A Shoelace Snaps

Speeding on the freeway, adrift in possibility, in pursuit of dreams, Bilson, the bookman, collections inspected, autographs and associated ephemera, catalogues, modern firsts, blinks to some sort of blockage suddenly dead ahead and stomping the brake feels that shoelace snapping on that shoe suddenly loose on that foot as simultaneously an exit presents to the left which faster than thinking he takes, slewing and slowing, that rushing madhouse quit. As you’ve guessed, of course. That he’s dead, of course. Snapped shoelace equals string of life equals, let’s say, his instantly rigid seized stopped heart. Finis. End of story. Bookman no more. But isn’t the story told in a nutshell oftenest the hardest to crack and look while it’s raining and the wind blows in the black trees outside scratching the sealed windows perhaps not without profit to sit in our safe pool of golden light all snug in creaking leather whatever possibility to pursue, if even for pleasure, to drift in dream? So let’s let him park. So let’s let him get out. Shoelace trailing. Yes, quite snapped. So let’s let him look for a moment around. This suburb or slice of suburb or anyway corner or place he has never been before. Does he know? Its history, or shall we better say present state of play, understanding that all is liquid, endless flux, that initially the river, then a railway, now the concrete freeway cutting cruelly overhead, have left between their confining slices this forgotten pocket of obviously once upon a time much grander plan. A block of boulevard. A handful of houses. A one and only shop. Will he realise? The window of which let’s make crudely whitewashed or in similar effect by glancing of sun but beside the unhindered doorway admitting him into its at first darkish inside. Can he understand? And no, it’s not a bookshop, or anyway not yet, but as he requires, Bilson, the bookman, our bookman, an old man behind a wooden counter, shapes of lasts, smells of polish, laces, exactly as is required, of course for sale. Do we require conversation? Pleasantries of small talk? Amiable chat? The shoe, let’s say, removed. The broken unthreaded. The new through the eyelets expertly introduced. A smallish premises, while this is transpiring, we could note. An ambiance not unlike hides and harnesses. Chaff motes through the dancing floor of sunlit dust. Has he understood? A doorway to no doubt living quarters behind, by some nailed up remnant screened from common view. Has he realised? Taking from his trousers pocket some coins to pay. Can he know? And mentions books. Well, the habit of the man, you understand. Always to ask. The calling, after all, of the trade. Anywhere round here sell books? he says. Old books? he says. Well, any sort of books really, ha ha, he says. Our suddenly bright Bilson, Bilson the bookman, Bilson our bookman. Never know, he says. Always worth a look. To the old man. Who has heard? Has he heard? Who stands, the old man, both slow hands on the old wooden counter between them, regarding, it might seem, eyes lowered, head lowered, the placed there between them proffered payment of coins. In chaff motes of held suspension. In forgotten sunlight. In captured dust. Who says then, the old man, finally, or rather calls, at last, though still with no movement, not up, nor sideways, neither behind, the one coughed curt word. Helga! To which reply, if reply there is, then heard by him alone. Who moves, then, the old man, with sudden surprising agility, two paces leftwards to the remnant, which briskly, that same surprising agility, he whisks now aside. Though his eyes still lowered. Go through, he says. And Bilson? Our Bilson? Our mortally felled man of books? Begins of course to the direction invited. With curiosity. Does he know? With eagerness. Has he realised? With exhilarating expectation. Will he understand? Even thinking, as he passes through, to glance backwards, where he has been, where he has come, to see, on that front window he took to be a simple whitewashed blank, to read now, in mirrored reverse, the now emblazoned word. As the remnant falls. In obliterating obfuscation. To turn him. Bilson. Our Bilson. To the crammed and crowded stocked and stacked warm lit enclosure of a woody bookshop’s shelved embrace. The freeway, says the woman. Final straw, she says. When that came through, she says. Killed him dead. The bolstered slopes of a woman in a corner on a hard kitchen chair. Oh, says Bilson. And how he had it in the beginning, says the woman. How he had that front room, she says. The reach of the man, she says. The dreams. Ah, says Bilson. And the woman says. And she says. And she says. And she says. But the eyes of Bilson. But the mouth of Bilson. But the feet of Bilson. But the fingers of Bilson. Afternoon Men in its Misha Black mannequinned jacket. The John Long Camera Obscura. May I? says Bilson. Do you mind? says Bilson. Is it all right if? says Bilson. A Marble Faun. The Paris Hemingway. Spender’s hand-printing of Auden, erratum slip included, in the orange wraps. Does he? Can he? Will he? And Joyce on his Dutch paper. And Forster’s first. And Fleming’s Will he? Can he? Does he? Prufrock and Other Observations. At-Swim-Two-Birds. Lucky Jim. While the woman, talking, still talking, ever talking, but unheard, by Bilson, quite unheard, by Bilson, as he spins, as he reaches, as he grasps, does Bilson, our Bilson, our bookman, our own doomed book. Know? Realise? Understand? From, now, the flung-wide glassed cabinet of, he peers, he pokes, the plunders, private presses, limited editions, signed and strictly numbered conjoinings of art and text, celebrations of typography, the weaves, the bindings, bookmaker’s excellence, his eye, in seeming random, falling to the words Speeding on the freeway, adrift in possibility, in pursuit of dreams, Bilson, the bookman His dread fingers in dead falter finding the title-paged announcement of author’s name.

Morris Lurie

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