A Taxi Romance

CHAPTER ONE:

ANOTHER REJECTION

Leaning over the keys of my old portable typewriter without my glasses, I strained to read the monitor screen where my e-mail posted another rejection from a New York agency. The Remington Rand typewriter I leaned over has remained my oldest and dearest friend. I have used this Noiseless Number Seven for well over three decades and, on this antique, I pound out; drunken rants, angry letters to editors and sometimes poetry. However, I consign the sweat of my labor to the cold digital reality of our age via a keyboard for manuscripts that have a greater need to be perfectly sanitary.

"Please be assured I have carefully read your project, Sean..." the e-mail read, "unfortunately I have to pass on your manuscript. One thing that concerns me is the length of the manuscript, however, I felt the voice was strong. I planned to request more but after reviewing your query and seeing that your protagonist, Max, had instigated and participated in a rape, I felt that I couldn't invest in him."

"Meeoooow," Homer stretched out on the top of the old monitor.

I relit a butt from an overfull ashtray on top of a stack of three hundred, soiled, unread and unedited pages. Holding a near empty fifth of Jack to my lips like a microphone, I tried to Marconi my voice through the wall all the way to New York City, "Hey you... yes, you over there on Agency Island! You wouldn't have been investing in me... Sean McKee, not Max!"

Then I looked up at Homer to make sure my outburst didn't upset him, "Does she think I'm the rapist?" I purred.

The phone rang. Homer didn't answer my question. He gave the phone a nod and the waited patiently for me to do something about that damned noise. I listened for my answering machine to kick in. That was one of only a few concessions I made to the twenty-first century: desk-top computer and answering machine. I don't like voicemail because I can't screen my calls...

Yes, I am a curmudgeon. I go to The Santa Barbara Roasting Company to have a cup of regular coffee and maybe a bear-claw, not to write the great American novel in less than 150 characters. Of course, there was no Facebook or Twitter back then. It was 1998 and I was a maudlin old drunk in those days. I am still a curmudgeon, pretending to be a writer, but I do it at home and not so agonizingly alone as I was when all of this took place.

"Sean, are you there? Hey, pick up the phone..." It was the Fu. I took a pull of the pint as she insisted, "Mickey, please pick up the phone."

"Okay, hello," I'm thinking, let her speak, dammit... she is The Fu after all. I dubbed her that because she calls her golden triangle, her Fou-Fous-Nette. It is a French colloquialism that loosely translates as "silly boy trap". Besides that reference, The Fu, fits her well  because  loving her has been a martial art... kung-fu: with feints and jabs all the way.

"Sean, we need to talk, " she sobbed.

"Girl, I'm too old for this," I parried. To often in the past I'd heard this phrase. It was the same phrase Celeste employed when she told me she wanted a divorce. It usually means I listen while she, whoever she is, tells me something I don't want to hear. There is no we involved.

"It's not what you think."

"Not what I think?" I was surly. She'd put me in limbo a few times before. Every time we get close I get a call like this and I get enough rejection from...

"Sean, listen to me."

Okay, what is it this time?"

"Nicky saw us... he watched us last night."

"Oh."