The Diary of Nathan P. Finkelberg

By Grayling, Frank

Book Id: WPLBN0100302362
Format Type: PDF eBook:
File Size: 0.8 MB
Reproduction Date: 9/6/2091

Title:	The Diary of Nathan P. Finkelberg
Author:	Grayling, Frank
Volume:
Language:	English
Subject:	Fiction, Drama and Literature, Road Trips
Collections:	Authors Community, Erotic Fiction
Historic Publication Date:	2091
Publisher:	Lost City Press

Member Page:	Frank Grayling
Citation APA MLA Chicago Frank Grayling, B. E., & Finkelberg, N. P. (2091). The Diary of Nathan P. Finkelberg. Retrieved from http://gutenberg.cc/

Description
Frank Grayling and his somewhat unstable girlfriend, Alana Bushmill, go on a road trip to recover the manuscript of a ghost who claims to be the Eternal Wandering Jew. They engage in many pointless arguments but eventually reach their destination and become filthy stinking rich in the process.

Summary
In August of last year, I was called on the phone by a man who said he had a manuscript he thought I should read. I tried to tell him that Lost City Press only publishes my own books, but he was very persistent so I agreed to meet with him to discuss it. What he handed me was a single-sided, double-spaced stack of paper that he told me he had found in an empty apartment out near High Park somewhere. The cover page said, Frank Grayling’s Quest on it and it appeared to be some kind of detective story about a man called Frank Grayling and a ghost called Nathan Finkelberg. When I asked my visitor what his name was, he told me he’d prefer not to say. I didn’t really have time to read someone else’s book, being rather busy finishing, or attempting to finish, the final draft of Who Would Put Up With It? But once that task was accomplished, I sifted through the pages of what I thought would be a somewhat tedious, rather boring narrative and decided that I would read it when I had the time. What it turned out to be was the chronicle of a sort of crazed road trip taken by Frank Grayling and his girlfriend, Alana Bushwell. I have no idea how real any of what follows is. All I know is that when I attempted to call my visitor from last year, the message I got said that his phone service had been discontinued. However, a week later, I got a call from the same man. He told me he was calling from a pay phone and wondered what I thought of his book. It had been my intention to tell him that I considered it unpublishable because parts of it were completely incoherent and other parts totally unbelievable. And on top of that, there appeared to be two chapters missing. When I informed him of this, he told me I was free to edit it if I wanted to and, as for the missing chapters, I should just make something up and insert them in the appropriate place. Time past and the manuscript continued to sit on the bench of my piano unread by anyone but me and, presumably, the man who brought it to me, who I rather suspect is Frank Grayling because when I asked him to read Who Would Put Up With It? and provide me with a comment that I could put on the back cover, I received two notes. One from Frank Grayling and one from Nathan Samuel Finkelberg. Those letters are in the front of that book and the comments are on the back cover. I rather suspect that my newly acquired friend has addled his brain by watching too much television, because his book, while not terrible, simply isn’t very good. But I have done my best to make sense out of what he provided me. Chapters Four and Five are in the third person, because they were written by me. And despite the fact that the person who wrote this rather ridiculous tome, whoever he may be, clearly intended it to be called Frank Grayling’s Quest, I have decided to title it The Diary of Nathan P. Finkelberg, because that seems to me to be a more appropriate title. Other than that, I have edited the original manuscript very lightly and not taken too many liberties with Mr. Grayling’s original intention, whatever it was. I have no idea why he wrote it or why he thinks other people need to read it. I present it to you as it was presented to me, with only the odd typo or spelling error cleaned up. There may still be a few remaining. Whether my newly acquired and somewhat paranoid new friend will provide me with any more tales about Frank Grayling and Nathan Finkelberg, or whether this is a one-off, I have no idea. Time will tell. Fred C. Gardiner Toronto, Ontario July 20th, 2014

Excerpt
Frank Grayling’s Quest My name is Frank Grayling. I live in this small apartment at the western end of the fourth largest city in North America. Not a terribly important detail given the nature of the facts I am about to set down here. But should this document fall into the wrong hands before I kick off, it might turn out to be of some significance. And I might as well get it out in the open right off the bat. I, dear future reader, am a CSIS operant and have been for several years now. I live in this crummy little pad, right next to one of the largest parks in Toronto, not because I actually want to, but because I am paid to live in it. Seriously, who the hell would live in a run-down dump like this if they didn’t have to? Nobody. That’s who. I’m not nobody but I’m as close as you can get to being invisible without actually completely disappearing. Right off the face of the planet, I mean. And this apartment? It’s a dump. A real dive. Not as much of a dump as some of the joints I’ve lived in. And it’s not actually as bad as I’m making it out to be. I’ve lived in some pretty crummy places over the years, spying on one group of miscreants or another. And compared to those places, this apartment is sort of like paradise. Sort of. It has hot and cold running water and that’s more than can be said for a lot places. Istanbul? That was a real dead end, go nowhere, nothing much happening kind of scene. Compared to that, living in this little apartment is paradise. But by North America standards, it’s a dump and that’s all there is to it. I’m not really supposed to tell anyone anything about myself, the nature of what I do being so secretive and all, but I’ve got to tell somebody about what’s been happening or I’ll go bat-shit crazy. Like Michelle Bachman. She was a piece of work, eh? Talk about right off the charts fucking wacko. Never met the dame but I did have to read about her every day for a year. I can’t tell you why, exactly. And it’s not terribly important. What is important is that I have been living in a building filled with wack jobs and weirdoes for over two years now and they have started to drive me slowly out of my ever-loving mind. Hence the need for this document. Or rather, collection of documents. I’ve decided to call it Frank Grayling’s Quest because that’s my name and a short while back, I decided to go on one. Not a real quest like the ones you can read about in those old romantic fairy tales. But a sort of fake quest. Well, not exactly fake. More like a fate quest. I did it to break out of this shitty little existence I had and become nothing more than someone who could enjoy his life. Everything works against that, you know. And everybody but everybody will try to prevent you from getting there if they can. Well, not everybody. Just most people. All I ever really wanted was to be able to live in my own place day after day and do nothing but sit around in my underwear drinking beer, smoking cigarettes and spying on the little hotties who sun bathe in front of my window on the other side of Bloor Street every time the weather turns warm. What I am supposed to be doing (what I actually get paid to do) is keeping the Islamic guy next door under surveillance, but since he is almost never home, I’m left with plenty of free time for ogling the thirty-year-olds in the park and the woman who lives in the apartment below me. She’s hot, hot, hot and doesn’t she just know it? I’m sure she realizes that I am obsessed with watching her putter around in her kitchen. But she doesn’t seem to give a shit. The only thing about her is that like most thirty-something women, she’s completely full of herself. Well, isn’t everyone these days? I mean almost everyone. And aren’t they all so obsessed with making a living and owning a nice car that they don’t seem to have time to even notice that the guy in the next unit is actually a CSIS operant and has been hired to keep track of them and their little activities? That’s just the way it goes, I guess. Lemmings. All of them. Running over the cliff and too blind and stupid to even know the cliff is there. That’s what they are, though. Lemmings. And they don’t seem to care or give a shit about anyone other than themselves. Not that I do either, but at least I care enough about my country to do a half-ways decent job of keeping these morons under surveillance. Just in case, one of them actually is, you know, a terrorist. I don’t think any of them are but, hey, I get paid to think they might be and that’s good enough for old Frankie boy.