CHAPTER V. THE MENAGERIE

Your hero gets back to nature.

The Last Refuge welcomes you back. Ivan was idling at the counter, for all the world to see. Emil prolonged his rear secretion. Would that the exceptional silence set to steady rule! How many times have I heard his fable?

A memoir is a record. And the writer has the privilege. But suppose another would like a word? I am also a generous man, so I will open up the book. Emil’s allegory is insulting, the facts fanciful, the language improper. But he does have a decent story.

I promised to tell the tale. So shelving my reservations, I will now share his liberties with American history, but purged of incontinent expletive, senseless digression, and infinite loop.

 The Rockefeller story: Our legendary banker’s fortune disguised ragged origins, running with ne’er-do-wells on the Lower East Side. The ravenous crew could only afford the price of a grubby apple, one cent apiece on the curbside barrow. Forged of finer metal, the future tycoon would neither admit defeat nor allow despair. He tendered his only penny, but with the vision that set him apart and paved the yellow brick road. The other urchins, slaves to immediate gratification, sank greedy chops into their small nourishment, but our hero steeled himself against the growl of stomach, fixing on greater reward. The lad swaddled his purchase in a discarded newspaper, took leave of the gang, and set off across town, cradling the cargo in a tattered coat. Alas, the launch of his business career coincided with an early winter storm. The wind howled, freezing rain lashed his cheeks and pooled on the sidewalk. Starving, shivering, muttering to himself, the boy bent into the gale, splashed through icy puddles, and trudged the interminable length of unfamiliar avenue, a migratory bird homing by instinct on a more clement destination.

His compass was true. Hours later the clouds parted, and he found himself gazing at sunlit rows of uptown mansions, visual confirmation of street legend. His threadbare coat, inherited when a brutish father succumbed to tuberculosis, did not belong, but the ragamuffin installed himself on a busy street corner, polished up his apple, and boldly hawked his wares to passersby in varnished carriage or custom footwear. A novelty in these splendid environs, the spectacle generated amusement and open ridicule. But manifesting in embryo the discipline, grit, and self-assurance that would spur a relentless rise to the top and control an unprecedented financial empire, Rockefeller refused to relent. Satisfaction arrived within the hour. A fine lady labored by, a wailing child in tow, and spied the gleaming red apple on an outstretched palm. She took possession; a colorful distraction might quiet infant cacophony. Bowing to his first customer, the nascent magnate pocketed his earnings, wearily retraced his steps, and it was nightfall before he collapsed into his rough cot, puffed up by his feat, two cents beneath his pillow, fairytale mansions before his eyes.

Force of will overcame protests of the flesh. The following morning Rockefeller hobbled back to the humble barrow. Selecting two apples of retail promise, he walked the goods uptown on blistered feet, beating a blighted path that would become a road to riches. A patrolling policeman approached his first choice of location, administering the boot. But his young determination failed to flag, and he returned home in the afternoon with a hard-won four cents. In just two days, a quadrupling of seed money, with continuing exponential prospect. The subsequent trajectory of his profit deviated from that curve. Already an astute salesman, he gauged the apple-buying public and varied his asking price to suit. But sales growth experienced interruption. Several days passed with no commerce. The policeman returned and exacted a bribe. Local hoodlums emptied his pockets and boxed his ears for good measure—anticipating the misfortune, he had stowed a goodly portion of his earnings in his shoes. The sun continued to shine, and at the end of a week his initial investment had increased twentyfold.

A business model must adapt. In due course he was dealing in quantity and able to extract disgruntled concessions from the apple vendor. Bulky merchandise requires supplemental transport. A delinquent orphan of his acquaintance suffered from pronounced limp and ugly cheek scar, to the prevention of gainful employment. The villain demanded five cents for a day’s work, but Rockefeller knocked him down to three and so had to endure the cripple’s constant cussing as they staggered under the bulge of sack. Contracting out the haulage increased his sales volume but proved a mixed blessing: While Rockefeller was conducting a difficult negotiation, his miscreant porter helped himself to the goods, forcing the entrepreneur into regular inventory. A month passed and he had made his first hundred, a princely sum for the streets but just a promissory note in his book. Success requires singleness of purpose. Resisting the urge to flaunt, he folded back all gain.

Winter wore on and turned bitter. The apprentice quit, the money inadequate compensation for the misery. Rockefeller’s bare hands could barely grip the produce as he braved snow and ice for the convenience of an affluent clientele. The city stayed indoors and business plummeted. Customers’ heavy fur coats, much less his own flimsy threads, were no match for biting cold. Holes threatened the integrity of his boots, his only cap vanished in another ambush, and his coat shredded under the weight of canvas sack. His imagined future allowed little indulgence; new garments would have to wait until he acquired his own cart. But though the cash flow was miserly and his ordeal unremitting, Rockefeller had invested too much to give up. If he could only make it to spring. Then his uncle had a heart attack and left him fifty mill.

 A preposterous implication! Okay, I did inherit the purchase of my store from a proverbial rich uncle, my gambling godfather, but the good fortune was incidental. I took over an established concern: Herzog and Herzog claimed the mantle of oldest business in the borough and had supported my novel from the first. The brothers did solid business, but one Herzog discovered the pleasures of the other Herzog’s wife, and a misfortune at a pedestrian crossing put paid to the joint enterprise. Their lawyer urging a quick sale, they were taken with the idea of a writer-owned bookstore and agreed to carry a loan. We signed the contract before I even heard of my windfall. Emil scoffs, but has he ever tried to keep an honest house? Tell that to the city tax collector, he gloats. All right, I was a wanted man, but so was Dr. King! Big Brother is pitiless, bureaucracy blind to the finer things. Although officialdom has the sharpest eye for unlicensed liquor.

We have seen better days? Stuff and nonsense, your fine old leather shoes are only more comfortable for the wear. Clouds hang over The Last Refuge, but stormy weather is a temporary trouble. Emil casts further stones and they too fall short. Yes, the owner does place his book at the front of the window, but the display is no vanity, a novel never goes out of date. We sold a copy only last month. Yes, business has been more robust, but through no fault of management, the David of small bookshop facing the Goliath of the chain store and death star of the internet. Yes, the couch is slightly worn, carpet faded in places, lighting somewhat dim, and cobwebs occasionally string the shelves, but the neglect is deliberate, allowing customers a comforting trip back in time, recalling the old study where grandpa hung his grainy photographs. Connoisseurs prove a pudding, and Monty’s daily sightings confer his seal of approval. Emil insinuates that the back section keeps us afloat. What does the creature know? That rare retreat captures his squalid sensibility like anus a mongrel’s snout, but makes little impression on our bank balance.

No matter the future! I have nurtured one of the few surviving bastions of fine books, runner-up in voting for best independent bookstore in the city a mere four years ago. We maintain a grove of literature in a wasteland of juice bars, video game outlets, and yoga studios. We feature inspired collections: Where else could you find the amusement of The Scoundrel’s Pick, The Gentile Reader, The Western Cannon? Yours truly is something of a local celebrity, women customers disposed to dally, as you would be sure to remark. And book lovers appreciate the opportunity to talk to a real writer, listen to me on NPR, browse their best hours away. At least they should. Not just a neighborhood institution, The Last Refuge enjoys a worldwide name, my photo adorning an in-flight magazine, to give just one instance. I can recall just two unattended book readings, the first due to a misprinted flyer. If Emil came into some money, a proboscis would be the principal payee.

 Slow down there, Bonzo! You talking to me? How about some more introductions?! And a bookstore owner has all the time in the world, I suppose? You just found time for an interminable story! All right, all right, business is experiencing a brief lull, so I can now discharge the duty, take a little nature walk.

We keep the lamps down low. But an appealing face lights up a place of literature. “I saw the dame outside.” The handsome young bird had just flown in, although our regular visitor favors another means of locomotion. “Figured you wouldn’t be far away.” Nick’s bike helmet protects against the plentiful perils of our presbytery.

“Indeed, the ladies won’t leave me alone.” I was attending to lunch, my daily cottage cheese and lettuce sandwich. “Agatha will have to wait her turn.” But I am no dull creature of habit, whatever they say. The adventurer has been known to chew a little cheddar.

The flock will become familiar. Birds of a feather? No, but they need a place to roost, and The Last Refuge is their home away from home. And continuing the introductions, my house has another resident.

“Agatha does catch the eye.” She was shamelessly making eyes at young Nick. Is age not supposed to bring wisdom? “Chuck can’t stop singing her praises.” Jill is our manager and pillar of the establishment, Chuck her no less worthy husband. “I do get a little fed up, I have to say.” The stalwart of office is not shy of opinion, I am sorry to observe. “If only The Last Refuge shone so brightly!”

Don’t listen to her! Management misses my monthly maintenance. Our executive branch also questions my nose for business, you will be dismayed to discover. The house only took cash before her regime, but my filibuster failed to stave off an inevitable defeat. I had to beg permission to signal the scoundrel? Not so fast, I am the boss, don’t forget. She bows to my encyclopedic knowledge of books. At least she should.

“The menagerie is open, Nick.” Jill never loses an opportunity.

“Monty nibbling on Little Women again?”

“It’s great that Annie is an animal lover, but some customers are scared of mice.”

“So are elephants.” I will not be denied. “We need to think ahead, in case they break out of the zoo.”

“Not a bad crowd last night.” The cyclist was helping himself to a fistful of mints. He stops by on the way to work to talk writing and maintain his blood sugar level.

“A two-pot night. Though what a circus.”

“No boss, von pot. First pot no good.” The Terrible is a stickler for the truth. Brewing coffee for book readings remains his one dedicated responsibility, though customer acclaim does not inevitably greet the execution.

“Not a bad crowd, but we could do better. This mule is so set in his ways.” The manager has an unfortunate fetish for change. “My husband is just the same. Chuck still brushes his teeth with baking soda. ‘My dear, if it was good enough for my mother!’”

“Yes ma’am, you have to adapt to survive. The modern business needs a web presence.” Nick does speak some gibberish.

“And the pope should rap his next homily?” Although somewhat traditional of temperament, I keep up with the music.

“We’re not called The Last Refuge for nothing.” Jill plays on the same team as Nick. Our pillar is also tall enough to make the ladies basketball squad, a daunting presence that restores order whenever the book-loving public gets out of hand.

“Mr. Anselm is escaping the modern world?”

“Stone Age man found a cave quite conducive.” A tireless member of the offense, she always gives it a shot, with an assist from another player, to be named later. “It’s not over yet!”

I was warned!

Nick hails from Hattiesburg, Mississippi. A stately southern lilt sets off his aspiration as man of letters, although the creative writing program that peddled his diploma has since folded. The graduate retains the green Converse high tops, regulation backpack, and unsullied idealism of a permanent student, while a handsome visage buffs the humble verdict. And please suspend the suspicion, I am not remotely inclined that way, trust me. I might give him the occasional hug, but are fatherly feelings any gruel for gossip? And you should really hold no grudge: Good looks may raise the eyeballs, but do they not lower the estimation, in matters of the mind? And a winning smile pays the bills? Our next Faulkner waits tables at Emil’s while developing his métier.

“Nick, they’ll rot your teeth.” Jill dotes on the appealing young man. I cast no aspersions; she has no son and I have no doubt that her affection—like mine— is parental. “I don’t suppose Emil has a dental plan.”

Our youthful visitor returned the favor, brushing crumbs from her lapel. We compete for his attention? Please, if you’re looking for soap opera, you should pick up the remote. And the door is over there.

“Emil uses Mr. Anselm’s services, his own word. What did he mean by that, sir?” Nick holds me in special esteem. At least he should.

“My literary expertise?”

“Annie loves the mystery section. I’ve heard him making some arrangement with Emil, but he won’t give.” Jill, too, has her suspicions. They have no need to know.

“So, the novel is dead?” The wishful writer is a regular at the readings.

“Poor thing.” I lowered my head. The previous night’s speaker, a city resident, had published a book of critical essays that was as likely to sell to our faithful as a BLT on a Muslim pilgrimage. His wife, who introduced herself as his publicist, applied a press that overcame my better judgment; the letters on the cover of paperbacks optimistically piled on his table spelled my mistake. Michael Jackson’s voice impediment little hindered his searing indictment of the literary establishment, a diatribe greeted with respectful dissent from a handful of familiar attendees, but howls of laughter from an alien corner. The large and loudly dressed woman had found the book reading under the direction of evident mental distress, hooting in anticipation, drowning out the speaker with a discordant Billie Jean is not my lover. The more I insisted, the more unshakeable her conviction. I was the latest agent of a worldwide conspiracy. Fortunately, she had sufficient wit to grasp the concept of police intervention.

“I’m not giving up yet.” Nick carries a manuscript in the jealously guarded backpack. The stirring swain has some decency, will not open the zipper for just anybody. He bestows a special favor on his mentor, shyly showing me each newly completed chapter.

 “The novel has been pronounced dead more often than you’ve had fried chicken, my boy.” I will take the pulpit, when my congregation has the need. “No matter how routine the obituary, the doomsayers are blind to metaphysics. The very idea of fiction already makes a misleading assumption; the novel brings us people as real as you and me, their world as solid as the clay beneath our feet.” I was rehearsing my thesis; you will soon read the full account. “That world will as soon disappear as planet Earth. Fiction is the gospel truth.”

“Mama!” Ivan keeps a record, as I already noted.

“I bring the glad tidings. You’re here to spread the news.”

“Big news, boss zink Pickvick real.” To the further security of his employment, The Terrible shares my fondness for the Papers. But his eyes betrayed a more ancient dalliance.

“And the proof needs no theological contrivance.” I acknowledged his page of concentration. Neither Nick nor Ivan are members of the club and so would not benefit from the scheduled presentation.

 The Last Refuge has another regular. He makes one section his own. A truth is discovered in the silence of disdain: Not all society is civil.

“I wish he was at the reading last night.” Nick gestured towards Literature, where the compact figure of its guardian kept a disdainful distance. “You should make him a deal.” Our dignitary was ensconced in his seat of honor, out of earshot, ignoring the attention. Cordelio Cortés, the full name appears on the cover, the first is dropped in the flesh. “Señor would have put that guy in his place.”

“Señor would have made it all about himself.” Jill has little regard for the person, still less for the reputation. “Does anyone understand a word he’s written?”

A ruffling of feathers? Yes, it distresses me to confirm the suspicion. I have welcomed you into a little world of books, which you might hope to find a model of peace, love, and understanding, but the model needs some repair. Jill’s bone of contention is our de facto writer in residence and daily beneficiary of my largesse, but he never stays late. The readings take place after hours, and he dedicates the evening to his calling. Nick joshes with Jill, listens to my learning, but hangs on Cortés’s every last rare word. Our peculiar institution represents the young scribe’s literary archetype, a life dedicated to writing, given to gnomic pronouncement.

“Literature has no more faithful witness than Cortés.” I cast a careful glance. The witness had been wary, but the seer denied any sulk. Do I care about every small-minded review? “But the man goes too far. He has transcended the human condition, prefers the company of long-dead writers to that of any flesh and blood mortal. He once told me that if a fire broke out in his building and he had to choose between saving his books or his lover, the written word would win. I think he was serious.”

“Seriously deluded. If we’re talking about his own work, I’d be tossing it into the flames.” Jill is normally even of temper.

“Cortés gets a lot of respect.” Nick is chronically nice, as I have noted. “Unlike some people. After his talk I googled our Mr. Michael Jackson—”

“Young man, kindly keep your sexual fetishes to yourself. This is a family store.”

“He’s written a couple of novels himself, out of print. And the reviews I found were not flattering.”

“There you go, Nick. Sour grapes. Instead of complaining that readers have been duped, write a great book yourself, why don’t you?”

“He did go rather quiet when you mentioned The Employment.”

“I’m under no illusions. My book is a good enough read, if I say so myself. I’ve never pretended a classic of world literature.”

I drew on the well. Nick aspires to the top shelf, writing his undergraduate thesis on the great American novel. His novel does sport a title. The Running Back starts on a hardscrabble Mississippi farm and details a football player’s steady fall as he ascends the ladder from high school celebrity through college to the Cowboys. The story should have wide appeal. Sex, violence, craven ambition, treachery: The ingredients are there. It screams Hollywood.

The manager has read the manuscript. We are not on the same page. She presented a generous opinion. Annie, I think the Running Back has lots of promise. I never refuse a gift. A lot of promise, like a ticket for the Titanic. Bada boom! Don’t be so mean, Annie, it isn’t Nick’s fault he’s so handsome. Please, the author’s photo would grace the cover, but no resentment prejudices my reading, as I have no need to insist.

Let us get back to nature. Ducks are colorful creatures, though differ in disposition: The wood duck, Aix sponsa, is a solitary specimen, the wigeon, Mareca americana, only seen in flocks. Our native birds, too, exhibit a varied nature: Cortés withdraws, Nick gives us the pleasure, but his company is a mixed blessing. Jill’s notion notwithstanding, I feel some fondness for the boy, yet my spirits drop when he pedals up with the pack. I have not told him of the club, lest he have a wish to share the work in progress. The Running Back drops the ball. You need no replay, trust me.

“Ahem, the bowl is empty.” Nick’s gluttony spares no sweet.

“The name of your next work?”

“No refills today, I’m afraid.” Jill’s pointed look assigned the blame.­ “The cupboard is bare as well. Speaking of which, Annie, I ran into Chris—”

“No big surprise. My ex-wife parades past the window every day, with her man.”

“He teaches in her studio.”

“Oxford University has a college down the street?”

“Doing very well. Quite a crowd, waiting at the door.”

“As she never tires of sharing.”

“When did we last have a line outside?”

“Just a fad. When did you last break out that hula hoop?”

“Chris is a little worried about your drinking.”

“I had no choice. Mutual friends, the party was an obligation.”

“She wanted to say goodbye to you. Your car was outside, but you were nowhere to be found. A little concerning?”

“You can tell dear Christine I’m still alive when you just happen to run into her again. If anything, you should be worried for your friend. There’s a sadness in her eyes now.”

“Seems pretty happy to me.”

 “Refill, señor?” The proprietor was plying the pot.

“Your mathematics selection is to be commended”—the scholar had a stack by his chair—“your coffee not. My stomach is ill-equipped for battery acid.”

“Ivan can be heavy handed. Doesn’t it make for an experience, though? Who knew that caffeine was hallucinogenic?”

“My imagination needs no further stimulation.” Cortés subjects his metabolism to meticulous monitor. The prize-winning psychosomatic selected a vial from the portable pharmacy of his shoulder bag, looking to brick his defenses against the onslaught of complimentary beverage. The Arabian Peninsula lies directly across the street, a hand-painted sign promising brews of distinction, but to my certain knowledge he has never deployed his wallet to the advantage. Our forbidding fixture shows up every day at noon and assumes his reserved chair after dismantling the pile of obscure volumes that he selected on the previous sitting, and never pays for lunch. And attempt no wit. The writer of a lauded short story collection honors The Last Refuge with his presence and will greet your dissident comedy with deserved contempt.

His work enjoys prominent display. The label is taped to the shelf, in line with the giants of literature, a benediction that fails to meet with unqualified managerial blessing, but which makes the store his shrine. The person also enjoys his pride of place, in close company to his creation. A generous institution, we save the seat, no matter how unprofitable the favor. Should you possess the predilection, the author will graciously sign the rare purchase after you make the hesitant identification from a youthful snapshot on the promotional poster. I will not flesh out the picture, but through no willful tease; the face fascinates only for a formlessness of feature. An amorphous globe sits on slender shoulders, the writer saving all expression for the work. He once smuggled his dachshund past our interdiction and the seated pair made an impression, a face of fur the only personality. His biography is similarly blank, although he does share an esoteric fancy with the Argentine laureate and acknowledges your praise in unaccented English whose propriety could only issue from the long study of a non-native speaker. The flow has a facility of which you will have plentiful occasion. But your offer of flattering handshake puts him in a bind, his constitution allowing no physical contact. Twisting the top off the amber bottle, he shook another capsule onto a diminutive palm.

 “Order!” Cortés cleared his throat. A distinguished speaker expects undivided attention.

“Uh oh. Court is in session.” I had already taken a bench. “But is this really the place? A welcoming bookstore!”

“The Last Refuge has the name. And suspicious characters take advantage.”

“Last week you sentenced Heathcliff to purgatory.” I humor the conceit. “A little extreme, in my humble opinion. Who is in the dock today?”

“The defendant was about to face his justice. However, he died of coronary thrombosis, according to the editor’s note. Deceased . . . and dearly beloved? I hardly think so! He may have avoided the criminal trial, but cannot escape a reckoning. A superior court is in session. I am the judge, jury and executioner. The defendant left a statement, unfortunately.”

“Your honor, would you please repeat his name?”

“Humbert Humbert.”

“You’re a funny one!”

“I have reached a verdict. Lolita, or the Confession of a White Widowed Male, my pronouncement is . . . perjury! The deposition details some serious depravity, but makes a mockery of the truth.”

“Cordelio, for once, I agree with you. The character has a reputation. I don’t believe a word he says.”

—Humbert, did you even know a girl? If so, we are brothers in bewitchment, though fail of fraternity. You are an old-world peacock, charmer of leisure, lover of conceit. I favor flannel shirts, sell bargain books, nosh on instant ramen, noodle on guitar. A bird of plainer plumage, I am still the better man!

So where is that justice? I spasm in spine; you strut in success . . . of your own devising! Humbert please, nymphets, you expect us to believe?! And if you really dispatched a rival, you now face lasting competition.

You do seduce the reader. A wizard of words conjures away the contempt. Your fellow fool will also bare himself, at some risk of summary judgement. I trust my travails will temper the taunts. And unlike you, poet of reprobate lust, I stayed within the bounds. At least my love was legal. Though she was pushing a law-abiding citizen to the limit . . . of his endurance, needless to say!—

“So Cordelio, what is your pleasure today?” I had underwritten the reading material open on his lap. He hoisted the volume for my inspection; Kline’s Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times is very reasonably priced at $19.95, though the paying public steadfastly spurns the opportunity.

“I have reached the ‘Stagnation in Mathematics.’ Here is Augustine: ‘Whatever knowledge man has acquired outside of Holy Writ, if it be harmful it is there condemned.’”

“Jolly fellow. And so Christianity’s first millennium extinguishes the candle of learning, first lit by the Greeks. We thank the Arabs for keeping the flame.”

“Suppose they were not alone. We talk of the Dark Ages—has darkness not just fallen on the truth?” Cortés has eyes of Andean basalt. The lava of invention stirs, the volcano only dormant of face. “I penetrate that darkness. I see a clandestine academy, a hive of activity, a fount of invention, until some resentful second-rate thinker betrays his better to the clerics.”

“Unfortunate consequences?”

“Not only for the person. An unprecedented wealth of mathematics is consigned to the flames, irretrievably lost.”

“We would never know.”

“I will give him the memorial he deserves. For I see a monk, secreted in an abbey, leading a double life. The thinker discovers calculus, five hundred years before Newton. Received history only tells of a heretic, tortured and burned at the stake. I see him rushing to hide his scrolls, when he hears the sharp knock on his chambers—”

“Cortés, I rarely presume. That reviewer said your stories lack female interest. Maybe she had a point?” I never look for trouble. “Your thinker could be an abbess.” I have an aversion to conflict. “Go for it.” Provocation is the last thing on my mind. “She would do you proud.” A man of sensitivity just cannot hold his tongue.

“Mathematics, Physics, Philosophy . . . ” He perused our periphery. “And the women?”

“How much have we lost?!”

“Women! Spare me the sermon. Sentimentality is the death of literature. One of them calls herself your manager”—he directed his disdain at the counter—“has that woman ever opened a book?” Cortés’ low estimation fails the physical facts: The man looks up to the object of his scorn.

“Reading right now, is she not?”

“Some infantile genre, no doubt. Is she lost in fantasy, hanging in suspense, haunted by horror?”

“She has found romance.”

“I rest my case.”

“Cordelio, welcome to the modern world. Most novelists are women.”

“And most whores.”

“The manager is a master, degree in English.”

“Silly Sally says.”

“Jill! As you well know. You hit her up for ten bucks only this morning.”

“Which she summarily denied. Shouldn’t such an impressive education command a more generous salary?”

“Maybe working in a distinguished bookstore is enough. The characters!”

“I wouldn’t be so sure!” His lids drooped. “An abbess!” His voice trailed off. I know the sign, made no protest. Like a city metro, his train of thought will disappear underground, to reveal itself down the line in one of his “peerless” Confabulations. He deflects personal inquiry about his writing, although gives the occasional guarded report in the safekeeping of club meetings.

“I leave you.” He flipped his silver pocket watch. Cortés’s work requires an unbending routine. I have never seen the inside of his residential hotel room, but he speaks of a typewriter and oak desk, where he must be seated every evening at six. Mathematical thought joined the medicinal contents of the leather bag. My merchandise regularly leaves the premises in that transport, though I have never made the offer and he is yet to return the loan. He found a pressed handkerchief, but the coughing that signaled his departure carried little conviction.

 “I’m looking for Joseph Campbell.” A light brightened my day. The girl was new to the store; I would have remembered a previous visit. Straight black hair, oval face, warm complexion and dark brown eyes—neither overtly friendly nor entirely dismissive—orient the compass, but sometimes you can’t be sure. Entering the rarified world of books, the girl regretted her superficial fashion statement. At least she should have.

“You just missed him. He was here a minute ago.” What a wag!

“Josef Campbell? Ve have good selection, miss. You find in Religion.” The Terrible’s notebook lost the battle. “You vant I help you?” He jumped up from the stool, his first discernible move of the day.

“Er, no thanks, I’ll be fine.” She escaped towards the back of the store. “I’m sure I’ll find the switch.” An ensemble of black tights, knee-length boots, and short skirt lays down a law. Perched behind the counter, two thirds of The Last Refuge’s salesforce monitored the bookcases in her direction until the vision made the turn and disappeared into the penumbra of mysticism.

“Josef Campbell, pfff.”

“Appearances can be deceptive. She might be quite the student.” I managed a chuckle, though my back was acting up again. Please, wipe your smirk of speculation! In reality I had not slept well the night before, should really get a new mattress.

“Back section, vot she vant.”

“We can but dream.”

Scholarship imposes a regime. But proximity to female contour loosens Ivan’s tongue, the severity of his wardrobe belying a baroque imagination. His stunted English, seldom employed in legitimate customer service, imposes little handicap in verbally bending women shoppers over the reference shelves. I offer no encouragement, though must nod to the gusto of invention. But the bravado covers a pity, one of the most woefully undersexed vitae since The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of the Mariner.

—Crusoe, trust me, I have nothing but respect. The very name of self-reliance, your surprizing adventures issue a challenge: How long could modern man survive without the trappings of civilization, endure the solitude? Although given the benighted bent of our literary studies, some obscure journal paper will have cast tedious aspersions on you and Man Friday. Don’t take offense; publish or perish, the sheep will say anything to find favor with the herd.—

Mother and son live in the same apartment. I see them at the supermarket, The Terrible still clad in suit and tie. And I hear her distress. Such good boy, what will become? Mr. Anselm, you know American girl who not smoke the drug or have sex orgy?

Merrywood! . . . Not again! . . . You make mock . . . A little harmless fun . . . Who is the real object of ridicule?

I redress the reproof. My own worldly career may have fed no tabloid frenzy, but is discretion not the better part? Ask Jill, I have ample opportunity; any number of women visit the store on my days of schedule. Magnolia, who owns the art gallery across the street, has suggested dinner. She has her charms and can carry a conversation. If I have yet to make a more intimate acquaintance, the fence is freely founded. The artist possesses a laugh. And she takes advantage of her license.

 “Eeek.” A shriek shattered the silence.­ “Attack!” The news came from History. She returned with some dispatch but no purchase. The fashion boots flashed by the till. “Mouse!” The thrill was gone. And my back pain also left, if you must know.

“Monty checking her out.” I heard the door expel another empty-handed customer.

“Must take break, boss.” The Terrible stashed his notebook and made haste for the bathroom.

 The window told the story. Our counter commands a view of parking spaces, where a distinguished automobile did the honors, the same model as mine. Our small nation has a camaraderie; I always wave. This beauty was convertible, permitting inspection of the driver, who showed no inclination to leave his seat. The worthy individual was my contemporary, favored the same straw hat and was studying our display, sharing my love of books. The good man caught my eye, and we nodded in mutual respect. However, The Last Refuge would not enjoy his business at this juncture. The sitter stirred, and his sojourn explained itself as he got out of the car to open the passenger door for our fleeing customer. A father would share her features, so he must be an older friend, or boss. Or a kindly member of her book club had offered her a ride? Yet again, given her looks, she might need an agent. In any case, the man did have some manners. Tipping his hat in my direction, he chaperoned his charge, civilly took her coat, carefully cleared her seat.

The tableau takes a twist. A gentleman shut his door; a rascal opened my eyes. The overexcitable young woman retreated to the safety, pointing an accusing finger at the scene of a bestial crime, the menace of Monty. Her middle-aged companion shrugged, reached for the ignition, and a throttle sped his face out of sight. Although a revelation remained, a mug of signal satisfaction. A grizzled hunter can bag a trophy. A fawn had planted a kiss.

—Humbert Humbert, the name of notoriety, redoubled. Nailer of nymphets . . . I’m sure! You too are a revelation? Well, you open a can of worms! Confession of a White Widowed Male, the proceedings are preposterous. We can only imagine the debacle driving the deceit. Solipsistic free-fall, libidinal famine, impotent panic . . .? You were no stranger to the sanatorium. Did those stays presage a complete collapse of cerebration?—