I have always been a great admirer of Genghis Khan, and would surely become politically active if he ran for office. You have to be impressed with any dude whose DNA is present in over 200 million descendents. I think he maxed out at around 60 wives and 300 concubines, obviously a pious soul, reserving five days for various holidays. For a brief moment in time, I sensed the possibility of a tenuous link with the ultimate conqueror, as two potential members of his gene pool reached out to me across the internet…

By 2005, the original Harm City title, The Logic of Steel, had gained some ‘niche’ notoriety as a knife-fighting sourcebook worldwide. While most American readers seemed to think of me as a ‘weirdly poetic’ nut, I received compliments from men in Brazil, Hawaii [oh yeah, we own that], London, Germany, the Netherlands, South Africa, a primitive agrarian commune [located in Canada I think] called Iowa, and some third world nation named New Jersey. People were not using the internet like they are now, but some were able to track me down.

It has always surprised me that people think authors naturally rake in a lot of money. In light of this it should not have surprised me that certain young ladies sought me out as a sugar daddy, the literary giant of my field; the Tom Clancy of back-alley stabbing literature. One Sunday, as my roommate coached me on the computer, teaching me how to use e-mails once again, a message came into my mailbox. I clicked on it and my roommate read it out loud from over my shoulder: “’James, you are a great and famous author and I am Christina, a poor and lonely Ukrainian woman in Kazan, looking for a husband. I have dreamed of my knight in shining armor being an American’—more like a bad date in flannel—come on James. Let’s see what this skank looks like…”

My land lady then reached over my shoulder and pulled up a photo of a stunning blonde standing in a courtyard. Her voice was a jealous hiss—“You, so, do not, deserve…”

“Look Ajay. This is a scam, right?”

“If she’s seen a picture of you, of course—but look at her! If you ship her over here she’ll be stuck in the apartment with Mommy Ajay all night long while you are at work…”

The Ukrainian waif’s back-story included her father being a former Soviet Colonel who died of cancer, being a school teacher, etc. I eventually decided—after playing along for more pictures—that this chick was probably the sister of some Ukrainian gangster named Boris, who would be cooking up crack cocaine on my living room sofa and shaking me down for vodka money on payday. Sorry Christina, I just could not imagine you reading The Logic of Steel, and the fact that Banno was your favorite character in the book makes your brother Boris all the more frightening…

Then came Hansha! This lady contacted me through a dating site that I had just signed on to. She lived in Pikesville, on the Westside of Baltimore. I had not posted a picture yet, so she purchased a copy of The Logic of Steel and was smitten by my genius!

“Oh, James, you are the perfect man for me, warrior and scholar!”

She was good looking but not stunning, and, to my roommate’s horror, very short. I was very excited to find out that she was educated, with a masters degree in political science from Ulan Bator University. She was making sandwiches at a Mongolian restaurant and living a stone’s throw from the ghetto with her mother. My roommate was dismissive, “A midget! What’s a matter with you—I see you with a tall woman.”

“No, you see yourself comforting a tall woman after I disappoint her.”

Undaunted I even had a phone conversation with the young lady, during which she told me what a great man I was, “An author, a warrior, a great man, a handsome man; the man on the cover of the book!”

That sent a chill up my spine. So, having arranged to go over Hansha’s place for Mongolian beef prepared by her and the future Mother Dowager of my little Mongolian horde, I e-mailed her, “Hansha, I do not want there to be any misunderstandings. I am the man who wrote the book. I am not the man on the cover of the book, but the longhaired guy being beaten up by the man on the cover on page 155.”

Hansha emailed me back, “Oh,James, you not for me!”

I laughed so loudly that my roommate, not interested in Hansha in the least, came back to the computer room. When I showed her the response, she snorted dismissively, “She was too short for you anyhow.”

“What about Raphael? Should I call him and tell him that some Mongolian chick has the hots for him?”

“Really, James, a young girl like that is going to want kids—could you imagine...”

Ajay just shook her head and went back to watching NASCAR in the TV room, leaving me behind with my rejection text, absorbing the lost opportunity to become the patriarch of a white trash-Mongolian brood; an extension of Genghis Khan’s will to power. Then it occurred to me, ‘You know, if someone decided to assassinate me over this book, Raphael is in quite a spot.’

Thanks Bro, I heard she makes a good sandwich.