Read Online Masters of the Maze by Avram Davidson - Free Book Online
Authors: Avram Davidson
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to the Flint family. KLEL. Yes. Its original aims were not good.
“The Maze is not ours to use, do you see, compeer? We do not use it. We merely watch it. We were taught how. We serve … We serve.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Nate Gordon pawed through the piles of manuscript on his work-table, a door-sized slab of mahogany-veneered something which served as desk. His practice was to make three copies of everything: a white-paper one for the magazine, a yellow second-sheet one for his files, and a blue-paper one just in case either of the others should get lost. Sometimes they got lost. Jamie Swift’s innumerable young men assistant-apprentices were always loosing typescripts, filing a carnal account of a newly found lost tribe of white women in with the income-tax returns, for instance; or dispatching a practically stop-press report on the latest drag-races, not to the sports “book” in Chicago that was sweating for it, but to an imitation “Yank mag” in New Zealand which had ordered 3,000 words on Chicago gangsters. Jamie’s young men tended to have their minds on other things than efficient agenting, and sooner or later he was reluctantly obliged to let them go, which permission they generally received with a good deal of sullen screaming, leaving poor Jamie so upset that he had to take the following day off (“I’m sah-ree,” the answering service woman would explain to callers, “but Mister Swift is-int
in,
he’s down with a virus — attending a stockholder’s meeting — at the chiropodist’s — voting — on jury duty — observing Yom Kippur — Reformation Day — the Vigil of St. Bridget of Sweden — I’m sah-ree, Mr. Swift is-int
in
today — ”). Sometimes Lew Sharp, the editor of
Brute,
lost stories. Usually he lost them in The White Horse, The Cedar Bar, Stanley’s, or similar humanitarian dispensaries on the seacoasts of Bohemia, whilst engaged with one of the Ivy League girls who descend upon the New York publishing industry like lemmings on a Lappish fjord. “See what you think of this one,” he’d say, breathing like a drunken yoga and pulling any of the day’s submissions at random from his ditty-case; “guy’s got the um potentiality of being another Tom Wolfe, Christ you’ve got lovely eyes, only it seems to lack what I can’t just quite put my finger on … You see what I mean? But let us not ruin those lovely eyes trying to read in this light, editors
live
by their eyes, Peni — Meni — Dixi — Domini — ” or whatever the hell her name happened to be. As long as he got the girl up into his apartment, Lew didn’t give a shit what happened to the typescript. It was replaceable. So Nathaniel Gordon pawed and pawed and pawed.
Somewhere in the mass and morass was a chapter and a half of a novel that he was looking for. He paused to read an item done on IBM Executive typeface,
From the desk of Sydney Sherman.
“Once again, as he is obliged too often to, Mr. Sherman finds it needful to draw contributors’ attention to his very minimal standards for manuscript presentation. Mr. Sherman does not require manuscripts intended for his establishment to be engraved in copperplate on cream-laid paper with deckled edges; although such items are admittedly pleasant to receive, Mr. Sherman has not received any since he left the staff of
Delineator
late in the Coolidge Era. However, he draws the line and will continue to do so at items typed single-spaced with a red ribbon, on yellow or orange or blue construction paper, particularly when it is a
worn
red ribbon. Mr. Sherman also objects to MSS. mailed rolled up, as they require four hands to hold them flat and Mr. Sherman only has two — much as this may surprise such contributors. He did indeed at one time employ a chimpanzee to scrutinize such MSS., but it was found that the animal lacked editorial discernment, and it was persuaded to take a civil service appointment at the information window of the Main Post Office instead. Stories and
“The Maze is not ours to use, do you see, compeer? We do not use it. We merely watch it. We were taught how. We serve … We serve.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Nate Gordon pawed through the piles of manuscript on his work-table, a door-sized slab of mahogany-veneered something which served as desk. His practice was to make three copies of everything: a white-paper one for the magazine, a yellow second-sheet one for his files, and a blue-paper one just in case either of the others should get lost. Sometimes they got lost. Jamie Swift’s innumerable young men assistant-apprentices were always loosing typescripts, filing a carnal account of a newly found lost tribe of white women in with the income-tax returns, for instance; or dispatching a practically stop-press report on the latest drag-races, not to the sports “book” in Chicago that was sweating for it, but to an imitation “Yank mag” in New Zealand which had ordered 3,000 words on Chicago gangsters. Jamie’s young men tended to have their minds on other things than efficient agenting, and sooner or later he was reluctantly obliged to let them go, which permission they generally received with a good deal of sullen screaming, leaving poor Jamie so upset that he had to take the following day off (“I’m sah-ree,” the answering service woman would explain to callers, “but Mister Swift is-int
in,
he’s down with a virus — attending a stockholder’s meeting — at the chiropodist’s — voting — on jury duty — observing Yom Kippur — Reformation Day — the Vigil of St. Bridget of Sweden — I’m sah-ree, Mr. Swift is-int
in
today — ”). Sometimes Lew Sharp, the editor of
Brute,
lost stories. Usually he lost them in The White Horse, The Cedar Bar, Stanley’s, or similar humanitarian dispensaries on the seacoasts of Bohemia, whilst engaged with one of the Ivy League girls who descend upon the New York publishing industry like lemmings on a Lappish fjord. “See what you think of this one,” he’d say, breathing like a drunken yoga and pulling any of the day’s submissions at random from his ditty-case; “guy’s got the um potentiality of being another Tom Wolfe, Christ you’ve got lovely eyes, only it seems to lack what I can’t just quite put my finger on … You see what I mean? But let us not ruin those lovely eyes trying to read in this light, editors
live
by their eyes, Peni — Meni — Dixi — Domini — ” or whatever the hell her name happened to be. As long as he got the girl up into his apartment, Lew didn’t give a shit what happened to the typescript. It was replaceable. So Nathaniel Gordon pawed and pawed and pawed.
Somewhere in the mass and morass was a chapter and a half of a novel that he was looking for. He paused to read an item done on IBM Executive typeface,
From the desk of Sydney Sherman.
“Once again, as he is obliged too often to, Mr. Sherman finds it needful to draw contributors’ attention to his very minimal standards for manuscript presentation. Mr. Sherman does not require manuscripts intended for his establishment to be engraved in copperplate on cream-laid paper with deckled edges; although such items are admittedly pleasant to receive, Mr. Sherman has not received any since he left the staff of
Delineator
late in the Coolidge Era. However, he draws the line and will continue to do so at items typed single-spaced with a red ribbon, on yellow or orange or blue construction paper, particularly when it is a
worn
red ribbon. Mr. Sherman also objects to MSS. mailed rolled up, as they require four hands to hold them flat and Mr. Sherman only has two — much as this may surprise such contributors. He did indeed at one time employ a chimpanzee to scrutinize such MSS., but it was found that the animal lacked editorial discernment, and it was persuaded to take a civil service appointment at the information window of the Main Post Office instead. Stories and
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