Letters to Jenny (37 page)

There’s more on pictures, of another nature. When my wife’s father, my daughters' grandfather, died, about three months before you almost did, there was a big job of estate and house cleaning up to do. My wife handled it, and now the house has been sold and the estate liquidated and the money distributed to his three children. Assorted items came to us, and among them was a set of pictures of my wife Cam as she was at age two, with her father. She was the cutest little thing, much like our daughter Penny, when. Sometimes I just stop and look at those pictures of that bygone day when my wife was fifty years younger than she is now, feeling nostalgia for what I was never part of. Life, even in its ordinary course, can be cruel; it proceeds inevitably from cuteness and novelty to age and death. Then I resumed work, typing my novel about a cute girl who is obsessed with death, Colene in
Virtual Mode
, and the radio played “Scarlet Ribbons.” You know that song, Jenny? Surely you do! Cute little girls and scarlet ribbons—it just made me feel so sad for the moment. We can’t hold on to the precious aspects of life, we can only remember as we see them fading.

Well, on to the Book Report; I know you’ve had enough of nostalgia. You say you haven’t? Sigh; okay, I’ll tell about another song. Back a couple of weeks ago when my mother visited—you remember that, when I put my mother on the phone with your mother? You don’t? Ha—I saw that bit of a smile! You
do
remember! Well, we had to get up at 5 A.M. to be sure of catching her train, so Monday morning our house intercoms came on with the radio blaring out news, commercials, and then a song, “Eternal Flame.” I had heard that song before, but only in the background of my mind. This time in the hassle of getting dressed and all, that song in its sudden beauty was like a bit of Heaven being heard in Hell. “Does he feel her heart beating … ?” There’s an evocative half-note in there that does something to me. Then it was cut off; Cam had to turn off the intercom so she could phone the train station and learn that the train was 38 minutes late, so we could have slept another half hour. Sigh. Well, we got my mother to the train in time, and now she’s back in Pencil-vania. She’s pushing 80, so we like to be sure things are okay. Then this past week I heard that song again, and this time I got to listen to the whole of it. It’s not the most elegant song, but instead seems sort of wistful and amateur, as if this young woman is just awakening to love and this is her song of expression. I made a note of the FM stations on which I heard that song, and now I have them zeroed in on my instant-station keys, so they’ll be there to play the song again. Have you heard that one? Well, make your mother set up an FM radio so you can listen to such songs. I’m sure you’ll like it when you hear it.

Now that Book Report. (Pause) What, no objection? You’ve finally given up changing the subject? Okay, onward. This is the third of those three books I was telling you about. This is
The End of Nature
, and I hope to read it when I read the other two. Its thesis is that man has just about destroyed nature, so we no longer live in a natural environment. We are cutting down the last of the forests, we are polluting the land, sea and air, we are killing the wildlife, and we have made of the world the equivalent of an enormous heated room. If we don’t change our ways in one hell of a hurry, we shall pay one hell of a consequence. And, the author fears and I fear, we are not going to change. So life as we know it now is doomed. Unless the warning signals become so strong that even the ignorant, self-interested man on the street realizes that it is time to act, because it’s his own ox being gored to death. Let’s hope!

On to something less significant. Last Sunday I went out to pump up the bathtub full of water for the horses in the pasture, and the water was way down, and the pump just wasn’t pumping right and finally pooped out entirely. It was coming apart, so that air was leaking in. So Tuesday I went out with a vice-grip wrench—and couldn’t fix it. So Wednesday I went out again, with three vice-grips, and this time I managed to tighten the almost inaccessible nuts and make the pump tight so it could pump again. Victory at last, I think. Such is my life.

So I hope you are doing well, Jenny, and wowing them at school, and I hope your mother is getting some sleep. Till next week—

FeBlueberry 16, 1990

Dear Jenny,

This time I’ll start with the enclosures again, because there’s one that shouldn’t be here. That’s because it’s a Valentine cardlet sent to me, but I thought you’d find it cute, so I’m sending it along. This person always includes little cutouts he makes, and this is a man on a horse, sort of. Now admit it: isn’t this your sort of cutout? I’m also sending a picture of manatees, the ugliest and gentlest of sea creatures; they like to have swimmers rub their tummies, as dogs do. And a cartoon showing the Gettysburg Address copy-edited; maybe that isn’t painful and hilarious to you, but it is to me, because it is exactly the sort of editing I receive. If it doesn’t amuse you, give it to your mother. And “Curtis” of course, and “The Far Side” because I love that notion of the La Brea Carpets. And “Calvin”—don’t show that one to your mother, because then she won’t let
you
do that for school. And a cutout quote: “Life is what happens to you while you’re making other plans.” That can be painfully true, as you know. And a little graph showing a formula for P/E Plus Inflation. Now you may wonder what P/E stands for. Well, at school it’s Physical Education. In some circles it’s Penis Envy. Here I think it means Price/Earnings ratio. Take your pick; I think the graph will work for any of them.

What’s that? I violated the Adult Conspiracy? Sigh; it’s hard to avoid it, if I don’t want a hopelessly dull letter. Which is the point of the Adult Conspiracy: it is to see that folk never get to see or do anything interesting. Especially young folk like you.

And a fax of a page from a news fanzine that evidently picked up the Jenny story from the Sci-Con report published in that other fanzine I keep telling you about. Just so you know the news about you. That was the last thing I sent to them; I have dropped them. Yes, they are now printing comments about my supposed attack on another person and my name-calling, while the other person is accusing me of all the crimes he can think of without regard to accuracy: he says I suffer from PMS (your mother will define that for you), that I don’t know what a logarithm is (I taught logarithms when in the Army), that I have amazing arrogance, and so on. This is because I criticized him for squishing spiders just because they were there, and when he attacked me in a barrage, I said that needless cruelty to animals is an early sign of sociopathic behavior. I think he is pretty well proving my case. Anyway, that’s what’s being published about me now that I can’t respond because I stopped writing because of their censorship. Par for the course, apparently.

But you’re not interested in my aggravations. Oops, you mean you
are?
But Jenny, these are supposed to be nice sweet positive uplifting letters to cheer you up. You mean you’re sick of that stuff, and want something nasty to chew on? You’re getting more like your mother every day! Okay, I’ll tell you my latest aggravation. Do you remember the Xanth Calendar? The one with the Siren on the cover, in her bare skin? No? How about the picture of Miss Mayhem, the ogress? Ha! I caught you remembering! Well, because I wanted it done right, I financed that calendar myself. I paid for everything, and every artist was paid immediately when the picture came in, instead of having to wait months the way publishers do it. Then I signed a contract with Ballantine to print and distribute it. The deal was that they would pay 6% royalties on each calendar sold, which means that I get about 59⊘, and if they sell more than 25,000 of them, I start getting repaid for my expenses in making up the Calendar. The idea was that if they printed 100,000 copies or so and sold most of them, we’d all be well ahead. Well, Ballantine kept being out of the office when we called to inquire how the calendar was selling. Meanwhile I got letters from fans complaining that they couldn’t find it on sale. One even suggested that I do a Xanth Calendar; not only had he not seen it on sale, he didn’t know it existed. So much for their publicity and distribution. So I put the matter in the hands of my agent, and he got the information: they only printed 33,000 copies. That guarantees that I lose half my money, and unless they sell almost all of those, which isn’t to be expected—there are always some returns—they won’t have to repay
any
of my initial costs. Apparently they deliberately printed too few, so as to stick me with the loss. It doesn’t hurt them; they had no initial costs, because I paid the artists. So they make extra money by avoiding what should have been their costs. It’s a great deal for them, but for some reason I find that annoying. So don’t be surprised if you see someone else publishing the next Xanth Calendar. As the saying goes, “If my friend cheat me once, shame on him; if he cheat me twice, shame on me.” No, I can afford the loss—but if they ever want to deal with me again, they are apt to discover it more expensive than they expected, because I don’t forget.

So let’s get to something more positive. I got a new file handling program called XTreeProGold, and it turns out to be everything I ever wanted in computer housekeeping. Yes, I realize this interests your mother more than you, so I’ll keep it brief. With it I can set up two windows, one showing the directory I’m in, the other showing the directory I want to copy files to. So I can see exactly what needs copying, and I can see it happening. That stops those disastrous errors right there; in fact I’ve already caught some out-of-date versions of files. When you get into word processing, and have dozens of files to watch, then you’ll appreciate the delight of a program like this.

This is my 112th letter so far this month, and yes, I have dozens more waiting. So what? you inquire? Well, this does concern you, because one of the letters I answered this morning was from a young man of about 18 who was hit about a year ago by a drunk driver and smashed up something awful. They are now taking some of the pins out of his bones so that he can start bending a knee again. He’s had a bad year, but is recovering. He would like to be a writer. So I gave him advice on marketing his novel, and I gave him your address, the Box # c/o Jenny Elf. So if you hear from him, listen politely; he has a notion what it is like.

Meanwhile our blooming dogwoods are—let me rephrase that; our dogwoods are blooming. Bunnies are showing up on the drive again, when I go out to fetch the newspapers on the bike and sneak a peak at the sunrise. So things are normal. Have a decent week, Jenny.

FeBlueberry 23, 1990

Dear Jenny,

Ouch! It’s after 7 P.M.! Where did the day go? Well, I typed 16 letters, and my wife’s brother and his family visited for five hours, and I had a call from my British agent. She called with the news that there is a Spanish offer for
Pornucopia
. They made the offer, then made a better one before the agent could respond. Apparently another publisher was getting interested. I told my agent not to read it; she sent it to the publisher still sealed in its plastic wrapping. You know how that book boiled your mother’s brain. She’s hardly had a good night’s sleep since. So yes, I suppose you could say that my letter to you was delayed by a dirty book. So maybe it does entitle you to give me a dirty look. If you feel that way. But if you do, I won’t tell you about the next paragraph.

You see, this is sort of an anniversary. My first letter to you was written FeBlueberry 27, 1989, and this is the 23rd. Maybe I should have waited four more days on this one, so—no? Ah, well. In that letter I told you how I had heard about you from your mother, and how we had just had our tree farm mowed between the rows of pine trees, and I went out there and regretted the cutting down of the blueberry bushes and thought of you, also cut down. I mentioned Robert Kornwise, who was killed by another reckless driver, whose novel I completed; your mother has a copy of that. I told you to pet the Monster under the Bed, who had gotten lonely without you and come to join you at the hospital. And I told you how I would put a Jenny character in
Isle of View
, an elf or an ogre girl, and you chose the ogre.

What’s that? Oh—I was just checking to make sure you were listening. You chose the elf, and after that one thing led to another, and in a few more months you’ll see Jenny Elf in person in the graphic edition. After that you won’t dare show your face on the street, because someone might recognize you. Then the regular novel will appear, with its Author’s Note, and you’ll start getting letters. I don’t know how many, but there could be a dozen or so at first, and then the pace would slow down. Do they have Show and Tell at your school? You can take a pile of letters in.

So a lot has happened in the intervening year. You went to a convention—what do you mean, what convention?! Sci-Con 11, where—ha! I heard that peep. You just couldn’t hold in that laugh any longer, could you! Then you came home, and now you’re going to school, and who knows what you’ll be up to tomorrow. Your mother phoned last night and reported that you were doing very well, and that you have a little signature stamp with a unicorn so you can answer letters. She said you got the Salad Bar Botanist of the Week Award. What were you doing—throwing salad around? And that you went to the circus. How come you get to do all these things when I can’t? But that you still get tummy pains in the night. Well, maybe if they stop feeding you beans—

So how come you’re glaring at me? How can I finish a paragraph when you act like that?

Meanwhile, how are things here? Well, yesterday we saw rain approaching on the radar: a big patch of it, all sparkling with color to show where it was most intense, looking like a double fried egg or an interior configuration of the Mandelbrot Set. Have you seen
Nothing But Zooms yet?
You haven’t? Well, get on it, girl! And I have finished the first draft of
Virtual Mode
, all but the Author’s Note. Yes, you get mentioned there, in a paragraph, but it’s mostly about the Ligeia girls, because of Colene, the suicidal protagonist. You’ll learn more about her when you’re her age, fourteen.