Has success made the Sardine lazy by diverting him from the column's true calling?
He never expected to become popular or have a dedicated stalker tracking him in the column itself. Success has made him easier to find.
While Joe T. and Antigone are pleased that I published the column about their marriage, Sardine 45 represents an ominous development. I could go like that for four months and not write anything new. Also, it would please others greatly, especially Frank Weathers, whose existence more and more depends on my mentioning him.
Worse, the Today Show and Newsweek have contacted the Sardine for interviews.
Melinda's mad at me for turning down the opportunity to publicize the book more. Frank Weathers asked to join me on the book tour with me!
"Wasn't this what you wanted as a writer?" Wal-terr asks. "Didn't you want some recognition? Start debates on important issues? Make a movie from the Sardine's adventures?"
That's exactly what I had not planned for the Sardine.
"We might make a great television show," said Frank. "And I was even thinking of having for my own spin-off column. 'The Return of Frank Weathers.' I think it sounds catchy."
I suspect he wants to return the "favors" done to him by me!
In fact, everyone is calling me stupid for not capitalizing on the book's publication.
"He could be the next Andy Rooney," Honey said to Melinda.
Weren't these the same people who wouldn't talk to me for publishing a book. I asked McNulty what he thought.
"I've known you a long time," he said, "you've sacrificed a lot, including many friendships, to get the column and the book published."
I was thinking of ending the column. I can't come up with much more to write about.
"What's the problem?" asked Honey. "Don't those 'sardine' thingies come out natural?"
McNulty spent the next half hour lecturing his wife on creative imagination and the long process of making one of the columns.
"It probably takes six or seven drafts to get what he wants."
The lecture conveniently took him from the end of his vodka and tonic, through the Grand Mariner, into his finale, Anisette on the rocks.
What would I do for a new act? Another book, perhaps. A novel. Or try my fin at film reviews.
"Or get a real job," said Frank.
Yes, return to the tin.
"Honey's right," said Wal- terr. "Just go on writing the column. We'll feed you material. Honey will be a ceaseless flow of Honeyisms." [Actually, "Honeyisms" was a subject off one of the unblessed columns.] "The regular habits of the Logged-In Public will continue to infuriate you. Heck, you could make a year's worth of columns on Joe T.'s marriage to Tig."
"Did he call her by her nickname?" Joe T. asked.
The book's success has become a "problem." The impetus of the column fed on its own anticipation of rejection. Rejection was success. The majority's always wrong, remember. A pirate exalts in his piracy and doesn't want to open up a shop on the boardwalk and becomes a member of the Chamber of Commerce. I knew I was in trouble when Frank began agreeing with some of the Sardine's ideas.
"You are going to spoil everything for us if you quit," said Frank. "All because you're uncomfortable."
"I thought he became self-conscious during the Parodies of Ourselves column," said Joe T.
"If the Sardine quits, it'll be Joe T.'s fault," said Wal-terr.
"I wouldn't mind it ending," said Joe T. "I don't want people knowing I can't get anything from my wife in the sack."
"No one's ending anything," a voice boomed from a table nearby. A man around sixty in a blue suit approached us at the bar. "Get me a B & B, bartender."
Wal-terr silently swore and went for the drink.
"Who the hell are you?" asked Frank Weathers.
"I'm Thomas Mabuse, head of the Kingfisher Syndicate."
Frank went to shake the man's hand.
"Please to meet you. Are you going to sign the Sardine to a newspaper syndicated gig?"
"I have the contract in my jacket pocket," said Mabuse. "Who has a pen?"
Mabuse's blunt appearance in the Attic didn't make my decision any easier. I had come to the bar to have a final drink with my pals. Break the news and move on.
No arguments. Maybe a few tears from Honey and Frank. Relief from Joe T. Nothing Mabuse could say or do would change my mind.
"Stupid move," said Mabuse. "Your friends are right for thinking you're an idiot."
Why would he want to pay the Sardine? I represent the contrary to all he and his syndicate and the syndicate's readers stand for. What satisfaction would he get from irritating the readers?
"What are you talking about? What do you know about the readers? Or me? I delight in terrorizing the readers' morality," Mabuse grinned, "as long as I can make a profit. Sure I revile A Sardine on Vacation. I still can't figure out whether the 'I' and the Sardine are one in the same. Or who this joker is trying to track you down? But that's all on the personal level. The business level's another animal, if not the smarter part of the animal I am. It allows me to operate beyond the limitations of my personal opinions and morality."
So, Mabuse wants to be the pirate but doesn't have the imagination to do it.
I was ready to disappoint him. The Sardine column would cease in a couple months. Neither a suicide or a mercy killing, the death of this column would be a meta-morphosis but without a destination or purposeful shape.
Bob Castle is the author of A Sardine on Vacation. He has had two other books published this year: The End of Travel, a comic memoir and send up of traveling abroad (Triple Press) and Odd Pursuits, a collection of stories (Wild Child Publishing). He is regular writer for Bright Lights Film Journal and has over one hundred fifty stories, essays, and articles published. The first fifteen installments of his saga can be viewed at the old Unlikely Stories. A Sardine on Vacation is also available in book form.