Dating : Distance As Measure Of Time

The wall went up about five years ago. Yes, he resents having lost his hill, but he doesn’t necessarily blame the wall. It’s a handsome wall, very well constructed. There were many times when Henry would notice the ongoing erosion of the hill and worry about what would happen to that medieval-looking building up behind him. It had to weigh a lot. Nothing to worry about now. That wall was going nowhere for many years to come.

Henry, however, was beginning to think he was going to have to go somewhere. The millionairization of the city had been a drag, but this pandemic business was the I-beam about to break the camel’s back. He’s making plans.

He’d been here since the days of staying in after dark and the sound of gunshots at night. That had all felt adventurous to young Henry with his typewriter and his manuscripts. It was material. He didn’t have to be out there risking getting hurt to pirate the lives that were getting hurt. When an agent picked him up he knew he’d made the right choice to live here no matter what friends of his mother back in Manayunk said.

True, “Distance as a Measure of Time” was a PEN/Hemingway finalist, but it still didn’t sell. The agent stopped returning Henry’s calls. In all these years, though, he’d never stopped writing. He just stopped showing anyone the work. He’d finish a new manuscript and put it out with the recycling never suspecting that Margie was rescuing every single one. Margie, the sly fox, wasn’t just piling those completed manuscripts in a closet. She made it her business to get more eyes, many more eyes, on Henry’s work.