![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/9056425845_db4973057d_c.jpg\")
<\/p>\nBy Nicholas Rombes.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The plane enters the airspace above Detroit Metro as if being piloted by a person in a state of delirium. Behind me I hear someone getting sick. I press my cheek against the cool window to try to calm down.<\/p>\n
\u201cChill out,\u201d Harrison says. \u201cDon\u2019t be such a crybaby.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harrison is not the worst publicist ever. The plane rocks again and an overhead bin pops open and I see the stewardess in her jumpseat reach for the red phone. Harrison puts his hand on my knee. He\u2019s dyed his hair bleach, again. He\u2019s dying to be seen, again.<\/p>\n
\u201cSettle down,\u201d he says. \u201cGet a hold of yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cUm, we\u2019re crashing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are not crashing.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was Harrison\u2019s idea I return to blown-out, occupied Detroit, to my alma mater, for a reading. When my alma mater didn\u2019t return his messages (he won\u2019t admit it but they blocked him) he moved the event to a nearby bookstore on Cass Avenue in need of foot traffic. Harrison has ideas about the new novel, that if I want another two-book deal with the same publisher, or any publisher, I need to at least do a token promotional tour.<\/p>\n
The plane lurches again and the lights flicker and then go off I can\u2019t remember if this is always what is supposed to happen.<\/p>\n
Do the cabin lights come on when landing or go off?<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t ask Harrison because he\u2019d just say if you\u2019d done more book tours you would have flown more and you\u2019d know about the fucking lights<\/em>. The starched captain, as I imagine him, comes over the speakers but it\u2019s just garbled static nonsense. At least the pilot is still alive.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re going to behave yourself at the reading,\u201d Harrison says. He takes off his ridiculous oversized black glasses, folds them, and puts them in his polo shirt pocket.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat reading?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cErik, a lot is riding on this one. Understand?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cRiding? Is it an open bar?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t drink anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut like . . .what if one of my fans sneaks me in some?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFans?\u201d Harrison snorts. \u201cJesus, Erik.\u201d<\/p>\n *<\/strong><\/p>\n In the Uber on the way to the hotel in downtown Detroit Harrison gets a disturbing text.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, Marion\u2019s gonna be there.\u201d<\/p>\n The green trees fly by outside the window. Then blank fields. There are apparently towering windmills now. Green energy. Then we enter the city and I recognize Bookies Club 870 where I\u2019d first seen Sonic Rendezvous and later the Sillies. It was just a pile of bricks now.<\/p>\n \u201cWasn\u2019t she, like, banned or something?\u201d<\/p>\n Harrison puts his phone between his legs and looks, I think, directly at me.<\/p>\n \u201cNo, Erik, you<\/em> were banned.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI thought she was too.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNope.\u201d \u201cYep.\u201d<\/p>\n The Uber driver says something in Russian. Or Bulgarian. Or German. Maybe Polish. Harrison gets another text.<\/p>\n \u201cJesus. They say they can\u2019t read your signature.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe bookstore staff. It\u2019s apparently illegible<\/em>.\u201d He holds his phone in front of my face for proof.<\/p>\n \u201cSo?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo, the books are worthless. Like the old Reichsmarks,\u201d Harrison said. \u201cWhat\u2019s a signed by the author worth if it\u2019s just a black line with a dot over it?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey printed them in the U.S. and flew them in secretly in 1948 in 12,000 wooden crates.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPrinted what?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe new Deutschmarks to replace the Reichsmarks. Anyway, it wasn\u2019t even me who autographed the books.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes you did. I had them delivered to your apartment.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMarcy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMarcy? You mean the high school girl? You\u2019re not even supposed to say her name. What are you telling me?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHer handwriting\u2019s better . . .\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cJesus, Erik. She just made a black line? How\u2019s that even a signature?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWho cares who signed them?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell, the bookstore, your publisher, your fans.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFans?\u201d<\/p>\n *<\/strong><\/p>\n At the plywood podium I\u2019m supposed to stand at while reading there\u2019s a pair of handcuffs. One is closed around a small metal ring attached to the podium, and the other one is open. I don\u2019t need Harrison to tell me what I\u2019m supposed to do.<\/p>\n The reading\u2019s going to start in around five minutes.<\/p>\n We\u2019re in a back room and the bookstore staff all look really tanned.<\/p>\n They\u2019re talking to each other but I don\u2019t understand what they\u2019re saying.<\/p>\n \u201cMan,\u201d I say, \u201cwhere are we even?\u201d I ask Harrison.\u2028 \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d He\u2019s smoking even though I\u2019m sure you\u2019re not allowed.<\/p>\n \u201cI mean, like, where<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhere do you think?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBerlin?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s not funny.\u201d \u201cLike, this doesn\u2019t look like Detroit.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen was the last time you were here?\u201d He just flicks his ashes on the concrete floor. He\u2019s wearing those glasses again and his eyes look like two fluorescent gleamings.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat about Marcy?\u201d I ask.<\/p>\n \u201cYou mean Marion?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMarion?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo what if she\u2019s here? She has every right. You get what you deserve.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOkay then, what? I\u2019m banned from . . . um . . . my own reading?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNot your reading. From Marion. You\u2019re banned from Marion<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut she\u2019s here?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAs is her right,\u201d Harrison says.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a weird pink-orange glow coming into the room from somewhere that I can\u2019t tell. Harrison\u2019s face is in some sort of purple light shaft and I can see in a dark corner of the room stacks of my book on a table shoved against a wall.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is not going to be a repeat of Denver, do you understand?\u201d Harrison must have started a new cigarette because it\u2019s not burned down. He looks at his watch.<\/p>\n \u201cFive minutes,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \u201cDenver?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re gonna stay at the podium this time. No wandering.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s all just Tr\u00fcmmerliteratur<\/em> anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cRubble literature, it\u2019s all just pieces . . .\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSnap out of it man! Focus on the reading!\u201d<\/p>\n Then he pauses, Harrison does, and touches my arm gently.<\/p>\n I feel something so profound, like the world is tilting and all I have to do is hold on, hold on, hold on, and even up at the podium holding on for dear life against the words I wrote that are no longer familiar to me as my own words I break free, for an impossible moment, my eyes sweeping the audience and there she is, Marion with her verdigris eyes and so many Marions, Harrisons too and so many and even Eriks and all the dregs of me and all the terrible and shimmering and blossoming versions of me all at last and forever in no country I know.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n ABOUT THE AUTHOR<\/strong> I feel something so profound, like the world is tilting and all I have to do is hold on, hold on, hold on, and even up at the podium holding on for dear life against the words I wrote that are no longer familiar to me as my own words I break free, for an impossible moment, my eyes sweeping the audience and there she is, Marion with her verdigris eyes and so many Marions, Harrisons too and so many and even Eriks and all the dregs of me and all the terrible and shimmering and blossoming versions of me all at last and forever in no country I know.<\/p>\n New fiction by Nicholas Rombes<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":115025,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115022"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":115026,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115022\/revisions\/115026"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\u201cSo, she can just like, show up?\u201d<\/p>\n
\nBut then he laughs and then one of the other young workers in white tennis shoes at the black espresso machine laughs. Does she wink at Harrison, too?<\/p>\n![\"Nicholas](\"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/nick-rombes-2.png\")
<\/p>\n
\nNicholas Rombes<\/a> is author of the novels The Rachel Condition<\/em><\/a> (CLASH Books) and The Absolution of Roberto Acestes Laing<\/em> (Two Dollar Radio) as well as the 33 1\/3 book Ramones<\/em> and the experimental film book 10\/40\/70<\/em>. He curates the \u201cMinute 9\u201d series at 3:AM Magazine<\/em>. He teaches at the University of Detroit Mercy, in northwest Detroit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"