on, you know — to convey any articulate statements and sentiments about anything but my painfully tight shoes and borrowed tux, but shoot. Not literally, but go ahead, I’m ready, and sorry for my silly jokes — feeble tries at them, rather,” and a woman says “We understand, Robert, and we’ll do our best to refine what you say if it doesn’t come out well. You’re still a bit overexcited, no excuses needed — so be as informal and as much yourself as you want,” and he says “Though what I said before wasn’t recorded, was it? Because if it was—,” and she says “Don’t worry. If it’s on tape it won’t be used and will be erased or destroyed — that’s not what we’re interested in,” and he says “So what are you then? I mean—,” and she says “Basically, from my standpoint, sir, in an abridged version of the acceptance speech you made, since we only have so much air time for the story, and some of us were setting up here and didn’t get it for radio or TV. And then some elaboration, if you will, and perhaps even in-depth exploration to things pertaining to your writing and the award that the other reporters might ask you and maybe even me too, okay? Okay, let’s start, for I’d love to get it on the eleven o’clock, and I think some of the print people have deadlines of their own,” and there’s a pause, “Face the camera please, sir,” and he does and she makes some hand signals to the camera crew, then says “Mr. Bermmeister, well, how do you feel about winning the award?” and he says “Just what I said in there,” pointing to the door, “I—” and she cuts him off and says “I should have told you this, Bob. Robert? How do you go by?” “Either.” “Well, pretend it’s the first time you’re saying it, so no ‘just-what-I-said’s’ please or pointing, since no one watching will know what you’re pointing at,” and he says “Make everything seem as if it only just happened, which it almost just did, but I got it. All right. I’m shocked, surprised—” and she says “Wait’ll I ask the question, Bob. Now,” hand signals to the crew, “Mr. Bermmeister, how do you feel about winning it?” and he says “Surprised, shocked, very surprised, almost incredibly so. Totally unexpected, and excited. It was unexpected, and I’m excited because for me it was so unexpected, to the point where I was made speechless. No, that’s not exactly so. Moment it happened I yelled out ‘It can’t be,’ or something like that. ‘Impossible. This is. Wake me up.’ My wife would remember the exact words. To tell you the truth, and I know I’m going on too much with this, it was more than enough, although perhaps not to my publisher, though he was quite ecstatic enough, though who wouldn’t be and particularly when your company’s that small and new and never had a major success, though we both thought that as long as I was nominated and it was going to somebody…oh, where was I? Lost my train of thought. You’ll have to edit and splice, whatever the term is, to make sense of this or just do it over. For I was saying something about how being a finalist was more than enough for my publisher and me, though as long as—” and she says “Let me ask you this, and we’re still running. Why are you so shocked and surprised, as you said? After all the acclaim your book’s received so far, you don’t believe it deserves the award?” and he says “What acclaim? There was the nomination, of course, but almost no reviews, though okay, it’s only been out a month. Four, to date, and only one from a prepublication review service, so five altogether. We thought the nomination would generate more, though maybe that’s what got us the four newspaper reviews. And of those, only two — possibly three, if I stretch the praise a little on that one and sidestep what can be construed as complaints — were good, but certainly not smashingly so. But you know, but you wouldn’t, but it’s almost always been like that, minus the nomination and award and two or three reviews, for all my books when they were published. Day of publication with those it was as if the publisher just dropped the book off the George Washington Bridge and you watched it sink. But if there was a passing barge or boat below — the rare chance of that happening, is what I mean, though which must’ve in this case — and it hit someone on the head, then maybe there’d be some attention given to it, like a feature news piece with the lead ‘Book Beans Boatman,’ or something. So what I’m saying is that other than for the nomination and now the award, and maybe the one fairly good review it got in my city and leap-from-nowhere articles that same paper gave me — but something like that’s almost de rigueur, if you know what I mean: hometown always wants the hometown boy to make good, if he hasn’t been insulting to it, for it looks good for the hometown — there hasn’t been any acclaim. And does my book deserve the award, I think you asked? Who am I to say which book does? Maybe them all, and also some books that weren’t nominated — certainly some of those — and I just got lucky, that’s all, but it’s probably more than that, though what, I don’t know. Not that I’m disputing the judges’ judgment, you understand. I’m grateful — eternally, or as far as that goes — I mean it, for something like this, if you know how to live with it, can’t do anything but good for the book. And a real writer…ah, forget what a real writer thinks, says, how he acts, that kind of business, as if I were one. But you know, your book can win for the wrong as well as the right reasons. Maybe less chance of that happening with five judges, which is why they have that number, but every so often there can be a fluke there too. For someone can see something really good in it that wasn’t intended, in or under the writer’s mind, and if that person has a strong personality or persuasive delivery or is preeminent in his field or just famous for any reason, really, and the others aren’t well known and are weak or just easily manipulated or swayed, this person can convince them this is there when it’s not, and what do you do about that? Protest that someone raved about your work and then got the rest of them to, for the wrong reasons he saw into it or just said to show his power or ability to persuade or to test out how compelling his preeminence or fame is? I’m not being very clear, am I?” and she says “No no, it’s okay, but—” and he says “When my sentences get too long, I lose touch with what I started out to say. There, that was a clear one and ended with a monosyllable, my favorite way. But I’m also too excited, surprised, since this award just happened, didn’t it? And besides that, I’ve had nothing to eat since breakfast, and that wasn’t much — toasted English muffin, margarine because they didn’t have butter, and black coffee — for my publisher’s been carting me around town all day signing books, a new experience for me and which I’m sure also came out of the nomination and possibility that I might win, and then I don’t know — wait, here I go again with my long sentences — what the heck happened to lunch. Maybe — good, I stopped — maybe that was the English muffin and coffee on the run, and breakfast was just toast. And I also, at the cocktail reception just before the awards dinner, had, with just a couple of skimpy hors d’oeuvres—” and he suddenly sees his editor beside one of the cameras, waving her hand across her mouth for him, he thinks, not to say what he was going to and then making motions to drink several quick shots and shaking her head right after. “Well, like that,” he says. “For being hungry and a bit tired, I have to admit — they really moved me around today — can make one,