“How dare you!” Jenny shouted at him from the stairs, barely waiting until he’d opened the door.
He stared, bewildered.
“This isn’t about my dad; it’s literary dilettantism of the worst sort. It’s making fiction out of an old man’s memoirs.” She rattled the pages of his manuscript in his face.
He closed the door. Locked it.
“Open up, charlatan!”
“You’ll have to be a little more rational and a lot less threatening,” he shouted. “I’m not going to try talking to someone who’s foaming at the mouth.”
“Open up, and I won’t cut your balls off and run them up our flagpole!”
“You can talk from out there, and I’ll listen from in here. I’m not going to be in the same space as you and an unsecured cutlery drawer.”
“Fucking coward!”
“I’d rather be a fucking coward with my balls intact than a heroic eunuch!”
Ripping sounds, growled imprecations, then the clanging of her footsteps down the stairs. “This isn’t finished,” she yelled, her angry plod fading up the drive. The engine of her car revved, its tires chirped, and she rocketed up Esplanade.
Cautiously, as if her raving phantom might still be out there, he unlocked the door a crack and peeked out. Had Harry and Bernice heard her raving? Neighbours up and down the street? Shreds of his manuscript lay scattered on the gravel below.
He gathered up the litter and put it in his recycle bin. What the hell was that all about? he frowned, the question gnawing away at the wiring inside his head.
“Ding!”
An hour later, a notification slid like a dagger into the right-hand corner of his computer screen, interrupting his preliminary research into the life and times of Harry’s long-lost friend Arthur. He’d received an email from Jennifer titled You Dung Beetle…
Buddy sighed. The notification slid back out of his screen. Later, he thought. But, try as he might, he couldn’t ignore it. Had to see if she had anything to add that might explain the fury of her reaction beyond his initial diagnosis of insane, jealous raving.
From: Jennifer.Slope. Subject: You dung beetle
The dung beetle goes through life backwards, rolling its ball of shit into an unseen future, she began. I find that an apt metaphor for the likes of you, scurrying about collecting the detritus of other people’s lives and making it your own…
Don’t need this right now, Buddy thought. But he read on…
How dare you take my father’s stories and preempt them for your own fiction? Mother and Father have given you a place to live and allowed you into their private lives. You have abused that privilege. Not surprising, I suppose, considering the generally lapsed moral standards of the modern media.
I am determined not to allow this theft and misrepresentation to continue. If you do appropriate more of my father’s memoirs or have any of the materials you’ve already plagiarized published, I will consider all possible remedies.
Jennifer Slope
“All possible remedies?” he wondered. What might that mean?
To: Jennifer.Slope, he replied. Subject: RE: You dung beetle
I have shared my edited version of your father’s story with both him and your mother, and will continue to work with Harry and Bernice on his memoirs. If you have an issue with how I am interpreting the stories, I suggest you raise it with them. Publication will be strictly upon their approval, and I will not be accepting payment, except for out-of pocket-expenses, for any work done.
If you continue to harass me with abusive visits and emails, I will consider reasonable remedies, but I do hope we can discuss our differences without rancour.
Until you approach me in a more civil tone, however, I won’t have anything to do with you. If you do want to discuss things in a respectful manner, I will do all I can to include you in what, for me, has become a fascinating project with two people I admire.
Sincerely
Buddy Hope
Next: Knock, Knock, Dumped