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Contest!

Lisa J. Bigelow

Background: As a challenge to myself, I wrote this absurd, not particularly meaningful story in 7 sections. In each section I attempted to imitate the writing a well-known author, in terms of general style (diction, syntax)and conventions of plot and character interaction. I should note that all 7 — well, 6, anyway — are writers that I respect, and some of them I downright admire. “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” blah blah blah. Joe provided the story premise: “Bill is a journalist on his way to do an interview, but he forgets his tape recorder.” Wackiness ensues.

Your Challenge: Identify what author was the subject of each of the 7 section’s imitation. If I’ve done a good job, this shouldn’t be too difficult (assuming you’ve read at least a few of the authors; process of elimination may come in handy). If you’re really good, you might not even have to read the whole story — though, I tell you, you’d really be missing out. I’ll give you your choices, to simplify things:

(I apologize for the lack of female writers. I haven’t read enough of any one female writer recently to feel I could carry this out with any success.)

The Prize: Email me with your answers. First person to respond with the 7 correct responses wins, uh, some sort of prize, to be determined at a later time.

Bonus Questions: Guess which author I...

  1. Admire most
  2. Respect least
  3. Enjoy reading most

Last Words: I hope you try it and enjoy it!

The Strange Case of Mr. Bill Markham

Part I

Bill Markham stepped off the bus at the corner of Twelfth and Broadway. On the sidewalk, with an absent frown, he observed the intersection, absorbing it all: the gray brick buildings of the downtown neighborhood, the rush and clatter of the traffic, and the people. God, the people. A slight embarrassment came over Bill as he watched them. Businessmen on their lunch breaks, helplessly self-absorbed as they mumbled into their cell phones; silver-haired women passing their long waking hours swooping through clothing shops, groceries, and toy stores without discrimination; men and women in tattered clothing sitting on the curb, shaking Styrofoam coffee cups, somehow isolated from the world.

“I’m a journalist, for God’s sake,” thought Bill. “Who are these people? I don’t belong here.”

He remembered his mission. Purposefully, overcoat tails flapping, he strode toward the address of his destination, a flashy high-rise hotel that stood in shocking contrast to the drabness of the other buildings. Thousands of mirrored windows winked blue, and the revolving doors swished rhythmically as men and women in expensive attire entered and exited. Bill followed, composing his face as he did so to match that of the ideal young professional.

“Bill Markham,” he said casually to the middle-aged woman at the front desk in the lobby.

She blinked uncomprehendingly at him, a smile fixed on her small mouth. She tapped the desk with her fingernails, which were painted scarlet. Her graying hair was teased into large curls.

“I’m the Fashion and Style columnist from The Tribune. I have an interview with Mr. Saladucci,” Bill explained, keeping his cool.

“Oh, of course,” the woman cried in recognition. “Mr. Markham. I remember your phone call yesterday. You were so charming. You have no idea how many people call in such fits of temper. Your poise impressed me so. I’m Mrs. Velum,” she added, holding out her hand. It was cool, tiny, and wrinkled. “Veronica Velum.”

“Yes, Mrs. Velum, I’m —”

“Veronica,” she corrected. “You poor dear, you must be eager to get on to your appointment. I’ll call up to Mr. Saladucci’s room.”

Bill buried his hands in the deep pockets of his overcoat, impatiently. In his pockets were — nothing. The tape recorder, the goddamn tape recorder! He slapped his forehead. Stupid, stupid, he scolded himself furiously.

Mrs. Velum’s tiny hand reached for the phone. “Wait!” Bill interjected quickly, nervousness creeping into his voice in spite of himself. “Please tell Mr. Saladucci that I’m very sorry, but an emergency has come up and I’ll be twenty minutes late.” The emptiness of his pocket, where the tape recorder should have lain nestled, troubled him. Only twenty minutes. Goddamn!

“Well, of course,” Mrs. Velum exclaimed. She held the phone poised in mid-air. “Mr. Markham, there’s not anything dreadfully wrong, is there?”

“No, no,” Bill muttered, sinking with embarrassment into his overcoat. “Just a small errand. Nothing really. Just very important.”

Mrs. Velum gazed at him critically, her small lips pursed. “All right, then. I’ll tell Mr. Saladucci you’ll be back — what is it the Romans say? — post haste!”

She began to dial with a wrinkled finger, and Bill, forgetting all his attempts at composure or professionalism, fled through the revolving door.

Part II

Bill Markham was not new to journalism, though his youth and his forgetfulness — the tape recorder, his chief interviewing tool, of all things! — might have concealed this fact. On the fateful day of his appointment with fashion tycoon Armando Saladucci, Bill Markham was a scant twenty-six years old. “Old enough,” his mother, Amelia Markham, would have said, “to keep his brain upright.”

Amelia Markham had, since she was a child, the peculiar notion that the human brain was not subject to the laws of physiology that bones and tendons and even eyeballs seemed to follow. Though contained by the skull, she believed, the brain was not truly secured; it bobbed as would an apple in a rain barrel; it was subject to jostling; and, if a person were not careful, frequent movement — as by vigorous exercise or standing on one’s head — might permanently impair the delicate organ. So it was that Amelia Markham believed that a person’s brain might become, quite literally, disoriented — might get turned around by sleeping the wrong way or by getting jarred on a bus ride — and fail to right itself. Such disorientation led to ailments like poor judgment, lack of clarity, and, as seemed to be the case with young Bill Markham, absent-mindedness.

Most people who knew of this odd belief of Amelia Markham scoffed at it. But he, Bill Markham, as her son, was more deeply impacted by this belief than anyone, leas of all his dear old mother, could have expected. As we shall see.

Bill Markham, in any case, was indeed the Fashion and Style columnist for The Tribune. It was a position he had acquired not so much by experience as by luck. He had experience, indeed; in fact, he had been writing for The Tribune since he was eighteen. An essay he had written for his senior year English class, later published in the school paper, had caught the eye of The Tribune’s owner, Samuel Breckenridge, father of Bill’s classmate Melanie Breckenridge. He thought that young Bill had “flair” and offered him a job that summer as a cub reporter. Bill, too poor to afford a decent college, readily accepted.

The luck came by the fact that the former Fashion and Style columnist, the aging and rather old-fashioned Emory Watkins, called Emmy by his familiars on The Tribune staff, ingested an unfortunate combination of Quaaludes and rum. He was ridiculously near-sighted, and it killed him; he mistook the Quaaludes for Alka-Seltzer. And while one might argue that even a combination of Alka-Seltzer and rum would have proved unpleasant to Mr. Watkin’s physiology, all can agree that it would not have been so lethal. It was, as Amelia Markham would say, a moment of “your brain not being upright.”

Bill Markham, then writing sideline articles for the Lifestyle section of The Tribune, was the one to find poor Emmy lying prone over his paper-littered desk. Samuel Breckenridge, who had always admire Bill’s “flair” for dressing, as well as for writing, more than Emory Watkins’, offered him the job as soon as could be considered polite: at the reception following the funeral.

The ill-fated interview with Armando Saladucci was Bill Markham’s first “job” in his new position. Emory Watkins had lined up the interview months in advance, as soon as it was known that Mr. Saladucci would be in town for an international fashion gala. “We’re one of a select few publications that will actually speak with him,” Emmy had told Bill, weeks before. His eyes had glinted, no so much with excitement at his own appointed meeting with the world’s most critically acclaimed fashion designer, but with pride, pride for the achievement this interview would be for a drab, everyday sort of publication like The Tribune.

Yet Bill Markham, newly promoted to this position of what Emory Watkins might have called “inestimable glory", had forgotten his tape recorder!

Part III

Bill walked down the street until he came to an electronics shop. This surprised him, because he had not known that an electronics shop was there. “How lucky,” he thought. He thought about how upset he had been to have forgotten the tape recorder, and here was an electronics shop within three blocks of the hotel. A feeling of calm came over Bill, and he smiled at his good fortune.

Inside the store, Bill found the tape recorder aisle and tried to decide which one to buy. Another man was in the same aisle, also looking at tape recorders. Bill and the man looked at each other and smiled. Bill felt that the man radiated a kind of warmth, and he trusted the man, although they had never met.

“Are you looking for a tape recorder?” asked the man.

“Yes,” said Bill. “Are you?”

“Yes. I’m on my way to an interview, but I left mine at home,” said the man.

“What a coincidence!” Bill said, as a feeling of surprise came over him. “Me, too!”

“Coincidences should not be ignored,” said the man seriously. “An increasing number of coincidences is a sign that soon all human consciousness will be drawn into a hive mind. Then there will be peace and harmony everywhere. Everyone will understand each other. In fact, everyone will be each other.”

Bill thought about the large number of coincidences he had faced in just the last hour. He had needed an electronics shop, and one was near the hotel. And then he met a man who was also shopping for a tape recorder to take to an interview! With this realization, a feeling of peace came over Bill. He felt a connection with the other man, as if their minds were already being assimilated, together, into the hive mind.

“Let us purchase our tape recorders, now, and batteries. I will tell you more about myself and the hive mind,” the man said. “By the way, my name is Chucho Martinez.”

Bill introduced himself. The two men picked up their tape recorders and some batteries and walked to the checkout counter. Bill noticed that the store was strangely deserted. He, Chucho, and the woman at the checkout counter seemed to be the only people in the store. He did not think anything was very strange about this, however. After all, it was the middle of the day, and surely most people were at work.

The woman behind the counter looked at Bill as he stepped up. Her nametag said “Mimi Schwartz.” Without knowing why, Bill felt a sudden attraction for the woman, and he sensed that she felt the same way. He and the woman looked away from each other.

Bill felt in his pockets for his wallet, and he realized that he had forgotten his wallet, too. Chucho seemed to know what the problem was. He said to the woman, “I’ll pay for my friend’s tape recorder as well as mine.” He laid a number of bills on the counter.

Bill started to object, but just then the glass showcase window of the electronics shop shattered. Glass flew everywhere. The woman, Mimi Schwartz, screamed and hid behind the counter. A feeling of immobility came over Bill. He stood watching as three thugs, dressed in black, masked, and carrying assault rifles jumped into the store through the broken window. They grabbed Chucho and began to carry him off. Bill felt suddenly afraid.

“We will meet again, if it is meant to be!” Chucho shouted to Bill. Then the thugs hit him on the head and dragged him out of the store.

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