Appendix D

INCREDIBLE AS IT MIGHT SEEM, Mr B,"¹ Jayne began, "a few weeks ago I found myself slowly but surely falling under a notsomakebelieve Sleeping Beauty spell."
     "My dear young woman—" Bloom interjected before she could stop him from turning the exemplary² start of her story into an overture for one of his lewd conversations—"to someone like me whose delusions of grandeur included making my debut as a Great American Novelist at the ripe old age of ninety, the situation you describe is well within the realm of possibility."
     "Of course at the time," she resumed, "I never imagined my real life 'fairytale' curse would be lifted by the same miracle which so happily ended the slings and arrows fortune you yourself suffered in the course of a calamitous life made that much more outrageous by its longevity." Her emphasis on longevity being a deliberate attempt to throw some cold water on any orgiastic expectations she might have (quite unintentionally) aroused on Bloom's part.
     "Naturally!" exclaimed Bloom; just as deliberately ignoring her notso veiled reference to the superannuation of his manhood and choosing instead to seize the opportunity she (so foolishly!) gave him to complete a sentence beginning with those unnecessarily problematical words: "Of course—" Before he could do so, however, Jayne adroitly sidestepped him by continuing her train of thought as if it had never left the rails.
     "But," she went on, "until that miraculous event actually transpired I truly believed I was on the very real verge of sinking into the same vegetative state afflicting all those comatose heroines in the hundreds of 3rd-, 4th- and 5thrate manuscripts whose daily reading is for me a form of torture far more fiendish than any endured by the Distressed Damsel of the most diabolic fairy tale—or, for that matter, hardcore bondage porn." No sooner did that egregiously superfluous³ and—worse yet!—manifestly prurient phrase "hardcore bondage porn" escape from her lips than Jayne realized she had left herself vulnerable to another of Bloom's "psychosexual" sneakattacks. Which he launched without a moment's hesitation, by saying: "And, my dear Miss Playne, 'hardcore bondage porn' is putting it mildly! God knows how many brighteyed and bushytailed young publisher's readers I've seen whose purity of artistic purpose was permanently polluted by the literary merde they vainly wade their way through while searching for a Pulitzer—or Nobelprizewinning light at the end of the sewer—or Salt Mine—in which they are forced to slave their lovelorn lives away by the harsher cultural realities of a democratic marketplace."
     "Whatever the reasons⁴ for it were," Jayne went on as if utterly oblivious to Bloom's provocative remarks⁵ (which she wasn't), "the fact of the matter is: While after a typically exhausting day at the 'office' I always slept like the proverbial log, suddenly my nonexistent 'nightlife' became filled with dreams that couldn't have been sweeter for the sheerness of their selfindulgency——————⁶ wherein my role as the bottommost⁷ underling in a socalled 'progressive' publishinghouse's still feudalizedschemeofhierarchicalthings was reversed so dramatically I found myself playing the part of its Editor(ess)InChief!"
     "For a moment I thought those 'selfindulgent' dreams of yours might have been—" Bloom tried to horn in,⁸ but Jayne was on a psychosexual roll of her own making now. "Yes!" she ejaculated so explosively it made her lecherous listener flinch with fright. "Talk about Cinderella's rise from rags to riches—or the Ugly Duckling's tableturning metamorphosis! Night after night there sat I (that plainest of all Janes and once most downtrodden of female wageslaves but now hailed⁹ as the IronMaiden of the bookpublishing world) in a whole suite of penthouse offices; like an Empress on her Imperial throne; draped from head to toe in the (tasteful but unmistakably opulent, majestic and glamorous¹⁰) trappings of success not seen since Sophie Augustus earned the right to be called 'Catherine the Great' by the Russians whose bearish behavior she civilized with nothing but her womanly willpower!"
     "Dear God!" Bloom apostrophized while Jayne was in the act of catching her breath, "Could Ingres, Delacroix or even Rousseau paint a picture more voluptuous than that depicted by the words I just heard gushing from the innocent lips of such an adorable creature?"
     Having fully reinflated her lungs¹¹ Jayne was able to finish the following (admittedly somewhat shorter) sentence without any appreciable loss of emotional steam: "No longer burdened by the diabolical drudgery of digging my way from beneath that mountain of unreadable merde under which I found myself buried every morning, I was free to pick and choose the next author I would favor with my 'IronMaiden's' cachet from a very short list¹²—including only those writers who, jaded by the fame and fortune of their bestsellerdom, now wanted desperately to be remembered as Great American Novelists.¹³  But," she added, "to avoid boring you with the repetitive details of my nightly impersonation of Turandot to each of the supplicants seeking my precious stamp of approval, suffice it to say: They all paid handsomely for any favors I bestowed on them."
     "Believe me my dear Miss Playne," said Bloom beggingly, "I have a threshold whose height concerning the 'boredom' to which you allude is every bit as stratospheric as that belonging to my illustrious namesake and his phenomenal attention to the most microscopic of life's details; especially those described in some judicial circles as 'the smuttier sort.' So please; don't let our 'partnership in crime' prevent you from showing me any more mercy than you do those other poor devils who, night after night, are made to feel the infernal fury of your scorn for all the sins their sex has perpetrated against yours!"
     "If it's cruelty you want from me, Mr B," Jayne snarled triumphantly, "what better punishment could I possibly impose on you than to delete from this 'Torturess' Tale' those repeated acts of sadism on my part whose further elaboration would only feed your masochistic hunger for excrutiation? Moreover, by granting your request would I not be violating that Cardinal Storytelling Rule which states: For artistic—not to mention legal—reasons, matters of the greatest (in)delicacy are always better left to the reader's (or in our case, listener's) imagination?"
     In his frustration Bloom could think of nothing more original to say than: "Like all rules, that one was made to be broken. Particularly as it applies to exceptional circumstances like these wherein you and I find ourselves sharing the same bed (conspiratoriallyspeaking) in promoting the publication of a book that will either launch the Second American Revolution with the biggest literary bang ever heard—or signify the end of Western Civilization as the last in a long line of artistic whimpers that began when the first man (or woman) expressed his (or her) doubts about the blissfulness of ignorance."
     "If you can't think of an argument more original than that," Jayne replied, "let us 'turn' our attention without any further ado to those last few 'pages' of my Sleeping Beauty story where (not unlike those final stages of superprotracted foreplay) the plot becomes so thickened with climactic expectations there is a very real risk the reader will selfcombust before the trashy novel she is reading reaches its orgasmic conclusion."

     Which she did. But to make her story even shorter we can finalize it by rewriting its very first sentence to read as follows: "If it hadn't been for a pair of the most improbable 'Prince Charmings' (one of them being the world's oldest mail 'boy' and the other an 'exAmerican ambassador' to a 'microstate' of the most dubious diplomatic importance) there is no doubt I would have passed that point of no return beyond which so many lovelorn women spend the rest of their lives dreaming all of their prayers for romantic bliss are being answered."¹⁴

Footnotes

1 In keeping with their new relationship as the two original partners of what would become known as the "Morons Awake! mènage a trois," "Three Musketeers" and/ or "Unholy Trinity"—-but not wanting to give Bloom the false impression she was any more receptive to his predatory advances now than she had been in the past, Jayne chose "Mr B" as the endearing (but not overly so) term by which to address him. He in turn continued referring to her as "my dear young woman," "Jayne," and/or "Miss Playne."

2 While not in the "literary masterpiece" category, as extemporaneous first sentences go, Jayne was not altogether unimpressed with the skill she had demonstrated in crafting such a "publishable product" on (what was scarcely more than) "a moment's notice."

3 Jayne was violating one of the Editorial Axioms she used for critiquing the work of a promising author, to wit: "No matter how short your sentences are, they will always be longer than your reader's attention span."

4 It is an irony of no small wonder that Jayne would downplay—or forget?—what was (until then) the only "chapter" in her socalled "life" that might have been lifted straight from the pages of a trashy bestseller. Among those "whatever they were" reasons for the "dramatic reversal" in her sleeping habits she failed (or chose not) to tell Bloom was this one: The "rapturous dreams" she suddenly began having were the direct result of a wish she made (silently) before blowing out the candles of her cake at a surprise (t****yth) birthday party organized by the four other members of "the Plain Jane Club" who (Jayne's "y" excepted) shared the same first name, (more or less) stoic sexlife, downtrodden wageslave status (1 receptionist, 1 typist, 2 file clerks, 1 publisher's reader) and Special TGIF Cantonese Banquet Lunch for Minimum Five Persons at a nearby Chinese restaurant. The wish itself—which Jayne had to be shamed into making by her y- and PhDless namesakes—went as follows: "To whom it may concern; I'm not asking for very much. All I would like is any sort of sign, no matter how small, that someday, in the not too distant future, the virtues I've practiced so faithfully throughout my trials and tribulations as a lowly publisher's reader won't go entirely unrewarded."

5 You can decide for yourself from the number of examples I've underlined in just that single sentence of his how difficult it was for even a woman of my guile not to be taken in by Bloom's sleazy way with words. "And, my dear Miss Playne, 'hardcore bondage porn' is putting it mildly! God knows how many brighteyed and bushytailed young publisher's readers I've seen whose purity of artistic purpose was permanently polluted by the literary merde they vainly wade their way through while searching for a Pulitzer or Noble prizewinning light at the end of the sewer—or Salt Mine—in which they are forced to slave their lovelorn lives away by the harsher cultural realities of a democratic marketplace."

6 This longer than usual dash is a typographical approximation of the longer than usual pause preceding the resumption of her sentence caused by Jayne's astonishment when Bloom didn't ask if those "selfindulgent" dreams she mentioned were of the "wet variety spinsters who share your overlyfastidious taste in men must settle for in lieu of the lessthanperfect but better than nothing nocturnal sexlife routinely enjoyed by millions of average American housewives whose husbands (and/or lovers) are completely clueless when it comes to satisfying a female's fondest fornication fantasies?"

7 How much lower can you get than a basement "office" the size of a broomcloset?

8 No doubt to ask her a question similar to the one which caused the longer than usual pause discussed in footnote 6.

9 On this point Jayne was silent. And, since dreams are by definition generally exempt from the rules with which we judge a story's (or non fictionnovel's) "believability," she can be absolved from what would otherwise represent a rather flagrant act of editorial hypocrisy (or outright malpractice). If one were to speculate however; given Jayne's experience, academic credentials, professional zeal and "instinct for recognizing literary genius" the following scenario can be credibly hypothecated: After compiling a track record as a lowly publisher's reader with an "infallible knack" for turning the rawest of literary materials into a series of runaway bestselling blockbusters, Jayne Playne's employers had no choice but to promote her to the very top of their corporate totem pole before she was snatched away by some rival publishinghouse.

10 Among the other "glamorous" accouterments in keeping with her Editor(ess)InChief status Jayne replaced the sweatshirt and jeans mufti she formerly wore when "slaving away" in her basement "hell hole" with an elegant doublebreasted Karl Lagerfeld suit "expressly tailored to give the modern businesswoman sufficient room to flex her newfound muscles."

11 As an unavoidable consequence of which (despite the baggy fit of the aforementioned Lagerfeld business suit—and to Jayne's horror) the "twin buds of her maidenly bosom" heaved themselves into view with a "sauciness" Bloom was bound to misconstrue as meant for his Very Dirty Old Man's benefit.

12 As she always promised herself she would do "if by some miracle" she ever got the chance—in her newfound "imperial" capacity Jayne would (presumably) end the publishinghouse policy of encouraging and/or accepting unsolicited manuscripts. Thereby forever abolishing the future slavery of all those impressionable young women like herself who might be seduced by their own idealism into that peculiar form of vocational bondage known as "the publisher's reader." It is probably also safe to assume that: In her new Leading Lady role Jayne would surround herself with a supporting cast of "underlings" to perform the routine task of shortening that "list of writers who had already attained bestsellerdom and were well on their way to becoming Great American Novelists" by screening the book proposals and/or manuscripts they "most humbly & respectfully" submitted for Miss Playne's consideration to that exalted end.

13 Despite her personal success story Jayne hadn't given up the altruistic quest she began as a humble publisher's reader for that Holiest of Holy Grails, to wit: A hitherto unpublished author who sends her an unsolicited manuscript containing the seminal stuff from which a combination runaway blockbusting bestseller, Great American Novel and literary masterpiece is eventually edited. As hopeless as these farthestfetched of her "Salt Mine" and "Hell Hole" fantasies might seem, dear reader, in the fullness of time were they not actually surpassed when the manuscript of Morons Awake! turned out to be not only a runaway blockbusting bestseller, Great American Novel and literary masterpiece; but a historymaking Revolutionary Manifesto as well?

14 As (some of) you will soon discover for yourselves, this is one of the many variations on the Divine Intervention (or Deus ex Machina) Leitmotif weaving their tapestrylike way throughout Morons Awake! after that most momentous of first sentences in which it makes its striking debut. According to the author: "Introducing the reader to my major thematic message at the earliest possible opportunity is—like those Famous First Four Notes of Beethoven's and/or Mahler's Fifth Symphony—no accident. Such a flagrantly seminal statement is clearly intended to signify nothing less than the chain of 'biblical miracles' by which this Futuristic Testament of mine about the salvational Gospel of Jack F. Klutz came to be written.