tumbldown stories

In My Own Voice

(originally published October 2016)

"Is this the new one?" he was asking, standing up blocking our sign from most of the floor as he flipped through one of the few last books over there, throwing silent shade on our neat but undisturbed stacks, the box of extras under the table that we probably shouldn't've brought out. "I think I seen a couple of these, but I didn't know you had a new volume out." He looked up from the book, pushed his glasses back, and smiled the kind of smile that you went out and did shows like this for, the sign that your work's really connected with someone and they really like it, like it maybe even enough to pay money for it.

The great Detlev Maguire shrugged it off like he couldn't tell, or didn't notice that it was important because everyone who came by looked at him like that. He shrugged, even. "Well, it's what I do; you just keep writing, and soon enough you've got a new book out, and it keeps going. I'm just glad people read 'em; I'd still be doing it even if nobody did, but it's good to see that people are actually getting into them." That wasn't so bad as it went, but he was selling himself short, and there wasn't anywhere that it felt as bad as I did, right next to him: Detlev Maguire was a weed that shot up too fast, and blocked out the sun so that all the plants around it choked to death in the shade. Jace and I had moved a lot of business cards to people stuck in his line, people who might look us up on our blogs or notice that we were there if we ended up in a magazine or an anthology they were buying for another reason, but we hadn't sold shit.

The guy set the book down in the center of the table and took out his wallet. "I'm just amazed that you even can – you make up all these great characters, and then you never see them again, but there's always another couple in the next story who are just as good." He set a ten down next to it, and I tried not to look jealous. "And I hope you don't mind me saying this, but it's like, extra hype that it's a white guy writing this stuff. Normally, you don't get white authors even really try, but sometimes you get stuff so right that it's like the rumors are true, that you're really a house name ghosting for a bunch of people who wouldn't get published if they didn't put a white name on their stuff."

That actually got him to smile. "No, still just me – and I got to be modest about it, I'm not perfect and I get stuff wrong all over the place. But I try to get out of my box wherever I can, get to know more people, and the better I know them, the more I can borrow their voice for stuff that I haven't experienced myself." He put the bill in his cashbox and picked up a pen. "Who should I sign this to?"

I slid down in my chair a little and scanned over my phone. Janelle still wasn't answering my texts; she wasn't exhibiting at this show, but she'd been by yesterday and she said she was probably going to come around today. It always went better if you had a friend hanging around, a friend who knew how to look interested and into your stuff without blocking the sign for anyone who might be coming by. I had to do something while Jace was out for their panel – something that didn't involve looking green-eyed at the guy next to us running out of books while we struggled on to break even. At least I had an in on a good party later – Walid and Cornelia always had good people show up, and around them, you always got the feeling that if you were a poor grinder who didn't sell your stuff out, you just hadn't sold your stuff out yet – that you would get there, get better, not get drowned out by some joker flooding the zone.

I really should've done like literally anything else, but you know, even the best parties aren't always super great – sometimes you've got some penciler for Image or someone who won't take a hint and stop putting his arm around your shoulders and too many of your friends there are too busy with their own stuff or too drunk to give you a hand, and when you go back to your own room your roommate is already in there making out in the bathtub with someone they picked up somewhere else, and you got to figure out something else to do with yourself. You go on, find an open door, grab a bottle or can of something before you figure out you don't know anybody here, move on, and sometimes you get more fucked up than you thought you would and end up in like a housekeeping closet or something, and you got to get out before someone else saw you go in there and something really bad happens. I could recognize the cart, the towel stacks, and I turned around for where the door probably was, fingering the tumbler that had ended up in the pocket of my hoodie from someone's water tray, either because I'd had a drink in there and forgot about it or thought a couple rooms back that I might have to glass somebody, and was trying to keep myself standing up when I heard it behind me.