Free Mitla Pass by Leon Uris Page B

“junk mail,” the “sludge pile.”
    Occasionally someone wrote a smart-assed heartless note: “This is perhaps the worst manuscript ever produced in the English language,” or “Try a nice trade, like plumbing.”
    I got sick of seeing Gideon being beaten like this. He became too numbed for tears, but I didn’t. Our lives were being savaged by nameless, faceless bastards. Well ... enough winters and springs and summers and autumns pass and somewhere along the line, if you are persistent, you pick up a friend or two. The West Coast editor of Summerfield House, Donald Howard, thought enough of the book to send it to New York with the recommendation, “I know it needs a lot of work but I have a hunch about this writer and would like to spend the time helping him clean up this manuscript.”
    To which the publisher answered, “Forget it. It would take two years to straighten up his grammar and spelling. You’ve got better things to do.” Obviously Howard didn’t have clout, but he did have mercy and called Gideon to his office.
    Gideon was down. I mean really down. His eyes showed constant pain and sorrow.
    “I think I can show you a few things that will help this manuscript,” Donald Howard told him. So Gideon squandered our vacation to go over to San Francisco every day for an hour or so and he and Donald went through the manuscript sentence by sentence. It was filled with overwriting, loose ends, failed characterizations, bad construction. The manuscript began to look like a herd of elephants had crapped on it. But Howard insisted the good far outweighed the bad. Gideon had an inborn, God-given talent for dialogue, for power and drive, and a sense of rhythm and timing and mostly—an enormous love of humanity.
    “The question is,” Howard said, “do you have the balls to write it over, one more time?”
    And so he climbed the stairs to the attic, kissed the girls, ate at the typewriter, and was put to bed by me.
    And then came the rejections again ... six more of them ...
    W HEN G IDEON got off the bus and saw my face, he knew instantly.
    “There’s been an accident. Penelope is in the hospital.”
    Mom held us together. Our little girl lay in a coma for two weeks, fighting for her life. I cannot write, or even think about it. There is no pain to compare, no fear to equal. We were tough and brave for each other ... but Mom held us together ... and my guilt nearly drove me insane.
    Days and nights ran together ... that awful hospital corridor ... the grim face of the doctor ... all those tubes and bandages and monitors ... her beautiful little face one huge bruise no flutter of recognition ... oh God, Penny, speak to Mommy, just once ... please ... nightmares of her running into the street ... “Penny! The bus!”
    Another midnight ... I staggered to the coffee machine numbed, another setback. Across the hall was the chapel and the door was ajar. I sat down on the rear bench ...
    Gideon was near the altar, unaware of my presence ... I’d never seen him in a church or a synagogue ... he didn’t think much of religion ...
    “God!” he said with a voice so anguished I could scarcely recognize it. “I don’t know if you’re there. I don’t know if you’ve ever been there ... I was told when I was a kid not to ask for favors from God ... only to ask for strength and wisdom. ... I’ve got no strength left ... look, man, you listen to me, fucker—I never asked to come out alive at Guadalcanal or Tarawa, did I? I wanted to ask you to let Pedro live, but I didn’t ... but ... but ... God ... I can’t handle this ... I know, man, you don’t make any deals but there has only been one thing in my life I really wanted, to be a writer ... if you don’t take her, God ... I’ll work at that fucking newspaper the rest of my life and I won’t complain, okay? I swear I’ll never complain about not becoming a writer ... man, that’s all I can give you. Please don’t take my baby ...”
    I T TOOK a long,