Fire me. Didn't get the facts straight. Little straight facts in a big important article. Facts ... facts. What are a few frigging facts anyway? I can still write well, can't I? Can't I? Good strong ... strongstraightforward writing.
Drink too much. Drink all the time. Always polluted. Who am I to deny it? I'll tell you who I am. Graduate Columbia School of Journalism. Twelve years on the New York Times, seven Herald Tribune, five....
Sish to all that. Switch to magazines. Big mistake. Big mistake ever to switch. Newspaper man. First, foremost and always. Should never have switched.
That guy down in Florida. Miami? No, hell no. Somewhere in Florida. Palm Beach? No, no, no. Where then? What's it matter?
Important writer, wonderful guy, Pulitzer Prize winner. Think of it—Pulitzer Prize winner. Older 'n I am. Sixty-five, maybe seventy by now. Couldn't keep away from the stuff. Drank, drank, drank—always polluted. Now he's asking for handouts. Sitting by yacht basin. Watching the big ones—half-million-dollar yachts. Never own a flat-bottomed skiff. Neither will I....
Ellers got swayingly to his feet, pushing the chair in which he'd been sitting back so violently that it toppled over with a crash that caused him to shudder and cry out, as if a leather thong had bitten cruelly into his flesh.
He grasped the desk edge with one hand and with the other made circling motions in the air.
All her fault! Vicious inhuman.... "Don't! Don't come near me, you bitch. Don't touch me!"
He continued to sway and gesture, his voice rising shrilly. "Bitch, bitch, bitch!"