THE NINETY-FIRST PAGE

That evening I stayed at a shabby New Hampshire motel. For seventeen bucks I could disregard a shower for one night. No AAA. No credit cards.

Its view of the Great Stone Face made famous by Hawthorne stared down at me and my phone booth, where I called the managing editor to whom I owed the courtesy of an apology for not returning the manuscripts promptly. I explained that I was visiting friends down in Virginia and that my reading had been delayed by a number of festivities given in my honor. Ha! I was at last creating successful fiction--and the audience lapped it up.

She may not have heard my excuses because she had other things on her mind, she said. There was no room for new manuscripts in the office, anyway. It was a mess. Communication had broken down. She hadn’t realized how dependent the employees had become on interoffice e-mail. They had to haul their asses (my word, not hers) from their offices and actually talk face to face.

Simply the worst thing to happen since that sickening plague of nasty manuscripts. What “nasty manuscripts”? I innocently queried. Her assistant had been one of the early recipients of my beneficence. Neither seemed to appreciate how difficult it was for me to part with my Tommy, the wild turkey baby stiff.