The Notebook
Part 1
Damn Jesus holidays’ll be the death of me yet, Thomas Brimm grumbled half aloud half to himself as he trundled down the empty side street towards the Write Tools Stationary Shop. He looked at his watch–it was five minutes to midnight, Christmas Eve, dark, with a rabid wind snarling and biting at his oversized Army Surplus parka. Just up ahead a lone pool of amber light spilled out of the storefront window and onto the ice-slagged street. He took this as a good sign.
Brass bells tinkled overhead as he shuffled inside. A cozy fire-log warmth sat in the store and a brisk shiver iced his spine. A notebook. It was the last thing on his to-do list: he had gone to Macey’s and picked up the gin and the cigarettes, took the cross town to Solbey’s for the power cord and a box of frozen chicken pot pies and now this, The Write Tools Stationary Shoppe, this was his last stop. As he stomped his boots on the the brown welcome mat, an old Chinese man popped his head up from behind a cranky looking cash register and nodded distractedly at Brimm, who nodded back and scanned the store with his drug stained eyes. It was the kind of bookstore he liked: everything slightly off kilter and squat with a musty dome of nicotine-stained light hanging over everything, books poked everywhere, stacked willy-nilly, in a neat, yet chaotic order that necessitated a semi-conscientious book hunt. He loved the hunt too. But not tonight, he reminded himself. Got a lot of work to do yet.
“You open?” Brimm asked turning his attention back to the old man. “Sure, sure,” the Chinese man said without looking up from his paperwork. “Take you time.”
“Hey thanks,” he said back, “but I gotta get going ya know. It’s late and all. I was wondering if you got any of those Faber-Castell Notebooks? The Limited Edition ones with the hard covers and the embossed silver lettering. I need a black one.”
The old man put down his pen and looked up at Brimm. His square face was rather too large for his thin coat hanger shoulders, but its size only emphasized his eyes which were the worn color of monk’s robes. “So,” the old man asked chewing on the arm of his glasses and slouching back in his chair, a pose that lent him an air of dispassionate intellectualism. “Why you want one of those notebooks for?”
Brimm groaned. Hadn’t it been this way all day? Incompetence lurking at every corner, everyone conspiring to prevent him from getting his errands done and back to his desk? He looked down at the plastic Solbey’s bag hanging at his side and let his mind drift like a snowbank over the day. First there had been the bastard in the snowplow who piled the snow onto his front step and the obligatory hour of shoveling; then, there was the fool at the liquor store who argued about the sales price on the bottle of gin; the power cord, he had to admit, hadn’t been too traumatizing, but the weather was shitty and getting worse, and now–now–there was this little gremlin with his questions about his tastes in notebooks.
“Well, why do you want that kinda book for? Mister…?” The old man repeated, his voice curling higher in pitch and leveling off as he waited for an answer. The old man’s snobbish air had evaporated. Now, there materialized the near-to-condescending smile of the friendly neighborhood proprietor. Brimm played off this quick shift in temperament and played along. “Brimm, Thomas Brimm” he said, squeezing his plastic bag closer to his leg. And why the hell not? Tis the goddamned season.
“Well, Mr. Brimm. What do you want a Fidel Castro book for?”
“Just ’cause I like ‘em, I guess,” he said letting the slip pass.
“I know the ones you’re talking about but they betty betty cheap. Not good for your purposes, I don’t think so.” The old man plucked his glasses out of his mouth and held them up to the light, examining them for grease stains. Brimm waited as the old man searched then cleaned his glasses with the hem of his beige guayabera shirt. “This is an important question you know, Mr Brimm, what you purpose is. Anyway, anyway. Drawing or writing?” he asked suddenly, then stuffed his glasses back in his mouth. “There’s a big difference.”
“For writing, I guess.”
“You guess?” the Chinese man chuckled. “I think you know. I can see that writer’s slump in you. It’s in your shoulders. I mean, not that you are in a slump or anything, it’s just that you got a writer’s slump… to your shoulders. Anyway, anyway,” the old man barreled on, “slump or no slump, you don’t need that Castro book for writing–that’s the problem.”
Brimm knocked his shoulders back. What is he getting at? I’m not in no slump. “So, where is it?” he said trying to get the conversation back on track.
“That’s not the one for you.” The old man replied. “I’m telling you, a notebook has to be just right.”
“Just right, huh?”
“Ye-up, just right” the old man chirped. “And don’t forget,” he said leaning forward and looking over his glasses. “You break the block with the right tools.”
That was it. Enough oriental b.s. Brimm angled in and pointed what he hoped was a menacing finger. “Look. Enough of this cryptic crossword mumbo-jumbo, alright? No more crap about slumps and problems and stuff. I just want to know if you’ve got any Limited Edition Faber-Castell notebooks. Not Fidel, either. But Faber, Fa-ber.”
“Hey-ey,” the old Chinese man whined then sat up and snapped the yellow notepad from off of the counter. “No offense, okay?” He said jerking his thumb towards the window. “It’s my slogan, that’s all. Your book’s in da back.”
Thomas looked out the window and watched the store’s sign swing in the wind. On the other side of the road a million billion particles of snow whirled into a cyclone, grew in radiance, achieved stasis, collapsed, picked up again, twisted, fell. Oh, to see a world in a flake of snow, Brimm thought and left the old man at the counter fully aware that he was not going to get another word out of him anyway–even if he did apologize, which he wasn’t about to do.
He wandered down the Used Books aisle surveying the collection of poetry and novels, a faint thwip, thwip, thwip, following in his wake as he ran his fingers along the spines’s of Lethem’s, Miller’s, Pynchon’s, Roth’s. His mind drifted over the titles: Mailer’s “American Dream,” Ellis’s “American Psycho,” Swift’s “Last Orders”… Order. Was that what the old guy was getting at? That he needed to see the patterns swirling under the surface of his life? Was his recent writing slump–well, maybe not so recent; it had been five years now–and the slump in his shoulders one and the same thing? But he had produced four books of notes all ready. Things were rolling. And in just five weeks! It was all there. Alive. He could see the patterns forming; just waiting there for him to organize into real literature, too. He smiled at the thought. One day his novel would be sitting between Anton Breton and Charles Bukowski–-a nice place to be.
He pulled out a dog-eared special edition of The New York Trilogy and turned it over. It was three bucks. Three shitty bucks. He looked back at the counter where the old Chinese man was slumped over his paper work. Maybe he’s not so bad, he thought, a soft petal of admiration tickling his throat as he replaced the book and headed towards the back. The old man’s comments gnawed at him, though. It was as if he had held out a message, but in such a circuitously bullshit Zen manner that Brimm couldn’t be bothered trying to figure it out. Was there something about order and life and purpose that he was supposed to piece together? Fuck that, he thought. That Paul Coehlo New Age crap is all just bullshit anyway. He let it slide.
The back of the store smelled faintly of old cigars and burlap sacks. The ceiling was low and sloped down to six feet in height and he had to duck slightly as he investigated the rows of wooden shelves storing a fine collection of notebooks and writing accessories. To his left stood a lone book rack made of a simple black iron which contained a number of handcrafted notebooks. From the accessories box he snapped up a Faber-Castell Uniball, black ink, mid tip pen and rolled it between his fingers admiring the keen attention to ergonomic detail. The pen was triangular with rounded edges and a comfortable black rubber casing. Perfect. Just perfect.
He went to the back wall and lifted a black Limited Edition Faber-Castell notebook from off of the shelf and ran his hand over the cover, frowning. For the last two weeks now he had blanketed the city searching for these notebooks; now not even Colby’s Books or Bult’s had copies anymore. He had one now though, finally, and waves of calm flowed through him. He opened it and flipped through the pages. Best use it wisely, he thought and put the book under his arm and turned to leave. But instead of going straight to the cashier’s counter he drifted over to a small bookrack and twirled it slowly.
It’s slightly bent axis vocalized a soft click–click–click as he eyed the selection of handmade notebooks. He was hypnotized by their beauty. From afar they didn’t look like much, but up close they shone. A white and grey hard bound journal with a water color of the Taj Mahal leaned next to one made of a tough brown leather with side stitching. He slid the Faber-Castell next to an expertly bound notebook adorned with a stylized Asian dragon sitting atop a steep mystical mountain. Propped there next to it made the Faber-Castel look dull and withered.
He stood back and scratched his neck. It was clear: his notebook was in there somewhere.
He gave the bookrack another spin–this time with force. The books blurred passed–click-click-click-click-click-click-click. His head turned in tight circles as he tried to focus on one of the books. Nothing came. Random–to hell with the old man and purpose and all that junk–what he wanted was the book to select him. He leaned closer, but nothing happened. Annoyed, he swatted at the rack and it clacked faster. He hit it again. And again. With each hit his anger rose. He swung harder and it tilted from side to side. The fact that it didn’t fall enraged him and he swung at the rack. It swayed and lurched but didn’t fall. He leaned back and gave it one final smack–as he did so, one thought, crystal clear in snowflake white, shone in his head: that fuckin’ bitch.
The bookrack crashed to the floor. His mind filled with old images of her and he sagged to the floor with his head in his hands, the plastic Solbey’s bag slumped at his side. That fucking bitch. He saw her as he remembered her best: cinematically. It was a sunny day in July and they had taken the midmorning bus up to Madeleine Falls. Whipperwills wafted through the air of ambrosia. They ate brunch on a blanket and headed to the falls where she leapt up onto the deck’s wall and skipped about. He asked her to come down, –you might hurt herself–but she was emboldened by his ticklishness and broke into a little Judy Garland song and dance number, her legs kicking out while she raised her tattered umbrella high over her shoulder. Behind her, the waterfall roared with applause. He snapped a picture and she jumped into his arms, laughing.
He sobbed, but didn’t cry. Couldn’t cry. There were no more tears; like a wet newspaper, anger, frustration, and shame seeped out of him thickly, blackly. Inside of himself he felt the familiar hollow, the sleepy hollow that remained after she had left him and now completely drained him. He wanted to go home and go to sleep. He dragged the bookrack up onto his lap and shoved the notebooks back into their slots and after they were in place, half dazed he picked himself and the book rack from up off of the floor. As he did so a notebook slid out and landed on the hardwood.
He looked over his shoulder towards the front of the store sure that the old man would be marching down the aisle to see what all the racket was about, but there was no sign of him. Only the yellow legal notepad remained sitting atop the counter. The store was as silent; as an empty coffee mug.
He edged over to the book, circled it. He hadn’t noticed this one when he looked before. He bent down on his hands and knees to get a closer look. It was extraordinarily plain: handmade, constructed of a tough recycled cardboard, no pictures, no ornamentation; not dark not light, just a simple tan peppered with darker flecks. On all fours he bent over the book and sniffed it, then stood up. From this high angle it looked like some strange doorway bolted into the ground. Where does it lead?
He swept the book up off of the floor. Its craftsmanship was simple yet impressive. Long-stitched with a sturdy brown leather cord that wrapped around the recycled cardboard cover and tied in a neat little knot in the front, its parchment-like pages were blank except for a thin line that stretched across the top. Other than that it was blank. Good. No obstructions, he thought jamming the power cord back into his plastic back and rushing back to the counter.
”I, ah, got a book,” Thomas said laying it on the counter and standing back to play with the frayed edges of his coat sleeve. Where did he come from? he wondered. He was sure the old man hadn’t been there a minute ago. Was it really just a minute ago? Time seemed to tug and warp around the density of the situation and he could no longer be sure how long he had been in the store. He brushed his confused thoughts aside. “Oh and this pen.”
“No problem,” the Chinese man said ringing in the products. “I see you went with one of the handmade notebooks.” He turned and looked directly at Brimm, who noticed something dark hunched in his arched asian eyes. He had switched again. The intellectual had evaporated, the friendly sage had sulked off, and now there was this. This what? Brimm edged away from the counter incapable of taking his eyes off of the old man who bore through him with his faded brown eyes. He was looking through Brimm. Passed his skin and fat cells and into his blood stream and beyond that into his leukocytes and plasma. With out warning, the dark thing darted away and the old man sagged back in his seat. His eyes faded to beige, he mumbled “Brimm” three or four times then snapped upright, “Ah-ha! I got it! You know the one: ‘Years steal fire from the mind as vigor from the limb; And Life’s enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim?’”
“Ah, no,” Thomas said, worried that the little Chinese man would start speaking in tongues again.
“That’s Byron. You like Byron?”
“Yeah, of course,” Brimm said his eyes skipping over the countertop and the shelves behind it. The faux cherry wood clock read 12:55. I’ve been here for a fuckin’ hour! How the hell did that happen?
“Byron sure loved to, ya know, baboom-boom, huh? Had maybe, like a thousand flumpities as he like to call them. And as many men too! And little boys, I think he mostly preferred little boys.” Brimm watched as the Chinese man’s color deepened, then his hair-line fracture of a mouth cracked open and he wheezed with laughter. “That’s a lot of baboom-boom, isn’t it Mr. Brimm?”
Thomas handed over ten bucks, the old man took it his shoulders still shaking with laughter and dug in the cash register for change.
“But, do you know who Byron’s real love was? I mean, love, you know? Not the baboom-boom kind, but love.” He was all marble statued seriousness now.
“No, no I don’t.”
“Botswain.”
“Botswain?” Thomas said eyeing the door.
“Yeah, this great big huge Newfoundland dog. That dog was the true love of his life. Byron never got over it, losing that dog. He even had a monument made when she die.” The Chinese man leaned forward, arched an eyebrow. “What about you Thomas Brimm?” he asked holding out Brimm’s change. “You got a baboom-boom buddy? Huh? Huh? She must be worry now. It’s late and Christmas is tomorrow, you know?”
Thomas grabbed the pen and notebook from off of the countertop and charged for the door. The old man called out after him–Hey mister your change!–but before he could finish, Brimm bolted through the door and headed out into the growing storm.
Part 2
Clear your mind and let it come, he thought and set about his routine. First, he placed the digital clock on the desk’s far left corner and then, after squaring a loose pile of papers with notes scribbled all over them at a right angle with the desk’s other corner, he placed the Goofy lamp on top of the pile and snapped it on, then off, then on one final time. He turned over her photo, the photo at the Falls. Remember: don’t speculate about plot or character and follow Palahniuk’s “egg timer method”– and when it comes, be ready to jump. He adjusted the seat’s height. Breathed in, held it, then exhaled. Just let it come. Finally ready, he placed the notebook in front of him and ran his index finger along the cover’s edge until it came to the bottom corner where he hooked in his finger and opened the book, the spine cracking like old wooden floor boards beneath some terrible weight–just let it come.
A half an hour oozed by and nothing came–not one word–and the first seeds of frustration broke from their husks. Alright, alright, he thought putting the pen behind his ear and nodding to himself, no worries, no worries. He rummaged through the desk’s drawer and dug out a bunch of elastic bands which he shot across the room. With his knees tucked up under his chin he pushed his chair away from the desk and spun in a loose little circle across the room to the doorway, where he picked up the wayward elastic bullets. Brimm stared across the room at the notebook and lazily fired some shots at it. Just give it a minute. This damn book picked me, remember? There is something in there, I know it. I just know it. He raised his hands to his temples and tried to will the blank pages to show him a story, a character, a narrative arc, something–anything.
The chair’s wheels grumbled over the rough wooden floor as he slid back to the desk and glared at the notebook. “Okay you fucker,” he said realigning himself at the desk, “let’s do this.” But the notebook remained blank and twenty minutes later, it was still blank. Brimm breathed, leaned back, drummed his fingers, eyed the clock–it was quarter after three in the morning. He picked up the book ready to hurl it across the room. He squeezed it in his hands and shook it, his teeth bared. Annoyed, he dropped it back on the desk where it crashed with a thump. He poked the book repeatedly as if trying to pick a fight with it then screamed “What the fuck is the problem?”
He flipped to the back and opened the small envelope glued to the back of the notebook. He slipped his finger inside and pulled out a simple cardboard business card. It read:
——————————————————————–
Hillary Thoms
Books, Bindings, and all things Crafty
2014 B Water Street. G7F 4M3
e-mail: thecraftsinthecaring@gmail.com
——————————————————————–
He flipped the business card idly and wondered what Hillary Thoms looked like. He pictured a woman in her mid forties, early fifties maybe, with a loosely knit cardigan falling from her narrow shoulders and a halo of cracked and frazzled grey hair crowning her head. He saw her, diminutive but not demure, in a little shop surrounded by beads and scissors and swaths of leather, hunching over an unfinished book, her thick yet dexterous hands working carefully. “Thanks for the Christmas gift Mrs. Thoms,” he said aloud and replaced the business card, confident that his story would write itself.
He got up and looked out the bay window at the grey clouds that were rolling onto the house’s across the street which, except for the sagging lines of tiny Christmas lights blinking and twinkling and swaying from the eaves, were shut down for the night. He leaned onto the sill and a chill crept in through the window casting his elbow with a crisp coolness while he smoked a Player’s cigarette. Outside, the wind rattled the window and the trees. He inhaled his final draw and turned to crush the cigarette in the ashtray at his desk when a movement, a shadow of a life, caught his eye. He turned back and gazed out the window. A lone figure carrying a black briefcase came into view and trundled up the street, leaving a trail of shapeless black boot prints following behind him.
A million questions snuck into Brimm’s mind. He couldn’t figure it out. What’s a man in a dark trench coat and a black fedora doing roaming the streets? And at this hour? His writer’s mind kicked in. Narratives formed. Ignited by the possibilities, Brimm rolled down the blinds so the man wouldn’t see him and peeked through–watching.
The man kept a slow plodding pace, now and then stopping to look at the houses or the cars in the driveways, but never for very long and never with any real intent. Try as he might, Brimm couldn’t discern a clear pattern in the man’s actions–it all seemed random and quite harmless, he had to admit. But something tugged at Brimm and he leaned farther into the window trying to figure it out. He watched the man as he sauntered through the freezing wind and the blustering snow, down passed the red Post Office mailbox and the little white picket fence surrounding the old grey house on the corner, his briefcase swinging merrily by his side in time to his peppy little jaunt, swinging and swaying as if he were humming a pleasant tune on a gorgeous summer day, when suddenly the man stopped and reached out his hand to touch a big chestnut tree that grew on the sidewalk between the two street poles, and then slowly he raised his head admiring the tree trunk and up beyond that to the branches that arched and cracked over the middle of the street and finally touched the sky and, as if he were following a vapor trail, the man looked upwards, higher and higher, his head turning slowly up over his shoulder, then arching behind it, rotating further and further, like an owl, until he faced the direction of Thomas’s window and stared.
The man had a long face and his eyes nailed into Brimm’s own. Brimm was stuck; unable to move. It was as if the man had found the object of a lifelong search and wasn’t going to let in get away again.
The blinds snapped as Tomas leapt away from the window and into the shadows. His heart drum rolled.
Jesus. What was that all about? That man…. He….
He crept back to the window and peeked out through the blinds. He scanned the street again up, down, and up again but there was no sign of the man–it was as if he had disappeared. In a fit of fear, Brimm rushed across the room and yanked the chain across the door. His mind scudded and skipped over the irrational: Where the hell did he go? Did he see me? People just don’t disappear. He can’t be coming here–he can’t be! Can he?
Sounds picked up. The wind shook the trees and their arthritic branches scratched long gnarly nails along the outside of his apartment. Inside, the fridge kicked in, groaning.
What the hell am I worried about? I’m freaking for nothing. It’s just some dude. But the way he looked at me. It was… not right.
A few minutes ticked by before Brimm relaxed and bit by bit his nerves resettled into a rickety rigidity. What am I worried about? he repeated chuckling to himself. He scanned his room. There was no christmas tree, no presents, no jewelry, no nothing really. It’s not like he’s going to get anything anyway.
He strolled into the kitchen and fixed a drink. The kitchen was a compact room with a small table and two lime green chairs wedged between a fridge and a gas range stove. Two letter magnets, F and U, dropped to the floor as he pulled a Girl Guides calendar from off of the side of the fridge and put an “X” through December 25th. Not much time left. I gotta get this story down. I’ve just go to. If I get it down and get it to her, maybe then I can get her back. A dank smell of stale cabbage and freon burped out at him as he opened the refrigerator and took in the contents. There was a half eaten package of O’Grady’s sliced ham and a loaf of white bread, two brown eggs and a bottle of Heinz 57. He pulled out the other item, a chilled bottle of London Gin, and took a long, hard swig.
He lit a Player’s Light and smoked it. It ain’t gonna happen, he thought and guessed it was well passed four in the morning. He drank more. It’s just not going to happen. The booze rounded out the edges of his mind while he sat at the table drinking, erasing his frustrations about the notebook, the story, his problems, whatever. Fuck it all, he thought and sat and stared above the kitchen table where a small window acted as a frame for a picture he had cut out of a Time magazine and hung there. It was a black and white photo of a ticker tape parade. Brimm stared at it and drank. About an hour passed in this way and with the bottle nearly empty, he slumped at the table and shut his eyes.
The thoughts of the man and the notebook and the Chinese man and everything else that was odd that day slid from his mind.
He awoke an hour later with his head still buzzing from the booze. He got up from the table, stretched, and went back into the living room when it struck him–it was that same feeling he had had in the Chinese man’s shop: a kind of cleansing clarity, a crystal certainty like it was all there, awash, given to him by some freak insight, laid out in full: the setting, the characters, the plot–everything.
He rushed into the other room and over to his desk. Of course, some things’ll have to be ironed out like names and some locations and a few subplots, yes, yes, of course a plot point or two will have to be worked out--typical, typical, he thought smiling, and of course I’m going to have to figure out what symbols to use–but I can get it done. I can do it! Ha! Don’t forget symbols! And metaphors–
He scratched one word on the notebook, feeling the doors open but as he was about to write another there was a knock, knock, knock at the door. The sound shattered his concentration and his story blew away like leaves on a lawn. In his mind the bits and pieces that remained slowly faded back and away and dissolved into the neurochemical percolate. Gone.
Knock, knock, knock. He shot an eye at the door with murder on his mind. He looked at his notebook and it was terribly, awfully blank. Blank except for one simple word. And so was he: blank except for one simple word: “fuck.”
Knock, knock.
Who’s there? he sneered and laid down his pen.
It’s that fuckin’ guy with the hat, he thought and swiped the blinds aside and looked out the window. The clouds were gone now and the sun streaked the sky in an orange amber yellow. Living room lights yellowed the houses across the street. The storm had ended but inside of himself, he felt another one was beginning.
Knock, knock, knock.
He strode to the door and opened it a little, not enough so that the chain stretched taut, but enough to sneak a look at the man in the doorway. The hallway was dark and there was clearly a lack of jingle bell cheer floating through his apartment. A wall sconce illuminated a man with a long dark coat, a fedora, and a black briefcase which he carried in his right hand–his knuckles were white.
“Good day, sir” the man said producing a business card. “My name is Steven, Steven James and I was wondering if I could….”
“I don’t care what you were wondering. It’s Christmas and I….”
“Yes sir, I know,” the man said smiling. Brimm noticed that one tooth, the front left one was cracked. “Merry Christmas. Isn’t this a truly glorious season?”
“I suppose so,” Brimm said playing along to get a better look. It’s him, it’s definately him.
“Well, sir, how about a set of Gideon’s bibles to remind you of the true spirit of the holiday season? I got both Testaments–the Old and the New. And these?” he said producing a thin black book from his breast pocket, “These are free! Yes sir, a new set of psalms by Reverend….”
“I gotta get back to work,” Brimm mumbled. A fucking Bible thumper! I can’t believe a shit like this took my story from me.
“Work, sir, on Christmas Day, the day of our Savior’s birth?”
“Yeah, I’m working” Brimm said looking into his apartment at his desk and the notebook. “The same as you.”
“Touché, sir!” the man said gripping the briefcase. “But when it comes to the message of God….”
“Look fella, I gotta take off. Good luck with the sales,” he said and shut the door. Just go buddy. It’s best for you if you do. Please! Please just go away. He waited for the sound of footsteps to fade down the stairwell, but instead an awkward silence hung heavily around the door’s circumference and then a knock, knock, knock interrupted it.
“Sir?” the salesman’s soft voice drifted through the door. “I know you are still there, sir.”
Brimm stared at the door and breathed.
“Sir, I think you should open the door, sir.”
He dropped his head to his chest. Squeezed his eyes shut–breathed.
“This book, sir,” the salesman continued. “This book can help you with your problems.”
Part 3
Brimm sat in his recliner, rocking. The salesman, Steven James, was perched across from him on the mattress’s edge, several bibles stacked between them and the salesman was pointing at them, explaining. The salesman’s black briefcase lay propped up against the door.
“This cover is made of a simple, synthetic plastic–it’s just made to look like the real thing, but this one, this one here? This one is made of real Moroccoan leather and it gets better with age, but it will cost ya’ a tidy bundle.”
“Uh-huh,” Brimm muttered and lit a Player’s Light, studying the salesman. His face was smooth, almost youngish, with a light stubble sandpapering his face, while the light in the salesman’s dark beady eyes stared just up and over Brimm’s shoulder–never directly at him. Brimm watched the man smiling and warbling on about psalms and prayers and the Lord and all the while staring just up over Brimm’s shoulder.
“Of course,” the salesman pitched, “these ones here are only samples and it will take a few weeks to get’em to you, if you order them that is.” He grabbed a Bible with a Morrocooan cover and opened it to show Brimm the stylized New Times Roman typeface, which he explained, was unique to this series and by all accounts had been well received by the millions of people who have filled out the subscription, which he was presently sliding in front of Brimm.
Brimm took the sheet and thought of killing the man. It was a cold blooded thought that slithered in, hissing. I could do it, he reasoned pretending to analyze the form. I could go into the kitchen and grab a knife–just have to tell him I’m making coffee or something. Brimm looked up from the form and watched the salesman’s mouth form words, but they were soundless and unconnected to anything, they drifted towards him in a liquid form and his ears, ill equipped, could not discern a word of it. Besides what difference would it make? I’d be doing that sorry sack of shit a favor. And anyways, he took my story.
“So…do you?” the salesman asked smiling, his eyes gazing over and beyond Brimm’s right shoulder.
”Do I what, exactly?” Brimm replied shaking his head.
”Hey, come on now,” the salesman asked his eyes darting around the room. “Are you fooling with me? Do you have one here already?”
”Have what?”
“A Bible.”
”No, no I don’t.”
“Oh, Come on now. There has got to be one here somewhere,” the salesman said and leaned across the mattress to look in the milk carton night table.
“I don’t have one,” Brimm said spreading his hands, smiling. I mean, if a guy is wandering the streets at night, he must be alone, no family to miss him. No baboom-boom buddy….
“I see-ee,” the salesman said curling his lip into the corner of his mouth and exposing a cracked front tooth. It seemed to Brimm to be an uneven thing for a Bible salesman. Probably got it trying to sell this crap.
The salesman got up from the mattress and stomped over towards the desk. One of the bibles tipped over and tumbled to the ground. Brimm looked at it and then back to his notebook and recalled the notebook tumbling out of the bookrack back at The Write Tools Stationary Shop.
”I think I need a drink,” Brimm said getting up from his chair. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”
”Why that’d be great, sir.”
“Indeed it would,” Brimm said and headed into the kitchen, the salesman droning on behind him about shepherds and their flock. Brimm set about making the coffee mechanically heating the water, opening the cupboard, pulling out a jar of Maxwell House, scooping two lumps of instant into two cups and pouring the hot water glug, glug, glug into the cups which he put on a tray with two slices of bread and the Hienz 57. Next to these he put a large boning knife.
They sipped coffee together, the salesman seated back on the mattress and Brimm in the recliner. The bread and Heinz 57 stayed on the tray. So did the knife. During the slurping silence Brimm’s eyes kept darting back and forth between the man and the knife, the man and the knife. After a couple of minutes the salesman thanked Brimm for the coffee and walked over to the desk where he picked up Brimm’s notebook, turned it over, and asked Brimm if he wanted to buy the bibles.
“I don’t think so,” Brimm replied and picked up the knife. He sliced the bread in two. “Break bread with me?” he asked.
“No thanks.”
”Are you sure?”
”Yes, sir. And the bibles?
”No thanks. Bread?”
”But it can help you with your–”
”Its not going to help me with any goddamned problems,” Brimm growled.
”But, sir, all problems are God delivered. And we all have our problems,” he said looking around the room and frowning at the filth and squalor. “I mean, look: you are alone on Christmas Day in this dingy apartment–”
”So are you, Stephen, so are you.”
The salesman looked around and shifted from side to side then squared hmself and looked back at Brimm. “Haven’t you heard of Deuteronomy–”
”Fuck Deuteronomy.”
The boning knife became real then and he fought it back. “Look, you’re wasting your time on me,” Brimm said getting out of his chair and facing the salesman. “I think you should leave now.”
“Excuse me, sir?”
“Leave now,” he said pointing at the door with the boning knife.
“But this is the Word of God,” the salesman said his voice high and cracked and his eyebrows low. He picked up a Bible and walked across the room towards the desk. “God speaks to you through this book,” he said leaning on the desk. “
”Get. Get out now” he said slowly.
The two men stared at each other. The salesman broke the deadlock and Brimm followed the salesman’s eyes as they snuck over to the door with the briefcase leaning on it. The room’s air was stale and sweating and it felt hard for Brimm to breathe.
The salesman fidgeted then stood up straight, his chin leaning forward. “You know,” he asked bouncing the notebook in his hand, “that I can’t do that.”
Brimm stared.
“I can’t do that, sir. Those who are lost are never a waste of one’s time; but rather the ones who waste it.” He reached out to Brimm, his hand hovering just over the knife. “Let me help you, sire. Let God help you.”
Brimm crushed his cigarette on the floor. His teeth bit into each other. “Why were you walking outside last night?”
“Sorry, sir?” The salesman said looking around the room.
”I asked: why were you walking around the street, spying on me.”
”I’m sorry sir. I think you must have the wrong person. I wasn’t spyi–”
”I saw you.”
”N-no, sir, you’re mistaken. I was at church.” Again the salesman looked at the briefcase leaning onto the door and then back at Thomas Brimm with the knife waving lazily below his bloodshot eyes. Suddenly, Brimm charged at the man toppling the bibles stacked in the middle of the floor, but the salesman was quicker and darted over to the door where he kicked aside the briefcase and grabbed the door handle. He turned back to face Brimm. “Sir, I….”
“Don’t. Don’t. Don’t!”
“Sir, I think–”
Brimm charged again but the salesman scrambled out of the apartment slamming the door behind him. A second later, Brimm yanked the door open and threw the knife down the stairwell where it crashed against the wall and barely missed the salesman as he took the stairs three at a time, practically breaking his neck as he left.
Brimm returned to his room full of bibles. It was three hours before he noticed that the notebook was missing.
Part 4
Near midnight, with a new mellenium stretching ahead for miles and miles and the snow whipping all around her, a woman named Hilary Thomas leaned onto the wrought iron railing and pulled herself up the stairs to her tiny craft store. A snowdrift the size of a Manhattan tower leaned into the entrance and she shoveled it aside, then grabbed a thick wad of mail out of her mailbox and trundled inside. She shrugged off her coat and tossed it over her chair and sat down to shuffle through the large lump of mail. There were bills, always bills, and a request for a handmade ledger for a wedding, at the bottom of the stack a simple cardboard notebook stared up at her.
She turned the leather bound book in her hand.
She recognized it. It was an older notebook that she had made sometime in the early nineties when she was working with the German long stitch technique and trying to use recycled products. She opened it and flipped through the pages, which were empty except for one strange word written in a scratchy, nearly desperate handwritting.
She read the word aloud–-”Botswain”-–unsure of whether to punctuate it as a flat statement or a curious lifting question.
Then she repeated it–-”Botswain.”
