Advance

So I said to him
Clive
I said
Clive
I can earn three K
just picking my arse.
This book doesn't get out of bed
for less than seven figures.

It's a lock
I said
it's a fucking
lead pipe cinch.
They'll be flying off the shelves
like the whole bookshop's
fucking haunted.
It'll spread faster than SARS.
It'll get more TV coverage than AIDS
but there won't be a cure
Clive
modern medicine's got no answer
for genius.

I said
Clive
there'll be brawls
there'll be fighting at the checkouts.
There'll be murders
over first editions.
There'll be drive-bys.
There'll be firebombings.
There'll be riots
Clive
there'll be fucking civil war.
I said
the government 'll have to declare
martial law
and tanks 'll trundle down city streets
over makeshift barricades
made from cardboard Point of Sale displays
and flatpack fucking bookshelves.

I said
they'll have to build extra paper mills
and printing presses
and huge warehouses
and soon the sole source of work
for whole communities
'll be this book.
I'm telling you
I said
the workers 'll have their own fucking folk songs
Clive
they'll have their own dialect.
Their kids 'll be born
with inky fucking fingers.
This book 'll become the spine
of the world economy.
Run into distribution problems
and whole countries 'll go hungry.

I said
this is big
Clive.
No tree 'll be sacred.
Giant sucking, cutting juggernauts
'll work in droves
and reap whole fucking forests overnight.
There'll be no paper left for bog roll
I told him.
I said
the whole world 'll have to switch
to fucking bidets
and what do you think they'll be reading
on the khazi?
Harry fucking Potter?
I don't think so.
You can bet your Pine Fresh ringpiece
it'll be this book
Clive
this beautiful blockbusting bastard of a book.

I said
it's so fucking good
that people 'll have to start believing in God again
and churches 'll be packed out
with punters chanting
whole fucking passages.
I said
you'll own the performance rights.
I said
Clive
I'm telling you
you'll reap a fucking fortune.
You'll be so rich that economics professors 'll
take their own lives
out of sheer terror.
People 'll worship you
as the next Messiah.

I said
you'll shag so much
you'll get bored
and you'll have so many STDs
they'll cancel each other out.
You'll be the Sex God
Clive
you'll stage orgies
on a mountain of uncorrected proofs
and hormones 'll run so rampant
that people 'll transform mid-coitus
into massive fucking bears.

I said
Clive
listen
this is gargantuan.
This makes Jesus look like
Alvin fucking Stardust.
They'll hack down so many trees
there won't be enough oxygen to go round.
I'm talking global fucking warming
Clive.
I'm talking ice caps,
flooding,
I'm talking fucking Atlantis.
Half your market 'll be underwater.
Canada 'll be like the fucking Sahara.

Because of this book
society 'll fall apart
and tribes 'll fight over resources
with uzis and flamethrowers
and fucking rocket launchers
and there'll be no medicine
because they knocked down all the hospitals
and raised golden effigies
of you
Clive
naked except for a crown
tossing off
over a pile of jewels and trade awards.

I said
people 'll rue the day
they ever saw this fucking book.
Right round the globe
they'll burn them in huge pyres
and there'll be so much smoke
that the sky 'll turn black for sixty days
and crops 'll wither
and the fires 'll spread and raze
the shanty towns and makeshift villages
until there's nothing left.

I said
parents 'll outlive their kids
Clive
and folks 'll stagger hungry through
charred ruins
crying out to God for mercy
but He'll keep schtum
and poor starving humans 'll tear their hair
and wail
and say that truly
truly
these are the dark days
this is the End of Times.

I said
they'll blame you
Clive.
I said
you'll escape to your island compound
and you'll have armed guards
and concubines
and fine wines
and every type of fruit you can imagine
but the people 'll come in a swarm.
It'll be fucking Biblical
Clive.
They'll come in rowboats
and on rafts
and those who don't have boats
'll swim like rats.
I said
you'll sit in your command centre
watching a bank of two hundred flickering monitors
while your Chief of Security barks orders
and machine gun nests 'll chew through
belts of ammo like they're Hubba Bubba.
The sea 'll turn to fucking Vimto
Clive.
It'll stink like a butcher's dustbin.

They'll come in their millions.
I said
you'll run low on ammo
and your guards 'll start to flag.
They'll mow down wave after wave
of desperate men and emaciated mothers
and starving kids
and at last
with tears in his eyes
your Chief of Security 'll turn on you
a Luger trembling in his clammy fist
and he'll say
Clive
he'll say
Clive
it's over.

You'll stare at him.

I said
Clive
this is colossal.
I said
Clive
flash forward
breathe in the perfume
of blown circuitry.
He's your son
Clive
your fucking son
and this is how he pays you back?
He'll say
I'm sorry Dad
then he'll clap you in irons
and hand you over to the mob
pounding at the gates.

There'll be no point begging for clemency
Clive.
I said
you'll be everything they hate.
You'll be the devil fucking incarnate.
They'll rip out your lying tongue with pliers.
I said
they'll push hot needles into your syphilitic testicles
and stub cigars out in your eyes.
They'll snap your digits like breadsticks
and slit your fat throat
and once you've died
they'll tie your legs to the back of a cart
and drag your vomit-splattered corpse
through the streets
singing and whooping and baying like hounds.
I said
your entrails 'll spill like spag bol.
You'll be
like a massive ruptured haggis.
They'll dump your ashes over wasteland
and for generations it'll be tradition to visit that spot
and curl out a turd.

I said
Clive
this book 'll destroy the human race.
So what do you say?
And he opened his mouth and
I said
look
I don't want to rush you
but I've got to be honest
Lindsay from Faber was on the phone this morning
and I think they're going to make an offer
in which case
you know
I've got to think of my client.
And he opened his mouth and
I said
Clive
my hands are tied
I mean
it's practically a done deal
so unless
you can come up with something
really exceptional
by this afternoon
I'm going to have to
I mean
you know you'd be my first choice.
And he opened his mouth and
I said
I've just got to think of my client.
You understand
don't you
Clive?

And all of a sudden he leapt on me
clawing at my throat
and screaming
give me the book!
I'll pay anything!
Just give me the bloody book
you heartless bastard!
So I prised his fingers
from round my windpipe and
I said
Clive
I said
Clive
email me by five
and I'll see what I can do.