Bob’s store of used dreams (1976)

Jimmy drags me to Bob’s bookstore in Boonton to help Bob close up shop – a big disappointment for Jimmy because for the previous two years he could almost always trade books with Bob for pot.

It doesn’t really occur to Jimmy why Bob was upset when we get there.

Bob complains about Jimmy’s being late and that we have every little time to pack up all the books – what Bob intends to do with them after that was anybody’s guess.

The volumes he deals with are hardly best sellers or if they are, they made the New York Times list sometime prior to the fall of the Roman Empire.

Jimmy, of course, owes Bob for a life time of favors that include additional out of the way trips such as picking Jimmy up at Ginger’s Towaco house, dropping him off at the library, Quick Chek or shopping mall, while in-between buying lunch (Jimmy’s version of Whimpey’s “I’ll gladly pay your Tuesday for a hamburger today,” with Tuesday not coming until today, and today being Sunday leaving us one day to clear out the store before the landlord sweeps in with a bulldozer to clear out the junk and cobwebs to make way for some boutique or antique shop or some other high fashion place the landlord aspires to have an a tenant.

Bob claims yuppies don’t’ read anything but self-help books that won’t help them anyway because they are too far gone to be helped.

“They all hate us aging hippies,” Bob says. “They’re just waiting for us to die so they can take over.”

“Take over what?” I ask.

Neither Jimmy nor Bob has an answer.

Inside, the store smells of rotting paper and with good reason. The store front has bookshelves along every wall, and across the intervening free space with aisles so narrow even the always skinny Bob struggles to get through them. And all the bookshelves sag, overstuffed with ancient tomes on whose leather spines the print has worn away to dust.

The heat makes it worse, cooking the old paper so that each breath seems as thick as beer in my lungs.

“What’s with the heat?” Jimmy asks.

“I don’t know,” Bob says. “It’s always been like that. Must be the way the air circulates.”

“Or doesn’t,” Jimmy says. “Maybe you should open some windows.”

“They are open. They are always open. Even in winter.”

“Maybe you should have opened a nudist bookstore where people could leave their clothes at the door,” Jimmy says.

“I don’t think the town would like that,” Bob says. “The mayor hates hippies, too.”

“Well, the sooner we get this over with the better off we’ll be,” Jimmy says. “Where exactly are we moving them to?”

“My apartment.”

“All these books to your apartment? I thought you had another location in mind.”

“I can’t afford another location. I dumped all my inheritance in this place – I was sure Boonton was the perfect location – I mean will the college graduates who live in the towns around here.”

“So, what happened?” I ask.

“I told you, yuppies don’t read – I should have opened a comic bookstore, something on their reading level. I made a huge mistake investing in classics.”

Jimmy examines one of the books.

“I would hardly call these classic – these things are so dull nobody read them even when they were in print, which is nearly a century ago or more.”

“It’s TV,” I suggest.

“If it is, then it’ll only get worse,” Jimmy says. “There are things on the horizon that will make TV out of date.”

Jimmy is up on a lot of those things, always predicting amazing things we will see – not like the Worlds Fair a decade ago, but stranger. He and Ritchie Gordy sometimes talk about what’s on the horizon. Gordy builds Heath Kid computers, and attaches them to phone lines, tapping into some strange information world I still don’t understand.

“It’s America,” Bob mumbles. “I should have opened my store in Paris.”

“Where nobody reads English?” Jimmy asks.

“Some people do.”

“I’m gonna suffocate,” Jimmy says. “There must be some way to let more air in here.”

“There’s more windows in the back I’ve never been able to get open,” Bob says.

Bob hands Jimmy a screwdriver and somehow, we manage to wedge the back windows open.

Fresh air from an early spring pours through the opening though not enough to dispel the scent of cooked paper and the sense of age inside the storefront.

Bob doesn’t seem to mind the smell. He has lived with it his whole life, not just for the two years he’s operated this store.

Maybe it reminds him of his father – the old man I always used to see seated in the living room of their house on the hill, newspaper or book in front of his face without which I might not recognize him.

He and Bob are so much alike they might be twins – except that Bob has become enamored with Jimmy, the way we all have, sending him in a far different and less practical direction, selling books in Boonton nobody wants to buy.

Bob tells us we can choose any book we want as payment for helping him move since he can’t possibly afford to pay us in cash – though Jimmy wants something other than a book.

I look over the spines of books I can barely read, even if the gold lettering wasn’t as faded as it is, volumes about subjects so obtuse I need a college course just to learn how to peal open their covers – though Bob assures me I might fine one or two amusing.

Jimmy grumbles about the fact that Frank isn’t here yet.

“He promised to help,” Jimmy mumbles.

I tell him I’m sure Frank will get here. I have my doubts, having heard from Frank about some new romance with some younger woman who none of us have yet met.

I ask how Bob expects to fit all these books in his apartment.

“I’ve seen your apartment, Bob, it’s half the size of this place,” I say.

“I can’t keep them all,” Bob mumbles, sadly, looking down at his hands like a father who must choose between his offspring, which shall live, which shall die, which does he love the most.

Bob tells us another collector made an offer on some of his books, but only the good ones, the rare ones, the books Bob intends to keep.

“Maybe you just leave the books here that you don’t want,” Jimmy says. “Let the landlord figure out what to do with them.”

“I would. But I want my deposit back,” Bob says. “I leave a mess the landlord will keep it – besides, he’ll throw them out.”

“Isn’t that what you’ll end up doing anyway?”

“I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t look my father in the eye if I did.”

Jimmy sighed.

“I always thought running a bookstore part time on weekends was a bad idea,” he said. “But I have an idea. But I wish Frank was here. We’re going to need more hands to do this.”

“What did you have in mind?” I ask.

“First let’s separate the books you want, Bob, from the ones you don’t. After that, I’ll tell you what we can do.”

That alone is a chore, a military operation that takes us through the store one bookcase after another, creating piles near the front door – the largest of which is the pile we have to somehow dispose of.

Jimmy is in the back of the store when he gives a yelp.

“What is it?” I ask.

“Come here and I’ll show you,” he says.

Bob and I converge on Jimmy who has just finished emptying a bookcase at the rear of the store. He points to the wall.

“You know what that is?” he asks.

Bob squints through his glasses.

“It looks like a thermostat?”

“Exactly. And do you see what it’s set at?”

I look. the line points to the number 90.

“It’s been on that high since the day you moved in two years ago,” Jimmy says. “No wonder it’s so hot in here. And no wonder your landlord wants you out. He must be paying a fortune in heat. But no point in turning it down now. Let’s just pack up the books you want in your car and get the hell out of here.”

“What about the other books?” I ask.

“We’ll take them up the street to the library,” Jimmy says.

“The library is closed,” Bob says. “Besides, they won’t want most of these books and won’t take all these if they did.”

“They’ll have to do something with them if they find them piled on the front step,” Jimmy says. “Today is Sunday. We have the rest of the day to get them up there and then get the hell out of town.”

“That’s not going to be easy,” I say. “There’s a hell of a lot of books to move.”

“Then, we better get started,” Jimmy says.

Jimmy finds a hand truck; Bob stacks books on it; I wheel this up the hill to the library where I put the books near the door and when I run out of room there, on the steps, leaving just enough room between them for someone in the morning to make their way to the door with the key.

It is tedious work and we are overheated even outside, Jimmy complaining the whole time about the number of books Bob manage to collect over the years.

“Has anyone told you that you are not the Library of Congress?” he asks Bob.

Then he bitches about how unfaithful Frank is.

“He promised to be here,” Jimmy says. “I though I could rely on him.”

“When it comes between being loyal to you and being with a woman, the woman wins all the time,” I said.

“I’ve seen the kind of women Frank goes with, he’s better off with us,” Jimmy says.

Then, he stops, stares up the street.

“Cheese it, guy, it’s the fuzz!”

I glance up the hill just in time to see the patrol car turning the corner near the library.

“If he looks at the books on the library steps and then sees us, we’re doomed,” Jimmy says. “Quick, pull everything inside.”

So, we drag the hand truck full of books through the door, stacks of books Bob has ready tumble like the center of San Francisco during an earthquake, one pile falling into the next until there is nothing but rubble.

Jimmy stares out at the street.

“What’s he doing?” Bob asks.

“He’s going slow,” Jimmy says. “Do you think he’s on to us?”

“Maybe not,” Bob says. “There have been a number of burglaries.”

“On Sunday?” Jimmy snarls. “Those cads!”

“It’s getting hot in here again,” I say. “Can you open the door more.”

“Not without the cop seeing us when he passes.”

“Why should that matter?” Bob says. “We’re not burglars. This is my store.”

“Precisely. Tomorrow the library is going to see those books and call the cops. If the cop sees us in here today, he’ll remember that tomorrow and then come looking for us. Do you really want to go to jail for illegally dumping books?”

“If we’re going to get arrested, I wish he would do it soon, jail couldn’t be any hotter than this,” I say.

Slowly, the patrol car makes its way down the street, the officer inside inching long the curb to stare into each shop as he passes, coming closer and closer until we’re scared, he will see us even with the door closed.

Then, he passes us, and moves down the hill, and then is gone from sight.

“We need to get this over faster,” Jimmy says.

“It would go faster if you did more than supervise,” Bob says.

“With you two somebody has to supervise,” Jimmy says. “But if I must, I must.”

And so, he starts stacking books outside for me to collect with the hand truck, and I roll them up to the library only to find twice as many stacks on the sidewalk as when I left.

“Don’t they ever run out?” I ask. “The books I mean.”

“The store is almost empty,” Bob assures me.

“It is. I’m running out of room in front of the library. I’ve already filled up their return book bin, too.”

Eventually, I get to the last stack and roll it up to the library, and leave it on the sidewalk there because there is no place left to put any, piles of books as tall as I am, waiting for a good wind to knock them all down into the street.

I get back to the store to find Bob standing in front of is with Jimmy yanking on his sleeve to make him leave.

“I’m going to miss this place,” Bob says.

“Yeah, yeah, but it’s over now. We have a long way to drive to get the rest of the books to your house.”

“I suppose,” Bob mumbles and turns away.

“I get the passenger seat,” Jimmy tells me.

“But the back seat is loaded with books.”

“You’ll fit if you squeeze.”

“I can squeeze better in the front seat with you.”

“With my trick knee?” Jimmy says. “Forget it. Speaking of which…” Jimmy addresses Bob. “You won’t forget what you promised me for helping with this will you?”

“No,” Bob mumbles. “I won’t forget your pot.”

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