Self-Esteem by Preston David Bailey

looked over at Dorothy, whose smile was all nostalgia.
    “Now, you hadn’t actually written anything before you wrote Self-Confidence , is that right?”
    A subtitle appeared under Crawford’s bloated face. Crawford thought it was ironic they put his name on the screen right after she’d said it. The subtitle was an ugly green — prehistoric by current standards. But it looked like the latest thing compared with Crawford’s blue plaid polyester leisure suit.
    “That’s right,” Crawford answered clumsily. “Well, I had tried writing a novel, but never actually completed anything.”
    “I see,” Jan says.
    “Look at that suit,” Dorothy said. “And your hair. Oh my God, this is funny.”
    “Yeah. Real funny.”
    “When did you decide to write a self-help book?” she asks.
    Crawford remembered being more uncomfortable than he looked.
    “I don’t know. I was in pretty bad shape in a lot of ways. My education had put me in a lot of debt. I didn’t have a job at the time. And I didn’t have any prospects for one.”
    Crawford wondered why he was so eager to impart such personal information.
    “I’d forgotten all about this,” Dorothy said.
    “You’ve also stated you had a problem with alcohol,” Jan asks frankly, as if trying to be a real journalist.
    “That’s right,” Crawford says, nodding reluctantly.
    Crawford had had only one previous television appearance. He had since forgotten how eager he was to please this bitch.
    “And it was worse than that, wasn’t it?” Jan nods, her eyebrows rising in unctuous concern.
    “Yes it was,” Crawford says.
    Dorothy was still smiling. “Boy, you look nervous.”
    Then: “Would you like to share with our viewers?”
    That’s so fucking typical , Crawford thought.
    “Yes.” Crawford’s head drops like a wounded animal. “I thought I might take my own life. That’s how bad things were.”
    I didn’t really think that. Why did I say that?

    “You bought a gun. Didn’t you?’ Jan asks, shaking her head before the audience gasps.
    “Yes.”
    “That’s terrible, Doctor.”
    “I kept the gun in my desk. Which, oddly enough, motivated me to write. I was so scared after that. It was either write or die.”
    Dorothy turned to her husband. “You never had a gun. Did you?”
    “No,” Crawford said.
    God. It was so popular to be pathetic back then. Shit, still is.

    “So you saw how bad off you were, and then you pulled yourself out of that rut.”
    Crawford is smiling. His optimism (or relative optimism) now breaks free of his memories of self-destruction. “For some reason I realized it was a lack of self-confidence, and I just documented the whole experience for others.”
    “You don’t talk like that any more, dear,” Dorothy laughed. She put a reassuring hand on Crawford’s shoulder, and Crawford almost flinched.
    “I shaped it into a program. It was a natural thing for me to write because I was going through it at the time.”
    Without realizing it, Dorothy’s love pat was angering Crawford even more.
    You’re my wife, not my mother.

    “Your life was in disarray, you say… a total mess.” Hershey’s enthusiasm is growing with Crawford’s, their song and dance in harmony. “And in that state of mind you produced a best-selling book?” She looks at the camera and tilts her head. “Maybe my life should be a little more in disarray.”
    “I’m turning it off,” Crawford said, grabbing the remote.
    “No, wait.”
    “You know, Jan, people are strange animals. I think the public’s awareness of those circumstances has actually helped the book become the success it has. I think it communicates to people that they shouldn’t give up.”
    No wonder I never watched this .
    Crawford became more aware of Dorothy rubbing his shoulder and it bothered him. He felt like a boob already, and her comforting hand was insulting. Berry got me again, he thought, and she doesn’t even care .
    “Why would you let this bother you?” she asked