Hunter's Moon Read Free

imperfections that marked it as a fatally flawed work of literature, and with each flaw there was a compelling argument to support his analysis.
    Onstage, bathed in the spotlight, CJ had no defense against the assault. He felt naked. It was difficult to listen to the voice go on about his book, tearing it apart chapter by chapter, scene by scene. The thing that really hurt was that CJ found he couldn’t fault the man a single point. The more the man talked, the more CJ came to believe that the book he had only a few minutes ago considered his best work was in fact just another piece of second-rate fiction.
    It was a humbling position, and not one to which CJ was accustomed. He wanted nothing more than to make it stop. Consequently, he did the first thing that came to him. He lifted the closed book from the podium and started down the steps, heading down the center aisle and toward the voice. He could barely make out the people on either side of him as he passed the rows of seats. After he had walked by perhaps fifteen rows, it was as if a small spotlight came on, illuminating a single person. CJ recognized him as a writer for the Southern Review . The man had attended a number of CJ’s readings, and up to now had always been cordial. Now, though, he was deep into his evisceration of CJ’s novel.
    CJ didn’t even slow as he approached the man, and it was with a smooth but vicious swing that he brought the spine of the book into contact with the reviewer’s head.
    When Charles Jefferson Baxter rolled over in bed, he didn’t have to open his eyes to realize that it was going to be a bad day. For one thing, his head was pounding, and he knew this particular feeling well enough to understand the headache would stay with him until at least early afternoon, regardless of any medication he might take for it. And since he was supposed to meet his editor for lunch at noon, then afterward head over to the house to pick up the last of his things, he did not need to be hobbled by stabbing pain in his head.
    With a groan, he opened his eyes to look at the clock. It read 7:30, which was confirmed by the light that found its way past the curtains. He closed his eyes again, choosing not to move. He hadn’t gotten back to the apartment and, consequently, into bed until sometime after 3:00 a.m., and while he was not wholly unaccustomed to keeping those kinds of hours, it had been a while. It had also been a while since he’d lost that much at cards. That thought coaxed a new throbbing from his temple, eliciting another groan.
    He couldn’t put an exact dollar figure on his losses, but he guessed it was around five hundred. Not a huge sum, but with the money he would soon have to start paying Janet, he needed to begin keeping a closer eye on his finances. She wanted the house, of course, which was fine with him. And the Jaguar, which wasn’t quite as fine. His lawyer had encouraged him to save his energy for the important things—the most pressing of those being alimony. And Thoreau. Janet would absolutely not get to keep his dog.
    He rolled to a sitting position and sat with his head in his hands until a bout of vertigo eased. He didn’t need to get up yet, but he knew the headache would keep him from falling back to sleep. With that thought in mind, he got up and went to the bathroom where he found some ibuprofen in the medicine cabinet and took a good deal more than the recommended dose.
    As he stood at the sink, bracing himself on the counter, the dream that had followed him to wakefulness lingered. He supposed that was to be expected. After all, the events the dream had parodied had happened only two days ago. Of course, there had been a few differences. The audience hadn’t been neatly divided into two factions, there was no spotlight, and the room was nowhere near as packed. But the part about the book was pretty accurate, except that instead of taking the long walk down the steps and up the aisle to assault the man from the