Tracklist:
Moi Je Joue - Brigitte Bardot, Alain Goraguer
Saturday In The Park - Chicago
Computer Games - Mi-Sex
1
The book flew from the hand of the publishing executive, bounced off Dean’s face, and hurtled out the open window. The spinning, half-pound snowflake of doom fell ten stories and struck a girl from Kamchatka who would later become Dean’s wife.
Dean rubbed the sting from his forehead. Ignoring the screams from outside, he pointed a trembling finger at the pants-suited executive.
“Listen––that’s no way to treat a semi-athletic Caucasian man of average height in his mid-thirties!”
The woman tapped fingernails on her desk and Dean began to sweat, as if the sound was the drumroll of his literary execution. After having his novel chucked in his face, he wouldn’t have been surprised if she reached into a drawer for a double-bladed axe. Any tool of wood-choppery or medieval off-head-putting, in fact, would have complemented her severe bun of blonde hair and tailored black suit.
“Mr. Cook, there’s nothing average about you,” she said. “ ‘Below average’ is the word I would use, with ‘shockingly’ as the preceding modifier. Modifiers, of course, are something with which you’re intimately familiar. I haven’t seen this much purple prose and overuse of adjectives since high school, and don’t get me started on the bad grammar, shifting perspective between chapters, and the sexist cover!”
“How dare you,” said Dean. “How absolutely ... dare you. The goldmine of your publishing career lands in your ample lap and this is the response I receive. Is this America or was I suddenly transported to a Gestapo colony on the Moon? A man who is legally confirmed to have spent a third of his life in college, thank you very much, writes the story of his formative years beneath an abandoned Mercury Grand Marquis on the banks of the Ohio with nothing but a stick called Pickle to sing him to sleep and you have the absolute nerve to call it rubbish?”
The editor slowly removed horn-rimmed glasses from her face and rubbed her eyes.
“I apologize, Mr. Cook. Before our relationship on this Earth––or, as you allege, the Moon––has ended, allow me to say one thing: SHUT UP AND GET OUT!”
Dean brushed a hand through his feathered chestnut hair. “That’s two things.”
“I can’t sell a book with a mud-covered, naked woman on the cover!” sputtered the executive. “Not to mention the title, which is ‘Space Clothes.’ Are you on medication ... yet?”
Dean held up his hands. “I know, I know, but that wasn’t me, that was the marketing guy––I mean team, marketing team. A naked girl cannot fail to attract the male demographic, and that’s not mud, it’s chocolate. We all know women go crazy for the stuff. ‘Space Clothes’ to attract both nerds and women who don’t fancy chocolate. They like fashion. And shopping, but that’s just common sense, a bonus when you’re doing business with Dean Cook and Kiss the Cook Productions. When I slide up to the publishing table, you don’t get an author. Well, you DO get that, but you also get a marketing genius. I’ve got one finger on the carotid artery of the American consumer, and the other four sort of near the artery but not pressing too hard. I don’t want anyone to pass out.”
The editor gave Dean a shockingly dour look, one that would have fit in perfectly behind the reception desk of Nazi Moonbase Ein.
“I’m calling security,” she said.