Four Days with Hemingway's Ghost (16 page)

They say that setbacks usually occur in threes.  And in the past, Blanche and I had always believed that.  It always seemed that when one unexpected expense came up, there would always be two more right behind it.  But this time was far more financially damaging.  We were hit by a long succession of unexpected expenses.  Two-hundred-and-fifty dollars went to have one of my molars pulled.  I could have saved the tooth, but it would have cost another fifteen hundred for a root canal and a cap.  It galled me that a dentist could charge that kind of money for an hour’s work and that hard as I worked, I could no longer afford to keep my teeth.

Then the transmission on my aging Ford pickup had problems—there went two grand onto the plastic.  After that a wheel bearing in Blanche’s Hyundai went, and I found out that my local mechanic had raised his labor charge to seventy-five bucks an hour.  The expenses just kept coming and coming and piling and piling.  Modestly as we lived, we couldn’t even afford to subsist anymore. 

But as I said, despite the relentless spirit-draining gnaw of debt, I continued to write.  And it seemed pretty good.  Out on the porch each evening before sitting down to dinner, I’d read my previous day’s output to Blanche.  And as the book’s word count grew, so did our hopes.  My first priority was to tell the world about the Ernest I had gotten to know, but Blanche and I also hoped we might make a little money from the book.  All we wanted was enough to catch up on those bills and maybe, just maybe, get by with a little breathing room for a change.  Everything was riding on the book’s success.

I’ll forever remember the day I finished the first draft.  It was November 3
rd
.  Figuring that it would take about another month to make the necessary corrections and add some polish to the manuscript, I first sat down to work on a query letter.  I had to put together a one-page summary of my eighty-thousand-word story.  And it had to be good.  It had to convince literary agents that I had something worthwhile—something they would be confident they could sell to a publisher.  Putting that one-page letter together turned out to be more difficult than writing the book itself.

It was nerve racking.  How, in just a few paragraphs, could I possibly tell exactly how good the entire book was?  I must have spent fifty hours laboring in front of my keyboard over that letter.  Sitting in my garage-sale computer chair night after night and for two full weekends, I drove myself crazy reworking the query.  The deletions, additions, sentence restructuring, and all the rest were maddening.  Finally I finished it.  I didn’t think it was all that great, but I knew it was time to abandon it.  I picked out fifteen reputable agents and prepared to mail the letter.  But then there was another problem—another big problem.  I didn’t know if I should categorize
The Real Papa Hemingway
as a fiction or nonfiction book.

“I just don’t know,” I told Blanche as I popped open a cold can of Busch
Lite
on the porch one afternoon.  “If I present it as nonfiction, who on earth is going to believe it?  Who in his or her right mind is going to believe that I was in a coma and at the same time running around with a fifty-year-dead literary icon?  If I say
it’s
fiction, I’m not really doing the job I was given a second chance to do.  He, upstairs, allowed me to come back so I could try to change the world’s perception of Ernest.”

“Hmmm, good point.  I never thought about that.”

“Neither did
I
until I went to work on the query letter.”

“It’s almost like you
have
to call it nonfiction.”

“Yeah, I know.  But you know how I was before I got the concussion.  I was the last person on the planet who’d ever have believed in spirits, ghosts, apparitions and all that kind of stuff.  I’d always discounted it all as mindless, hokey, whacko thinking.”

Pausing then, I looked over the tops of the swaying Areca palm fronds between our place and the
Weitz’s
next door.  A cool front had finally arrived.  After so many months of baking beneath the hot, unyielding South Florida sun, the dry comfortable breeze now coming from the north was a real treat.  With the humidity gone, the autumn sky was now a deeper blue.  And as I looked at it and tried to see into it, I said, “Heck, Blanche, before I got hurt, I didn’t even believe there
was
a God.  I wanted to but just couldn’t buy into it.  There was no proof.”

I took a sip of my brew, put the can back down then looked at Blanche.

“Think about it now.  If I ever do get the book published as nonfiction, what are people going to think of me?  They’ll think I’m some kind of nut-job.  They’ll think that . . . .”

“
Whoooah
!”
Blanche interrupted.  “Since when do you care what other people think?  I thought we’d both gotten past that years ago.  You’re the one who’s always said that you’d love to drop out.  You’re the one who’s always said you’d like to have a few acres in the woods somewhere up north.  And that you’d love to live with the critters surrounded by trees rather than people.”

“Okay, hold on a minute here,” I said, straightening up in my flimsy plastic chair.  “You said
you’d
like to do the same thing if we could.”

“Never mind.
  Forget that now.  The point I’m trying to make, if you’d let me, is bigger than that.  You now know there is a hereafter.  You know there is a God.  Why in His name would you, for the first time, give a damn what anybody thinks?  Not only that, but you’re on a mission.  The only two people, or should I say beings, who you have to worry about impressing or making happy are up there,” she said pointing to the sky.

It was decided that afternoon.  I would submit the book as nonfiction.  And the next day I sent out the queries—four by snail mail and eleven by email.

Agents being notoriously slow responders, I knew it could be a month or more before I heard from any of them.  Then if they were interested in seeing my manuscript, it could be several months before they got around to reading it.  I’d also read in a writer’s magazine a few weeks earlier that there were online communities for aspiring authors.  The article said that participants submitted the opening chapters of their works, and they were critiqued by other writers.  The idea behind it was that writers could improve their books.  Because nobody but Blanche had read a word of what I’d written, we decided to upload my first three chapters onto one of the sites.  And after we did—the very second I hit that “submit” button—I felt like I’d left my baby all alone in a cold, dark, lonely place. 

The site was run by Hall and Farnsworth, one of the world’s biggest publishers.  More than three thousand writers had submitted chapters.  Many of them had considerable experience.  More than a few had previously been published.  I was
a nobody
.  I had no experience or training.  The moment I hit that button I felt like an idiot.  Who was I kidding?  I’d never written anything much longer than a grocery list in my entire life.

For the next three weeks, I checked the site every day.  Five, ten, fifteen times I’d look.  Each time there was nothing.  Words can’t describe how intimate I’d become with my story.  And the deeper I got into the second draft, the more emotionally attached I became.  A few times it got to a point where I had to get away from that computer.  I felt like I was having a panic attack.  My heart flipped a few beats, and I suddenly couldn’t
breath
.  I rushed to the front door, opened it, and had to gasp for air.  I knew the whole thing was getting to me far more than it should have. 
I’d created in my mind a life and death scenario, and
The Real Ernest Hemingway
was in the center of it.  The book had consumed me.  Though that was all it was, just a book, it owned me.  Twenty-four/seven it leaned on the back of my forehead, blurring everything else behind it.  Tension was building.  I couldn’t wait to read the first review on the Hall and Farnsworth site.  The anticipation was not only taking its toll on me mentally but physically as well.  I was still able to sleep eight, nine hours a night, but I was always tired.  Then one Friday after work, that long awaited first review finally appeared on my computer screen. 

“Blanche!” I yelled from the bedroom. “Come here!  It’s here!  The review’s here!”

I couldn’t help myself.  I started reading it as she rushed from the kitchen.  Then when she came into the room, she grabbed my shoulders from behind and peered at the screen with me.  All I could say was, “Oh my God!”

Chapter
19

“What does it say?  What does it say?” Blanche blurted, squeezing my shoulders as she shook them.  “Come on, Jack!”

“I’ve only read half of it.  Let me start from the beginning again.”

I did, and my partner read along with me.

“I’ve been active on this site for three years now, and I must say this is far and away the best piece I have read.  The senses of places you’ve painted with words are cinematic.  I could see every one of them.  As I read your words, I felt as if I were right alongside you and Ernest Hemingway.  I felt the pain you both experienced at times.  I smiled feeling the joy during the funny and happy parts.  When you saw Hemingway appear at your side in front of his Key West home, so did I.  When you were aboard the
Pilar
and that vicious storm came out of nowhere, I was on the deck with both of you—and just as stressed.  And I, too, was relieved when the seas finally calmed and that light appeared. 

I could go on and on, but I think I’ve made my point.  When I read the last of your opening chapters, I was desperate to read more.  And I will do just that when your captivating book is published.  Do I believe that this is a nonfiction story?  No, I can’t say that I do.  Nevertheless
,  from
the very beginning it clenched the back of my neck, shoved my nose to its pages, and would not let go until I finished. 

Thank you, Jack Phelan.  I wish you all the best of luck with this.”

Swiveling around in my chair, I looked at my wife.  We were both beaming.  Our smiles were so wide our cheeks swelled like two ecstatic cherubs.  The goose bumps that had risen on my forearms as I read the review were still there.  All the anxiety that weighed down my spirit for so long was gone.  I felt the small hope I’d fought so hard to keep alive swell and lift like a brightly-colored air balloon.   I was rising higher and higher and looking down at all the doubts that had plagued me for months.  They shrunk quickly until they became specks.  Yes, the doubts were tiny at this joyful moment, but they’d never be totally gone.  I had always been a tough-luck person.  Nothing ever came easily.  And whenever good things happened to me, they’d always felt like too little, too late.  But this time was different.  And I allowed myself to relish the wonderful news.

“Hot
damn
!”
  I said clenching my fists and giving them both one good hard jerk.  “We did it, Blanche!  We freaking did it!”

But that was only the beginning.  I started getting one outstanding review after the next.  And after just four weeks,
The Real Ernest Hemingway
was the number-one-ranked book on the Hall and Farnsworth site.  Not only that but it stayed there.  It finished in first place at the end of December and was then in contention for the site’s “Book of the Year.”  I was riding high.  I thought all along that I’d written something special.  The reviews the book received only bolstered that belief. 

Then there was even more good news.

Right after New Year’s, I began hearing from the literary agents I’d contacted.  And by the end of January I’d gotten responses from all but one.  Ten agents in just one month wanted to see
all or part of my manuscript—four of them in a single day.  I couldn’t believe it.  I had gotten to know some very good writers on the website— authors who’d been trying to get published for years, and half of them never had a single agent willing to look at their works.  I had ten.  Though the recession was squeezing us tighter and tighter, Blanche and I didn’t let it drag us down as much.  Sure, I’d lost a few of my customers, and those small doubts about the book were still down on the ground eyeballing me, but I was almost positive that at least one agent would be getting back to me with good news.

Yes, things were looking up.  And when Blanche and I awoke with the sun on Saturday, February 2
nd
,
my forty-third birthday, we decided to take a ride up to Jonathon Dickinson State Park.  Many times over the years we had gone there to stroll along the quiet nature trails and to discuss the good and bad going on in our lives.  This time, unlike twenty years earlier when we’d gotten the devastating news that Blanche could never have children, it was all good.  And so was the weather.  It was one of those rare South Florida days when it was cool enough to put a little bounce in our steps.  With both of us wearing hooded sweatshirts, we arrived at the park entrance just before it opened.  There were no other visitors waiting to get in, and that was fine with us.

The narrow road was empty as we slowly drove through the miles of scattered pine trees and dense palmettos.  Saying little, we scoured the surroundings for wildlife.  And with the sun still low on the horizon, we were lucky enough to see three deer up close, one with small antlers.  A couple of miles later, as we neared our favorite trail a mile before the road ends at the Loxahatchee River, Blanche pointed up ahead again.