"Richard Wilson - The Story Writer" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilson Richard)

THE STORY WRITER
by Richard Wilson

A man at a flea market sat at a typewriter reading. His table was the
barest of all. On it were a ream of paper, a pencil and a sign: "This
Typewriter for Hire. A Story Written about You: $1 a Page." The
typewriter was an old Remington office model on a stand next to the table.
Other tables were crowded with curios, knickknacks, carnival and
depression glass, insulators, china, woodenware, campaign buttons,
barbed wire and other collectibles and bygones. Few dealers brought
valuable antiques to an outdoor flea market; there was always the threat
of pilferage or breakage or rain.
The story writer was a man of 55 with a tidy mustache. He was William
Wylie Ross, one of the last of the old-time pulp writers. He was smoking a
pipe and reading a book of short stories by Slawomir Mrozek called The
Elephant.
A boy of 10, who had stood watching Ross, went up to him and said:
"Dzien dobry."
"I beg your pardon?" Ross said.
"I said good morning in Polish. You are reading a book by a Pole and I
am of Polish descent. I thought you might be too."
"No. I read Mrozek only in translation. Good morning. What is your
name?"
"Nazywam sie Henry. Jak sie pan nazywa? I said in Polish: 'My name is
Henry. What is your name?' My father, who was born in Poland, says it is
good to preserve the traditions. I am bilingual."
"Your father is wise," Ross said. "My nameтАФNazywam sie Ross. Did I
say it right?"
"Very well. Is Ross your first or your last name?"
Ross gave the boy a card. It said: William Wylie Ross, freelance writer;
short paragraphs at the going rate, full-fledged autobiographies by
arrangement.
The boy read the card. "It says nothing of a story about me."
 "That could be a biography; they run 300 pages up. In your case maybe
20 pages, depending on how intensely you've lived. A shorter work, as the
sign says, is a dollar a page. Would you like one?"
"Can you write a ghost story?" Henry asked.
"Would you like a sample? No charge."
"Yes, please."
Ross put down his book and rolled a sheet of paper into the typewriter.
He wrote. "Henry sat alone in his room. He was the last person on Earth.
There was a knock at the door."
He took the sheet out and gave it to Henry. "That's the world's shortest
ghost story."
"It doesn't have a title. And it doesn't say who wrote it."
"A critic, are you?" Ross put it back in the machine. He typed WORLD'S
SHORTEST GHOST STORY and, below that, by W. W. Ross. He said to
the boy: "I don't use my full name on such a short piece. Besides, it's not
original except for the name of the protagonist."
"What's a protagonist?"