“Do you know what today is? I bet you have no idea. Exactly twenty years ago, I discovered your cave. Can you freakin’ believe that? We’ve known each other for twenty years! That’s crazy! It’s more than half of my life! And we’ve both got some gray hair to show for it.”
He scratched Owen behind the ear, which is where most of the monster’s gray hair had sprouted, though he also had small tufts on his shoulders. Toby hadn’t really noticed his own until his last haircut, when he looked at the pile of hair on the barbershop floor and saw more gray than black.
“To celebrate twenty years of friendship, I’ve decided that this bullshit about me walking four miles each way to your cave has got to stop. So look what I drew for you.”
Toby unfolded a large piece of paper and handed it to Owen. The talon of Owen’s index finger tore through the center.
“That’s okay, it’s just a copy. That’s the plan for your new house. Shack, to be more accurate, but it’ll be nicer than what you’ve got here. I’ve picked out a nice spot maybe a mile from my house, we’re going to cut down some trees, and we’re going to build you a nice new dwelling.”
“Hear anything yet?” asked Mr. Lynch.
“Not yet.”
“Not from anybody? How long has it been?”
“Nine weeks.”
“Well, if Rusty amp; Pugg gets picked up, I’ll happily cancel Hagar the Horrible to make room.”
“What are you drawing?” asked the woman, pausing to glance at his table as she walked to her own booth. Her tray had a single burger and fries-maybe she was having lunch alone.
“It’s a comic strip.”
“Oh, are you a cartoonist?”
“Trying to be.” Toby tilted the strip, which didn’t really help her see it better but gave him something to do with his hands. “The dog is Pugg and the human is Rusty.”
He sat there, watching nervously as she silently read the strip, which involved Rusty getting a letter from the IRS. She looked a couple of years younger than he was, had curly red hair, and had eyes that were such a beautiful shade of green that they seemed almost otherworldly.
Would she laugh at the punch line? Or at least smile?
He could imagine her smile. Radiant. Perfect white teeth.
“Hmmm,” she said, showing no sign of amusement as she looked away from the strip. “Interesting. Good luck with it.” She walked to her own table and sat down to eat.
Toby crumpled up the strip.
Toby had found a spot where he could make sufficient room for Owen’s new home by only cutting down three trees, which he was pretty sure he wasn’t actually supposed to be doing, so he hoped nobody would hear the crashes.
It was unlikely that anybody would. Somehow Toby and Owen’s forest had escaped the notice of the evil logging industry all this time (Toby liked to think that the loggers would love to ravage the land, but were frightened away by whispered tales of a deadly monster that lurked within) and he’d never seen a single human being out here during his walks, so he figured the risk of Owen being discovered was extremely low.
All of the exercise was keeping him in good shape, but he was getting to the age where sometimes he was a little sore after getting back home from his visits. In another decade, he’d be thankful he’d built the shack.
He was a little concerned about bringing Owen closer to the populace…but, what danger was he really creating? If Owen wanted to leave the forest, he would, whether he was four miles away or one. As far as Toby knew, he’d never left the woods again after the…incidents, and was unlikely to leave it ever again.
“Dear Mr. Floren, though we reviewed your materials with great interest, we regret to inform you…”
As Toby chopped up the logs, Owen dragged them out of the way. Owen was strong and pretty good at basic manual labor but he wasn’t much of a tool user, or else Toby would have made him chop up the logs himself. Putting a sharp bladed weapon into his claws seemed like a potential descent into unnecessary amputation.
“Now, don’t expect indoor plumbing or electricity or anything like that,” Toby said. “We probably won’t have windows either-I don’t think you want any hikers peeking into your living room. Basically just think of it as a wooden cave that’s closer to my house.”
Like cave.
“I like the cave, too, but this is seriously overdue. Anyway, you’ll have a door, just like civilized people.”
This envelope was thick. Too thick to be only his samples back.
How thick was a syndication contract? With all of the complicated merchandising rights and stuff, he could easily see a contract being ridiculously thick.
Don’t get too excited, he warned himself. This could be a hundred pages of detailed description of how much they hated my submission, followed by a demand for me to never submit them another piece of work for as long as I live, followed by a restraining order, just in case.
It wasn’t.
It was, however, just a form rejection, along with a free catalog from their parent company.
“You like it?”
No.
“Remember, it’s just the frame. It’s not the completed shack.”
Love it.
“That was incredible,” she said, as Toby rolled off her. “I just can’t even describe it. You made me feel like a woman again.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m in a state of shock at how good that was. We need to do this again. You’ll call me, right?”
“Do I get a discount next time?”
“If you become a regular, we’ll see.”
She fixed up her makeup as Toby got dressed. It was hard to be flattered by her confessions of bliss when he knew that he’d been laughably bad in bed, and when he knew she’d overcharged him but he’d been too embarrassed to negotiate.
And he knew the feeling of self-loathing would kick in as soon as he left the hotel room. But he also knew that it would fade by morning.
Three bills. Four pieces of junk mail. No self-addressed stamped envelopes.
Damn.
“Owen, hold it! Hold it, Owen! Owen, I’m losing it! Owen-!”
The entire north wall crashed to the ground.
“You suck, Owen.”
At least he could incorporate this into a comic strip.
“I’d like to start writing articles,” Toby said.
“That’s a great idea. I was thinking the same thing.” Mr. Lynch searched around his desk for a few moments, found a manila folder, and handed it to him. “Write up these obituaries and have them to me by three.”
Toby and Owen stood in the clearing, looking at what they’d accomplished.
The shack looked…well, it looked like crap. But it was sturdy, moderately furnished (including a mattress that Toby had dragged all the way out here, nearly throwing out his back), and-most importantly-a lot closer to Toby’s house.
“Welcome to your new home. Try not to bring too many bones in here.”
“Dear Sir or Madam, thank you for your recent submission. Unfortunately, we no longer review unagented queries…”