“How’s literature?”

This could have been a legitimate query, but given the generalized smarminess of the asker, a soi-disant colleague, I couldn’t be sure. Plus, I was only partially conscious at that early hour, first in line, waiting to pick up a tall decaf latte lo-fat flat, for my wife, at P--t’s, once an advertiser in these pages, but, alas, no longer.

On the other hand, it might not have been a question at all; it might have been a salutation (of me, as the personification of literature) and thus the equivalent of “Whassup?” To which I should reply, “Fine, how’s by you?” (I would never say, of Literature, “Don’t ask.”)

Or, maybe, in the press to accomplish a lot of conversation in not-enough time, the question was simply condensed: Whatcha been reading/whatcha think of the recent renaissance of the short story in America/what great writers have you published lately?

To which the proper answer would be: Atonement wasn’t that great—too country-house; I can’t wait for Rohinton Mistry’s new one (which I’ve ordered at an independent bookstore); Billy Collins is still cool; how could Jill Soloway’s hilarious “Courtney Cox’s Asshole,” (ZYZZYVA 62) not even make the Pushcart...?

So I said, “I’d be the last to know.” Meaning, I thought: “As you very well know, you smarmy creep, I don’t deal in literature, but thanks for asking, how’s by you?”

Because, of course, I don’t deal in literature. I don’t even know where that august entity is located, although I do know it’s several exits farther down the freeway from where I get off.

I deal in the raw stuff. Some call it writing; academics: creative writing.

I’m not exactly an undocumented alien in these fields, because I’m chained to the same acreage season after season. But what I do is work in the dirt, way before the wheat gets separated from the chaff. Way before the elevator operators, the millers, the bakers.... Most of the time I’m just spinning my wheels—plowing, harrowing(!), sowing, reaping—round and round. Waiting around a lot, because Literature takes its time. And seldom pays much, although, luckily, I do get subsidized, because we all concede that croissants and Cheerios and ciabattari don’t grow on trees. Their essential ingredient comes up out of the dirt, not magically, not even in neat rows, but at some cost, haphazardly. Often seeming, at first, like weeds.