THE UNSEEN BLUSHERS By Alfred Bester [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astonishing Stories, June 1942. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] With all kinds of plots twisting in my head, I hadn't slept well the night before. For one thing, I'd worked too late on a yarn that wasn't worth it. For another, there'd been a high wind howling through the streets. It made me restless and did a lot more damage than that. When I got up I found it'd blown a lot of paper and junk in the window and most of the story out—only a part of the carbon was left. I wasn't especially sorry. I got dressed and hustled down to the luncheon. That luncheon's something special. We meet every Tuesday in a second-rate restaurant and gossip and talk story and editors and mostly beef about the mags that won't pay until publication. Some of us, the high-class ones, won't write for them. Maybe I ought to explain. We're the unromantic writers—what they call pulp writers. We're the boys who fill the pulp magazines with stories at a cent a word. Westerns, mystery, wonder, weird, adventure—you know them. Not all of us are hacks. A couple have graduated to the movies. A few have broken the slicks and try to forget the lean years. Some get four cents a word and try to feel important to literature. The rest come to the luncheon and either resign themselves to the one cent rate or nurse a secret Pulitzer Prize in their bosoms. There wasn't much of a turn-out when I got there. Belcher sat at the head of the table as usual, playing the genial host. He specializes in what they call science-fiction. It's fantastic stuff about time machines and the fourth dimension. Belcher talks too much in a Southern drawl. As I eased into a chair he called, "Ah, the poor man's Orson Welles!" and crinkled his big face into a showy laugh. I said, "Your dialogue's getting as lousy as your stories!" I don't like to be reminded that I look like a celebrity. Belcher ignored that. He turned to Black, the chap who agents our stuff, and began complaining. He said, "Land-sake, Joey, can't you sell that Martian story? I think it's good." Before Joey could answer, Belcher turned to the rest of us and said, "Reminds me
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