What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank: Stories (16 page)

At this, Arnie steps up onto the grass, and the old
people come closer, moving along with him, to Josh’s side. They watch this procession, standing together, murderers all. They watch those turtles on their slow march and behold those ancient creatures, shell-backed and the color of time, as they lower themselves, turtle upon turtle, disappearing into the stillness of the lake.

H
e sits on a box of books in a storage room piled high with such boxes and remembers the old days, as he does every night on the road. A boy by the name of Todd pops in with a cup of coffee. He’s younger than the author, everyone so much younger now.

“It’s instant,” Todd says, handing over the cup. “I hope that’s okay. The machine—the barista—it’s already shut down.”

“Instant’s fine,” Author says, and takes a sip to prove it.

This night, this is city six or city eight. It is the end of another day of Author’s driving around only to find an empty bookshop. Often the stores didn’t even have the books that were ordered, let alone an audience to buy them.

Author is not ungrateful. The life he’d led, the writing life, it had been beyond his wildest dreams. He’d been treated generously over the years, touted and well received. Still, Author had put everything he had into this latest novel. Not just emotion, not just all he’d got in the gumption sort of way, but literally
all he had
. All his time, all his money, a hunk of his life. Of course, this is what every book had asked of him, that he forgo all distraction and every comfort, that he simply put his head down and work. But some decades are more delicate than others. And from this one, he’d lifted his eyes up and discovered that he was old.

Author turns around to find Todd still standing there, observing him in his reverie. The boy pulls a handful of creamers from his pocket. He holds the little thimbles out in his palm, reaching right up to Author’s chin, as if Author were an old goat at a petting zoo.

“No, thank you,” Author says, turning away. “Intolerant,” he says, “to lactose—among other things.”

· · ·

The last time Author read at this store, the barista had not gone home, the staff had not gone home, and the author hadn’t drunk coffee. The owner poured whiskey while chasing her starry-eyed workers away. Still, they rushed into the storeroom excitedly to say, “We don’t know where to put the people. The audience. They’re lined up outside the door.”

Tonight there is no one, and Todd peers out into the store one final time to check that it’s so. “Let’s give it five minutes,” he says, unpinning his name tag. Then he takes out a phone and his thumbs start flying.

Author wants to tell the boy certain things. He wants to say, Twelve years. Twelve years on a book—is that now half your life, young man? He wants to tell Todd, One must stand by one’s story. It’s the same commitment the liar must make, but here it’s about sticking by the truth.

In a sudden display of eagerness, Author offers to sign stock.

“Can’t return them,” Todd says. “The distributors … signatures they consider—” And here Todd looks up from texting. He has started a sentence he doesn’t want to finish.

“Damaged,” Author says, doing it for him. Todd nods. And then the thumbs, they are on the move.

· · ·

That you haven’t heard of Author—that any recognition you may once have had is beyond recalling—and Author (even in his own estimation) is no longer worth naming, this doesn’t take away from what was.

It does not diminish the fine books he wrote. It does not take away from the countless copies bought and read, beloved books, maybe one signed right to you, the volume itself fallen behind your shelves, or your parents’, or maybe it is, yes, your grandparents’ book—packed away, molding in the basement, the silverfish eating their way through.

At his height, the head of the New York Public Library had waited for Author on the front steps of that venerable institution. A patrician man, the librarian stood rigid in the rain between his two sleeping lions, simply to show respect for Author, coming there to perform.

He then took Author on a tour of the great halls, insistent on exposing him to the wonders of their collection. “This is the cane Virginia Woolf left on the banks of the river when she waded into the waters,” the librarian said, “pockets full of stones.” He laid this relic in Author’s hand for a moment before leading him down below the basin of the old Manhattan reservoir, floor after floor, into the stacks that run deep below Bryant Park. There the librarian turned a giant nickel wheel, parting shelves like the sea, and said, “These are the best sellers of the nineteenth century, where we keep your brothers and sisters, the authors who held your esteemed position one hundred years ago!” Author went to look. Author expected to find the books he cherished from that time.

“Is this …,” Author said.

“Yes, yes,” said the librarian, beaming. “The giants of the era!”

Author looked again, the spines unfamiliar.
Bloomingdale Row; To the Hills, Boys!; Capshaw Is Rough
; and something with the unfortunate moniker
Scuttle-de-do
. Author’s eyes bounced around the shelves, picking up speed until they were near rolling in his head. He fought off a panic. Author had not heard of a one.

“Tastes change,” the librarian said. “Isn’t it fascinating how much?”

Author had buried the moment away. He’d left it where it sat, deep down below the park. And only now does it come rushing back, all these years later, as Author leaves Todd and the storeroom and his ruined career behind.

Author says thanks to the boy. Author says good-bye. And Todd doesn’t understand that this good-bye is not just to him and his store and this town, but it’s Author’s good-bye to the whole fucking thing.

This last book, Author had typed nearly all of it standing up, fighting an aching back and clacking away at his keyboard with arthritic rope-knuckled fingers. This is how he now worked, the spring gone from his system, bone rubbing against bone.

“If you hit the latch thing, it’ll lock behind you” is what Todd yells out from the storeroom. Author hears this as he heads for the front door, thinking that this is what it’s come to. The boy in the back on his phone, wholly unconcerned that someone might already be inside loading up on the great treasures of literature and robbing the store. Author skirts the five empty rows of five chairs horseshoed to give the impression of a decent crowd, were they to fill. He keeps his eyes down so as not to see the Staff Choices or Best Sellers, so as not to catch
Reader Favorites or the discount stickers next to the embossed foil prizes awarded to the writers he used to know.

Author is half out that door when he hears a different voice calling. “Author,” the voice calls. And then, sharper, more demanding, “Writer,” it says. “Writer, you came here to read.”

In the empty store, in those empty chairs, sits—invisible until he speaks—one man.

He is small. Much smaller than the author, who is not big. He is also considerably older, which Author thinks must make him at least 110. The man’s skin is pale and vitamin-starved. His face hangs loose on his head. Shoved into his mouth like a doorstop is a set of big white teeth that surely sit in a glass by night. The only thing with any life left in it is the hair, boot-polish black. This—Author can’t take his eyes off it—it isn’t like those choppers. The hair seems real, vibrant, and undyed.

Were Author ever to write again, the hair would be the detail. He’d write of a drawn old man, shrunk inside his clothes, face melting like wax, and this smart, this healthy shock of black hair.

“You came to read,” the man says.

“I came to read,” Author says.

The man stands there, looking expectant.

Author pretends to misread the cue he is receiving. He feigns impatience. And when the man continues to hold his ground, Author breaks, openly despairing, his voice choked with all the hurt of that night.

“A dozen years,” Author says, “day in and day out—writing. Writing all the time. You do not know how many pencils it takes just for the drafting,” he says. “Boxes and boxes of pencils. Now look,” Author says. “I’m asking you, take a look.”

The old man joins the author in surveying the empty room.

“Call it a night, shall we?” Author says. “Yes, let’s just call it a career and go home.”

The old man, at first invisible himself, now produces a copy of the author’s book, which had been invisible in his hand. It is well-worn—in a good way. It looks, in fact, Bible-soft. A hardcover read so much that it curls in his grip.

“There’s an investment from me, too,” the man says.

“A drink,” Author says. “Wouldn’t that be better—more personal? Wouldn’t you rather—maybe a meal?”

“I’d rather you read. That’s what I came for.”

They stare at each other. Study faces. And Author, he shakes his head as he hears himself speaking. “Something short,” he says, giving in to this ancient man.

“It’s not for me to dictate,” the old man says. “If it’s one word, then one word. The contract—a social contract. It says, If I come, you read.”

“It does, doesn’t it,” Author says, offering a hand and leading the little man to the front row. Author takes a seat himself, angling the chair farther into the horseshoe, and takes up his book to read.

“No,” the little man says. “The podium.”

“What?”

“The podium.”

“We are two,” Author says.

The old man looks back, blank.

“As audience,” Author says, “you are one.” He holds up a finger to illustrate.

“Dignity. A great author.”

“I am?”

“You are. A great author. A mighty author. One or one million come to see you, still, from the podium. Read out. Read strong.”

And now Author’s first impression seems rash. Author no
longer thinks—and he is
ashamed
not to think it, because he knows why he no longer thinks it—that the old man seems so crazy anymore.

Author takes his place at the lectern and opens his book. He gives the same introduction he’d give to one or one million. The same personal, heartfelt warm-up Author used to reserve for the big halls. He remembers a night in Seattle, remembers tripping over the cables running from a TV truck into the theater as he made his way backstage. There, a woman in a headset pulled back the curtain for Author and, for a moment, took hold of his arm. “Remember to raise your eyes to the balcony” is what she’d said. “You can’t see, but they’re there.”

Author reads his heart out for this lone man. He reads so hard, his voice booming, the feel of story-told overtaking him, the rhythm of the sentences running through him, that it puts tears in Author’s eyes, tears that he lets fall, so that it is now from memory that he reads, turning the pages while the letters swim.

It’s in the midst of this reverie that he does not—for who knows how long—notice Todd standing there, staring back and forth between the author and the man, a strange thump emanating from him. Todd is trying to distract Author, Author thinks, trying to take away from this lovely moment. Why else would this deep bass be coming from him? Author posits that this is maybe some kind of anger radiating off Todd, and then, pulled back to this world, focusing, he understands that the pulse comes from a pair of headphones clamped like hubcaps around Todd’s head.

Author, soaring still, reads on.

· · ·

Driving in darkness toward the next distant city, Author knows that what he’d just experienced was a gift. Really, how much richer could a writing life be than finding, even for one night, one true reader?

Author rolls this thought around his brain, sucking on it like a sweet-sticky lozenge. He thinks this thought right down to nothing as he barrels along I-80, pulling right at the wheel, his car buffeted by the wind. When the check-engine light pops up, glowing on his dashboard, Author sees it simply as another small test in the life of the true artist. Check engine. Check author. Drive on.

It does not last long, this feeling. It does not last a full twenty-four hours before Author feels ashamed and embarrassed for having driven so far. Author finds himself standing alongside a narrow woman, her wrists girded in copper bangles, as if suited up for some obscure form of war. All Author can think is, Who will she fight in this empty store? Who will even bother to come attacking?

The woman is talking to Author as she lines up a row of tiny point-of-purchase books. “It must be a shock for the once-a-decade novelist,” she says. “Startling to see how much things have changed.”

“Yes, yes,” Author says. “A book every ten years, it’s like being a cicada. You spend all that time underground, busy staying alive. And when you finally burrow your way back out, you never know what world you’ll find.”

The woman waves off the whole situation, and the motion sends the bangles scuttling along her arm, giving off a tinny ring. “Sixteen weeks and three days from now this space belongs to CVS.”

Author doesn’t know what to say to this, and so he says, “Soap.” And then, pointing at his head, “Q-tips.” He clears his throat. “Some things will always be in need.”

The woman considers, and while she does, Author takes the opportunity to nod in thanks and head for the parking lot door. That’s when he hears it. “Author,” the voice calls. “Writer. Where do you go?”

Author stops, blinks, an ear cocked toward the room. Author stands with the doorknob in his hand as if he’s just heard his own birdcall.

“Writer, always running. A reading tonight!”

Before Author answers, it’s the store owner speaking, her voice enough to knock the little man down.