magazines: “How I Fought Vampire Bats on the Island of Mazoom,” “I Waded Through Crazed Electric Eels,” “THE DAY I FACED THE GUILLOTINE,” The Dancing White Daughter of Pygmyland.”
The thing was, I found out that Ed’s stories were mostly based on fact; things he’d really been through. I’d been around plenty myself during my Merchant Marine days, but Ed Fowler had me beat hollow. He could talk all night about the crazy places he’d been, the bizarre and almost unbelievable things he’d seen, if you supplied him with plenty beer. Evis got a kick out of his stories. He had lived a full life gathering material, and now, still very young, he spent his time putting it on paper.
“Ed’s a good scout,” Evis would say. “I wish you could be as relaxed as Ed is.”
Relaxed.
I seldom thought of Berk Kaylor—but more and more I turned her family into a joke; bitterly, I guess. Maybe as compensation for what I’d seen that bright high noon in the woodshed.
“If you’d open up a business of your own, we’d make more money. You know printing from A to Z—you told me so.”
“Evis, listen—with both of us working, payments are due on the house. I’m not a third up on things you bought.”
Her voice calmed. “Didn’t you ever hear of credit? Your credit’s tops. Look at your family’s background.” She began to warm up. I was getting used to it. “Why not open up your own printing shop, Lee? The place you work for makes big profits. Why shouldn’t they be yours? You got them lots of their big accounts. Those accounts would be yours, with your own shop.”
She was damned convincing. I told her all the reasons why it was out of the question. She didn’t even listen. And in two hours’ time we were both speaking excitedly about the printing business. It was a good, rising business. She was right about those accounts coming over to me if I had my own place. I felt certain they would. I’d have more work than I could handle.
“It’d be a headache. But if I could swing it, we’d be set.”
• • •
I didn’t lie to them. I just promised too much when I signed the papers, talked with the different heads of companies, assured them, related family background, established credit—because nothing had happened yet.
Then it began … the bills. In two or three years everything would be straight. The money would likely be tumbling in. But how do you explain that to the collection agencies?
There are the excited lies about monies due you, the stories of fanciful bank accounts, the glib but quite empty yarns about cash on hand. Lies. How do you explain once they’ve found out and won’t listen?
“It’s all right, Lee—don’t you worry.”
I wanted to pay off the shop rent, take care of the bills for the presses, the linotype, the paper stocks—Evis wouldn’t hear of that.
In a year and a half of struggling, we’d been through a descending graph into a dead period that was frightening—and the creditors swooped.
Nebulous deadlines came in. Credit fell through. Every company in the county was running reports on me. Each day another rigid-voiced collector turned up, bright-eyed and abrupt, until I began dodging out the back door into the alley.
I’d hired two people. Art Salter, a good printer, a fast man with a linotype, and a Mrs. Timothy who took care of the stationery store out front. We handled the only complete line of paperback novels in town, arranged categorically in easy-to-reach-and-scan cases of my own design, with special monthly selections displayed in one window. The books were a tremendous draw. Because of them I was able to pay Mrs. Timothy’s and Art’s salaries. But that was all.
The time came when it was, “Pay, or else, Sullivan.”
The “or else” was a simple matter of losing everything: shop, car, home—the works. Creditors got together and set a deadline for payment.
I was sick and desperate. Evis came up with the answer.
It was like being cracked
The thing was, I found out that Ed’s stories were mostly based on fact; things he’d really been through. I’d been around plenty myself during my Merchant Marine days, but Ed Fowler had me beat hollow. He could talk all night about the crazy places he’d been, the bizarre and almost unbelievable things he’d seen, if you supplied him with plenty beer. Evis got a kick out of his stories. He had lived a full life gathering material, and now, still very young, he spent his time putting it on paper.
“Ed’s a good scout,” Evis would say. “I wish you could be as relaxed as Ed is.”
Relaxed.
I seldom thought of Berk Kaylor—but more and more I turned her family into a joke; bitterly, I guess. Maybe as compensation for what I’d seen that bright high noon in the woodshed.
“If you’d open up a business of your own, we’d make more money. You know printing from A to Z—you told me so.”
“Evis, listen—with both of us working, payments are due on the house. I’m not a third up on things you bought.”
Her voice calmed. “Didn’t you ever hear of credit? Your credit’s tops. Look at your family’s background.” She began to warm up. I was getting used to it. “Why not open up your own printing shop, Lee? The place you work for makes big profits. Why shouldn’t they be yours? You got them lots of their big accounts. Those accounts would be yours, with your own shop.”
She was damned convincing. I told her all the reasons why it was out of the question. She didn’t even listen. And in two hours’ time we were both speaking excitedly about the printing business. It was a good, rising business. She was right about those accounts coming over to me if I had my own place. I felt certain they would. I’d have more work than I could handle.
“It’d be a headache. But if I could swing it, we’d be set.”
• • •
I didn’t lie to them. I just promised too much when I signed the papers, talked with the different heads of companies, assured them, related family background, established credit—because nothing had happened yet.
Then it began … the bills. In two or three years everything would be straight. The money would likely be tumbling in. But how do you explain that to the collection agencies?
There are the excited lies about monies due you, the stories of fanciful bank accounts, the glib but quite empty yarns about cash on hand. Lies. How do you explain once they’ve found out and won’t listen?
“It’s all right, Lee—don’t you worry.”
I wanted to pay off the shop rent, take care of the bills for the presses, the linotype, the paper stocks—Evis wouldn’t hear of that.
In a year and a half of struggling, we’d been through a descending graph into a dead period that was frightening—and the creditors swooped.
Nebulous deadlines came in. Credit fell through. Every company in the county was running reports on me. Each day another rigid-voiced collector turned up, bright-eyed and abrupt, until I began dodging out the back door into the alley.
I’d hired two people. Art Salter, a good printer, a fast man with a linotype, and a Mrs. Timothy who took care of the stationery store out front. We handled the only complete line of paperback novels in town, arranged categorically in easy-to-reach-and-scan cases of my own design, with special monthly selections displayed in one window. The books were a tremendous draw. Because of them I was able to pay Mrs. Timothy’s and Art’s salaries. But that was all.
The time came when it was, “Pay, or else, Sullivan.”
The “or else” was a simple matter of losing everything: shop, car, home—the works. Creditors got together and set a deadline for payment.
I was sick and desperate. Evis came up with the answer.
It was like being cracked
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