(55 years ago)

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Apr
18

Riding Writers by Doug Hawley

I got my degree in literature on June 5 a few years ago. Big deal. My parents didn’t care, didn’t go to the ceremony. I didn’t either. They wanted me to get a real job and thought degrees were worthless pieces of paper. They loved the old joke:

B.S. – Everybody knows what that means.
M.S. – More of the same.
Ph.D. – Piled higher and deeper

At first I felt really good. Had a fine girlfriend, saved a little money from my summer jobs with the Highway Department working on surveys and such, and I had a sure fire best seller I’d written while in school.

That lasted about two months. My story “Norbys’ Summer At The Lake” about the dynamics of a family in crisis wasn’t horror, science fiction, romance, or crime, so all the writer’s agents I queried told me there was no market for it unless I was an established writer. The old conundrum – you must have experience to get a job, and you don’t get experience until you have a job. OK, I’d settle for a literature teaching gig, but no advanced degree, no job. At this point, my girlfriend Kelly decided I was a loser and dropped me.

My money went away as fast as my desperation increased. By chance while reading a writing journal, I saw an ad that caught my attention “Driver / escort wanted for top writers on book tours. Must have drivers license, a literature degree, and be willing to drive.”

I called the number and had a good interview. I was flown to New York City for a final decision. Sherry, the interviewer looked at me intensely and said “You Look OK.”

Well I am just a little over six feet tall and athletic. I later found out that many of the authors, both male and female, preferred an attractive escort.

Her next question surprised me more “Are you a drinker?”

Answering honestly, I said “yes”. What else does one do in college for four years? I had progressed beyond cheap beer in high school to rather exotic and expensive drinks whenever someone else was buying. My knowledge of beer, wine, and liquors was quite extensive. After I got the job, I found that famous authors frequently like to drink with their attractive escorts.

Nothing happened for a month. Out of the blue, I got a call from Sherry. She asked “What do you think of Stephen King?”

I had not expected a question about a “popular” writer. Literature students don’t learn anything about them. My good fortune was that I was a King fan. “He’s written some good stuff. ‘Carrie’ was a tremendous first outing. Everything he writes is too long. He could cut half out his stories and not lose anything. He should never write stories about writers and he should consider that good writing is not just how many pages you produce.”

Sherry said “You’re hired. Show up at our office October 8 to drive X around the Northeast for a ten stop tour.”

I say X because of a non-disclosure agreement that I wouldn’t say anything about the writers I drove.

I picked up X from his two story condominium at 10Am five hours early for a book signing as he requested. His first signing was only an hour away. He told me to go to Jakes’s close to Zeke’s Books where he would do the signing. Jake’s rang a bell in gossip I had heard – the best gay bar in NYC. Jake’s was a great place for day drinkers. I was nervous at first, but X put everyone at ease “Relax he’s straight”. I was able to put the drinks on our very generous expense account (did I mention I only worked with BIG authors). I had a few too many Pinot Gris, and X drank voluminously while playing grab ass with other patrons. He seemed to be well known and liked there.

With half an hour before show time, I dragged what seemed to be a thoroughly sloshed and disheveled X to Zeke’s Books. I didn’t see him do his mutation in the passenger seat, but when we arrived he looked smart and well put together. He gave brilliant answers to all of the questions he got after a short reading from his book. When finished he’d sold a ton of books, and got a standing ovation. We returned to Zeke’s afterward for more of the same.

That was the beginning of my lesson that a big part of my job was drinking with the writers. The rest of my tour with X was largely a repetition of the first signing throughout Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. He would announce before anything else “Sorry to say, but my beautiful escort is straight”, and then drinking an assortment of beverages, primarily Grand Marnier cognac. After X I identified my writers by their tipple of choice. X became Grand Marnier.

Not every book tour I went on was as crazy, but some were. There was that common man writer who became known to me as Dom Perignon. That high brow writer AKA Pabst Blue Ribbon.

My only excuse for what happened was that I hadn’t had much intimacy since ex girlfriend Kelly dropped me. She was a bestselling children’s book writer bout thirty years older than me, call her Y. Y and I went out to a fine restaurant after her signing which delighted all of the girls and mothers in the audience. She liked Pinot Gris also. We traded drinks, she would drink my favorite, and I would drink hers for far too many rounds. After we stumbled through to the door at her hotel, she dragged me into her bed. I convinced myself that I was hot stuff, until I heard that this was nothing unusual for her. Y is now Pinot Gris.

As I immodestly claimed, I am good looking and can be charming when appropriate. Wild woman singer and author, known for doing signing and singing more or less naked was also fun and games. She became Boiler Maker. Wore me out, lucky I didn’t get any diseases.

“Soda” is the name of a macho writer. He started with westerns, and moved into mysteries and spy novels. One hundred twenty pounds fully dressed. I assume that his books are a sort of wish fulfillment. He always drank diet Cokes, but I thought calling him Coke would be misinterpreted.

Life was good. I was popular with the writers, and I learned a lot from talking to them. Listening to them on the tours was like getting a scholarship in literature at a prestige institution. Even better than that. While on the road, I got to stay in the best hotels where the writers were staying. I got to mingle with the bright and beautiful. There were downsides – trying to keep up eating and drinking with authors was a problem. I gained twenty-five pounds and sometimes didn’t know where I was, or what I was doing after too many Pinot Gris. Being on the road in strange towns most of the time didn’t allow for a stable life or relationship.

When I saw where trying to keep up with the writers was leading me, I learned a few tricks. Lots of salads and having every other drink be water got me turned around before I joined some of the writers I had gotten close to. The ones who went to rehab, started a 12 step plans, got surgical weight removal, or a bit more serious, died.

After I’d been driving writers for a year I got an assignment which passed through my home town with Grand Marnier again. When we got there I noticed Kelly in the audience. Somehow she had learned, as she put, I had become “chauffeur to the stars”. I don’t know if she found out about my job from my family or what. She inveigled an invitation with us for eats and drinks. Since she had dumped me, I recently had the pleasure of the company of several attractive and sophisticated ladies (cue Duke Ellington). I could now see that Kelly was unattractive personally in the way she treated “the help”, ignorant, and casually racist. I must have been a different person to have been attracted to her. She had not changed, but I had. She suggested that we could hang out while I was in town, but I pretended to misinterpret her hints and left early with Grand Marnier. I had limited myself to one Pinot Gris to make sure that I showed good judgment.

A few months after that I got to diversify. My reputation had spread to the music industry. Since I had a chauffeur license, I could drive whole bands to venues in busses, as well as single acts in a private car. There was some truth to the cliché about country acts drinking beer, big rappers drinking champagne, and rock acts drinking any and everything. Many of them were totally sober, but there were more druggies than drinkers, so I didn’t bother nicknaming them.

I found a lawyer who was sure that he could break my non-disclosure agreement. I’ve got two or three publishers interested in a tell-all about the writers I’ve escorted. In my free time I’ve cleaned up and improved my book that hadn’t gotten any interest before. Here’s how it goes – First, the tell-all gets my name out there, then I get my first novel published,

Not the usual route to literary fame, but mine will be a route criss-crossing the USA in Teslas, Mercedes, and Cadillacs.

 

The End

 

 

 

Appears in Hotch Potch and Down In The Dirt

The author is a little old man who lives with editor Sharon and cat Kitzhaber in the
USA Northwest. After a career in numbers – math teacher and actuary, he retired to volunteer
and write. In the last ten years he has written in most genres and been published in four
continents. South America, Africa, and Antarctica are holdouts.

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