Friday, April 11, 2008

My Best Friend

My Pal

By

James Robert Smith

I was relatively

happy

when I sold that first

short story

to that first

big market.

My best friend asked me

the anthology title

and said he’d buy

a copy

when it came out.

When it did come out

I asked him, smiling, proud,

“Did you buy one?”

And he said,

“Your story was what? Four pages of the book? Five?

I couldn’t justify buying

that book

for just four or five pages.”

My best friend.

What an asshole.

2 comments:

dogboy443 said...

True friends would buy it no matter what. True friends buy your book, send you goofy drawings and funny books at no cost. True friends send you a book about big dino-birds and don't charge them. True friends.

James Robert Smith said...

Yeah, the guy's my pal, but some people are sometimes jerks without meaning to do harm. It happens.

He's given me gifts, too. Sometimes stuff that I don't like, but I don't let on.

Certainly not cool art, though.