Big Time!

When the people in the HUD-sanctioned, makeshift housing project next door were quiet, I grew worried. I looked out the window when their curses and shrieks at one another ceased for the first time in 14 months, and wondered what sort of wickedness was blowing in the wind that could make them shut up for even half a minute.

The 40 or 50 of them moved like a swarm of wasps in the direction of the street, elbowing each other in the ribs and gaping at a white stretch limousine as Jim climbed out of the backseat. He was wearing a white fur coat, a purple felt hat, and orange snakeskin boots.

He lowered a pair of huge white sunglasses, their rhinestones glinting in the hot July sun, and said, "What're y'all starin at? Never seen a NATIONALLY PUBLISHED WRITER BEFORE?"

One of the bald men stepped forward, his gut hanging over the waist band of denim shorts that were about three sizes too small. "Yer that feller keeps comin and beatin' the shit outta that lesbian lives up there, ain'tcha?"

Jim pushed his sunglasses back up to his eyes, and said, "That's right. Cuz she's my BITCH! If you give me fifty bucks, I'll let you go up there and smack the piss out of her."

The men present looked at each other, then back to Jim. "Nah, we gotta save up to buy some weed."

Jim shrugged. "Suit yourself. If you like to see women cry, she's the best."

Finally, I couldn't take any more. "Jim, what the hell do you want?"

He leaned toward the group still assembled by the limo and said, "See? She must like it, or else she wouldn't be yelling down here WHEN SHE KNOWS I'M GONNA RUN UPSTAIRS AND POUND HER FUCKIN' BRAINS INTO MUSH!"

I didn't even move from where I was sitting. He was up the stairs in a matter of seconds, and had me in a headlock before the hillbillies next door could even start screaming at each other again.

"That's no way to talk to a NATIONALLY PUBLISHED AUTHOR," he said as he rubbed his knuckles back and forth over my scalp, "especially one Publisher's Weekly mentioned BY NAME in their review!"

"I love you," I whispered.

"You'd better! Cuz I'm about to be a rich man!" Jim said, jumping away from me. He rubbed his hands together and cackled. "I'm gonna buy out John Bethea, and then I'm gonna buy a barber chair and make *** ******* cut my hair every single day until she DIES!"

"Okay," I said.

I glanced out the window and saw my neighbors pull Jim's limo driver out of the vehicle, then hang him upside down by the ankles. As they shook him up and down, he screamed, quarters and dimes and an asthma inhaler hitting the ground. The children were upon the change like jackals. One of the women snatched up the asthma inhaler and tucked it down the front of her tube top.

"Okay? That's all you have to say to me, you heartless bitch? I devote my whole life to this one moment, and all you can say is, 'Okay'?"

"What do you want me to say? I've known about this for months and months. I already told you everything I think about it. You're my hero. You always have been. What more do you want from me?" I asked him.

"I want you to say it," he said.

"Say what?" I asked, but I knew. And I didn't much feel like saying it.

He grabbed my arm and twisted it behind my back. "YOU KNOW! Now SAY IT, or I'll flip you like a raspberry crepe!"

As well as I could while in so much pain, I recited IT. "You are the best writer alive. You're ten times better than Madison Smartt Bell. Brett Easton Ellis isn't fit to wipe the dirt off your wrestling shoes. Winston Groom should relinquish his Pulitzer Prize nomination to you. If writers were singers, you would be Paul McCartney. You are my new god."

"You didn't say it all!" he said, tightening his grip on my arm. "Say the rest!"

I was silent. Then I said, "Those guys just stripped off your driver's uniform and tied him up with green clothes line and now they're driving away in your limo."

"SAY IT!" he shouted.

"If I were stranded on a desert island with no radio and no women, I would rather have one story by you with me than a whole book of stories by David Sedaris," I sobbed.

"All right, then. I gotta go get that damn car back. I borrowed it from Coco Hays, so I hope those yahoos aren't smoking pot in it! And if they are, I'll be back FOR YOUR HIDE!" he yelled, leaping from my office window to the grass below and running toward the highway.

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