Drawing by Mark Rogers
Twenty years ago I was a senior editor at a travel trade magazine in NYC.
I remember:
The managing editor holding up a letter from a freelancer and saying, "He's wondering where his check is." She then dropped the letter behind her cubicle. When she was no longer working there, someone moved the cubicle and found 300 letters from plaintive freelance writers.
The publisher was on the golf course. He missed a putt on the 15th hole. A box turtle picked the wrong moment to crawl onto the green and the publisher bashed it to pieces with his steel putter.
I was in line waiting to board a flight. We were coming back from a team-building getaway in the Caribbean. The head of sales spent the whole time in line bouncing a hacky sack ball off the back of his subordinate's head.
I had this exchange:
Our editor-in-chief waved me into his office and said he heard I wanted to become the West Coast editor. He thought it was a great idea and then asked me why.
I said, “It looks like I’m going through a divorce... you know how it is.”
He then said, “Matter of fact, I don’t.” He went on to say how surprised he was that I was having problems in my marriage; that I always seemed so happy-go-lucky.
Then he delivered the zinger, “I guess you’re like the clown who is crying inside.”
MARK ROGERS is a writer and artist whose literary heroes include Charles Bukowski, Willy Vlautin, and Charles Portis. Rogers lives in Baja California, Mexico with his Sinaloa-born wife, Sofia. His award-winning travel journalism has brought him to 56 countries. His crime novels have been published in the U.S. and UK. Uppercut, his memoir of moving to Mexico, is published by Cowboy Jamboree Press. NeoText publishes his Tijuana Novels series and Gray Hunter series. You can reach him at markrogers627@gmail.com.
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