The next day, yesterday, Lance came out in the morning to hamper his children’s packing. Kids travel with ridiculous things, and they never seem to mind how many different suitcases and cartons and duffle bags they filclass="underline" “You can’t carry that much,” is being said, at any instant in time, by probably several thousand exasperated parents to several thousand uncomprehending children all over America. In this instance, of course, I was all in favor of Gretchen and Joshua taking with them to Marin County every comic book, every soccer ball, every shiny stone and broken scallop shell, every LP record and tattered magazine and half-deck of playing cards and single sneaker and cuddly doll and Incredible Hulk poster they wanted to take to Marin County, because otherwise I would have to transport all that crap here to New York; which eventually, of course, I did have to do, today.
At the last possible minute yesterday, Gretchen realized there were several thousand other Gretchens (all these kids look the same and most of them have the same half-dozen names, its like a science-fiction movie) that she must say goodbye to, so off she went, so of course they missed that ferry and Lance had a conniption, and pretty soon everybody was yelling at everybody else, except that Ginger and I didn’t have any reason to yell at one another and therefore didn’t, which even further increased our sense of solidarity.
Lance, in his rage, kept establishing the point that this delay would mean they’d have to take a taxi from Bay Shore directly to Kennedy Airport in order not to miss their plane, rather than take the Long Island Railroad to Jamaica and then a cab which he had previously worked out and which would be much less expensive, but it’s useless to talk to children about how expensive or cheap things are. They knew Lance was angry, that’s as far as their comprehension could go. Gretchen blubbered until the next boat, and was still blubbering as it left to cross the Great South Bay, and for all I know she’s still blubbering now, in Marin County.
Profiting by Lance’s example, I ordered Bryan and Jennifer to say their goodbyes before lunch today and refused to let them out of my sight for the two hours between the end of lunch and the departure of our ferry, when we would be doing our packing anyway. Nevertheless, various troubles and traumas did arise, and this time Ginger and I did have reasons to yell at one another and therefore did, but nobody’s bad temper lasted very long because in truth we’d liked that month in that house and were all sorry to be leaving.
The simple life. Why not?
Wednesday, August 10th
Dewey Heffernan is a menace. Fortunately, so far, he’s mostly a menace to himself.
He phoned me yesterday, and at first I couldn’t figure out what he was talking about. He said, “Tom, we’ve got a problem here with the bosses.”
“We do? What problem?” But what I was thinking was, What bosses? Tell me who you’re having trouble with, and I’ll tell you if it’s serious or not.
But Dewey answered the question I’d asked, rather than the one left unspoken. He said, “Well, they’re dragging their feet on this idea we talked about at lunch. Now, I have an artist that has to be paid, and Accounting just kicked the voucher back to me, says it isn’t authorized. Can you imagine?”
“Not yet,” I said. “What artist?”
“You know,” he said. “The one to replace the Dürer.”
Dürer. There was in the book — page 173, as I recalled — an Albrecht Dürer woodcut called “The Adoration of the Magi,” which I had chosen partially because in it St. Joseph looks like John Ehrlichman, but also because Dürer didn’t have to be paid. You don’t pay an artist who’s been dead since 1528.
But wait a minute; replace the Dürer? I said, “What do you mean, replace?”
“Well, I knew you felt strongly about the color stuff,” he said, “and Korban agreed he could give me a good page in black-and-white, so the Dürer just seemed the obvious thing to come out. I didn’t see any point bothering you with a detail like that, I mean we have so much old stuff.”
“Korban,” I said, reaching out at random for something that might be forced to make sense. “What is a Korban?”
“He’s fantastic!” Dewey told me. “He did the most fantastic freaked-out space trip with Santa Claus and the reindeer and this wild nun with an Afro and—”
“Dewey,” I said.
“—the sled’s like a low-rider, and—”
“Dewey!”
“—they go— What?”
“Heavy Metal,” I said, remembering our lunchtime conversation.
“Sure!”
“You want to commission a Heavy Metal artist to do a drugged Santa Claus and—”
“It’s done, Tom! You ought to come into the office, look at it, it’s fantastic!”
“I’m sure it is,” I said.
“But now I got to get this poor guy paid,” Dewey said. “And Accounting’s making all this trouble.”
I said, “Dewey, are you telling me you went out all on your own and commissioned an illustration for The Christmas Book?”
“The one we talked about at—”
“Not me,” I said.
“What?” The sound was so baffled, so lost and hopeless, that I knew this was merely another example of Dewey’s ignorance and that he hadn’t been trying to pull a fast one at all. I don’t think Dewey would know a fast one if he fell over it, which he most likely would. “What, Tom?” this innocent asked.
I said, “Dewey, at that lunch I did not agree that we should add the work of a Heavy Metal cartoonist to The Christmas Book.”
“Tom, you did!”
“I did not, I would not, and I will not.”
“Tom, I distinctly remember—”
“You do not,” I said. “You do not distinctly remember anything from that lunch. I distinctly remember the lunch, and I remember you talked about pop-up books for adults, and I remember you talked about the Heavy Metal artists, and I remember the conversation remained theoretical.”
“Tom, you thought it was a good idea!”
“I thought it was a rotten idea. I also thought it was something you couldn’t possibly do in July for a book to be published in October, so there was no reason to argue.”
“But we talked about it!”
“Who else did you talk to?”
“Korban! The artist!”
“Who did you talk to at Craig?”
“Nobody,” he said, and for the first time a trace of doubt — or perhaps fear — entered his voice.
I said, “So you just went out, without my approval or any permission from anybody at Craig, and offered some clown— How much did you offer him?”
“Fifteen hundred dollars,” he said. Now he was definitely scared.
“Where did you come up with the number?”
“I looked to see what we paid the other artists,” he said. “So I offered him the same. Tom, it’s a really wonderful—”
“And then you put in two vouchers to Accounting,” I said, being deliberately mean, “and they bounced them back at you.”
“Two vouchers? No, just one.”
“What about my thousand dollars?” I asked him.
“Tom? What are you talking about?”
“Dewey,” I said, “you’re the editor on this book. Haven’t you read the contract? Haven’t you read the correspondence? Haven’t you talked with anybody about this book?”
“There’s nobody here to talk to,” he said miserably. “Everybody’s gone away for August.”