Old man waited many years to make the phone call. Always knew the time would come. And when he finally called had to convince book buyer come down and look at his barn. Entice with goodies he’d find. Seventy boxes, he said, the best possible. Cheap. A lifetime, off my hands. Reluctantly Theodore the buyer of books, proprietor of used bookstore some tumbling mountain river hipsters fly-fishermen and readers love, agreed to drive to New Haven and inspect this archaeology. The old man lived alone. Perhaps sophist of the old school, amateur intellectual kept to his room. Books imprint mind. Ordinarily Teddy wouldn’t drive distance to see no darn barn of books. People think they have refined collections. Teddy must explain, make excuses and it can get ugly about personality, price and time. The old man, though, insistent. Regular calls for more than a year: Down to my barn check out my books. Lifetime, best you’ll ever find. Couldn’t argue with the titles. Any spelunker would ever require. Seventy boxes, cheap. Curt Teddy agreed to hit New Haven, adding New York to visit a cousin. Arrived at the old man’s barn. Haggard, grizzled, unstable. Teetered and Teddy thought he might die right there. Rasped and spoke lovingly of his books: “Been with me forever, every single word. Find them a nice home, always loved your store. Hours. Seventy boxes.” Floor to ceiling the barn. Teddy good thing he brought the truck. Investigated the boxes up front: excellent titles, university presses. Opened them; smelled them; quickly calculated a price. Twenty-five-hundred. Opened more boxes, inhaled, fingered, plumbed and poked. Looked all right to him. Old man fidget, rasped loudly damn wheeze-keel. Exclaimed he really didn’t want to get rid of them. So long to his life. Teddy get out of there, said to himself. Loaded the truck and the seventy boxes only forty. Already paid, attempted renegotiation. Old man held the cash and refused. “My life,” he said. Teddy didn’t want the guy to die in the barn so he decided to cut his losses and get the hell out. Closer inspection revealed not all the boxes were full. Worse, the books were underlined with yellow and orange highlighter, streaks on every page, table of contents and introductions and covers. The old man marked everything, pencil margins, first edition hardcovers motherfucking crayon. Began weeping, thought of lawyers, court case and feeble old man. Cut, friends told him, and so he forklifted the entire load into the dumpster and filled the dumpster and overflowed to the gravel and he took a snapshot and thumbtacked it to a beam.
