"Can" B. Worth - Part Six

"Can" B. Worth

Part Six

            My left hand gripped that drawer handle to the desk’s file drawer below… and pulled.  It opened easily; gliding open.  The history professor too… glided OVER the desk… in a bend-at-the-waist… so to head and nose above… this opening drawer.  He could not see beyond the far back of the drawer’s bottom while I, viewing downward from above… could see all of the drawer’s interior.

            “CAN’S CAN IS IN THERE!” the professor said in a robust burst-forth tone of statement and definition.  As I was already looking downward and into the drawer this verbiage hit my upper right side as the left side merged with my eye focusing to  …see only… two smaller old books (as dark forms) upon… shallow stacked and scrunched down old papers.

            “Can can?” I said as my mind said “old… book book”.

            “CAN’S CAN; the CAN in there!”

            “Can in there?”

            “The CAN”.

            “There’s no can.”

            “The CAN is CAN’s CAN.”

            “There’s no can.” I said looking up upon the… further endeavoring to bend forward over the desk history professor

            “NO CAN?” he said.

            “No can.” I said.

            He bent as far as possible so he could actually see most of the drawer.  “No can.” He said.  “But Can’s CAN is ALWAYS there.  Right THERE”.

            “No can.” I said after actually looking back down into what was a fairly EMPTY drawer.

            “Gone?” the history professor said.

            “You say?” I said looking back at him.

            “Never GONE.  Why now?”

            “A can?”

            “HIS CAN; Can’s can.  THE CAN.  HIS CAN.”

            “A can he used?”

            “NO:  THE CAN”. He said in an… imploring tone.

            “I don’t see one.” I said in a …firm tone.  “Why?”

            “He kept HIS CAN there:  The CAN!”

            Here a “dawning on me” occurred of minor dot to dot connecting; can, a TIN can, that was Carlton B. Worth’s tin can so was for some reason in THIS drawer but NOT THERE NOW but was HIS “can” so therefore “Can’s CAN” for …that’s why this professor calls him “CAN”.  That is… “CAN” is a shortened nickname from Carlton based on his “CAN” that was suppose to be in this drawer.  “Why the can? I said and regretted it.

            “WELL that WAS HIS way of lecturing THEM about THEIR FOOLISHNESS.” Said the professor straightening back up and directing his erect-all AT ME in a way that lumped ME into “THEIR FOOLISHNESS”.

            I took the bait:  “Lecturing them?”

            “His CAN story.  He be listening to them.  He HATED ‘their slow murmur of disconnected speak derived self spooning mush at me from between their ears’ as he called it.  He’d open the drawer, take out the can and but it between them on the desk

            “A can?  Of what?”

            “It is an empty can.  It is an old empty can of tomato soup.”

            “Tomato soup?” I said.

            “Yes.  A larger old can.  HEINZ 57 Tomato Soup.  UP side down.  He’d originally opened it up side down.

            “Up side down?”

            “Yes.  Then he’d tell them how this was the first can of soup he ever bought.  How he was twelve.  How he got a job loading grain at the store in town.  How he was working in a cold rain.  How wet he was.  HOW COLD he was.  How hungry.  HOW he went into the store and bought the soup with the money he’d just earned.  How he opened the can and heated the soup on the store’s stove.  How he mixed in milk and drank as much of the soup has he could.  How much better he felt.  How the store owner saw him do all this.  How owner came over to him and spoke to him about it saying that he’d seen him earn the money in the cold and then spend it on the hot soup.  He told Can that by doing that the soup would ‘stick with him for life’.  How he, Can, forever after has KEPT the can to remind him and how that reminder of seeing the can has guided him to a successful career and fine life.  He’d tell the student that story.  Then he’d put the can back in the drawer and dismiss the student.  Most of them bucked-up after that.  We’d all say we wanted to barrow his can to use on our own students.”

            “That’s it?” I said… hoping that the saga of Can’s can… was over.  I promoted that hope by reaching down and retrieving the near old book.  “Blue boards half calf” my mind spoke.  “No title (on spine)” it continued as the book rose in my hand

            “I WONDER where it IS?” said the professor.

            I stood up with the book, faced him, said nothing, looked down at the book and …title paged it:  “MAJOR JACK DOWNING” appeared, with his finger in his nose, on the frontis plate while the title page next to it prefixed that name with “LIFE AND WRITINGS”.  My eye dropped to the imprint… date… “1834”.  “Second Edition” it said above that date and I SAID THAT TOO.  I never find “a first” edition.  I ALWAYS find “later editions”.  I am NOT a Seba Smith (author) “Down East Maine” “written in local dialect” “rustic threadbare satirical humor” …buff.  I see the book, find the book, buy the book, sell the book.  Although attributed as a core source of the school of “Yankee humor, I find it… unreadable.  The only copy of the book to get excited about is an “1833” first edition.  THOSE are hard to find.  And all I have to read is …the date.  I prepared to… pitch the worthless old book… back into the drawer.

            “THAT’S SAM PATCH!” said the history professor.

            “Sam Patch?” I said holding the book open and looking up.

            “Can’s SAM PATCH.”

            “Can’s DOWNING!” I SAID lifting the book upward.

            “NO:  PATCH.  SAM PATCH.  That’s THAT BOOK!” he shot back.

            “No… MAJOR DOWNING” I said showing the book’s exposed title page to him.

            “SAM PATCH” he said and… TOOK the book from my hands, reversed it, thumbed it, stopped at an open page and turned the book back to me.  I took it back and peered down at the open page to read a head title “MAJOR DOWNING’S BIOGRAPHY OF SAM PATCH THE JUMPER”.