Exercise 3

Jim Spacey reached into his briefcase and pulled out the immaculate document. As he flipped the fresh pages, he thought about the many hundreds of hours and sleepless nights he must have given to its creation. His emergent memory paused in the playback on one fond night when he had rerouted the main character’s actions; an epiphany Jim had had after meeting an attractive business woman that had entered the hotel bar halfway through his rum and coke. Two drinks and an hour’s conversation was all he could spare but it was enough to entice her, and boy was he glad because there was something about the way she had tossed herself about in the bed that reminded him of a dying fish after being thrown onto a deck. This led him to an idea about toothpaste and Jim ended the night rather quickly so that he could hurry and edit the plot. Jim could say, despite the sex being a bit dull and unnecessary, if he ever saw that woman again, he’d kiss her.

He placed the manuscript in front of himself on the polished table and folded his hands over it proudly. His breaths were short and he couldn’t wait to hear what the publisher had to say. Jim picked up the document, again flipped through it a bit, and then stopped near a particularly grabbing chapter. He pictured how he couldn’t get his hand to pen out the words as quickly as the visions were coming to him. Jim felt the cramp in his hand, the sweat on his temple, and the beat of his excited heart – just as if he were doing the night over.

He took a deep breath and then pushed the clean pages to the side. He didn’t want to seem too eager, but he knew he had something good, no great here – even if Larson’s Publishing Co. didn’t see it. This doesn’t need to be the only stop on the road to the Time’s Best Seller’s List. Jim thought of a few other publishing companies and a couple of old college buddies that could put in a good word for his work.

Finally, the glass door opened and Jim stood up to greet the editor. Jim held out his sweaty palm and mumbled a how-do-you-do. The two sat across from each other and Jim rubbed the edge of the polished table up and down a couple of times before any words were spoken.

“Mr. Spacey,” said the four-eyed editor, “I have to ask you a few questions regarding the manuscript you submitted to our company a week ago.”

“Sure. Ask away.”

“Where did you get the inspiration for this story?”

“Well, um, it was a story I’d carried around in my head for a few years; playing with it until I really thought I had enough to get down on paper,” Jim said excitedly.
The editor had been jotting notes but stopped, rolled the pen between the index and thumb of both hands and exhaled a long stream of air.

“I’m sorry, I was supposed to ask you a few more questions before doing this but,” the editor tilted his head and shifted in his seat uncomfortably. “We take plagiarism very seriously here and I can’t sit here and take down a record of you taking credit for my intern’s work.”

The editor froze. Jim blinked and then his eyes grew wide. The atmosphere darkened and Jim pulled the manuscript into the center again and held it on each side.

“My intern, Tracy Atkins, told me all about how he had accidentally turned in his manuscript, this manuscript,” the editor nodded towards the table,” instead of his term project to you, Professor Spacey; and then when he came to exchange it, you pretended to have received nothing from him. He showed an early draft of his manuscript to me only days before this one arrived in the mail.”

Jim let go of the manuscript and grabbed the edge of the table. How did he not know that his student was an intern at Larson’s? He would never have thought Tracy Atkins . . .

And to think, of all the editors to receive the manuscript it had to be the boss of the poor bastard whom I’d had stolen it from.

Jim stood suddenly and turned to leave, but stopped when he saw through the glass door to Tracy Atkins and the Dean of English in the hallway who were shaking their heads with their arms folded and glaring at him.

Jim knew now that the only fame he would have would come from a cheap journalist’s point of view in the paper after Jim lost his job and lost any court cases that Larson’s would file. As he slowly sat back down, he placed his hands on top of the table on either side of the document and thought, how did I think I could pull this off?