No News is Bad News

I came home one evening to discover that my agent, the celebrated Sherman H. Shlock, had left an urgent message on my answering machine. "Sherman here," the voice announced. "Max baby, we got us a problem, big-time. I need to have a meeting with you, so trot on down to my office ASAP. Over and out."

The next morning, fearing the worst, I drove down to his headquarters, the Sherman H. Shlock Talent Agency, Business Consultancy and Delicatessen. As I walked in, an elderly woman customer was suspiciously eyeing a quarter-pound of graying, wilted corned beef that Shlock had just sliced. "Are you sure this corned beef is fresh?" she demanded.

"Lady," Shlock replied, "if it was any fresher it would pinch your butt."

I suspect that the lady was not amused, because she whacked him with her purse and stalked out.

"No one has a sense of humor these days," Shlock sighed, pressing a block of ice to his bruised head. "But I'm glad you're here, Max baby. Let's go into my private office and chat."

Shlock's "private office" in reality was a storage room with a packing crate for a desk and pickle barrels for chairs. Making myself as comfortable as I could under the circumstances, I sat down and waited to hear what he had to say. The news was not good.

"Boychick," he began, "you're about to lose the rights to most of the characters you've been using in your column."

It took several moments for the dread news to sink in. "But how … why?" I stammered.

"It's the old 'use it or lose it' law," he explained. "If you wanna keep your copyright on creative creations, you gotta give them public exposure. Otherwise, you lose your exclusive rights to them and they pass into the public domain. You know, up for grabs. Your problem is that it's been years since you've written anything about some of your characters."

"I've never heard of such a thing."

"Oh, sure, it's like staking a claim to abandoned property, getting salvage rights to a sunken ship, homesteading … "

"All right, I get the picture," I said peevishly. "But who … who could possibly want them?"

Shlock lowered his voice. "Dave Barry, that's who. He's jealous of how good you write, he's running short of material, and he'd love to get his hands on your people." Shlock pulled out an official-looking document. "As a matter of fact, Barry's just filed court papers seeking possession of … let's see: Aberdeen Angus McTavish, the world's tightest poker player; Dr. Wolfgang Krock, the eminent poker psychologist; Ralph the Rattler, who has more moves than a snake; Break-even Benny, who always breaks even because he never plays a hand; Little LeRoy, who's the perfect prop because he's next to invisible; Action Al, who … "

"Stop! Stop!" I screamed. "I'll be out of business. It isn't fair!"

"Well, it's your own fault, Maxwell. You just can't keep writing about Big Denny in every column. You've gotta come up with something bigger."

"Bigger than Big Denny?" I muttered. "But isn't there anything I can do to stop this, this piracy?"

"Yeah, you still have a couple of outs," Shlock said. "You've got a week to send in stories and reactivate any characters you want to save. Otherwise, as Scotty Nguyen would say, 'It's all over, baby.'"

I drove home dazed and depressed. With time fast running out, I began phoning my neglected characters to see if they could provide me with any new material. Going down the list, I put through an overseas call to Aberdeen Angus. Trying to pump up the dour little tightwad, I spoke as enthusiastically as I could. "Hi there, Angus old pal. Long time no see; it's really great to be talking to you again."

"This would na' be a collect call, would it?" he asked suspiciously.

"Ha, ha, of course not," I chuckled. (Sneak a collect call past Aberdeen Angus? Breaking into Fort Knox would be easier.) "I just called to see what's new and how things are going. How have you been doing at poker?"

"Och, don't be askin'. With all the bonny advice in your magazine, the game gets a wee bit tougher each day. Waitin' for suited aces canna do it any more, so I've just quit playin'."

"Oh. Well, how's your pig farming going, then?"

"Tragedy has strrruck my humble home," the Scotsman wailed. "Bessie, my beloved pet pig, my faithful and loving companion for 30 years, passed away this very week."

"How sad. Did you give her a nice funeral?"

"Are ye daft, man? We had six good meals from her."

Nothing new there, I thought as I hung up. My next call was to Wolfgang Krock. "How's business?" I asked.

"It shtinks," he grumped. "Vunce upon a time, people vould be up all der night playing der poker, und der next day run here to tell me all der bad things vot happened to them."

"And now?"

"Now ven dey come home, dey just keep playing on der lousy Internet und lose even more money."

"Look, Krock, I've got a problem, too," I leveled with him. "I need material for a column from you. Are any things going on in your professional life?"

"Nein."

"Nine? Wow, you can give me nine more stories?"

"Nein! Nein!" he shouted.

"Ninety-nine stories? Oh, boy, that's more than four years' worth!"

"Donner und blitzen! Vot a dumkopf!" Krock raged.

"Donald and Blitson? Are they poker players I can write about?"

Krock, who had little patience in the best of circumstances, slammed the phone down. I crossed his name off my list.

Things were starting to look grim. I knew better than to call Little LeRoy, the inanimate and virtually invisible prop, because his entire life consisted of playing poker like a robot, watching television, and sleeping. In fact, the high point of his existence came when he went out for coffee and donuts once a month. I called the home of Break-even Benny and was told that a week ago while playing poker, he had lost his concentration, accidentally played a hand and lost, and was now recuperating in intensive care.

Getting desperate, I called Action Al the gambler's pal, a slightly dingy friend who constantly bombards me with screwy suggestions in hopes of getting his name in my column. As expected, he babbled on with an endless stream of ideas. Unfortunately, they were all so ludicrous that even Card Player, whose journalistic standards fall a bit south of The New York Times, would have rejected them out of hand. Another strikeout.

Finally, getting down to the cloth, I checked with Ralph the Rattler, whose varied and questionable activities in the past had always provided me with a mother lode of material, only to discover that his home game, where he'd lure little kids and take their pennies, had been shut down by juvenile authorities; his beloved Peace and Freedom party, which gave him a forum to express his wacko political views, had faded into irrelevance; and he was now seriously considering looking for honest work.

OK, Dave, I give up: They're all yours. Oh, well, maybe it's time I looked for honest work myself.