Bookshop Man, Part 2

It was a gutwrenching struggle, every day, to open the store. On some days he couldn't do it at all, couldn't bring himself to let customers, strangers, come in and wander among his treasures. On those days he would sit in the back, in the way back, with the most valuable books. He would flip carefully through them, reading not the words of the stories but rather the notes people had jotted on yellowed pages over the years.

Today the sign went over, Closed to Open. A book would have to be sold; rent would have to be made. There was no place for his books in his small apartment, where he spent increasingly little time.

He saw passersby outside, any of whom could come in at any moment and take a book from him. He felt his heart pounding and tried to calm himself with a deep breath. He went behind the counter and stood, his eyes closed.

Once, it had been a business -- a bittersweet one, but a business nonetheless. He made a good profit at first, but money began to interest him less and less. The wares of a rare book dealer cannot simply be ordered through a catalogue; they must be tracked down painstakingly one by one, negotiated, bargained for, won. Each of the books in his shop told not one story but two: the story on the pages, no different from the stories sold at Borders or Barnes & Noble. But then there was the second story, the story of the book itself. Where it had been, who it had belonged to, how it had come to be here. These were the stories he loved most. To sell a book was to part with its story forever.

He felt relieved that for the first two hours no one came into the store, but then at 11 a.m. his heart sank. A man wearing a suit and a long trenchcoat bounded into the store. The owner opened his eyes. The man nodded at him and disappeared into the stacks.

The owner stood nervously behind the counter, fidgeting with his computer, checking on eBay auctions. Finally the man came back.

"You don't have an oldish copy of Catcher in the Rye, do you? I looked under Hemingway but I didn't see it."

The owner lowered his eyelids. "Salinger," he said, "Salinger is the author of The Catcher in the Rye."

"My bad," said the man. He turned around to go look under S.

"It's not on the shelves," said the owner. "All I have is an old first edition. It's in the back." He spoke with a pronounced quiet that was meant to dissuade the customer from asking any further questions.

"Could you grab that for me?" said the customer, undeterred. "My step-kid just got published. I wanted to get him a present. I'm kind of in a hurry."

The owner felt like screaming. He came out from around the counter and with a key from his pocket, unlocked the back room. He turned the dial of a large black safe that stood as tall as he did. The first edition Catcher in the Rye lay inside in a mylar bag. He turned it over in his hands. It was beautiful, was in near-mint condition. How could he sell it, after all it had taken to obtain it? He would say it wasn't here. That's what he'd do.

Suddenly the customer poked his head into the back room. The owner, startled, hugged the book to his chest.

"Perfect," the customer said. "Looks great." He held out his hand.

The owner looked at the man's fingers with distaste but gave him the book. He closed the safe and the back-room door and followed the customer to the front, telling him the story of this particular copy even though he was sure the customer wouldn't care; it was enough for the owner to hear it himself, one last time. The customer was digging out his wallet when his cellphone began jingling. He put up his finger to cut off the owner's narration.

"I have to take this," he said, and dropped his American Express card on the glass counter.

"Oh--" whispered the owner. He stepped behind the counter. "Before you do-- What did you say was the name of your son's book?" He opened his Amazon browser to get an idea of who the book's next owner would be. He had hopes of someone respectful and worthy.

The customer flipped open his little silver phone. "Oh--school paper. Bridges Middle School." He put his phone to his ear. The owner scowled and looked from the book to the credit card.

While the man talked on the phone he made himself at home by leaning against a bookshelf. The owner picked up the credit card and watched the man. As he chatted he pulled the book from the bag. The owner felt his blood grow hot and he clenched the credit card. And then -- goddammit! -- the customer, preoccupied and laughing into his phone, licked his thumb and began flipping through the book as though it were a TVGuide!

The owner slammed his fist down on the counter. "No!" he said. He bounded away from the counter and charged like a wildebeast at the man, snatching the book away from him. "I can't sell this to you! I promised it to someone else!" He deftly slipped the book into the bag.

"I don't know--I'm being accosted," said the customer into his phone. "He's pu--"

"Get out!" said the owner, snarling. He stuffed the credit card in the pocket of the customer's trench coat, grabbed him by the arm and guided him to and through the front door. "I'm sorry," he said, closing the door behind the man. "We're closed!"

He flipped over the sign, wiped sweat from his brow with the edge of his cardigan, and spent the rest of the day in the back, with the books.

Committing Friendstercide

Yesterday I deleted my:
-Livejournal,
-Friendster profile,
-Crisis on Infinite Blogs! blog,
-Story of Ben blog, and
-several unused email addresses.

It feels good. I've always been at odds with my Internet presence. I try to keep it reined in as much as possible, but still it can get out of control. There is Friendster and MySpace and Facebook, all which do the same thing. There is Livejournal and blogs and blogs and blogs, none of which anyone really reads. E-mail addresses for work and personal and for all the secondary sites I've registered at. Part of me would like to remove myself from the Internet entirely, but that's not exactly practical. I kept my MySpace profile, for instance. I do want to be at least a little searchable.

But enough with the glut of online self-expression.

Bookshop Man, Part 1

In through a peephole came a beam of sunlight. It revealed itself in the dust in the air and fell onto shiny brown loafers. Two copper faces of Lincoln peered out through yawning slits in the tongues of the shoes. The ankles going into the shoes were argyle; brown twill pants revealed just too much of them. The pants were ironed with a sharp crease that faded up toward the thigh. The belt was simple and had several holes to spare. The cardigan that flapped against the belt was brown also and hung unbuttoned. Beneath it was a yellow shirt, buttoned to the throat, its collar stiff -- the cardboard that came under the collar had been meticulously reinserted after each washing.

The man's salt-and-pepper hair was styled in a combover even though his hairline was still strong, as though he were preparing for an eventuality. His eyebrows were bushy, the same color as his hair, and his eyes were steely and opaque.

His nose was thin and straight; beside it ran the glistening path of a single tear that had made its way from his eye into his stiff, graying mustache. He stepped toward the door, steeling himself, and turned the sign that hung there carefully and slowly from Closed to Open.

He was a dealer of rare books, and this was his shop.

A Writer Writes

Last week I read an article on Slate about a blogger who gave up blogging in order to focus on real writing. It was so exactly what I feel about this blog that I promptly had a crisis about LCiN. The ex-blogger writes,

Blogging had been the ideal run-up to a novel, but it had also become a major distraction. I would sit down to start on my novel only to come up with five different blog entries. I thought of them as a little something-something to whet the palate—because it was easier, more immediately satisfying, because I could write it, and post it, and people would say nice things about it, and I could go to bed feeling satisfied. But then I would wake feeling less than accomplished because a blog wasn't a whole story told from beginning to end. I had shelves lined with other people's prose while my best efforts were buried on a Web site somewhere, underneath a lot of blah-blah about American Idol and my kitty cat.

I have never written anything for any other reason than merely to scratch the itch -- no, it's more than that: feed the monster -- that I have to write. So I've always wasted it. I get jittery and distracted and grumpy if I don't at some point during the day or week put pen to paper. I've always kept a journal, and a page of venting about my day was enough to satisfy the monster. However, the monster cannot be tamed. He cannot be whipped into submission and forced to be productive. A page or two, or an email, or a blog entry, and he simply goes away, and writing anything more becomes impossible.

During my week off from blogging I started writing a book that's not going to go anywhere and a novella that could. But neither of those is as tragically satisfying as clicking the "Publish Post" button... the button I can click right now.

Mmmmm.

Don't I Know You?

When I was walking to work this morning I saw someone wearing the same shirt as me. I hate when that happens. My instinct is to look away and pretend I haven't noticed, or in some circumstances I'll change routes altogether to avoid walking with the person.

It's even worse when the whole person, not just his attire, looks like me. There was a kid at Emerson who looked exactly like I'd look if I were six inches taller and fifty pounds heavier. I saw this guy everywhere, and each time it was as embarrassing as if I'd been walking around in my underwear. When I had to pass him closely I'd put my hand over my face to obscure my features. I wondered if he noticed me. Was he as creeped-out by me as I was by him? Did he think I had plaigarized his looks? Did he wonder if my parents also looked like his?

It's very disconcerting.

Creative Living Projects

This woman buries plates with impressions of her teeth in them around Los Angeles.

And I was worried that everyone was braindead and sitting in front of the TV (like me).