Essays

It’s me again. That’s what happens when you sign up for a monthly newsletter. You think, “Gosh, is it really a month since the last time this goofball bothered me? It seems like just yesterday.” Well, it wasn’t yesterday. It was a month ago, and I’ll be back in March, so get used to it.

February is a boring month. I’d just as soon go straight from January to March, but my publisher would have me beaten within an inch of my life or, worse, throw a hissy fit. My agents wouldn’t be happy, either. Or my editor. Or that person who sits outside my office window and watches me through binoculars while I write. Every time I split an infinitive, he picks up an amplified bullhorn and screams “He’s done it again!” The thing is, I never do split an infinitive. That guy with his phone and binoculars and antler hat is ignorant. He wouldn’t know a split infinitive if one of them cleaved his skull in two.

If I knew for whom he works, I’d complain to his boss. However, past complaints have gotten me in trouble. I thought he must work for my publisher or my editor or my agents or a former agent who has been trying to have me arrested for treason, so I got them all on a conference call and demanded to know which of them was paying Antler Guy. They all vehemently denied having anything to do with him, and they were so upset by my accusation that they threw a group hissy fit. I won’t risk subjecting myself to that again.

Recently, the guy started wearing horn-rimmed glasses attached to a big rubber nose and a fake mustache. I refused to go out there and ask him why, which would only encourage him. Later, I learned that his purpose was to disguise himself for the commission of a crime. When the FedEx guy passed my office on the way to the front door, Antler Guy threatened him with a drawing of a Glock pistol and stole the box of chalk I’ve been waiting for.

Without the chalk, I can’t continue drawing outlines of dead bodies on the local streets for residents to find every morning. If I can’t draw those outlines, how can I convince property owners that police are constantly hauling away corpses during the night and that this is the most dangerous place in the world? If I am unable to convince them of that, how can I ever drive down property values far enough to buy the entire neighborhood for $11,000, which is my dream?

I’m reminded of Valentine’s Day. In 1929, on Valentine’s Day in Chicago, there were seven chalk outlines on the floor of a beer warehouse where Al Capone’s thugs had gunned down other thugs employed by the gangster “Bugs” Malone. One cannot be surprised that a man whose parents named him Bugs would turn out bad. Can you imagine the meanness to which he was subjected as a child, the mockery and taunting? He probably never received a Valentine’s Day card from a nice girl.

Capone on the other hand—I don’t know what made Capone go so far to the dark side. Maybe when he was a kid they called him “Cornpone” and “Capon.” A capon is a chicken. He might have had to endure endless accusations of cowardice—“Capon, capon, capon!” In fact, a capon is a male chicken that has been castrated. Just imagine what psychological damage you would sustain from being called a castrated chicken throughout your childhood. He would never have gotten a Valentine’s card from a nice girl, either.

Anyway, if I were you—I’m not you, but if I were—instead of a greeting card of any kind, I’d rather have a copy of the forthcoming Dean Koontz novel, which you can preorder and which is titled Going Home in the Dark. It will be available on May 20. If I were Dean Koontz—and I am—I wouldn’t recommend the book to you if I didn’t think it was great fun and something special.

When I was in 5th grade and began to tell everyone I was going to be a writer, I got a Valentine’s Day card from a girl who was too shy to sign her name. She wrote, “If you ever become a published author, I’d buy a book written by a monkey before I’d buy one written by you.” It was so sweet of her to say that, in such circumstances, I’d be her second most favorite author. After all, any monkey that could write a book would be an incredible monkey, a sensation, and everyone would put its book at the top of a too-read list. Personally, once I’d read the monkey’s book, there are maybe a hundred authors I’d be eager to read next, but that very special, shy girl would have no other number two but me. Of course that means, any year in which no monkey published a novel, I would be the girl’s number one choice, which is a thought that raises my spirits on any day when I’m feeling a little low.