Charlie wants us to get the issue out, the first part that is, by Friday, which means I’ll probably be putting in some late hours this week. He has “promoted” me from Editorial Assistant to Production Assistant, mainly so he can list Shelly as Editorial Assistant on the colophon. Trevin is now “librarian.” He was listed as Editorial Trainee for months and he’s leaving in a few weeks to go back to school.

Today, Tim went through all the papers piled on the coffee table and “organized” then into various places in the apartment. I would never have had the courage. There are articles of correspondence, like IRS forms, that I can’t handle without building up to a heart-pounding anxiety attack. There are others, (like the letter from our last landlord about the cleaning bill) that I don’t even read. I just note there is writing on the paper, have Tim relay to me whether we need to send money or not. I’ve tried reasoning out these nervous seizures of mine and what it comes down to is that I am afraid of being yelled at by my father, an IRS agent, my tax filer, my landlord, Tim and/or my bank. (I’m not afraid of Charlie yelling at me. That’s what he does.) I don’t envision poverty, prison, or public disgrace — just the horrible prospect of having to explain myself. Maybe it has something to do with all those years in Catholic schools.

“Charlie” was Charlie Brown, editor of Locus Magazine, the science fiction trade magazine where I was working at the time. He was a round, bearded, wall-eyed professional fan, a bully to his small, mostly female staff, but a good friend to writers he respected. The magazine, which is still around, and started as a single page promotional flyer in 1968, was published back then out of his house up in the Montclair Hills. Charlie grossly underpaid us, but we had free access to all the Stouffer’s frozen dinners in his freezer for lunch, and working at Locus could mean meeting in person science fiction luminaries like Robert Silverberg, Fritz Leiber, Lucius Shepard, Lisa Goldstein, and Marion Zimmer Bradley. Brushes with greatness over the phone included Arthur C. Clarke , Robert Heinlein and Ursula Le Guin. Harlan Ellison hung up on me at least once.