"Can" B. Worth - Feeding the Birds - Part Twelve - Hiding Books - Part Three - The End

"Can" B. Worth

Feeding the Birds - Part Twelve

Hiding Books - Part Three

The End

            Inclusive of my foibles, after awhile, Dead Can and I …parted.  This happens in all “estates”.  “Estates” means here the whole package viewed from the antiquarian and rare book DEALER vantage.  Dealer horizon line?.  Whatever; in the end with each and every “estate”… “we” “part”.  “Estate” means, again, the whole package; the “stuff”, the purchase, the setting, the characters, the …usually dead…  original owner(s), the professional and personal ….relationship… the dealer develops with ALL of this, the then going the distance with this “ALL of this”… until “everyone” (the dealer) gets “done”, “tired” and “bored”.  And “drops it” (the estate fades into the dealer’s background of “yeah; that deal”) AS “the next one” (“new one”) (estate) takes its place… with this repetitive procedure spread over a forty year time span of “doing this”… so leaves ME now, after writing down the tale by chapter after chapter for all readers, “done”.  Right?

            That’s what happens; the “this estate” …fades away because I am… “done with it, tired of it and… bored by it”.  That’s where I get to and got here TOO inclusive of old Dead Can’s wedding ring intrigues.  This “parting” just doesn’t happen like a line in the sand.  In most cases I don’t notice the parting until “its been a while” has set in and I’m off …in some other house, in some other bedroom, in some other …old dresser drawer filled with… someone’s old underwear… looking for THAT “dead person’s” …wedding ring.

            Here, I feel… and have felt throughout… that I was doing a good job of walking and talking through what is a splendid “interesting estate” with its boxes of rare books, the ever more developed character of the original owner, the musing onstage view of the estate setting and “gee pretty neat” logic that it is true that the STORY of the estate is MORE INTERESTING than “the (actual) stuff”.  In the end.  That’s right; for I the dealer, the PROSCESS is it with the HOPE that this process is a …fruit laden tree with its branches bent low from the weight of its treasure… too.

            The final lines in the sand of this estate escapade for me… were… pretty simple.  I concluded that the wholeness of the estate contents laid bare WAS summarized before my eyes at the very start with my “old book” finds on Dead Can’s desk ( Parts Four and Five).  The Lowell / Wakeman copy “AMONG MY BOOKS” opens the door.  The John Neal, Curzon, Dexter and Sam Patch are the “peper and solt it as thay plese”.  Patch’s “Some things may be done as well as others” (Part Seven) becomes the formula of the whole estate’s “work in progress”?  Good enough for me it explains the “why” .  So I stand on THAT DESK as THE KEY to “what I found and… found out.

            As a ceremonial gesture, I, roguish to watch, decided to “not open” that last about seventeen Dead Can’s boxes in the warehouse unit.  I moved them all into another “deep six” unit and “let ‘em sit there a while” meaning a decade.  And this is not very roguish for me at all for… I have DOZENS of similar “pile” of “stuff” remaindered like that from and for “similar”.  No it is NOT a “roguish”.  It was just a sort of “stand down” “fondly remembered” action taken.  I KNOW that “those boxes” are “GOOD” and “DO HAVE SOMETHING” “in them”.  I… just might enjoy opening them “some day”.  And should I not “get to them” ...someone will.

            So there I am… with Dead Can and his rare books faded WAY into my past… standing mid-morning outside the cab of my truck… in the driveway of an estate “clean out” in Lewiston, Mane… after having just finished “setting up” “a deal” with an auctioneer “to sell” the “that stuff” and HE has just scampered away to help HIS CREW load HIS TRUCKS while I …leave. 

            And my cell phone rings.  And it is Mr. Lawyer calling.  So I answer it.  And he says to me:

            “YES that ESTATE.  The school just called me and they’ve found ANOTHER OFFICE full of HIS PAPERS and books”.

            “Another office?  Full of his?”

            “A whole other office FULL.”

            “Of his stuff”

            “Right”

            “They didn’t know about it?”

            “Right.  Actually.  They knew about it but FORGOT about it”.

            “Forgot about a FULL office of his stuff?”

            “THAT’S what they say.”

            “So?”

            “SO WHEN can you COME?”

            “Come to see it?”

            “I gotta go there NOW.”

            “Ok.  I can go”.

            “You can?”

            “Sure”

            “GREAT!  At the school.  How long?”

            “At the school?  Half an hour?”

            “GREAT.  Thanks”.  (Mr. Lawyer’s a pretty nice guy when it’s going his way.)

            I went there.  I assumed Mr. Lawyer was going to the exact same place… building and… OFFCIE?  I mean, like, WHO forgets about a full office?  So… “what’s this about”.  So I went there.

            And he was parked there.  Talking on his cell phone.  We go inside together.  To the same department office with him saying “I DON’T KNOW WHAT THIS IS ABOUT”.  But we found out.

            At the office… one of the office women… who I THOUGHT was the one who moved Dead Can’s can… when I was there long ago… but I wasn’t sure… knew Mr. Lawyer right off and that he was coming so WE (three) left that office in a gooey gush of  “THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR COMING SO QUICKLY” suggesting this all had started a few hours ago… which it had.

            Expecting “OFFICE” “FULL” I followed the heals like a good doggie.  Saying nothing including during my Mr. Lawyer waved his hand toward me – Ms. Department Woman showed no recognition or interest – introduction… I go into “we’re gonna FIND OUT NOW” mode.  I am ready for … OFFICE NUMBER TWO:  FULL.

            So when we turned DOWN the stairs at the center of the building (lobby) and I… recalled that I had been DOWN these stairs because …at the bottom of the stairs right in front of me I FOUND… the “MEN’S ROOM” during my earlier visits.  It is a big and fine Men’s Room with a “new” outside but having a “the old building” INSIDE; especially the four after WW1 era “to the floor” model urinals set in marble.  I recalled it as a “splendid” work station for that kind of work and… truly had not given a thought to the rest of the very modern… ized… rest of that “down there”.  We did not stop at the Men’s Room.

            We turned right to “down the hall” WELL PAST the Men’s Room… to pass by …modern and well lighted locked white door after locked white door  each “off” of the hall’s gray outside/inside usage grade… “carpeting” (or whatever that stuff is).  “Huh.” was my small talk to myself at this point… JUST AS Ms. Department Woman turns to a left side door (“is this right under Dead Can’s old office?”) and… produces a key.  She inserts the key,  turns the key and opens (OUT) the door.  Then reaches inside and …turns on the light

            She and Mr. Lawyer had been chatting but both were silent now.  So was I.  The light showed a… room… that was NOT an office but… looked like an old storage room… with a NEW front door and… old ceiling light that …illuminated… to show that the whole room was packed full of stacked cardboard boxes with… WITH… bags and odd boxes… AND MORE STUFF… on top of all of these boxes… TOO.  So everyone was silent for pretty obvious reasons.

            Then Mr. Lawyer, after looking over his shoulder at me… says “This is all Professor Worth’s?”

            “Yes this was HIS storage room.  He used it for YEARS.”

            “Years?  All HIS?” questioned Mr. Lawyer.

            “Yes his.  For years.  These are all his teaching supplies.  Books.  Papers.  All his.  HIS ROOM.  He had it for years.”

            “Years.  All his.  How long?”

            “Before I came here.  I don’t know.”

            “Its all his?

            “Yes.  That’s right.  We need to know what will happen now”.

            “Happen now?” Mr. Lawyer said then look over at me and then back into the “office”.  “If its all his; his estate; then we’ll clean it out.  Too.  Just like the first office.  This is more of a storage room isn’t it?  It’s not an office”.

            “Well it is going to be an office.  That’s why we’ve been fixing it up down here:  More offices.  But this room was his for storage.  Until now.  I didn’t even KNOW about it”.

            Turning to me Mr. Lawyer said “Go in there and tell me what you think quick.”  I did; I stepped forward and into the room.  Ms. Department Woman yielded.  I was inside the room.  They were outside in the hall.  Mr. Lawyer was talking to Ms. Department Woman.  I was scanning.  SCANNING.  Fast.

            I open a box.  BOOKS.  I open another box:  BOOKS… with some papers.  I … Mr. Lawyer appears to my right and HE looks in that second box.  He says “Books”.  Then he says to me “You like books don’t you.  Get me something.”

            “A p-o?” I say softly (p-o is purchase offer)

            “Yes.  And cleanout.  WHEN.”

            “But?”

            “Just do it”.

            “Ok”.

            Mr. Lawyer stepped back into the hallway.  “Give us just a few minutes”.

            I scan the room again and… reach for the pen and paper slips in my jacket pocket.  I look at the far wall and see four boxes stacked against that wall going down that wall with more equal stacked boxes.  “TEN” (stacks) I say.  “TIMES FOUR:  Forty.  Another seven; eight, at five.  Five, eight; forty; eighty.”  Then eyeing the back wall:  “Another twenty; one hundred. Plus thirty.  One thirty.  Plus these; at least thirty.  One sixty.  And that rest.  AND that stuff.  Well.  One sixty.  At twenty ($20.00 per box); thirty-two.  Too much.  Back up.  One sixty at ten.  Sixteen.  Plus that stuff.  Eighteen.  Too much .  Minus the work.  Sixteen.  Higher:  SEVENTEEN.  FIFTY.  Seventeen fifty.”

            I write on one slip of paper: “$1750.00” “Noon Tomorrow”.  I hand that to Mr. Lawyer.

            He looks at it and looks at me.  “Good” he says.  Turning to Ms. Department Woman he says “We can have this all cleaned out by noon tomorrow”.

            “Really?  That would be WONDERFUL.” She says.

            “What time will you start?” Mr. Lawyer says to me.

            “Seven”.

            “Seven?”

            “The stairs” I say pointing back up the hall.  “Everything’s got to go up the stairs”.

            “Up the stairs?” say Ms. Department Woman following my finger.  “No.  You can come in at the end of the hall” she says pointing past my finger.  Looking there I see way off at the far opposite end of this hall a red lighted “EXIT” sign.  “You can park right out there and come in.  That’s what it’s there for.”

            Mr. Lawyer looks at me and says “Seven?” again.

            “Seven.  By noon.” I say.

            “If you would give him the key he’ll start at seven and have it done BEFORE noon.”

            “Oh no problem.  That’s WONDERFUL.”

            I stepped into the hall.  Ms. Department Woman turned off the light, closed the door and the lock… clicked.  The three of us walked back up to the lobby.  Mr. Lawyer chatted lightly.  Then we left.  Going out the building’s back door Mr. Lawyer say to me “You’re ok?”

            “Yes.  No problem”.

            “Sure?”

            “Sure”.

            “Turn the key in when your done and call me”.

            “Right.”

            “What do think that stuff is?” He said.

            “Stuff?  The books?”

            “Those books.  What was he doing in there?”

            “Hiding books.”

            “Hiding books?  In there?  Those books aren’t hidden.  If he was hiding books in there he did a really crappy job of it.

            “Looks like he hid ‘em pretty good to me.”

            “Yeah... but you LIKE old books.”

The End

"Can" B. Worth - Feeding the Birds - Part Eleven - Hiding Books - Part Two

"Can" B, Worth

Feeding the Birds - Part Eleven

Hiding Books - Part Two

            I stated… that all of the hiding books I have found… so far… are empty.  They have …or did not have… anything in them when I found them.

            I lied.  I found one hiding book with one thing in it.  I tell the truth for it contributes to the whole tale… but in doing so… I qualify my telling truth by saying that I MYSELF am still “working this (the hiding book and the object found inside) through.  I have not reached a conclusion other than to feel that this singular IS “something”; a part of the “Can B. Worth” whole.  And that I do not believe I will ever truly “know”.  This is why I first held truth back and now… devote to it.

            The small “POEMS OF WORDSWORTH” hiding book; a “1910” imprint in blue publisher’s cloth with gilt gold title on the spine… is not consistent with the formula of most of Dead Can’s hiding books.  It is older, smaller and more refined than the bulk of the hiding books.  The bulk tends toward 20^th century “recent” “reader’s” “BOOKS”, about half with dust jackets and all being of selected “not interesting titles”.  Successfully these hiding books attract no attention.  As they should

            The Wordsworth too… attracts no attention.  Small, deep blue and “Wordsworth”, it is a book to be skipped over when the spine ends on a shelf are scanned.  I found it, with its object inside, in one of Dead Can’s boxes… just like I found almost all of his gathering of hiding books.  He had found this hiding book himself… and stored it… as he stored all rare books in his collection… in one of his boxes.  I found it as I rampaged through his boxes.  I found the object too.  At the same time.  As has been a developed sub-theme of this tale, I did not connect the dots on this hiding book, the object or… any and all of the “further significance” for not only “a while” but until, I assure, permanent damage (to configuring the trail and its clues) had been …done:  Lost.

            The hiding book, when I found it… in a box… I opened and… found inside… a gold wedding band.

            Moving right along and being an antiques dealer who is used to “finding gold” literally in “old estates” “all the time”… I took the ring out, rolled it in my fingers to see the 16K mark and …put it in my pocket as “another forty bucks” and… set the hiding book on the “a stack” of “finds” from “this box” and went back to looting the box, finishing the box, tossing the empty box and …getting the next box and …looting that box and… never thinking about that hiding book and the ring in it again for months.

            Eventually lighted bulbs began to pop into my mind about “this” “hiding book” and “the ring inside”.  The big light bulb, of course, IS “that’s Dead Can’s wedding ring”.  A labyrinth forms from this light bulb.  No satisfactory end is reached.

            The whitewash is that DEAD CAN found the book with the ring in it and … “part of the collection”.  That doesn’t float; just NOT probable for he was buying these hiding books out of used book stalls for twenty cents and… THAT explains the “Wordsworth” but NOT the SOLID GOLD ring inside.  “Wouldn’t happen”.

            So …he had a wedding band from someplace like his dad’s grave and… hid it in the Wordsworth hiding book and tucked it into a box and buried that box and …that was that?  I don’t think so …meaning… I do not FEEL so.

            So… let us just get on the highway and ramp up to say “THIS IS DEAD CAN’S WEDDING RING THAT… he took off his finger… one day… and …put in this sort of singular Wordsworth hiding book and… tucked that hiding book with the ring in it into the current-box-being-filled behind him…just like he did WITH EVERYTHING ELSE IN HIS LIFE, ALWAYS, DAILY, COMPLETELY AND FOREVER… and… it (the box filled) was buried WITH THAT HIDING BOOK AND RING… behind him in… what I discovered, demonstrated and personally destroyed… was his COMPLETE COLLECTOR’S archive of his complete collector’s LIFE… “YIKES”.

            So there I was …again… “trying to remember” “what box” “where box” “why box” and… “hey; you destroyed it” concluding AGAIN that “this guy was a lot smarter than you’d think.

            So now I have the ring, the hiding book and a …blasted beyond recovery… trail “to it”.  I CAN’T EVEN prove this is “HIS RING”.  “HA, HA, HA HE’S MOCKING ME”.  I cannot prove he put the ring in that book.  I cannot prove that HE made THAT HIDING BOOK… or DID NOT.  I cannot prove there is significance to THAT hiding book… or that there is not.  I cannot CANNOT myself like peanut butter on bread and STILL cannot… relinquish that:

            This is Dead Can’s wedding ring that he, one day after decades of his marriage “stamina tested” took off his finger and with little ceremony but with intentional personal privacy ALONE …put that ring in THAT particular hiding book and …buried it… “forever”.  “Cool”.

            I mean… we KNOW he hated his wife.  WE KNOW Dead Can did things HIS WAY.  WE KNOW he “was no fool”.  And NO ONES FOOL.  And needed NO outsider’s pat on his back or thumbs up approval.  “Yeah”… “it all makes sense” THAT WAY.  AND… he had the balls to do it.

            This is where I am resting at this time. The evidence to me is that Dead Can one day tidied up his married life and… that was that.  And I cannot prove it.  And do not care.  It is too probable a “FEEL” for me… so I will not let go of that feel.  And… there is other trailing that is neat too.  For example, the Wordsworth book is cut through until the middle of “SIMON LEE, THE OLD HUNTMAN”; the part with “His wife, an aged woman lives with him”.  No, no, no… I KNOW (feel?) Dead Can not only knew the poem BUT KNEW that page… with that part of the poem… “held up the ring”.  Dead Can would never have missed that.  Not the Dead Can I KNOW.  Not the Dead Can with three copies of Dexter’s PICKLE… in his desk drawer (“Can” B. Worth – Part Five)

            Three copies of Timothy Dexter’s “PICKLE FOR THE KNOWING ONES” in the desk drawer … in the office… on day one… of this whole tale.  Rereading those chapters will bring two things “up”.  First is how now, in hindsight, that whole desk drawer sleuth episode IS the “was laid before us” BIG CLUE to what now HAS BEEN SHOWN in the whole tale.  I will get back to that.  The second… specifically Dexter “up” is the …I did not mention at the time (no reason to then)… that not only did Dexter hate his wife but… addresses his hate for her repeatedly in “PICKLE”.  So Dead Can hates his wife too and… just happens to have three copies of “PICKLE” in …the top left drawer of his desk that is his single “seat in the world”? 

Dexter claimed to all ears and readers that the sweet young thing he married had died and he now was, in his home, nagged and beaten by an aged woman “gost” with two “gost” daughters and a “gost” son in law who all also are money grubbing HIS MONEY…:  “take the blows I wodnet for fifty milon Dollars word cant express the bloddey war in my family three gosts all Noys Robing of me I must sell with tears in my Eyes I Cant see to Rite Anay more fare well I say good bye”.  Dead Can would be fully attentive, absorbed, receptive, delighted and …a fellow traveler of Dexter’s singular prose expostulation of the state of his marriage.  Dead Can would never say a word about this either.  He simply had the little stack of Dexter in the drawer for a… discoverer such as my self to “peper and solt it as thay plese”.  I did a fine job of that with THAT drawer “during clean out”.  I took the Dexter stack out and “cab it” in my truck cab and then DUMPED the rest of that drawer with as many other “grazed off” desk drawer contents “into a box”.  I actually have not looted that box “yet”.  It has been preserved because MY mind told ME it was “too boring”.  I am so smart.

"Can" B. Worth - Feeding the Birds - Part Ten - Hiding Books

"Can" B. Worth

Feeding the Birds - Part Ten

Hiding Books

            One of the fragments or alleyways of Dead Can’s book collecting was his …accumulation… of hiding books.  This is separate from his collecting/collector fragment or alleyway of… hiding books.  He hid his hiding books too.  Most of them I found as a layered inclusion in one of his boxes.  The actual hiding book collection (accumulation) covered his whole book collecting timeline.  For hiding books, he started early and kept at it to the end.  The earliest were the “best”; that is… most commercially viable and visually attractive.  They were actually more decorative puffery for an interior than a true hiding book.  They looked like they should be placed upon the large desk of a gilt age robber baron and ...hold cigars.  Or whiskey.  They all were… stuffy, scruffy old bindings of books  most often a cast off odd volume from a set “published in Paris” and “written in Latin” with a hole cut into the interior pages but retaining their original marbled end papers.  The antiques trade is full of them.  The few that I found, early on, I gave away.  They were too beat up to attract anyone’s eye, including my commercially trained eye.

            Dead Can deduced this disinteresting decorative flaw of old hiding books quickly and thereafter adjusted his accumulating to reflect ever more his personal intrigues with hiding books; the book that became a hiding book, the making of that hiding book and… how successful that creation “was”.  At first what looked to me as a little weird “did HE MAKE THIS?” chopped up nothing book became, as the number of discoveries increased, an obvious to me that he was “in to these”.  He did not make them.  He never made one.  He wanted to find them.  He was very interested in what he found.  He studied his finds; scrutinized them well past the intentions of the maker.

            That the maker was NOT committed to anything beyond accomplishing the fabrication (as opposed to creation) of a hiding book… presumably for a designated purpose…  “maybe” Dead Can qualified… absorbed him; his small inside  “mass of energy flicks of voices and pictures” (Feeding the Birds – Part Nine).  The book choice, the hole cut, the cutting of that hole, the stopping point of the cut hole, the skill of cutting the hole, the importance of fabricating the hole without disturbing the rest of the book, the completion of the hole and whole book and… the placement of the fabricated hiding book on a shelf and… the creator’s review of it AS a newly fabricated hiding book… absorbed him.  Completely.  “Was” he said “the text of the book more interesting in this newly edited state.” 

That’s… he “said”.  Not “asked”.  Perplexed by this, the history professor from down the hall was emphatic to me about the said/ask delineation.  HE had been the first I heard of Dead Can’s hiding book thing.  There WAS one on the desk at the “pretending” office contents inspection.  As it was there then, a stand alone junky nothing of a “stupid cut-up hiding book” (my words then)… I not only dismissed IT but also the professors comments about IT ...to the affect that Dead Can “liked those” and then …repeated to me what Dead Can SAID above… that I promptly blew off too until… I was into forming my SECOND box full of …Dead Can’s …lifetime rare booker… gathering… of… actually pretty well discerned …hiding books.

           Using for word choice the current popular vogue British “spot on” to discern… HOW DISCERNING Dead Can had been to, again, “spot on” on hiding books… one quietly has to go sit down and rest from the impact of the awe this man detailed his bibliomania with.  Earlier I used the “posse” word (Feeding the Birds – Part Eight) so here merge that with “spot on” to carry that to Dead Can who would …puke on the tips of his shoes… rightly at this abysmal wording and BE CORRECT in doing so …as this is… fully and fundamentally demonstrated by his… hiding book …gathering AND his adroit statement about it being “more interesting in this newly edited state”.  BOOK COLLECTING was made “more interesting in this newly edited state” BY DEAD CAN.  His bibliomania was a …book collecting “make-over”?

           All the hiding books I have found:  Have noting in them.  Are nothing books.  Are of no stand alone commercial value.  Are of little visual interest.  Are “junky” at best.  They only became “interesting” …beyond the Dead Can pedigree… after I had “a lot” of them.  Now nearing two boxes full… after starting as a small “stack up” then advancing to “get a box for them” and onward to “I need a second box”:  Horrified I report that I now ASSURE that I can sell “the collection” to “SOMEONE”… most probably a decorator style dealer in the antiques trade… “as a collection” for them to resell as a “ISN’T THAT NEAT!” “conversation starter” to a MAKE ME PUKE in their heinous “on the water” “summer” “home”.  MAKE ME PUKE.  On the tips of MY SHOES. 

          So guess what:  They are not for sale.  Because.  DEAD CAN COLLECTED THEM; found them, preserved them, studied them and FOUND a clairvoyant vision in them that he passed on to us:  YOU and ME.  They ARE “more interesting in their newly edited state”.  And rare.  Go try and find one… for sale.  NOT a decorator one; a REAL hiding book.  It will take the …rest of your life… as a rare book collector to find and purchase two boxes full.  And I will NOT sell you an “instant collection”.  No.  I am going to do JUST WHAT DEAD CAN DID with his WHOLE COLLECTION.  I am going to take each single hiding book in the collection and set it out “somewhere” (a “park bench” or “train station”).  That’s right:  Abandon each single hiding book to its fate… just like Dead Can planned for his whole rare book collection.  He knew it “wouldn’t go to the trash” just like I know each one of his hiding books will… not go to the trash.  Someone “will find it”.

"Can" B. Worth - Feeding the Birds - Part Nine - The Small Inside - Inside the Large Inside - Hearing Voices

"Can" B. Worth

Feeding the Birds - Part Nine

The Small Inside - Inside the Large Inside

Hearing Voices

            I was not hearing voices.  Dead Can had been hearing voices.  FOR DECADES.  He listened to the voices.  He liked the voices.

            Mrs. Worth, Dead Can’s wife, put the photograph of the reading table AND the clipped newspaper obituary on the second presentation board.  The school filled the first board.  Mrs. Worth left promptly without retrieving her two contributions.  The school took them down.  Too.

            Did Mrs. Worth really have no other photograph to show of her …husband and the father of  her children?  I doubt it.  She picked THIS ONE.  Why?  Because… it represented… actually very accurately… exactly what SHE knew about Dead Can’s, to her, outside world.  HE was …outside HER inside… and she knew this well, protected it and understood very well herself for decades that THAT READING TABLE was THE ONLY THING she ever saw or knew about “my husband”.  Unlike the absurd workbench with its tools in HER nasty neat basement (“Can” B. Worth – Part Twelve) that Dead Can NEVER touched ever… but was “his” by Mrs. Worth’s territorial definition, the reading table was the ONLY THING in the whole house that “was his” by HIS words.  HE maintained THIS TINY frontier outpost of his large and small insides for decades in spite of Mrs. Worth never relenting desire to “remove it”.

            She always “didn’t dare”?  Maybe it WAS that it WAS her husband’s, the father of her children’s, the “his work”, the “books back to the college” (“Can” B. Worth – Part Twelve again).  Maybe it was that… she just didn’t dare THAT and the THAT became, after decades, the ONLY THING SHE KNEW ABOUT Dead Can.  So she chose THAT photograph to …put up with his obituary… even though SHE had finally persevered at “remove it” when she …gave ME the “Trader Joes” bags (“Can” B. Worth – Part Twelve AGAIN).  THAT “reading table” was NOW CLEAN and …finally after all these years… nasty neat.  TOO.

            A few feet away was the stoic post of the …only other outpost… Dead Can ever “had”.  This was, just outside the window beside the reading table… THE POST that once held HIS bird feeder where HE watched the birds from the chair beside the window.  Mrs. Worth had removed his bird feeder (“Can” B. Worth – Epilogue – Part Five).  The old Tyrolean was right:  “OH DID THAT break his camel’s BACK”.

            It took me a long time to connect the dots between the bird feeder and Dead Can’s larger inside; his book collecting.  It was only after I’d gathered the stories… FROM THE PEOPLE… that I had the dot connecting epiphany that explained the DIRECT ratio for Dead Can of his book collecting AND his bird feeder.  Simply stated:  Dead Can quickly became more then very proficient at book collecting, understanding book collecting, doing book collecting and …ENJOYING book collecting.  This was his Large Inside; the “all” of “book collecting”.

            Bird feeding; the act of feeding the birds, he TOO became proficient “at”, “understanding”, “doing” and “ENJOYING”.  From his matured large inside vantage, not only were “these” (birds and books) not hard to do or understand, but they offered a pleasant world to be in… all the time.  The birds come to the feeder and eat.  One may watch.  Book collecting was the same; a book collector was a walking bird feeder who attracted other book collectors or …book sensitive people… like Wally, the graduate students, the old Tyrolean and even the secretaries on the department’s office.  One COULD “feed the birds” of book collecting on VERY HIGH LEVELS but… to Dead Can, “Why bother?  Wally is good enough.” and EASY TO GET TOO, considering the “problem”.  The problem was that the outside hated the inside so therefore their “the problem” of book collecting was reversed by the large inside to viewing the whole outside to be the “problem” (“Can” B. Worth – Feeding the Birds – Part One).  And so, as commanding general of the local outside, Mrs. Worth was THE PROBLEM that prevented Dead Can from ever “going there”; to the top of the book collecting world where… he absolutely would have “fit in” “tight”.  He didn’t care.  He found happiness in those like Wally.  He had a happy large inside as a book collector.  And it was below notice to those “outside”.

            Once I identified the birds and books ratio, I confronted the discovery of a smaller inside where Dead Can … as the old Tyrolean said “From then on he really DID live in that office” (“Can” B. Worth – Epilogue – Part Five again).  It wasn’t in his office.  That was a …very carefully designed prop of his large inside.  He moved into his small inside.  He knew it was there… because he’d been “hearing voices” from there, was listening to those voices and …liked what he heard.

            I had been listening to these Dead Can’s voices for a while now too.  IF I had NOT been listening, I would have tidied up his boxes, sold the good stuff, ditched the waste paper, never looked into anything and …be off somewhere screwing YOUR AUNT out of her dead grandfather’s “old books” “I inherited”.  I became “has my complete attention”.

            The one thing that I bring to this right here is that I …already knew about the Small Inside” of “book colleting”.  It is common.  Book collector’s “hear voices” and listen to them.  And “see pictures”.  And look at them.  This is why book collectors are… talkative at first about their books and then… briskly… close tighter than a clam.  It is their Small Inside that closes tight.  The first thing to understand and NEVER FORGET about this small inside is that these “its” of the small inside NEVER HAVE TO BE FOCUSED.  NEVER ARE FOCUSED.  And ARE NEVER INTENDED TO BE FOCUSED.  Like… “who wants focused?”.

            I don’t.  Dead Can did not.  That’s the whole POINT:  To …finally get somewhere… with yourself… IN YOUR LIFE to… NOT BE FOCUSED.  Just let “it” and all “its” “go”.  “Good bye”.

            THAT’S WHERE… Dead Can’s “witch pie” came from.  That’s where the clairvoyant observation to Wally about his Boy Scout axe came from.  That where Dead Can’s CAN came from.  Or his forty-five minute “he never looked up” …from the small inside to the large inside… shoot from a hip missive on “read to death”… came from (Feeding the Birds – Part Four – The Large Inside – Part Three).  Dead Can, in his small inside, was just one mass of energy flicks of voices and pictures that he …did what ever he want / when ever he want… and if you happened to be around… preferably in his rare book large inside … YOU might “get some of it”.  THIS small inside, I realized, showed EVERYTHING of Dead Can to be “a conscious” “prop”.  VERY CONCIOUS… but NEVER FOCUSED.  He understood… book collecting.