Read Online A Fan's Notes by Frederick Exley - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Frederick Exley
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in such a way as to alienate myself. But I doubt the validity of this. I had large faith—the faith of youth—in the city ’ s capacity to absorb me, hair-do and all; and it was only after summer was gone and autumn was casting long shadows that I began to take these rejections as personal affronts. It is very wearing to be honest, no matter how naïve or misreckoned that honesty is, and continue to be spurned for it. After a time it becomes numbing, like heavy, repeated blows to the face. I spent a lot of time that autumn on my aunt ’ s davenport, watching slow-legged, sexless women in soap operas drink coffee and weep into each other ’ s teatless bosoms while I spun the ever-increasingly detailed fantasy I called my future.
After a time I developed another outlet for my mounting fury, and it was this more than anything which prevented me from slipping over into that state the world seems so facilely prepared to pronounce psychotic. Each morning I found in the Times the most ludicrous advertisement and answered it. I always answered other advertisements, but it was only after I had answered the former that I could get on to those that might reasonably hold out hope of a job to me. Now these advertisements, the most puerile, were generally display advertisements and could be found anywhere from the classified to the sports to the financial sections:
This shop is looking for an intelligent, ambitious young man interested in becoming a copywriter—one who won ’ t wilt like a tired flower under a little sound, even harsh criticism, one who isn ’ t afraid of a hard knock or two, one who, in short, can roll with a punch and come out fighting. Write Box —.
Occasionally I spent an hour, even two, composing my replies, wanting them to be exactly right. It was only after they were completed, placed in an addressed envelope, and sealed that I was able to get on to answering those more reasonable advertisements.
Hard knocks? I used to have a boss who rapped me on the head just for kicks. He was a stupid bastard, though. From him I didn ’ t learn a thing, save that working for a stupid bastard is without profit—humiliating, loathsome, and utterly demoralizing. With you —and it is obvious from your advertisement that you are a man of high parts—it would be different. When you begin bouncing me off the ropes, just make sure I get the point. Okay? Then, after a time, I ’ ll be as knowledgeable and as flinty as you, and together of course we ’ ll live in your—shop, isn ’ t it?—as miserable sons-of-bitches forever after.
It was due to such an advertisement and the foregoing reply, or one not unlike it, that one day in late autumn I found myself in the presence of a man I will here call Cary Grant. When I received his letter asking me to stop by and see him, I thought my name had come to him from one of the placement agencies I was dealing with: I didn ’ t ordinarily sign my name to these letters, preferring to sign them Billy Earnest or Wilbur Straightshooter, giving my address as the Waldorf Towers or the Plaza. It was only when he handed me the letter and asked, “ Did you write this? ” that I realized that through some grievous mistake I had signed my own name. Even prior to this I had felt thoroughly intimidated by Mr. Grant. He looked not unlike that movie man, a tall, dark, and suavely graying man with an ocher complexion, the product no doubt of many hours spent in southern suns. He wore a royal-blue suit that didn ’ t so much fit as lie against him, a soft blue button-down shirt, and an expensive-looking and brilliantly shaded maroon-and-gold four-in-hand. On his feet—and he casually kept one foot on his huge, uncluttered mahogany desk throughout the interview—he wore black, grained shoes that appeared to weigh about five pounds apiece; though I had never before been conscious of seeing a pair, I knew they were the goods: custom-made . He was, in brief, the kind of man who makes other men
After a time I developed another outlet for my mounting fury, and it was this more than anything which prevented me from slipping over into that state the world seems so facilely prepared to pronounce psychotic. Each morning I found in the Times the most ludicrous advertisement and answered it. I always answered other advertisements, but it was only after I had answered the former that I could get on to those that might reasonably hold out hope of a job to me. Now these advertisements, the most puerile, were generally display advertisements and could be found anywhere from the classified to the sports to the financial sections:
This shop is looking for an intelligent, ambitious young man interested in becoming a copywriter—one who won ’ t wilt like a tired flower under a little sound, even harsh criticism, one who isn ’ t afraid of a hard knock or two, one who, in short, can roll with a punch and come out fighting. Write Box —.
Occasionally I spent an hour, even two, composing my replies, wanting them to be exactly right. It was only after they were completed, placed in an addressed envelope, and sealed that I was able to get on to answering those more reasonable advertisements.
Hard knocks? I used to have a boss who rapped me on the head just for kicks. He was a stupid bastard, though. From him I didn ’ t learn a thing, save that working for a stupid bastard is without profit—humiliating, loathsome, and utterly demoralizing. With you —and it is obvious from your advertisement that you are a man of high parts—it would be different. When you begin bouncing me off the ropes, just make sure I get the point. Okay? Then, after a time, I ’ ll be as knowledgeable and as flinty as you, and together of course we ’ ll live in your—shop, isn ’ t it?—as miserable sons-of-bitches forever after.
It was due to such an advertisement and the foregoing reply, or one not unlike it, that one day in late autumn I found myself in the presence of a man I will here call Cary Grant. When I received his letter asking me to stop by and see him, I thought my name had come to him from one of the placement agencies I was dealing with: I didn ’ t ordinarily sign my name to these letters, preferring to sign them Billy Earnest or Wilbur Straightshooter, giving my address as the Waldorf Towers or the Plaza. It was only when he handed me the letter and asked, “ Did you write this? ” that I realized that through some grievous mistake I had signed my own name. Even prior to this I had felt thoroughly intimidated by Mr. Grant. He looked not unlike that movie man, a tall, dark, and suavely graying man with an ocher complexion, the product no doubt of many hours spent in southern suns. He wore a royal-blue suit that didn ’ t so much fit as lie against him, a soft blue button-down shirt, and an expensive-looking and brilliantly shaded maroon-and-gold four-in-hand. On his feet—and he casually kept one foot on his huge, uncluttered mahogany desk throughout the interview—he wore black, grained shoes that appeared to weigh about five pounds apiece; though I had never before been conscious of seeing a pair, I knew they were the goods: custom-made . He was, in brief, the kind of man who makes other men
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