I got back to my apartment to find a threatening phone call from Mack Halpin on my answering machine.

Come to think of it, there were really only two types of phone messages from Mack Halpin. Threatening and the ones I liked to think of as his exclamation hang-ups. As anyone who has ever dealt with him likely already knows, Mack isn’t the world’s most patient person. One thing he hates more than not reaching someone and getting an answering machine message is getting a long-winded answering machine message.  It’s just something that throws a further delay into his day.

Call it a latent passive aggressive tendency of mine, but, knowing this, I purposely leave really long answering machine messages. I originally didn’t start doing that to piss off Mack, that was just a side benefit. I had originally gotten into the habit of leaving lengthy “I’m not able to answer your call” messages because I didn’t really like getting messages on my answering machine and figured if someone was so desperate to get a message to me they could at least first pass the challenge of listening to my “can’t take your call” statement drag on for close to a full minute. Yeah, I know, one minute doesn’t seem like a lot of time, but when you consider that the average “not here” message is in the realm of 15 to 20 seconds, it takes a whole new world of patience.

And for the most part it was effective. Those who really wanted to leave me a message stuck it out. Those without any patience hung up well before it came time for them to hear the beep and say their piece.

What surprised me most of all, though, is that despite his incurable impatience, Mack ALWAYS seemed to listen to my full message and wait for the beep before violently slamming the phone down. I imagine it was because he wanted me to know how much my “not here” messages pissed him off.

And if there was a single stronger streak in Mack than impatience, it was the stubbornness which allowed him to ensure his point-of-view was communicated crystal-clear. I mean, it was the reason he was one of the most sought after literary agents.

At one point I thought it might be amusing to save a string of answering machine messages from Mack, the latter kind, the ones in which, by the time the little beep sounds and the machine is recording, you usually hear the tail end of Mack’s responding rant, liberally sprinkled with curses and insults as the phone is being slammed down onto the receiver.

I would imagine the messages could be re-mixed into an amusing musical clip perhaps accompanied by still shots of Mack in a wildly viral YouTube video.

“. . . of all the brainless, stupid fuck idiot technologies.” [Slam]

“. . . shit shit shit shit damn!” [Slam]

“. . . so you’re not fucking there – do you have to try to kill me with the longest most fucking boring monologue this planet has ever seen?” [Slam]

“ . . . of course you’re not there you dumb twathead.” [Slam]

“ . . . waste of my fucking time. Goddamn fucking wa--”[Slam]

“ . . . like I’m going to waste my precious breath talking to a goddamn machine that—”[Slam]

The video might be called “Talking to a Machine” and would perhaps go viral the way that a social media blockbuster like “Sh*t My Dad Says” was born out of the simple twitter feed of a young man posting the raw and unedited commentary his “no holds barred” father would quip on a regular basis.

 I knew I was wasting time amusing myself rather than doing the two things I needed to do. Call Gail and let her know that Howard was safe, though most likely arrested. Then call Mack and let him know that I came nowhere near the expected word count.

So I did the only thing I could at the time.

I pressed the button to listen to Mack’s message one more time.

“Listen Andrews, you better get back to me as soon as you hear this,” the machine replayed his voice while the little red dot blinked as if in fear of the man’s words. “Your future, which is on pretty fucking thin ice right now, rests on you delivering the 4000 words you promised you’d have me by 2 PM. It’s 2:30 now and I haven’t seen hide nor hair from you. And your hide is what I’ll have hanging on my wall if I don’t have the crap you call writing on my desk before 3 PM. Do you have ANY idea how your incompetence makes me look? You can be a flighty bullshit-cranking creative type all you want, but I have a business to run, a reputation to uphold. Your selfishness and inability to deliver on time reflects poorly on me. Call me, and get me that manuscript or so help me God, I’ll make sure you never work again in this industry you ungrateful little pansy hack!”

Well at least he still loved and respected me.

I stood and stared at the phone.

It rang.

I picked it up.

“You’re actually there?” Mack started to bellow before I had even gotten the phone to my ear – not that I couldn’t hear him clearly even with the receiver still a foot and a half away from my head. “Jesus Christ on a crutch, Andrews. You nearly scared me to death. Where the hell were you and why were you not answering my calls?”

“Hi Mack,” I said. “I . . .”

“I don’t give a shit. Just get your ass over to the computer and email me the manuscript. And if you tell me it’s not done so help me God I’ll reach through the phone line and wring your fucking little pansy-ass neck!”

“I’m done,” I said in a flat dry voice. I honestly think I’d meant that I was done, finished, wash-up as a writer – that I was giving up.  But Mack, of course, interpreted this as what he wanted to hear, that my manuscript was ready.

“Excellent, Michael. Wonderful. You’re an absolute genius. Okay, time’s a wasting, please get over to your computer and send me the phenomenal writing that makes this world a better place.”

Then he hung up the phone.

Cripes.

Okay, so I had to take care of this here and now.

It was a wonderful side-track that prevented me from having to confront Gail. Yes, I wanted to relieve her with the fact that Howard was okay. But I didn’t want to have to be the person to tell her he was crooked and two-timing her.

Make no mistake about it, I was secretly delighted he was scum. Not for the fact that it hurt Gail, but purely for the reason that his infidelity and lack of integrity would mean Gail wouldn’t be marrying him. And while it didn’t necessarily mean I stood a chance of rekindling anything with her, it was certainly a step in the right direction.

But I wasn’t good at conflict, wasn’t all that good at confronting situations head-on like that. So any little delay was welcome.

I sat down at my desk, woke up the computer screen from the “sleep” state and considered the manuscript I had written. The words I’d been able to get out amounted to just over 1500. Not even close to the 4000 words the publisher was expecting.

But it was all I had.

And, in all honesty, when I told Mack I was finished, I really did mean it in the sense of having had enough. For the past several years there had been such a push for me to produce commercially desired material that it had been eating away at the type of writing I really wanted to do.

Yes, I still liked Maxwell Bronte, I still liked the universe he existed in and I quite enjoyed delving into it and exploring the world through his eyes.

But I had other projects I wanted to work on.

And I was a best-selling author after all.

If this publisher dropped me, even if Mack dropped me, I could likely find work with some other imprint, some other publisher who would be happy to have me?

Wouldn’t I?

I mean, if Mack did attempt to make sure, as he stated in his message, that I’d never work in this town again, I’m sure he meant it, at least with the large publishers out there.

But I no longer needed the type of assurances that being published in hardcover from one of the handful of major publishers initially gave me. I’d be happy to go with a smaller advance at a publishing house that allowed me to flex a different sort of creative spirit, that let me experiment and be me.

The still-healing wound in my leg where I’d pulled out the bullet throbbed and I laughed.

Needing to be me was such an interesting term for someone like myself to use. Particularly when what I was wasn’t always me, but a combination of the me that I consciously think about and the me that I have absolutely no control over and very little access to – the me that runs around on all fours, howls at the moon, and lives a completely different existence than any normal mortal could ever possibly understand.

Hell, I could barely understand it, and I lived with the werewolf curse every day.

But regardless of the complexity of what “me” entailed, the point was still the same.

I needed to do this.

I logged into my gmail account and started composing a message to Mack.

Mack:

I got as far as that simple line (a fair way to start an email) when the phone rang again.
I picked it up.

“It’s been two minutes and I haven’t seen the goddamn manuscript, Andrews. Get it the fuck to me. Now!”

Do I need to say that he slammed the phone down before saying anything else or allowing me to even speak?

I went back to my message.

Mack:
I know the publisher wants 4000 words and that was an arranged compromise on my behalf. The fact is, my writing itself has been compromised by the existing arrangement with this publisher.

Here’s what I have. 1500 words in the latest Maxwell Bronte novel.

If that isn’t enough to satisfy them, then tell them they can drop me.

You can too for all I care.

Attached is the opening for the new novel. That’s all I have written and all I will write until I’m good and ready for the next phase.

Sincerely,
Michael Andrews

I attached the untitled manuscript document and emailed it off to Mack.

Then I waited for his phone call.

It didn’t come.

Even after ten minutes, he didn’t call. Not even to fire off a string of expletives in my direction.

Well that was a first. I’d pissed him off so thoroughly that he simply didn’t say anything.

And I have to admit it felt good.

Really good.

Great, even.

I decided I couldn’t delay any longer and picked up the phone to call Gail. Enough time was wasted, she was likely beside herself wondering what was going on.

When I picked up the phone there was no dial tone.

I held the receiver to my ear and heard very heavy nasal breathing. It was Mack.

“At first,” he said, in a soft voice unlike any I’ve ever heard pass his lips. “I thought you were joking, pulling a fast one on me because of the way I’d spoken. Then I realized something – you were serious and actually meant it. I heard what you were saying this morning Andrews, don’t think I wasn’t. I heard you clear as a bell and I’ve learned a few things since we first met.

“But it’s great to see that you’ve learned few things from me, too. This bold move you’re making is absolute brilliance. It’s genius, even. I’ve never been so impressed with you as I am now.

“You’re showing them exactly who is the boss, here, and I love it.”

“Mack, what are you . . .?”

“I forwarded your email directly to the publisher, Andrews. Didn’t even add anything from my office – just gave the manuscript a quick read myself and then forwarded it on to them.

“The beauty is that I didn’t even need to saying anything. Your message to me said it all, and it’s true.

“Fuck ‘em. If they’re not willing to go with what you have produced, fuck ‘em all. We’ll find another publisher who’ll offer us more. I don’t care about the contract, don’t care about all that other stuff. You’re Michael fucking Andrews, you’re a gold mine if they ever saw one, and for once they’ll have to bow to your needs or lose you.”

“Mack, that’s not what I--”

“And they caved. Just like that. They fucking caved. You’re a genius Andrews. A flipping genius. I stand in awe.

“They love what you wrote and are begging, absolutely begging to know what happens next, where the story is heading. I told them not to get their panties in a knot that they’d get the rest when you were good and ready.

Now get going, boy. Get your ass down to the Letterman studio – you need to report to the green room in less than an hour.”

He hung up.

I sat and stared at the receiver for a few minutes.

I couldn’t believe it.

And, finally admitting it to myself, I felt a huge knot of tension flow out in a massive wave from my shoulders.

Sure, I had been worried about what this move meant, considering I had sabotaged my entire career.

But that wasn’t the worst of it.

The true tension, the tight knotted ball I had been carrying in my shoulders and the back of my neck hadn’t been from the worry of what thumbing my nose at Mack and the publisher might do.

It had come from the pressure of having to produce another Maxwell Bronte novel.

Simply pausing to consider it and toss that tension out the window was a burst of relief that I needed.

No, I didn’t want to completely abandon Bronte – I truly do believe that there are many more stories in his universe for me to tell.

But knowing that I could let go, that I didn’t need to cave into the pressure from outside forces, that offered me a relief like none I’d ever felt.

Who knew?

I gently placed the receiver back in the cradle.

There was a knock at the door followed by a voice.

“Michael,” It was Gail. “I know you’re home. Please answer the door.”