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Show Page 203 "Back in those days we had to stand over those hot, noisy machines and just wait and wait and wait. . .") - and, at Meredith's mansion there'd been a party going on, featuring Norman Mailer himself! Mailer had come out on the porch for a moment to hock a big lunger into the bushes and had glanced right at young Professor C! He was constantly collaring Sam and encouraging him to "pop something off to Scotty," anything - : Sam's in-class 100% bullshit essays; dirty limericks; even cartoons Sam sometimes scribbled on the insides of Ding Dong wrappers. Professor C would snoop like a packrat around Sam's desk in the communal GTA office and say, "Oh, Edwine. This is very promising stuff. You ought to pop it off to Scotty, see what he has to say." He figured that Sam was as naive as "Scotty's" other twenty million dupes all across the country, who believed in their hearts that in New York resided this great mega-genius/octopus named Meredith who was giving them his personal attention - Look, there's his signature! You can see where the ballpoint has pressed into the paper! He's my agent! Professor C would say to Sam, "Actually, Scotty charges very nominal fees, especially considering the top-notch critical talent he has retained back there. And, you know, Edwine? It is not at all unusual for a really top-notch MS such as yours to rise right up from the fee-charging part of the agency into the marketing part, side by side with such luminaries as Mailer and Sydney Sheldon!" Sam had always assumed that Professor C was receiving a finder's fee or a commission of some kind. That was the charitable, if unrealistic thing to assume. The most likely, and most despicable motive Professor C could've |
