. I had those assholes playing right into our hand. You are a hot number and they know it. I told a few jokes to get them loose, then the bidding started. Well, to get to the short-hairs, Krumph made the largest bid. I had the motherfucker sign a contract. Then we all hung one on together. All us assholes got stinko, Krumph especially. So, we scored. We’re in like Flynn!”
    “You’re one cool dude, Karl. What’s my cut?”
    “Baby, it should amount to around 35 grand. I’ll wire it to you within a week.”
    “Man oh man, that’s really rowdy !”
    “It beats blowing glass, motherfucker.”
    “And how, baby. Hey, Karl, ever heard this one? What’s the difference between a chicken’s asshole and a rabbit’s asshole?”
    “‘No, what’s the difference?”
    “Ask little Dick.”
    “I got it! Far out!”
    With that, our conversation was over.
    Within an hour I was 45 thousand dollars richer. 30 years of starvation and rejection were starting to kick in.
    I walked back to the typer, poured a good tall drink, belted that, poured another. I found 3/4’s of a stale cigar, lit it. Shostakovich’s Fifth was on the radio. I hit the typer:
The Bartender, Luke, leans forward over bar, eyeing the young man.
LUKE
Listen, you’re in this place night and day. All you do is sit and suck up the