1 Chapter 1: Desperation

The Torture of Autumn

A Novel by Joe Weinberg

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“Writing is not a profession but a vocation of unhappiness.”

-Georges Simenon

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Autumn looked at herself in the mirror and let out a groan.

“What’s the matter?” Ian asked.

Autumn looked around the mirror and caught Ian’s eyes. He was sitting on her bed, lounged out and looking at her with a big smile on his face. Like always.

“I’m going to have to take out the piercings,” she said.

“All of them?”

She looked back at the mirror. She could keep the ones in her ears, but most of the visible ones had to go. That meant the eyebrow, nose, lips, tongue, and probably even naval. “Just about,” she said. She groaned again.

“Honey, why are you doing this to yourself? You’re beautiful.”

Not much help coming from a gay man. But that wasn’t the point. “I can’t get a job looking like this,” she said.

“You have a job.”

She shook her head at her reflection. “Bartending isn’t a job,” she said. “Or, well, it is. But it’s not a career. I need a career.”

“Ew.” Ian laughed. “Why?”

“No more tattoos, either.” She really didn’t like what she was seeing.

“Autumn?” Ian’s voice was a little more insistent. “Why do you need a career?”

“I can’t tend bar forever.”

Ian laughed again. “Why not?”

She shook her head. He wouldn’t understand. She needed to do something with her life. And the writing thing just wasn’t happening.

If something were going to happen, it would have already. She’d had a little successes. Mostly just magazine articles and poems. Enough to be proud of, but not enough to pay the bills. They didn’t make enough of a difference. Even if she had published more than most people, even with a book on the market, it still wasn’t enough. She wasn’t making any real money. A few bucks a month wouldn’t pay the rent.

“I have to grow up.”

This made Ian snort. He was the king of the Peter Pan syndrome.

“I’m serious,” she said. “I need to get a real job.”

“Okay,” Ian said. “What do you want to do?”

Autumn’s laugh was not one of joy. “I don’t know. What can I do?”

“You’ve got a degree.”

She scoffed. “Yeah, in English Literature. What the hell good does that do?”

“You’ve got publishing experience.”

“One book,” she said. “And a few articles. Not enough to get me a teaching position. It’s not like anything really did that well, either.”

“But you’ve got the writing skills.”

“So what? I can type a hundred and ten words a minute. So I should be a secretary? Clerical work? Data entry? For god’s sake, it’d almost be better just to shoot myself.”

“At least you’d be able to keep the piercings that way.”

That at least made her laugh. For real.

She groaned again after a few more seconds looking into the mirror. “I’ll have to cut my hair,” she said.

“No more suicide, then?”

“I’ll have to let it go back to its natural color. If it still has one. And I need to get more clothes. Some that’ll cover my tattoos. I have to— fuck. This is going to be a lot of work.”

Ian stood up and walked over to the bathroom area. “It’s okay sweetheart.”

“I just—” She sighed. “I don’t want to do it.” Getting a real job meant giving up on her dream. She wasn’t going to be a professional writer, unless somehow her book took off and made her millions.

And that didn’t seem likely. It had been published three years ago. If it were going to take off, it would have already.

Worst of all was that she didn’t have anything new to write about. No second novel was forthcoming. She was getting by with music reviews, but never enough. Nothing was ever enough.

Ian rubbed her shoulder, being as supportive as he could. He sighed, but he had nothing he could really say to her.

Autumn leaned forward, looking more intently at herself. She stared at her face, looking for the imperfections that she knew were there. She stared long and hard, finding those tiny little dots that might some day become pimples, at those places in her eyebrows where the hairs might grow back, forcing her to pluck them again so she didn’t look like a cat had died on her face.

“Have you written anything lately?” Ian knew the answer. But he kept asking the question, hoping that some day she’d tell him she’d had a new idea.

“Just assignments.”

“At least that’s something.” They both knew it wasn’t. But it was a ritual, and Ian was willing to keep it up.

She shook her head. “I just wish I could get another idea. Pump out another novel. You know? That would solve all my problems. Then I could send it to my agent—”

“Charlie?” Ian nodded his head. “Have you called him lately? Maybe he has a job you could do. One that wouldn’t require you to take out the piercings and all that.”

Autumn smiled. That would be so wonderful. If Charlie Montgomery had anything for her, maybe she could avoid getting a real job. Or worse.

That was the problem with getting a job. It wasn’t just that it meant she was a failure. It wasn’t even that she had to admit to herself that she was. She’d done that already. Time had long since passed when Autumn thought of herself as anything more than a mid-twenties failure. No prospect, no worthwhile education, no job, and not enough talent to make it as an artist. Did she expect to tend bar forever? Sooner or later, she’d stop getting good enough tips to keep doing it. Bartending wasn’t a career. She couldn’t spend the rest of her life pouring beer for horny drunks or mixing drinks for players who think they can impress a girl with a fancy concoction. It wasn’t a real job. It was a job to pay for college. It was a job that had gotten her extra money in college, until she’d graduated almost half a decade ago. Still, it was all she did.

A loser.

A failure.

If she got a job though, she’d have to admit it to other people. She’d have to admit it to the people that told her she’d never be able to make it. To the people who told her to get an accounting degree or to go into computer science. She’d have to admit that she’d failed and ask her parents for money.

There had to be another way.

Ian handed her the phone.

For a second, she thought maybe she could remember Charlie’s phone number. But it wasn’t like they talked often enough. She almost never called him. Which meant she had to go rooting through what had once been a neat and organized desk to find his business card. It only took her a few minutes, and at least it pulled her away from the mirror and the florescent lights.

Meanwhile, Ian wandered over to her closet to rummage through her clothes.

It took some time to get through the secretary. Autumn had no illusions. She knew she wasn’t exactly a top client. She was half surprised that Charlie even knew who she was. “Autumn.” He even pretended to sound excited. “How are you?”

“I’m desperate, Charlie.” She didn’t feel there was any need to play games. “I’m just getting to that point, you know? I need a bigger job. I need something real.”

“So write another novel.” Not very helpful.

“Don’t you know any jobs? I mean, aren’t you supposed to find me things to do?”

“Autumn, I’m a literary agent. You write something, I’ll do what I can to get it published. But I can’t write proposals for you. My powers are limited.”

She sighed, though it was more than half a groan. “Have you heard anything?”