The Plant (22 page)

not, I’ll do a Manuscript Report first thing on Friday, okay? Please don’t let us fuck this up, Roger. Please. Okay, I’m going to bed.

3:48 A.M.: Hello, you have reached Roger Wade at Zenith House.

I can’t take your call right now. If this is about billing or accounting,
you need to call Andrew Lang at Apex Corporation of America. The
number is 212-555-9191. Ask for the Publishing Division. If you
want to leave a message for me, wait for the beep. Thanks.

Jesus, Roger. Wait til you read this fucker. Just you wait.

3:50 A.M. Hello, you have reached Roger Wade at Zenith House.

I can’t take your call right now. If this is about billing or accounting,
you need to call Andrew Lang at Apex Corporation of America. The
number is 212-555-9191. Ask for the Publishing Division. If you
want to leave a message for me, wait for the beep. Thanks.

If anyone does anything to that plant, they’re going to die. You got that?

They will fucking...die.

165

ZENITH HOUSE MANUSCRIPT REPORT

EDITOR:
John Kenton

DATE
: April 3, 1981

MANUSCRIPT TITLE
: Last Survivor

AUTHOR’S NAME
: James Saltworthy

FICTION/NONFICTION
: F

ILLUSTRATIONS:
N

AGENT
: None

RIGHTS OFFERED
: Author offers North American but doesn’t know what he’s talking about, so TBD

SUMMARY
: This novel is set in the year 1982, but was originally written in 1977. To keep to the writer’s intention, the time would have to be changed to at least 1986, 1987, or five years from time of pub.

The basic premise is unique and exciting. A network fading in the ratings (auth calls it UBA, United Broadcasting of America, but it feels like CBS) comes up with a unique game show idea. Twenty-six people are stranded on a desert island, where they must survive for six months. Three trained camera operators are among the contestants. In fact each contestant has a “job” on the island, and the camera operators have to train several contestants in use of the equipment. Other contestants are “farmers,” “fishers,”

“hunters,” and so on. The idea is that each week for twenty-six weeks, the contestants as a group must vote one person off the island and into exile.

First exile gets one dollar for his trouble. The second gets ten. The third gets one hundred. The fourth gets five hundred. And the last survivor gets a cool million. I know this idea sounds wonky, but Saltworthy actually makes us believe that such a program might find its way onto the air someday, if a network was desperate enough for ratings (and tasteless enough, but on network TV that has never been a problem).

What makes the story brilliant is Saltworthy’s delineation of character.

TV viewers see the contestants in very simple ways—the Good Young Mother, the Cheerful Athlete, the Rugged Old Fellow, the Tough But 166

Religious Widow. Underneath, however, they are extremely complex. And one of them, a personable young truck driver named Tracy Nordstrom, is actually a dangerous psychopath who will do anything to win the million dollars. In one breathlessly orchestrated scene early in the book, he induces food-poisoning in the Rugged Old Fellow, substituting hallucinogenic mushrooms for the harmless ones gathered by one of the farmers, a sweet ex-hippie who is heartbroken by her perceived mistake and actually attempts suicide (which the network covers up, as Last Survivor has become a monster hit). Ironically, Nordstrom is the most liked contestant, both by the others on the island and by the huge TV audience. (Saltworthy actually made this reader believe such a show could become a national obsession.) Only one person, Sally Stamos (the Good Young Mother), suspects how evil Tracy Nordstrom really is. Eventually Nordstrom realizes she’s onto him, and sets out to silence her. Will Sally be able to convince the others what’s happening? Will she ever get back to her kids?

Saltworthy builds suspense like an old pro, and I simply couldn’t put the book down...or turn the pages fast enough. The novel climaxes with a huge storm that accomplishes what until then has just been a cynical TV

illusion: the contestants are cut off from everything, real castaways instead of pretend ones. What we’ve got here is a high concept hybrid between And Then There Were None and Lord of the Flies. I don’t want to put the conclusion in this summary; it needs to be read and savored in the author’s own vivid prose. Let me just say that it is so shocking that all the editors who have read it so far have dropped the book like a hot potato. But it works, and I think an American reading public that could accept the supernatural horrors of Rosemary’s Baby and the criminous ones of The Godfather will embrace it, recommend it to their friends, and talk about it for years.

EDITORIAL RECOMMENDATION:
We’ve got to publish this. It’s the best and most commercial unpublished novel it has ever been my pleasure to read. If ever there was a book that could put a publisher on the map, this is the one.

John Kenton

167

from
T H E S A K R E D B O O K O F C A R L O S

SAKRED MONTH OFAPRA (Entry #77)

Time has almost come. Stars and planets almost right, praise Demeter.

GOOD, as my own time is short. The traitor bitch Barfield disposed of, spell worked and plane went down. No problem there, praise Abbalah, but in the end she double-crossed me just the same. Thieving bitch took my Talisman (it was an Owl’s Beak actually). I have looked everywhere but my Beak is gone. I bet she had it in her pocket when the plane went down. Burned! Nothing but ASHES!! With my Protection gone, my Time is short. Never mind, am tired of being Carlos anyway. Time for next stage but first will rid myself of Poop-Shit Kenton. I’ll teach you what rejection REALLY MEANS, you Judas! Let plant take care of rest of them when the Innocent Blood comes.

I have been all around the neighborhood where Kenton works. All office buildings except for small market across the street. Crazy old Bum outside. Woman with a Guitar. Plays almost as bad as Poop-Shit 168

Kenton edits books. Ha! Thought of using her, Innocent Blood, but also Crazy, so no good. “You can’t work wood if the wood won’t work” as Mr. Keen used to tell me. Wise Man in his way.

A few other “regulars” on the street it looks like. One fellow selling watches and
etc.
at a folding table. No problem but weekend would be best. I’ll find a way to get inside, best would be to follow someone who’s

“pulling a little overtime.” I’ll sneak upstairs to their offices and just “lie low” as they say until Monday morning. Plan to cut Poop-Shit Kenton’s throat myself with Sakred Sacrifice Knife. Take his heart if poss. When his blood flows down my hands I can die happy, praise Abbalah, praise Demeter. Only no death! Only move on to next level of existence.

COME DEMETER!

COME GREEN!

169

SAKRED MONTH OF APRA (Entry #78)

Must beware of one thing. I am still having dreams of “The General.” Who is “The General.” Why does he think about suppositories. Why does he think of Designated Juice. What is Designated Juice. Perhaps a holy drink like gooseberry bane or nutmeg milk. I don’t know. Sense danger. Meantime have found a cheap hotel about 3 blocks from Z.H. Cannot hang around any longer. 1. Might attract wrong attention. 2. Can no longer stand Guitar-playing Woman Bum.

Someone ought to wrap her guitar around her neck. Boy she plays like Shit. Maybe it’s John Kenton in disguise! Haaaa haaaaa haaaa.

Weekend almost here. Trials & tribs almost over. Kenton you will pay for rejecting my book and then sikking the Police on me you Crap-Head.

Who is “The General.” Who can he be.

Never mind. Weekend almost here.

COME GREEN!

170

From Sandra Jackson’s Journal

April 3 1981

I haven’t kept a journal since I was an eleven-year-old girl with mosquito-bumps for breasts and a love-life that consisted of moaning over Paul Newman and Robert Redford with my friends Elaine and Phyllis, but here goes. I’m going to skip writing about the plant, as I’m sure John and Roger will have covered that pretty completely (having read a few of John’s memos, probably TOO completely). A lot of what I DO have to say, at least in this entry, is of a personal nature, not to say of a sexual nature. I am no longer that little girl, you see! I thought long and hard about whether I should write this down, and finally I decided “why not!” It will probably never be seen by anyone but me anyway, and even if it is, so what? Am I supposed to be ashamed of my sexuality in general, or my attraction to the killingly handsome Riddley Walker in particular? I think neither. I am a modern woman, hear me roar, and see no reason to be ashamed of a. my intellect b. my workplace ambitions (which go a lot higher than the shithole known as Zenith House, believe-you-me) or c. my sexuality. I’m not afraid of my sexuality, you see—not to talk about it, and certainly not to let it out for the more-than-occasional walk in the park.

I said as much to Herb Porter when he confronted me yesterday. Just thinking about it makes me mad (it also makes me laugh, I’m relieved to say). As if he had the RIGHT to confront me. Me Tarzan, you Jane, this chastity belt.

Herb came into my office around quarter of ten without so much as a by-your-leave, closed the door, and just stood there glowering at me.

“Come on in, Herb,” said I, “and why don’t you close the door so we can talk in private.”

Not so much as a hint of a smile. He just went on glowering. I think I was supposed to be terrified. Certainly Herb Porter is big enough to terrify; he must stand six-one and weigh two hundred and fifty, and given his high color (he was as red as the side of a fire truck yesterday morning, and I’m not exaggerating one little bit), I worry about his blood pressure and his heart. He also talks big, but I was around when the hate-mail started coming in from General Hecksler, and those letters made Herb small in a hurry. The way he looked on Wednesday, actually, when John suggested that, all evidence to the contrary, General Hecksler STILL might not be dead.

171

“You’ve been screwing Riddley,” Herb said. This was probably supposed to come out sounding like the accusation of an Old Testament prophet, but it emerged in an unimpressive dry squawk. He was still standing just inside the door, his hands opening and closing. With his green leisure suit and red face, he looked like an advertisement for Christmas in hell. “You’ve been screwing the goddamned JANITOR!”

Last week that might have put me off my stride, but things around here have changed since last week. I think the New Order will take some getting used to. What I’m talking about is TELEPATHY, my dear little journal. Of course. ESP. Absolutely. MIND READING. No doubt about it. In other words, I knew what was on Herb’s mind from the moment he stepped through my door, and that pretty well did away with the shock value.

“Why don’t you say the rest of it?” I asked.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Going into that patented Herb Porter bluster of his.

“Yeah, you do,” I said. “That I’m fucking the janitor bothers you a lot less than the fact I’m fucking the BLACK janitor. The HANDSOME black janitor.”

From the first
fuck
. I had him on the run. I should be ashamed to tell you how much I enjoyed it, but I’m not.

“The fact is, Herbert,” said I, “he’s hung like a stallion. Such equipment is not the sole property of black men, racist canards to the contrary, but few men, white
or
black, know how to use what God and genetics have given them.

Riddley does. And he’s livened up many a dull day in this dump, believe me.”

“You can’t . . . I won’t . . . he isn’t . . . ” Then he just spluttered. But, thanks, to the aforementioned New Order at good old Zenith House, there are no more ellipses around here. For better or worse, every thought is finished. What I could not hear with my ears I could hear in my mind.

You can’t . . . DO THIS!

I won’t . . . ALLOW IT!

He isn’t . . . OUR KIND OF PERSON!

As if Herb Porter, the Ranting Republican, was MY type of person. (He is, of course, in some important ways: a. he’s an editor b. he loves books c. he is sharing the bizarre experience of Life With Ivy.)

“Herb,” I said.

“What if you catch a disease?” expostulated Herb. “What if he talks about 172

you to his friends, when they’re sitting on their stoops and drinking their GIQs?”

“Herb,” I said.

“What if he’s got a drug habit? Friends who are criminals? What if . . . ”

And there was something sweet at the end of that ellipsis, something that made my heart melt a little. For a racist blowhard Republican, Herb Porter really isn’t a bad guy.

What if . . . HE’S MEAN TO YOU?

That was how the last ellipsis ended, and after that Herb just stood there with his shoulders slumped, looking at me.

“Come here,” I said, and patted the chair behind my desk. I had about a billion rotten jokes about dead babies, nympho nuns, and stupid Europeans to go through (“Polish Public Service Announcement: It’s ten o’clock! Do
you
know what time it is?”), but I felt very close to Herb just then. I know how strange that would sound to John, who probably thinks Herb Porter is from another world (Planet Reagan), but Herb isn’t. Herb Porter is just one more fucked-up Earthling.

Know what I really think? I think telepathy changes everything.

Simply EVERYTHING.

“Listen to me,” said I. “The first thing is that Riddley is more likely to catch something from me than me from him. He’s the healthiest person in this office, that’s my guess. Certainly he’s in the best shape. The second thing is that he’s more like us than you think. He’s working on a book. I know because I saw one of his notebooks one day. It was on his desk, and I peeked.”