The Postmortal (40 page)

But I knew it was a lie. I’ve always known it was a lie. You cannot hide from the world. It will find you. It always does. And now it has found me. My split second of immortality is over. All that’s left now is the end, which is all any of us ever has. The WEPS battery is dying. I have a shot of SoFlo at the ready. There is no dread. There is only certainty.

People who write books are incredibly annoying. All they talk about for months on end is their stupid book. “I’m making great progress on the book!” “Ugh, I hit a roadblock with the book.” “I’m sorry I forgot to give Timmy his insulin, dear. I was thinking about the book.” There is no more selfish person on earth than some writer who spends all his time obsessing over some book that no one else could possibly end up caring about as much.

Unfortunately for those around me,
I
happen to be one of these monstrously self-absorbed jackasses. And so I’d like to take a moment to thank my wife and children—to whom this book is dedicated—for putting up with me over the span of the past two years. They are far more patient and loving than I deserve, and they’re all that matters to me. I’d also like to thank my parents, my brother and his family, my sister and her family, and my wife’s family for their never-ending barrage of love and support. I’d also like to point out that I love all of them so much that I even made sure this book has no penis drawings in it.

Professionally, this book wouldn’t exist without the support of two men. The first is Byrd Leavell of the Waxman Literary Agency, who supported me from the very first version of the manuscript and challenged me to make this book into a real novel, instead of a masturbatory idea dump. Poor Byrd read this book four times. Four times! I can’t read any book four times, even if one of them happens to be my own. This man is a saint. The entire second half of this book was rewritten based on Byrd’s expert guidance. Without that rewrite, the end product would have been a waste of my time and yours.

The other man to whom I owe everything is editor Tom Roberge at Penguin, who fought for weeks to get this book published and eventually succeeded. The book would be dead in the water without him, so to Tom I say, “That’s great hustle, sir.” Tom edited the book along with Allison Lorentzen (in the United States) and Amy McCulloch (of Harper Perennial in the UK), and Ted Gachot handled the copyediting with remarkable care and attention to detail. I thank all of them for their judiciousness. This book would have been written in 46 percent capital letters without their efforts. Special thanks also go out to Kristian Hammerstad for the main cover illustration and Gregg Kulick for the cover design, as well as Jim Cooke, who drew the first version of the Dead Reaper icon.

Several people read this book (or parts of it) before it was sold and either gave me valuable input or were nice enough to tell me they liked it. I appreciate both gestures in equal measure. So many thanks to Will Leitch, Justin Manask, Matt Ufford, Stefan Fatsis, Justin Halpern, Evan Wright, Neal Pollack, Jon Wertheim, David Hirshey, Howard Spector, Kate Lee, and Jesse Johnston. I’d also like to thank the lovely and talented Spencer Hall for telling me which cities China would nuke within its own borders. He barely took thirty seconds to provide the answer. That man knows China. Or he’s very careless. Probably the latter.

I’d also like to thank everyone at Deadspin, particularly A. J. Daulerio and Tommy Craggs, who have been fantastically supportive during my time at the site and are the two hardestworking men in athlete dong blogging. I also owe a great deal to my brothers over at Kissing Suzy Kolber, including Matt Ufford, Jack Kogod, Reed Ennis, Josh Zerkle, and especially Michael Tunison, who covered for me for two months during the completion of this book. He’s a remarkably talented and funny man, and I’ll be in his debt for a good long time. Jarret Myer and Brian Brater are the Uproxx overlords who purchased Kissing Suzy Kolber three years ago and have remained great bosses through every cheap dick joke I’ve tossed up on the site. Special thanks also go out to John Ness and the NBC crew.

And any mention of Deadspin and KSK must include a hearty dose of thanks to the readers. They are all exceptionally handsome and sophisticated people, and I apologize to them in advance for this book not being a collection of poop stories. Next time around, I promise.

I’d also like to thank Matt and Bruce (and Ernie) for hiring me back in 2004 and providing me the resources I needed to finish this book when I left advertising in 2009. The bulk of this book was written in the summer of 2009 at the Maryland public library. I’d like to thank the library for having a special quiet room that annoying children are forbidden to enter.

Finally, this book was written in memory of many people in my life who passed away long before I was ready to see them go. They include Charles and Eileen Bane, Betty and John Mayher, Alan and Joan Magary, Alex Phay, Rex McGuinn, George Mangan, and Heidi Spector. I miss all of you very, very much.