Author looked again, the spines unfamiliar. Bloomingdale Row; To the Hills, Boys!; Capshaw Is Rough; and something with the unfortunate moniker Scuttle-de-do. Author’s eyes bounced around the shelves, picking up speed until they were near rolling in his head. He fought off a panic. Author had not heard of a one.
“Tastes change,” the librarian said. “Isn’t it fascinating how much?”
Author had buried the moment away. He’d left it where it sat, deep down below the park. And only now does it come rushing back, all these years later, as Author leaves Todd and the storeroom and his ruined career behind.
Author says thanks to the boy. Author says good-bye. And Todd doesn’t understand that this good-bye is not just to him and his store and this town, but it’s Author’s good-bye to the whole fucking thing.
This last book, Author had typed nearly all of it standing up, fighting an aching back and clacking away at his keyboard with arthritic rope-knuckled fingers. This is how he now worked, the spring gone from his system, bone rubbing against bone.
“If you hit the latch thing, it’ll lock behind you” is what Todd yells out from the storeroom. Author hears this as he heads for the front door, thinking that this is what it’s come to. The boy in the back on his phone, wholly unconcerned that someone might already be inside loading up on the great treasures of literature and robbing the store. Author skirts the five empty rows of five chairs horseshoed to give the impression of a decent crowd, were they to fill. He keeps his eyes down so as not to see the Staff Choices or Best Sellers, so as not to catch Reader Favorites or the discount stickers next to the embossed foil prizes awarded to the writers he used to know.
Author is half out that door when he hears a different voice calling. “Author,” the voice calls. And then, sharper, more demanding, “Writer,” it says. “Writer, you came here to read.”
In the empty store, in those empty chairs, sits—invisible until he speaks—one man.
He is small. Much smaller than the author, who is not big. He is also considerably older, which Author thinks must make him at least 110. The man’s skin is pale and vitamin-starved. His face hangs loose on his head. Shoved into his mouth like a doorstop is a set of big white teeth that surely sit in a glass by night. The only thing with any life left in it is the hair, boot-polish black. This—Author can’t take his eyes off it—it isn’t like those choppers. The hair seems real, vibrant, and undyed.
Were Author ever to write again, the hair would be the detail. He’d write of a drawn old man, shrunk inside his clothes, face melting like wax, and this smart, this healthy shock of black hair.
“You came to read,” the man says.
“I came to read,” Author says.
The man stands there, looking expectant.
Author pretends to misread the cue he is receiving. He feigns impatience. And when the man continues to hold his ground, Author breaks, openly despairing, his voice choked with all the hurt of that night.
“A dozen years,” Author says, “day in and day out—writing. Writing all the time. You do not know how many pencils it takes just for the drafting,” he says. “Boxes and boxes of pencils. Now look,” Author says. “I’m asking you, take a look.”
The old man joins the author in surveying the empty room.
“Call it a night, shall we?” Author says. “Yes, let’s just call it a career and go home.”
The old man, at first invisible himself, now produces a copy of the author’s book, which had been invisible in his hand. It is well-worn—in a good way. It looks, in fact, Bible-soft. A hardcover read so much that it curls in his grip.
“There’s an investment from me, too,” the man says.
“A drink,” Author says. “Wouldn’t that be better—more personal? Wouldn’t you rather—maybe a meal?”
“I’d rather you read. That’s what I came for.”
They stare at each other. Study faces. And Author, he shakes his head as he hears himself speaking. “Something short,” he says, giving in to this ancient man.
“It’s not for me to dictate,” the old man says. “If it’s one word, then one word. The contract—a social contract. It says, If I come, you read.”
“It does, doesn’t it,” Author says, offering a hand and leading the little man to the front row. Author takes a seat himself, angling the chair farther into the horseshoe, and takes up his book to read.
“No,” the little man says. “The podium.”
“What?”
“The podium.”
“We are two,” Author says.
The old man looks back, blank.
“As audience,” Author says, “you are one.” He holds up a finger to illustrate.
“Dignity. A great author.”
“I am?”
“You are. A great author. A mighty author. One or one million come to see you, still, from the podium. Read out. Read strong.”
And now Author’s first impression seems rash. Author no longer thinks—and he is ashamed not to think it, because he knows why he no longer thinks it—that the old man seems so crazy anymore.
Author takes his place at the lectern and opens his book. He gives the same introduction he’d give to one or one million. The same personal, heartfelt warm-up Author used to reserve for the big halls. He remembers a night in Seattle, remembers tripping over the cables running from a TV truck into the theater as he made his way backstage. There, a woman in a headset pulled back the curtain for Author and, for a moment, took hold of his arm. “Remember to raise your eyes to the balcony” is what she’d said. “You can’t see, but they’re there.”
Author reads his heart out for this lone man. He reads so hard, his voice booming, the feel of story-told overtaking him, the rhythm of the sentences running through him, that it puts tears in Author’s eyes, tears that he lets fall, so that it is now from memory that he reads, turning the pages while the letters swim.
It’s in the midst of this reverie that he does not—for who knows how long—notice Todd standing there, staring back and forth between the author and the man, a strange thump emanating from him. Todd is trying to distract Author, Author thinks, trying to take away from this lovely moment. Why else would this deep bass be coming from him? Author posits that this is maybe some kind of anger radiating off Todd, and then, pulled back to this world, focusing, he understands that the pulse comes from a pair of headphones clamped like hubcaps around Todd’s head.
Author, soaring still, reads on.
· · ·
Driving in darkness toward the next distant city, Author knows that what he’d just experienced was a gift. Really, how much richer could a writing life be than finding, even for one night, one true reader?
Author rolls this thought around his brain, sucking on it like a sweet-sticky lozenge. He thinks this thought right down to nothing as he barrels along I-80, pulling right at the wheel, his car buffeted by the wind. When the check-engine light pops up, glowing on his dashboard, Author sees it simply as another small test in the life of the true artist. Check engine. Check author. Drive on.
It does not last long, this feeling. It does not last a full twenty-four hours before Author feels ashamed and embarrassed for having driven so far. Author finds himself standing alongside a narrow woman, her wrists girded in copper bangles, as if suited up for some obscure form of war. All Author can think is, Who will she fight in this empty store? Who will even bother to come attacking?
The woman is talking to Author as she lines up a row of tiny point-of-purchase books. “It must be a shock for the once-a-decade novelist,” she says. “Startling to see how much things have changed.”
“Yes, yes,” Author says. “A book every ten years, it’s like being a cicada. You spend all that time underground, busy staying alive. And when you finally burrow your way back out, you never know what world you’ll find.”
The woman waves off the whole situation, and the motion sends the bangles scuttling along her arm, giving off a tinny ring. “Sixteen w
eeks and three days from now this space belongs to CVS.”
Author doesn’t know what to say to this, and so he says, “Soap.” And then, pointing at his head, “Q-tips.” He clears his throat. “Some things will always be in need.”
The woman considers, and while she does, Author takes the opportunity to nod in thanks and head for the parking lot door. That’s when he hears it. “Author,” the voice calls. “Writer. Where do you go?”
Author stops, blinks, an ear cocked toward the room. Author stands with the doorknob in his hand as if he’s just heard his own birdcall.
“Writer, always running. A reading tonight!”
Before Author answers, it’s the store owner speaking, her voice enough to knock the little man down.
“No reading,” she says. “Canceled.”
“Canceled why?” the old man says. “Canceled how?”
She looks at him, quizzical. “No one came.”
“Someone came,” he says. But he’s not referring to himself. “The author came. Look right there. Can you see? He holds the door open, letting in the cold.”
“Not worth it,” the lady says. “No offense, but the time for the reading has come and gone.”
“Yes, offense,” the old man says. And then he’s off rhapsodizing, singing Author’s praises. Author does not take it personally. That is, he does not hear the kindnesses as in reference to him. What he hears from this ancient man is a passion for books themselves, from someone bitten by the written word. Author hears what he hears as a fellow reader, and Author remembers.
It was “The Story of My Dovecot.” It was Babel, read to him by his mother. She’d sat by the side of his childhood bed and read that story to Author in Russian. This was back in the days when the language whispered at his bedside still held meaning in Author’s ears. And look at him now, a lifetime later and he can still see the whole story as if he himself had lived it. For Author, it has remained as vivid as it was upon its first telling, while the Russian was—all of it—gone.
When his mother had finished reading, Author had asked her if the story was for him. He didn’t mean it as metaphor, or exaggeration; he was asking sincerely—a little boy’s question—had Mr. Babel composed the story for Author to hear?
His mother, having read him a tale too sad, too dark for a boy so young, had tousled his hair and kissed his head and said, “Of course. Written for you alone, my son.” Author, as a child, was amazed and overjoyed and filled with wonder. Somewhere a writer had put something out into the world, and put it out there for Author alone to find. It was an intimacy as real as a friendship.
Author looks over at his reader talking to the bangle-armed woman, cajoling. Here was Author’s crackpot. Author’s nutcase. And also Author’s audience—this ancient, ancient man with his shoe-polish hair and cataracts thick as nails through which he reads. Reads and somehow drives.
The bookstore lady relents, and Author doesn’t fight it. He is now truly touched by this man’s dedication, here to see him a second night. Author reads his heart out for the old man. And when Author is done, a chastened bookstore lady approaches with a novel that Author humbly signs. It is not for the shop. It’s an inscription requested, a book personalized and then returned to its owner. She clasps it to her chest, shielding it behind those bangled arms.
· · ·
Author is truly thankful for his champion, his upholder. This is what he tells himself when he finds his one loyal reader wearing a yarmulke and sitting front row at the JCC in St. Paul.
In a yarmulke himself, Author is so grateful for this man who sustains him, who preserves him, who does not turn his back in hard times against him, that the mantra turns into a little prayer. Author recites this from his dais—it comes out of his mouth, a poem. The old man looks thrilled, teeth and hair shining, as he listens to a private devotion that’s nearly drowned out by the din of evening-league basketball blowing through a retractable wall. Afterward, he produces a crumpled handwritten schedule with the author’s next dates. “Yes, a lovely night, this,” the old man says, carefree, perusing.
But every gift and every blessing have a place where they curdle and turn. The man comes to see him at an empty Brookline Booksmith, an empty Three Lives, and an empty Politics and Prose. In Kansas City, when a pair of drunks stumbles in mid-reading to suck up the free wine, Author slams his book shut, only to hear the cry from his audience of one, “Author, read on!”
“Read on,” yes, but for how long? Author is a man surviving on memory and the fumes of prestige. He addresses this to his reader—forever at his heels—in a quaint pueblo-inspired bookshop in Alamosa. “This book,” Author says, “it’s not a novel, it’s a tombstone. Why not just hammer it in the ground above my head? My name’s already on the front.”
“A mistake to make such a request,” the reader says. “Never die too soon.”
“Too soon? Look at me. I’m the duck hanging too long on its hook in the window—past eating. The only difference?”
“Yes,” the reader says. “What is the difference between you and the duck on the hook?”
“The duck,” Author says, “at least knows when it’s time to be dead.”
The old man stares at Author, considering.
“My father,” he says, “hung himself at ninety-seven years old. He couldn’t take it any longer. That’s what he said in his note. He didn’t want to face living anymore.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“I wish he’d spoken to me,” the old man says. “I’d have told him. Ninety-seven? No need for such drastic action, Father. Patience. Just give it a little time.”
· · ·
Forgive the author his relentless commitment. Forgive him his belief that even if the next city promises nothing more than this one old man, still it’s his obligation to drive on. A writer never knows if perseverance is his terrible weakness or his greatest strength. And with all those headlights floating divided in his rearview mirror, Author never can tell which belong to his reader, which pair is his beacon, a North Star, split, cast back, guiding him on.
The two arrive at a Denver bookstore, which is now half marijuana dispensary. A scheme, the owner says while dusting a beloved volume, to use one drug to pay for another. After an empty-but-for-his-lone-reader reading, it’s this man, flush with cash and good living, who tells Author to take any book he wants for his troubles. A gift of the store.
“Babel,” Author says, surprising himself. “The early stories.” He’d not let himself read them since he was a boy.
From Denver, Author crosses the Rockies toward the Pacific, with his reader (ever mindful of the speed limit) in hot pursuit. At Salt Lake City, Author hangs a northerly right and drives up to Vancouver through three days of rain. After reading for his reader in that lush city, Author turns his car toward the next bookstore, making his way back down the West Coast. The sun is with him this time, and Author drives with an arm stuck out the window, cooking his left side to a burn. At a gas station just north of Seattle, Author fills his tank with the last of the money he has. He is so strapped for cash that, a few miles farther on, he stops at a church-run stand by the side of the road. There, he sells the Babel he’s only just been given for a dollar and watches the lady drop it into a box after marking it for two. “The stories,” he tells her, “are just the way I remember.”
Pulling into Seattle, a city where Author was once truly renowned, he knows, literally and figuratively, how low he’s been laid. That his old friend, the buyer for Elliott Bay Books, has arranged to host Author for a reading is an act of charity so undisguised, it leaves him humbled enough to receive another. Eyes down, Author enters the Come Unto Me Mission across the street from the bookshop and eats a bowl of soup, his first meal of the day.
Inside the bookshop, Author gives his name to the pierced-nosed clerk behind the counter. She tells him, without any emotion, that his reading is downstairs. Author is crestfallen as he approaches the basement steps. Then he hears the noise,
and his heart is set aflutter at the sound of a reception in full swing. The energy, he can feel it in his feet through the floorboards. Author stops himself from taking the stairs two at a time.
There is indeed a crowd assembled when he reaches the basement. They are coffee drinkers filling a bookstore café. Author asks the barista, and she points. The reading is in a tiny room beyond.
How the noise had confused Author, how it had filled him with glee.
When the book buyer shows up, he finds Author waiting in the little room, and the years wash away. All that time nothing but a blink when there’s warmth between two people. They hug, and the buyer says, “You look good, just the same.”
Before the emptiness of the room sours the moment, the buyer tackles it head-on. “I’m really sorry,” he says. “It’s a great book. This, the no-show, it’s not you, it’s us. It’s been slow this season. Numbers are down.”
“It’s all right,” Author says. “The whole country is, for me, a desert—empty rooms from sea to shining sea.” It feels so good to tell it to this man who knew how it once was, who’d orchestrated Author’s glorious sellout night a dozen years before, and yet who—with grace—now has acknowledged what is. Not like his reader. Not like his shadow, drowning him in faith. Author says, “You know what? Let’s not even wait. How about, for old time’s sake, let’s just get a drink—you and me?”
The buyer considers and then throws an arm over Author’s shoulder. “Sure, I’d love that,” he says. He drops his arm and slides through the café toward the stairs with the author, wistful, behind.
As they climb, Author hears it. He is surprised he does, with the music and the chatter, but there it is, from deep in the mix of the café. “Author! Writer! It’s time to start” is what he hears. “Writer, hello, where do you go?”
The book buyer half hears it himself—enough to pause, banister in hand. Author won’t have it. He keeps climbing, driving the buyer on. And Author’s old man—too slow to catch up and all those stairs before him—screams from below with all he’s got. “Hey, writer!” he calls, and then, “Hey, bookstore man! A customer down here! The writer must read!”
What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank: Stories Page 15