"Can" B. Worth - Epilogue - Part Four

"Can" B. Worth

Epilogue - Part Four

            Perplexed and disturbed by my discovery, I stopped “sorting” (“destroying”) Dead Can’s boxes.  I even visited the storage area and stared at the remaining mound.  The conclusion from that eyeball usage was that I had already “destroyed” by having been insensitive AT the office so when I “boxed up” and dollied out, I… destroyed.  I stood before the stored boxes putting myself mentally back to when I had stared INTO the whole office; BEFORE I had slipped my ass around to the right of the desk, peeked into the test box and… assaulted the desk drawers.  The history professor was there.  HE said Dead Can “lived in there at least a century”.  He had been right.  I, cocksure, had been wrong.

            I HAD been right all perfectly on my read of him, his, the… book collector collection.  A PERFECT READ, in fact.  I “I KNOWED” myself “ACE” and trump card PERFECT dealer-on “calculate the RISK” and “give ‘em the money”.  PERFECT.  Even Mr. Lawyer on his cell phone PERFECT.  Even the box up and intimidate the help PERFECT.  EVEN the broom clean PENCIL NOTE ON the furniture PERFECT.

            But:  “your such a dump ass”.  This went to “this guy was smarter than me”.  That went to “a great book collector”.  Then “had a better idea about all this than I DO.”  Finally the “now what do I do?”.  There were two routes at the crossroads:  “Forget about it” and plow forward with the rape and pillage.  OR:  “poke around” and “buy yourself some time”.  WHY a second route?  Guilt merged with respect merged with curiosity merged with… “whose in a hurry” and “estates like this don’t grow on trees”.

            “Poke around” was easy.  Already “word” of I having “got an estate” of “rare books” had come back to me as a murmur.  The two “help” teams “talk” at the back of weekly auction halls about “what” they’d “been doing” and that Longstreet and “FAMOUS FLIES” were enough in THEIR eyes to “assure gold” “he’s got one”.  I… was already being POKED myself.

            Within this little murmur came little “stories” titled “Oh I knew that guy”. “HE bought a *** from ME”, “A queer duck but at it FOREVER” onward to “No never been to his OFFICE”, “Didn’t know WHAT happened to him” and… “No never been to his office TWO”.  For this last, one person had, I heard, by murmur… and “I know that guy”.  He was an older “good”, not “GREAT”, local “highly regarded” legacy Maine “bookman” (dealer) “retired”.  I had not had contact with him since he’d gone after me (bid hardball against me) on a very scarce Arizona Territory map “at (a remote rural Maine farm) auction… “twenty years ago?”.  So I called him up and said “HEY:  DID YOU KNOW THIS DEAD CAN GUY?”

            “Yes” he said after he’d greeted me at his front door, exchanged pleasantries with his wife, went into the living room, had the wife bring …cheese and shrimp plates… a beverage and seated use to her satisfaction and then LEFT US ALONE for several hours.

            Our …ever getting more focused on Dead Can …chat… began with him being a little too “it’s a honor having you visit ME” (hence explaining the over the top food and drink coffee table buffet)… that also attached a mental “these people don’t get out much” qualifier from my mind to me… footsteps around the edge of the Dead Can pond of my visit.  This included a brief summary of where he was at in the trade including the …not miss-read but deflected adroitly “view my books for sale?” “I HAVE A” and:  We relived the entire rare map of Arizona Territory at auction “How much did you GET for that ANYWAY” “Twenty-seven fifty” over his “last bid” of “nine hundred fifty so I “got it” for one K “I KNEW IT WAS GOOD”.  “WHO WERE YOU BIDDING FOR?”.  He still wouldn’t say.

            Then I had to swim the river several times about local in trade current events, persona, collectors rising, dealers dying, “the internet” and “Do you know her?” (a new, young woman custom book binder).

            “No”.

            “She’s VERY GOOD.”

            “I don’t rebind anything”.  (Americana, like that Arizona Territory map, is NEVER rebound because it DECREASES ITS “original as found state” CASH VALUE.  A map like that, at best is “placed in a custom slipcase” and THAT is commissioned by the high end rich collector to THEIR specifications at THEIR expense and of THEIR bad taste excepting TOP TIER dealers who… “do it for them” and “tell them what’s “good” (a good taste slipcase).  Making expensive slipcases for rare Maine Americana “material”… hasn’t “caught on yet” (TOO EXPENSIVE in addition to being BEYOND the world rare book view of a “MAINE” collector.  Don’t worry, eventually the outside world will arrive in “rare Maine books” and “take everything that’s good” away.  I know this because it’s already happening).  ANYWAY:

            WE, with me eating as little cheese and shrimp as possible to offset my host’s gobbling, eventually made the rounds and river crossing to Dead Can.  “OH YES I KNEW HIM.”

            “OH YES I’VE BEEN TO HIS OFFICE.”

            “How’d he die?”

            “OH YES HE DIED RIGHT IN THAT CHAIR.” in the office.

            “OH YES:  THEY FOUND HIM DEAD BEFORE MIDNIGHT.  Called his wife and told her.  Didn’t know WHAT TO DO.  TOOK HIM OUT OF THERE and SECURITY LOCKED THE DOOR”.  And… except for the Department Office somehow (“The Mystery Of”) getting Can’s can after “NO HE’D ALREADY GIVEN THEM THAT SET”  the gifting by Dead Can of the Can’s “handsome copy” history set to the department… I, looking over Mr. Lawyer’s head and having that history professor (“HE’S HARMLESS.”) breathing on my neck… was, remarkably, the “it” from there on.

            “Tell me about him.”
            “WELL:  I’D SELL TO HIM”.

            “A lot?”

            “NO.  NEVER A LOT.  HE DIDN’T HAVE THE MONEY.”

            Finally, we got down to the business.