Kevin Kramer Starts on Monday. Debbie Graber

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СКАЧАТЬ but I have been known, in a pinch, to eat the kind in olive oil. My favorite way to eat sardines is with saltines. I keep sardines and saltines in my cupboards at all times. But that’s my creative process—an interesting fact for the book clubs. You heard it here first, because once I become a famous novelist, sardines are going to be the new food favorite that everyone is going to want to eat. A sardine company might even pay me to become its celebrity sponsor.

      Another possible book club question:

      “Which do you like better: sardines in tomato sauce or sardines in olive oil?”

      Here’s another one:

      “Are you plagued by dreams where your mother serves you what is supposed to be her delicious vegetarian lasagna but it ends up morphing into a pile of sardines? What do you think that means?”

      It’s going to come out in a later chapter that Ralphie is going to end up fighting a lifelong addiction to Hershey’s Bars. Mrs. Schnell, the English teacher who oversaw the Key Club, never checked Ralphie’s candy-bar inventory. Ralphie began to hear strange, urgent voices in his head, telling him to eat all his Key Club bars, and after a while, people started calling him “fatty fat-fat” and “pig face” and “buffalo ass.”

      As an adult, it is going to be impossible for Ralphie not to pig out on Hershey’s Bars whenever he encounters them at the grocery store when he is picking up sardines.

      I hope that buffalo ass Matt Kelly is homeless somewhere, sleeping under the el tracks.

      I’ve just figured out how Fred could afford to send Ralphie to Northanger Abbey! Major plot twist: Fred will find out from an episode of Antiques Roadshow that a grandfather clock he inherited from his great-uncle Jason is worth a million dollars, and that’s how he and Delores will have the money to send Ralphie to Northanger Abbey. Done and done. Fuck Carl Sandburg High School.

       CON: Carl Sandburg High School throws totally lame twenty-year reunions that are not worth the fifty bucks borrowed from Delores’s Social Security check. No one even remembered me. Not even Matt Kelly.

      Here’s something I just wrote:

      “‘Hey, pig face! You have a fat ass!’ said Matt Kelly.

      [I just decided that Matt Kelly is going to be the name of a fictional student at Northanger Abbey.]

      “‘Is that the best you can do, scoundrel?’ Ralphie said, hoisting his three-foot bong over his head and smashing it on top of Matt Kelly’s dung-colored hair. Matt Kelly fell over, a large red gash apparent in his big, putrid head.

      “‘I guess it’s all over,’ said Ralphie, watching as Matt Kelly’s brains ran out over the plush white Stainmaster carpet that came standard in every dorm room at Northanger Abbey.”

      There’s been a murder at Northanger Abbey! I did not see that one coming. As a writer, you never feel good about killing off a character, but if it’s in service to the story, then so be it.

      I’m going to change Ralphie’s name back to Franklyn. It’s been rough going through life being named Ralphie. I don’t know what my parents were thinking. It’s extremely selfish to saddle a child with that kind of baggage.

      Here’s another question for the book clubs:

      “Why is Delores still in a book club when she claims she can’t even read anymore? Is she faking dementia to avoid making amends for all the messed-up shit she and Fred dumped on Ralphie growing up? Did she ever love him? Discuss.”

      If Mrs. Schnell comes to the book club meeting tonight, I may invite her back to my bedroom to show her the first and only page of the novel and then I’m hoping to bang the hell out of her. I think she’ll be impressed that despite all that has happened to me, I’ve turned out pretty good. I’m writing a novel, aren’t I?

      This is going to be the last line of my novel:

      “Franklyn’s ghost dusted off his own grave. He sighed and disappeared into the darkness.”

      My novel will have something in it for everyone. Believe me.

       New Directions

      EMPLOYEES:

      There is a matter of some importance that the executives would like to share with you. As leaders of a company that was voted one of the five hundred most transparent companies in the San Fernando Valley (Westways Magazine, September 2009), we pride ourselves on addressing any type of situation.

      As most of you know, the software department has been busy prepping for the first-quarter release of MPM 3.0, the newest iteration of Production Solutions’ continuing quest for better payroll-processing software. MPM 3.0 will be a game changer, providing our clients with sleeker and hipper ways to process payroll than ever before. But when Managing Director Deirdre Dempsey went down to the second floor last Friday for her regular meeting with our programmers, she found the department empty. She checked the kitchen and the patio, then asked Martin from facilities to check the restrooms on each floor. No software personnel were on the premises. Managing Director Dempsey says that she didn’t find this altogether strange, given that the developers sometimes keep odd hours. She was, however, “weirded out” by the silence, so she sent what she describes as a “forceful” e-mail to Product Manager Jim Smalley.

      That e-mail went unanswered, and at three o’clock she went back down to software with a “full head of steam” and again found no one. This time the lights, which are on a motion detector, were out, indicating that no one had been there in six hours.

      Since that time, HR has made contact with the families of all software-department members. It seems they all left for work on Friday, but have not been heard from since.

      We are investigating this phenomenon to the very best of our abilities. The sheriff’s department has been alerted, as has the FBI. This is not, we stress, an emergency. According to law enforcement, mass disappearances are not uncommon. Often one person will decide to take the day off and others will follow suit, in “senior ditch day” fashion. We trust in our officials and believe they are doing all they can to locate the missing software department. We will continue to give you updates as they become available.

      EMPLOYEES:

      Some of you may have heard that the clothes the software-department members were wearing at the time of their mass disappearance were found in the dumpster near the facilities shed across the street. This is unsubstantiated. No clothes were found in or around the dumpster. In fact, Bob Ferrara’s nebulizer was still running when the department was discovered to be missing, so we can only assume the team left in a great hurry, with no time to strip. As soon as we have any new information regarding the software department, we will alert you.

      EMPLOYEES:

      Some of you have expressed concern about the absence of several members of the accounting staff. Do not worry. They have all been located at their homes, where they are suffering from pinkeye, courtesy of Doris McClellan’s daughter, Amy. In response, the executive team is considering canceling Bring Your Daughter to Work Day.

      If your coworkers are out of the office, do not immediately assume the worst. Unless you are told otherwise, coworker absences СКАЧАТЬ