"Can" B. Worth - Epilogue - Part Five

"Can" B. Worth

Epilogue - Part Five

            What happens now is an about an hour and fifteen minute conversation where I endeavor… without knowing  “how” or “what” let alone “where” and when”… to extract and gather “information” about Dead Can.  I don’t know WHY I’m doing this for the intersection of “rape and pillage” and the “whose in a hurry” curiosity is just behind me and …I find myself in a common predicament whereby “someone” “knows” “something” “I need to know” and to get that something I must extract it verbally from them usually having to go around the LONGEST BACK SIDE of that bush; feeling myself verbally along and capturing iota and tidbit and… skillfully having to verbally work my ass off the whole time for these precious dew water droplets of information gleaned GOLD… that here is all qualified by “Why am I doing this; why don’t you just go to the sorting table and finish Dead Can off like a good rare bookseller would?”.

            I have to do this dance often in the course of “business”.  I am used to doing it.  I don’t have to think too hard when I am doing it.  I move the conversation through the hunter – gatherer maze and “click-bang”; the old flintlock musket firing adage, the golden dew water droplets on to a mental list as the conversation dances along.  When I reach an “end”, a “satisfied” or a “hopeless”… I “get out”.  Here I am engaging a classic old duff rare bookseller; out of the trade by fact, still with his hand in by his account, “don’t get out much” domestic status, wants to sell me rare books financial interest only in me and a “probably actually DOES KNOW SOMETHING(S) about Dead Can but “WHAT?” and …is that “what” an “anything.  I will record our chat by bulleted click-bangs of gathered dew drops about Dead Can.  The rest of the chat is too BORING to record.

            Click-bang:  “HE DIDN’T REALLY COLLECT ANYTHING BUT HE WAS ALWAYS AROUND AND WOULD ALWAYS BUY SOMETHING.  HE DIDN’T HAVE THE MONEY”.

            Click-bang:  “Oh for YEARS AND YEARS”.

            Click-bang:  “IF IT WAS GOOD; very good, he’d go all over it and the next day he’d know more about it than anyone would.  But he’d never buy it; didn’t have the money.  But he’d always buy a little something else”.

            Click-bang: “I LIKED HIM; he knew his books better most who came in the door”.

            Click-bang:  “No he never sold anything that I know of.  And I never saw the things I sold him ever again”.

            Click-bang:  “No, no, he NEVER talked about his collection.  I just knew he had to have things.  He prowled around everywhere.  AND NO ONE NOTICED HIM doing that too.  I did.  He was one of those ones who was ALWAYS around.  I’d see him in Boston.  On the street here in Portland.  In the back of a bookstore.  At ALL the auction previews.  I don’t recall him ever actually attending an auction though.  Never did I’d say”.

            Click-bang:  He ALWAYS had a book with him.  Always had a little thing he’d just found somewhere.  It was GOOD too.  Always.  NOTHING GREAT but always good enough.  I liked what he showed me.  Always liked it.  A lot of times it would be the best thing I’d see all day.  I always assumed he kept all of it”.

            Click-bang:  “Oh yes, yes.  LOTS OF TIMES.  Yes, yes; ABSOLUTE MESS.  Boxes and boxes just like you say.  NOT ALWAYS that WAY.  But getting fuller by the minute.  I thought it ODD at first but over the years it became HIM.  Just him; the way he was; holed up in there.  He always had a book or two; something NEW he’d found, right at the desk.  I’d see it there one day but never see it again.  He could never FIND anything in there.  I’d occasionally ASK to see something again.  He NEVER could find it.  Always promise to look for it.  Never FOUND it.  At first I thought he took it home.  I never knew WHAT happened to the things he found.

            Click-bang:  “NO, no:  Fairly often.  WE’D go to lunch together fairly often.  HE’D take me into the Facility Club.  It was our little secret.  I don’t think he’d go there ALONE.  So he got to sneaking me in there.  I think they knew but didn’t care.  We did it for years.  Anyway, I’d always meet him at the office before we’d go over and then we’d go back there.  During lunch he’d always mention something he’d found and we look at it after.  That was his way; always a soft landing me on something good he’d found.”

            Click-bang:  “No, no; I never bought anything.  Wanted to but assumed he kept it all.  Like I said; I’d see it once but never again”.

            Click-bang:  “OH THAT was the nasty part.  HATED HER.  Absolutely HATED HER.  She didn’t like his books you see.  Never liked them he claimed. Hated his books.  Hated him.  Funny all that.  I didn’t take it seriously at first.  For years.  No.  Just figured it was just him talking.  But he was right.  I found that out.”

            Click-bang:  “Well before I got to that; went there, I’d started selling him Timothy Dexter.  You know Dexter and his “PICKLE”.  You know Dexter hated HIS wife TOO.  Shrew.  Said he’d married a sweet young thing but she’d run off and now his house was haunted by the ghost of an old shrew who nagged him relentlessly.  Hated this ghost and said he could never find the girl he married.  Oh Can JUST LOVED THIS.  ‘Pepper and salt as you PLEASE’ you know.”

            Click-bang:  “Well that was quite an eye opener.  There WASN’T an old book in SIGHT.  NOTHING.  That woman had it SPOTLESS.  Not a thing there at ALL.  He told me how one day he’d brought a box of books home and put them in the basement.  THE NEXT DAY, he said, he FOUND THEM in the TRASH CAN in the garage!  ‘NEVER’ he said, did he DARE bring an old book home.”

            Click-bang:  “OH THOSE OLD THINGS.  YES.  Funny but he was RIGHT to do that.  ‘SHE WOULDN’T KNOW’.  It was his way of mocking her.  After I’d been there I understood it completely.  I actually sold him a few of those in that case.  Never got him a good title but if the binding was slick he’d buy it.  Most of those he’d buy in Boston at the shows.  He spend the whole show hunting down the cheapest one.  He’d tell me to keep an eye out.  I found him a couple.  SHE doesn’t KNOW.  Never will.”

            Click-bang: “Yes that was where he sat.  HATED THE TELEVISION.  She’d WATCH IT there.  Make him SIT THERE; in the room, and watch it TOO.  HATED IT.  Made her keep the sound turned way down.  He had that little table with the lamp.  And he’d put his books there and read from them; little piles he’d bring home from the office.  ‘His WORK’ he told me he told her.  ‘HATED IT’ he said: ‘MOST UNSIGHTLY SPOT IN THE HOUSE’ she called it.  But he kept THAT.  That was all he had in that whole house.”

            Click-bang:  “OUTSIDE that window he once had a bird feeder.  She hated that too.  SEEMS she didn’t like that he’d watch the birds and not the television.  SHE had two birdfeeders in the other rooms.  BUT THAT ONE was his feeder.  He watched the birds there while he sat with her.  WELL ONE DAY; I remember him telling me about it at lunch, SHE TOOK HIS FEEDER AWAY.  Just the pole left.  He left it there forever.  Probably still there.  OH DID THAT break his camel’s BACK.  From then on I KNEW.

            Click-bang:  “From then on he really DID live in that office”.