I would like to be able to claim that I did not write my last book for money, but I did. I very much wrote my last book for money, which is why you will find a werewolf as its main character. In light of this, I would at least like to be able to claim that the werewolf you will find-or have found-was well thought-through, that I took my time with him, that through many drafts of writing the novel I came to know the werewolf as one might know a brother. This, I have been told, is one goal of making a character. Unfortunately, I never grew to know my werewolf as one might know a brother. In fact, I did not come to know the werewolf at all and I do not know what it is like to have a brother. I cannot imagine having a brother, not because having a brother is not imaginable, but because my imagination has run out. I suppose this makes me a bad writer, but I was an only child and my parents were stolid, ascetic people who considered me clutter. They spoke more to our knife set than to me, to make an illustration of my above point. Further, they ran off when I was only five, to raise a different child, whose provenance I remain unclear on to this day. The fact is, regarding this werewolf character, that upon re-reading my last book recently, or, frankly, upon reading it in its entirety for the first time, the werewolf seemed as strange to me as it ever had. I hardly recognized him at all, and I was surprised to find myself responsible for it.
I suppose the above issues from another regret I have. I would like to be able to claim I wrote the entirety of my last book on my own, that is, I would like to be able to claim that I was my last book's sole author, but I was not. I will admit that I dictated parts of the book to my assistants. Further, I will admit that I passed on the production of large parts of my last book to my assistants. I have two assistants. Lorrie is one, Billy is the other. Now, if you are asking me which parts of the story Lorrie was responsible for and which parts Billy, I wouldn't be able to tell you. To tell you the truth, the process of writing this story is blurry in my mind. Was I thoroughly drunk for some long stretches of its production? Truthfully, yes, and this might account for some of the strange plot turns you will find in it. I am thinking here especially of the narrator's rather odd forty-page digression on the history of artificial sweeteners. I brought this up to Billy upon my reading of the book in its entirety. I asked him where this came from. He reacted with brilliant innocence and a convincing ten-page power point production arguing for its relevance.
Now, I am not immune to some of the rumors that have been floating around out there. How can anyone be immune to that which floats around? Specifically, I am speaking here of the rumors concerning Lorrie and Billy and whether they forged some kind of romantic bond during the writing of my last book. Would it bother me if these rumors proved true? You would have to ask me and I am not sure where I have gone. I can guess at my likely reaction though. I will guess that if you were asking me this, I would respond that the rumors regarding Billy and Lorrie's alleged romance do not bother me. What Lorrie and Billy do with their private lives is completely up to Lorrie and Billy and me. Or, rather, Lorrie and Billy. Now, would it affect my decision to take them on again in a similar capacity? No, as long as I had assurances from the both of them, in meetings I arranged with them together and separately, that their relationship would not affect the writing of our next book. In these meetings, my main point would be, Please don't come into my office smelling like sex. Do I know what sex smells like? No, not likely, but I have heard this phrase, the smell of sex, used in movies.
I have an important announcement to make. I would like to announce here that my next book will not be written for money. My accountant has informed me as of lately that I now have enough money. My only concern ever was to have enough money to pass along to my children and my accountant now insists that I now have enough money to pass along to my children, and to him, if I chose. He has become very persistent on the latter point. The tragedy here is that I have no children and I find I have likely become too old to have them. I am tremendously old. I have asked Lorrie about children, but she appears to be involved with Billy. Could this be true? Without children, I will probably donate the vast sum of my wealth to charitable exercises. I suppose I wouldn't mind seeing the oceans more clean, and the air turned a less vivid shade of red. Is that the sky I am looking at, that redness outside my window, or has Billy hung something over my window preventing me from seeing the sky?
The next book Billy, Lorrie, and I write will not be written for money. Thus, it will not require a werewolf. This is a huge relief. I am thoroughly tired of werewolves. More than anything, I am tired of having to haul around the guilt I have often felt for not getting to know my werewolf characters like brothers. At this point, I have decided that it is impossible to get to know a werewolf character. I have a hard enough time getting to know my human characters. Because there will not be any werewolves in my next book, I am free to name my book exactly what I wish to. Billy likes The Stowaway. Lorrie's preference is something with "hammer" in the title, or perhaps "Lorrie" or maybe even "Lorrie and Billy" in the title. If you're asking me what I prefer, I'd go with Where Is My Damned Cane? There is the ring of truth to such a phrase, to that, I hope you will agree. After all, where is my damned cane? I mean it, where is my cane? I cannot stand or walk without my cane.
While I am at it, I suppose I should expunge further purple feelings I have been having lately. For one, I'm afraid to write the next book. This is because I'm afraid I no longer know how to write. I'm also afraid that Billy and Lorrie have been mostly responsible for the last several books. I am also afraid of Billy and Lorrie. Sometimes they don't let me leave my house. And I certainly shouldn't be writing this. If they find it, I'm not sure what they will do. Perhaps they have taken my cane as a pre-emptive measure. But I am also afraid Billy and Lorrie will forget I live in this house and I am afraid that they have also forgotten that I have some say in what goes into the next book. Billy has insisted on The Hidden Man as the title. I will not argue. You should see Billy when he gets mad. I am much older than Billy and he could knock me to the ground and I'm sure I would take a long time in getting up and in that time what more might Billy do? Knock me to the ground again? Could that go on forever? Lorrie is stronger than me as well and there is something in Lorrie that goes unexplained-some mischievous instinct she has that seems to grow more wild as she gets older. Together, Billy and Lorrie are like a machine built to end me.
My agent insists the werewolf book is bearing a nice return. He says this through Lorrie and Billy. Or, Billy and Lorrie tell me this is what he has been communicating to them. For now, my agent is allowed to communicate only with Billy and Lorrie. I no longer have any access to the outside world. My agent says the werewolf book sits somewhere on the bestseller list, but he is not, or rather, Billy and Lorrie are not, specific about where on the bestseller list I might find it. My agent wishes to know further how the next book is coming along. Lorrie and Billy also wish to know how the new book is coming along. They should know, I think, because they are writing it. They ask whether the new book has a werewolf in it and whether I have grown to know this werewolf character like a family member. Why do they keep torturing me so? Further, they want to know whether the new book will be have the word "train" in it. I tell them it's unlikely. I tell them to tell him, my agent, that the new book will likely be called The Hidden Man because that is Billy's preference. They appear intrigued.
The lesson now is that I should have stuck to writing books for money. I did not know trying to write a book for something other than money would get me into so much trouble. Where is Billy now? He's probably in the other office mocking up the cover of our new book. This is something I used to do-I used to design everything, the front cover, the back cover, the type for the pages, but now Billy does all of that. I don't know where Lorrie is. Last I saw her, she was naked and walking through the house drawing figure eights in the air with the tip of my cane. That was some time ago, I believe and I think she was on something. Is this Billy's novel, then, or a collaboration between him and Lorrie? Or, is it Lorrie's novel only, and then was Billy responsible for transcribing her dictation? It is definitely not my novel, but which of the last four or five have been?
I am fed through a hole knocked into the bottom of my door. The food is very good, the best I've eaten in a long time. Lorrie is a helluva cook. She could cook crow's meat into something good. I have said this to her through the hole knocked into the bottom of my door, but she has mostly ignored me. She calls me Frank, but Darren is my name. She should know because at one time she was my employee. I should have never made the doors lockable only from the outside. This makes no sense, how I have constructed the doors, but I've done everything backwards in my life-the doors, the writing, the gathering up of money before the bearing of the children. And I feel like it's getting too late. Given my feeble condition, it's likely that I will soon die, shut up in this office, my last room. If I fall, there is probably no getting up, not without my cane, which I haven't seen in days. I should write about it, my last days, but I can't. Or, can I, since I have been the one writing this? Have I been the one writing this? I must concentrate on the hand that drags across the page, it's particular qualities. In that lies my identity.