"Can" B. Worth - Epilogue - Part Seven

"Can" B. Worth

Epilogue - Part Seven

            At the top of the stairs, “WE”, a team of rare booksellers, released our stresses of the stair climb, noted the wife vanish, turned to face the front of the house and proceeded forward to the …front left room… that once housed a child but now was “The Rare Book Room”.  A store.

            Entering the room behind the old Tyrolean, I scanned the walls lined with book shelves while he scooted diagonally across the room to a table topped with an old computer and… turned it on.  Besides this …workstation… and its box store grade five tine footed black plastic faux leather rolling big-ass accommodating with cushioned arms “office chair”… AND the walls of books on shelves, the room contained an old …as-if-a-dog or cat-had-long-LIVED UPON its seat cushion… upholstered chair AND an old floor lamp with the extra long “you may drag that around if you need to” floor lamp.  The books on the shelves were neat.  The shelves were neat.  The shelves had subject labels classifying the shelved books.  The old Tyrolean sat down in the office chair and settled directly into watching the old computer …boot up.

            I was either “left alone” or “ignored”, take my pick.  This was within the realm of HIS probable expectation; “MAYBE might buy something”, “hope so”, “could use the cash”.  Booted up, the computer screen jumped on the internet with an old mouse click and a Home Page of … the number one used & rare book internet listing service FLASHED “on screen” and, with jabbing finger tips, a password opened a “my account”.  This I captured by roving eye as I also reviewed the “shelf stock” poise.  Clearly, HE was ready to handle ANY of MY rare book interests for the …books were perfectly displayed on their shelves and I could assume… that… “most of the good ones… are listed”.  He said.

            NOW what do I do… GENIUS?  Again I find myself in another… introspective crossroad intersection moment… “in the trade”.  Route one; the easy one, the common one, the expected one, the classic one and …the …wasteful, dumb, irresponsible to one’s OWN business… one… is the “dismiss”, “grab (a book), pay and go” “get out” built up by allusion earlier.  “MOST” “WOOD” “THAT ROUTE”.  “Have a nice day”.

Let us, now, SEE this intersection of route choice through MY EYES, mind and …grabby dealer dexterous diffidence.  Somehow… in the course of my normal rare bookseller affairs I have… managed to get my own ass… WITH the old Tyrolean rare bookseller’s big ass… ALL THE WAY UP from the ground floor… of his private residence… on a side street… of the largest city in Maine… to an old front bedroom of that home… that he and his wife have made into a “The Rare Book Room” by lining the walls with shelves and filling those shelves with “rare books” THEY “found”, “gathered”, “lucked into” but “WE NEVER BUY THEM” and… “cleaned”, “shelved”, “inspected”, “researched” (read “looked up on the internet”) and “PRICED” “for sale”.  I stand there… looking upon these shelves, the back of the old Tyrolean AND his peering-at-an-old-computer screen.  An opportunity found be route two?

“YES”:  “What do you think?”  “SOMEBODY COMES HERE?”  “LIKE:”  “WHEN DO YOU THINK the LAST rare book dealer STOOD HERE… in this room?”  “WHEN?”  “In the MEMORY OF MAN.”  “DO YOU THINK?”

“DO YOU THINK?”  I better THINK… this through… very carefully and ACT because… I am not going to be standing here… ever again(?).  I do that, this and now right NOW right before the turned back and stuffed with shrimp and low expectations woozy old “MR.” rare bookman himself “HERE WE GO”.  I don’t explain it, I JUST DO IT.  Book by old book.  DEDUCTION by my mind applied.

The “good ones” are “listed on line”.  He is an “Americana specialist”.  Those then are the books “listed”.  For the most part.  Good ones.  But …cannot possibly have too many of those ACTUAL good ones because… THOSE ARE ACTUALLY RARE… books.  So I TURN to …any… NOT AMERICANA shelf tag and start looking at those and… start “pulling” “stock” to “check it” (affirm what it is as a rare book and price it) AND:

AS SOON I POSSIBLY CAN… choose… A BOOK… to BUY and put that next to …the old Tyrolean… at his work station.  HERE on site TODAY I begin with a quick eye, quick hand, under the shelf label of “BOOKS OF INTEREST”, tiny, thin, red cloth bound… self published… “NOTHING”, neat hand penciled WITH NO personal dealer CODE NUMBER price marked “$7.00” titled “POCKET BOOK OF AMERICAN PEWTER  THE MAKERS AND THE MARKS.

The old Tyrolean stops staring at the computer screen, looks down to his left at the tiny book, picks it up, looks at it, looks at me… who has now turned away and gone back to exploring THAT SAME SHELF… opens the book, looks at the price, looks at me again, closes the book and looks at it, sets the book back down and… resumes looking at the computer screen.

I KNOW that HE KNOWS that …the book I AM BUYING… is NOT listed on his internet offerings.  It was “too cheap” and had “no code”.  I KNOW that HE KNOWS… that he’s never paid any attention to that book ever AND he remembers EXACTLY where he “got that book” probably TWENTY-FIVE PLUS years ago AND:  That NO ONE has EVER EVEN SLIGHTLY “touched that book” on his shelves “EVER” including HIM …and his WIFE, EVER.  “And now he just BOUGHT IT?”