Cold Rain by Craig Smith Page A

seen Roger for a couple of years. When he showed up at the union building, I have to admit I didn’t even recognize him. He had gained maybe sixty pounds. A lot of it was just that, poundage, but I could see a lot of it was muscle too. I was guessing steroids and a really bad diet, but pretty much true to my form, I told him he looked great. ‘Have you been working out?’
    Roger seemed gratified I had noticed. He had been lifting for a couple of years, he said. We talked about that as we ate. I was in no rush to get around to his manuscript. He was pleasant enough about things. I asked about the facility he used, the cost of it, the hours, the kind of clientele they catered to. Then I offered an observation about the degree of satisfaction one gets from a hard workout. I even ventured to suggest that women seem to notice a man when he is getting in shape.
    Roger said he had noticed that too, and shared a sly smile with me. I decided he was still in the denial phase. I shouldn’t have really cared, I suppose, but I was curious. The whole dropout scene had always seemed a by-product of drug usage, but it was possible his alienation had more complex origins.
    When we finally got around to the reason for our meeting, I lifted the massive box from the floor and set it on a chair so that it was between us. I found it instructive to see the way Roger’s eyes fixed on the package. Roger had obviously spent years working on this, and I didn’t especially care to disappoint him. In order to do that, I praised Roger’s attention to detail.
    I talked about sentence structure, which, in the parts I had read, seemed fairly solid. I talked about imagery, narrative devices, transitions, and the intriguing eroticism that linked the action sequences. Having a doctor’s degree in bullshit, I knew how to deliver these observations with credible enthusiasm. To this point, Roger had been nodding. At the mention of eroticism, though, he asked, ‘Was the sex too graphic?’
    I danced around this topic expertly. It was always a matter of context. Clearly, sometimes an author needed a graphic depiction for a certain effect.
    Sometimes an encounter was unnecessary. Only a fool would venture into a generalization about something like that. Roger nodded, clearly expecting specifics.
    When I offered nothing more, he tried to comprehend what I was saying. ‘Was it too graphic anywhere in my story?’
    It was a fair question, and I made a stab at the first sex scene, at least the first I had noticed. It was good, I said, especially ending with the interruption, but did we need the musings of the starship captain after the encounter? ‘Do we really need to know he’s uncertain about his own orientation?’
    Roger looked me as if I might be an alien myself, and I knew I had made a mistake. The starship captain had an issue. All characters have an issue. His was hermaphroditic clones, I suppose. Of course, I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t dare take off on ambiguity, aliens, clones, or three ways (even if only two bodies are involved). What I wanted was just a little more time with that manuscript so I could bluff my way through this.
    As that was impossible, I said it was difficult sometimes distinguishing between issues and challenges. One was a matter of characterization, the other of narrative design. Now I have a great deal to say about these kinds of things, and at that moment I began to spew.
    Long summers on the car lot had taught me to read suspicion, however, and Roger Beery had it.
    A less experienced liar might have been tempted to make a partial admission of the facts, something like, I didn’t read the entire manuscript or I skimmed some of it . But honesty is a slippery slope, and I was having none of it. I did admit I probably lacked experience as a reader of science fiction. As far as the market was concerned, I said, I was absolutely ignorant, so I really couldn’t help on that point. Roger began to squirm as I said this, and I