Under Contract



  UNDER CONTRACT

  A Tale of Horror and Satire

  by Craig Hansen

  Copyright 2012 by Craig Hansen. All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 9781476126562

  Website: https://www.craig-hansen.com/

  Cover Design: Streetlight Graphics

  Editor: Everything Indie

  LICENSE NOTES

  DISCLAIMER

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are a work of fiction or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Prologue: Last Weekend

  Chapter 1: The Beginning

  Chapter 2: Six Months Later

  Chapter 3: The Next Day

  Chapter 4: The Rewrites

  Chapter 5: The Bullying Begins

  Chapter 6: Recovery—Six Months Later

  Chapter 7: An Unexpected Call

  Chapter 8: The Second Novel

  Chapter 9: A Detour for Love

  Chapter 10: The Third Novel

  Chapter 11: Ten Years Later

  Epilogue: A Year Ago

  Epilogue II: Revenge of the Epilogues

  About the Author

  Books by Craig Hansen

  What Writers and Readers Are Saying About SHADA

  What Readers Are Saying About MOST LIKELY

  Dedication

  TO BRUCE LANSKY, WHO OFFERED me my first job in publishing out of college, and actually did publish my first short story ever to see print through a traditional publishing house. “Chardae’s Thousand and One Nights” appears in Girls to the Rescue, Volume 1, published by Meadowbrook Press and distributed by Simon & Schuster. Thanks, Bruce.

  Prologue: Last Weekend

  “I LOVE THE FREEDOM OF being an independent author,” David McAfee said as he dealt the last card in a round of seven-card stud. “I can write what I want, when I want.”

  We all picked up our hands and started sorting cards.

  “I don’t know that being published by a traditional publisher would be so bad,” Victorine Lieske said, her brow furrowed as she studied her hand. “The problem is getting them to look at you at all.”

  “That’s not so hard,” I said.

  “Why am I here?” David Dalglish asked.

  “Amen, brother,” McAfee said. “I know the feeling.”

  We all grunted agreement.

  “No, I mean it,” Dalglish insisted. “What am I doing in this place?”

  “How many?” McAfee asked, looking at Vicki.

  “Three, please,” she said, setting her rejected cards back on the table and pushing them McAfee’s way. He dealt her three more. “Believe it or not, I had a Big Six publisher turn me down because Not What She Seems did too well. They said the market was saturated. I sold around a hundred thousand copies, but still.”

  “Two, please,” I said, setting my cards on the table. McAfee pushed two new ones my way. Glancing at Vicki, I said, “They always want something new, something fresh.”

  Vicki sighed.

  “Are you all ignoring me?” Dalglish interrupted. “Seriously, you’re acting like this is happening. But I don’t remember how I got here. Suddenly, I was here. The four of us haven’t been in the same room together before, as far as I know. What’s going on?”

  “Ugh, I hate the word suddenly,” Vicki complained. “It’s so rarely used to describe something sudden. And it’s a word that separates you from the sudden thing that should be going on. Remember your action verbs, Dalglish.”

  “How many?” McAfee asked.

  “Cards, or action verbs?” Dalglish sighed. “I’m not playing along. Not until I get some answers.”

  Vicki stood. “Sounds as though Mister Grouchy needs a snack. Root beer, everyone?”

  We all grunted approval as she disappeared into the kitchen.

  “Wait, this must be Vicki’s place,” Dalglish said. “If she’s serving snacks, that’s where we must be. Charles and her children are probably nearby.”

  “You need to relax,” McAfee said.

  “I need to be writing, not sitting here in a make-believe poker game with writers I know from KindleBoards.”

  He turned to me.

  “Who are you, anyway?”

  “Craig Hansen,” I replied. “I’ve Photoshopped your faces into other photos, on that one thread. I have a couple novels out.”

  “Wait a second—” Dalglish was cut off as Vicki reentered the room with a full tray.

  “Root beer floats for everyone!” she said.

  “Sell another ten thousand copies of Not What She Seems?” I asked.

  “About that many,” she said. “Slow month.”

  “David, how many cards do you want?” McAfee asked, staring down Dalglish.

  “Don’t you get it? This never happened. Someone’s making it up. Someone here. And I’m not playing along till I learn who. Probably not even then.”

  Victorine pinched Dalglish’s cheeks the way a mother would her child’s. “C’mon,” she said. “I just gave you a float.”

  “I figure it has to be either Vicki, because we seem to be at her place, or Hansen here.”

  “Why me?” I asked.

  “Gee, I wonder,” Dalglish said. “This sounds like a comedy to me, and you’re always cracking wise on KB.”

  I took the first frosty sip of my float.

  “Well,” Vicki said, sitting back down, “all I know is, I still think it could be a good thing to be traditionally published. It’s great being an indie and all, but there has to be an upside to signing with a Big Six publisher. I mean, that’s nearly all there was till a few years ago.”

  “Yeah, and none of us here ever got signed under the old system, so screw ‘em. They missed their chance with us.” McAfee looked expectantly at Dalglish.

  Dalglish sighed. “Four cards,” he said softly. “But only because I want to see where this goes, so I know who brought me here. I have a wife, you know. I’d rather be with her.”

  McAfee dealt the four replacement cards to Dalglish, then two to himself.

  “Be careful what you wish for, Vicki,” I said. “Living as a traditionally published author isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

  “How would you know?” she asked. “I thought you’ve always said that other than a couple short stories, you’ve never been traditionally published.”

  I chewed on my lower lip. “I have a confession to make.”

  “Aw, geez,” Dalglish said in an outburst of frustration. “Hansen, I knew this was you.”

  “I used to be traditionally published author,” I admitted.

  “What? When?” Vicki said.

  McAfee said, “You never admitted that before.”

  “Fiction,” Dalglish said. “I call fiction. This is some setup for a story, isn’t it? I’m not amused. Hansen, we barely know each other, you and I. You get that, right?”

  “It’s true,” I told the others. “I could tell you horror stories about being traditionally published. I only signed one traditional contract, but it changed my life. I remember it like it happened in the eighties.”

  “What, now the rest of the story is a flashback?” Dalglish whined. “Readers hate flashbacks almost as much as they hate prologues. Don’t tell me. I’m in a prologue? Tell me I’m not in a prologue. I’d prefer watching a movie with my wife and eating fudge.”

  “Fudge might go well with root beer floats,” Vicki said.

  “Dude, relax and let the guy tell his story,” McAfee said, shaking his head.

  Dalglish glared at me from across the table. “Send me home, Hansen. Please.”

  I cleared my throat and began my confession.


  Chapter 1

  The Beginning

  IT WAS A DARK AND stormy night. Suddenly, a shot rang out! The maid screamed! And...

  Err, wrong story.

  Sorry, Snoopy.

  Anyway, yeah, I was young and stupid, what can I say? This was before the era of eReaders. Well before. Like, the eighties, remember?

  One day, I was approached by an editor in a dark overcoat.

  “Hey, kid,” he whispered in a conspiratorial, Deep Throat-esque voice. “I got something I wanna show ya.”

  A naïve teenager, I approached him.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  He opened his London Fog trench coat and there it was, revealed at last. Pale white, etched in patterns not familiar to me, yet strangely ... familiar.

  “This here’s a traditional publishing contract, kiddo,” he said. “You write three books in the next five years, and I promise you, we’re gonna take care of you ... real good.”

  “Gee, mister,” I said, because although I wasn’t alive back then, I somehow seemed to live in the fifties, “that sure sounds like a swell deal. I’ve always wanted to be a writer for a big publishing firm in New York.”

  “Don’t sweat it, kid,” the editor said, eyes scanning the streets warily. “Of all the firms in the Big Apple, this one’s the firmest. Sign here.”

  So I did.

  And thus began the most harrowing experience of my life.

  Chapter 2

  Six Months Later

  DESPITE THE TRENCHCOATED EDITOR’S SHIFTY appearance, I soon began receiving regular communications from New York; specifically, Siegel and Shuster. My editor turned out to be Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis herself, though the heavy lifting was done by her minions.

  Anyway, feeling the zest and optimism all young writers feel, I immediately began work on my first novel. I decided to write a brilliant portrait of a young man growing up in the Midwest, because I was a young man growing up in the Midwest.

  I wrote faster than I had ever written, like a young boy with his first book contract, eager to see that first advance installment arrive in the mail, the princely sum of twelve-hundred dollars.

  Hey, it was the eighties and I was a teenager. Shut up. That seemed like a lot, back then.

  I instilled elements of romance, humor, and tragedy into every chapter, all revolving around the primary theme of a young, misunderstood kid coming to accept that although no one likes him, it’s okay to feel comfortable as himself.

  Also, he won the US presidency in a landslide.

  Full of vim and vigor, I mailed my massive tome off to New York and waited with bated breath. (Nightcrawlers are easy to find in the Midwest, and a surprisingly common food source.) I remained eager to hear from Jackie O and her minions about what a stellar genius they’d had the foresight to sign to a three-book contract.

  Certain I was about to be discovered and become a humongous star, larger than Stephen King ever dreamed of being, I went to bed that night, convinced the future held only roses and champagne ahead.

  The next day, the first phone call came.

  Chapter 3

  The Next Day

  THE PHONE RANG.

  MY PARENTS were up before me, and after a couple exchanges with the caller, my mom handed me the phone.

  “It sounds as though this is for you, Craig,” she said. “Someone from New York City.”

  “New York City?” I frowned. “What do they know about salsa?”

  “It’s about your book,” she corrected me. I took the phone and said hello.

  “Are you Craig Hansen?” the voice on the other end asked.

  “That’s me,” I said.

  “What is this crap I’m reading in front of me?” he asked.

  “Gee, sir, how should I know? Whatcha readin’, mister?”

  “This piece of crap manuscript you call a novel.”

  “Wait a cotton-pickin’ minute,” I said, suddenly from the American south. “Who are you? Where’s my editor, Jackie O?”

  “They tell the idiots that, kid,” the voice said. “You believed them?”

  “Well, I mean, I didn’t know ... I mean...”

  “Fagedabuddit,” he said. “Our acquisitions editor shoulda tested your IQ first, kid. Fine. Whatever. I need rewrites Audi U, and I need ‘em last week!”

  “Rewrites?” I asked. “What kind of rewrites? And who are you, anyway?”

  “I’m your real editor, Bernard Goetz. Now shut up before I turn your kitty cat into beef stew.”

  “But don’t you need a cow to make—”

  “Don’t test me, kid. Be thankful you signed with Siegel and Shuster. I’m here to get you Audi this mess you made. Look, this crap ain’t as smelly as most the stuff I see come through these doors. But you got a lot to fix, and soon, or you’ll be in breach of contract.”

  “Breach of contract?” I said. “I thought I had five years to deliver three books!”

  “Kid, welcome to publishing. You were already two books behind the moment you signed that contact. I bet you didn’t even read the small print.”

  “Small print?”

  “Microscopic. God, I hate working with tyros. But you listen to me, kid, and I’ll get you through this. Alive, maybe.”

  “Gee, mister, I sure hope so. I have a community play practice tomorrow night.”

  “Not anymore, you don’t. You signed a trad-pub contract. Your expletive deleted is ours.”

  “My what?”

  “You heard me. Your expletive deleted.”

  “What I heard you say are the words expletive deleted. Usually when someone swears, you hear the words they say and only when it’s written down are they edited out.”

  “Kid, what’s my expletive deleted job?”

  “Umm, editor, according to you?”

  “Exactly, numbskull. Now, let’s quit yakking and get to work.”

  Shortly thereafter, the Yak Antidefamation League filed suit against this eBook.

  Chapter 4

  The Rewrites

  AS I LISTENED TO BERNIE’S editorial feedback, my first novel slowly began to transform.

  My optimistic young hero from the Midwest suddenly became a street-tough youth from Hell’s Kitchen, New York.

  “No one gives an expletive deleted about flyover country, kid,” Bernie told me.

  “Where’s flyover country?” I asked.

  “It’s where you are right now, you idiot, and exactly where you’ll always stay unless you stop asking stupid questions and get to revising.”

  And so he was from Hell’s Kitchen. For a couple revisions, at least.

  Instead of coming to terms with his own self-esteem, my young protagonist had to cope with his best friend sleeping with his girlfriend.

  “That sounds kinda, I don’t know, dirty,” I objected.

  “The world’s dirty, kid. Ain’t your fault. Just write it.”

  And so it went. By the time I was done, I adopted a pen name and renamed the novel Less Than Zero. We hired an actor to be the public face of my pen name: Bret Easton Ellis.

  But my troubles had only begun. Not only was I under contract to Siegel and Shuster, I was about to become trad-publishing’s expletive deleted.

  Chapter 5

  The Bullying Begins

  I WAS WALKING THROUGH THE Oak Park Mall in Austin one day, passing a B. Dalton Bookseller there, when I saw my first novel in a display standee. Sure, it bore the name Bret Easton Ellis, but I knew Less Than Zero was mine.

  A tall, burly, ex-NBA player stood next to the standee, arms crossed, scowling. He snarled as I approached the standee.

  “Move along,” he said.

  “Hey,” I said in greeting. “I only wanted to look at my new novel.”

  “Your new novel?” he asked. He picked up a copy and looked at the dust jacket. “You think I’m stupid because I’m an athlete? This here’s the author. He ain’t you. Now beat it.”

  “What?” I asked. “Why? Even if you don’t believe me, ce
rtainly I have as much right to look at a book here as anyone else.”

  “Nope,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  “I ain’t asking, kid. Leave while you can still walk.”

  I walked past him to speak to a sales clerk when I felt myself grabbed from behind. A massive impact on the left side as my body collided with what could only be a brick wall.

  I blacked out.

  Chapter 6

  Recovery—Six Months Later

  “CONGRATULATIONS ON TAKING YOUR FIRST steps after your unfortunate encounter,” Dr. Breen said. “How did all this happen to you? You’ve undergone months of speech therapy. You can tell me now.”

  I sighed and slumped back into my wheelchair.

  “All I wanted to do,” I told Dr. Breen, “was buy a copy of my own book. Heck, just look at it, even.”

  “Oh, yes, you’re a writer, aren’t you?” Dr. Breen said. “I wanted to mention, you should send a thank-you note to your publisher. They paid for all these surgeries that restored your hands.”

  “They what?”

  “Ahh, you writers lead such privileged lives. I envy you. It’s true, though. The Siegel and Shuster accounting department phoned our hospital and asked us to give you the finest care and to make sure your hands work.”

  “My hands?”

  “Why, I imagine so you can keep writing, of course,” Dr. Breen said. “You know, I’ve always thought I had a novel in me.”

  I offered my doctor the most serious, sober expression I could muster.

  “Keep it there,” I said. “For God’s sake, keep it there, where it’s safe.”

  He left then, mumbling something about jealous writers who can’t stand the thought of competition. Little did he know, my warning probably saved his life.

  As for my life, things were about to get far worse.

  Chapter 7

  An Unexpected Call

  “MERRY CHRISTMAS,” THE VOICE ON the other end of my phone line said.