Mel Says To Give You His Best
by James L Rosenberg

THE STORY: Carver, a struggling writer, is awakened in the middle of the night to find Rapp, a young black man, at his door.

Rapp claims that a mutual friend,” Mel Coppersmith (whom Carver can't recall), told him that he would find a welcome at Carver's any time, day or night, so he blithely invites himself to stay.

Thereafter, in a sequence of sometimes funny, sometimes disquieting scenes, punctuated by a disembodied voice which booms “Please maintain your focus,” Rapp insinuates himself ever more insidiously into Carver's life.

He talks of finding a job, but nothing is suitable; he promises not to interfere with Carver's work, and then proceeds to do so; he taunts and menaces Carver; he brings in a mute black girl to share the already crowded apartment; and, before long, he suggests that Carver should be the one to leave.

Ultimately the shaken Carver, after having come close to violence, conceives the means to rid himself of Rapp—whereupon the doorbell rings again, this time disclosing a young white man with a pretty blonde girl at his side: friends of Mel Coppersmith's, looking for a place to crash!