After the Scampi

Stephen King is cutting out the Middleman and wants to sell to his readers directly from his own website: a buck a chapter, on the honor system.

King's editor is terrified,
and calls King on
King's cellular late at
night, when King is
relaxing in his four-
poster bed with a
Dover Thrift Edition of
Frankenstein, and King's editor
reminds King that King
never mastered the difference
between "whether" and "if."
King's editor doesn't think
that King can finish
a story without him.

King assures his
editor the story
will be clean
and hangs up.

Meanwhile, King's
publisher is about
shitting hardback
bestsellers over
the whole thing.

So King's publisher arranges
for a four martini
lunch with King and
King's banker at The
Four Seasons. After the
scampi King's publisher tries
to reason with King.

"You'll need a blurb" he blurts
"And an honest-to-God frigging
ISBN number. And what about copyright?
Don't you know those cretins will
market your work as their own?"

King's banker asks King
how he's going to
track his own profits
"With a piggy bank?"

the banker jokes.
King brushes his
long hair aside.

"Yes."

King's grin is devlish, elven
his unblinking gaze
lycanthropic.

Both banker
and publisher
agree that
King is
gravely underestimating
money made
off books.
Then the
waiter interrupts,
asks King
to sign
an ancient
tattered $
2 used
bookclub
massmarket
paperback
copy of

Carrie.

(shoplifted)

"Movie
rights"
King's
publisher
hisses.

King doesn't respond:
he is playing
with a lemon

wedge,
thinking
about
Newspoetry.