He holds something he made out of a paper plate. I can’t quite make out what it is supposed to be, but it has eyes, a mouth and pointy yellow cardboard ears glued on at ten o’clock and two o’clock.
“It’s a owl,” he says as he offers it proudly to me and I examine it.
“An owl,” I correct him with a paternal smile.
“An owl,” he parrots back. Someday he will be a teenager and resent being corrected by his dad.
“Can I put it on the wall?” I ask.
“Which wall?”
“Where we eat. Near the table.”
“Okay.”
“If you want. I could do a better one.”
“I like this one.”
“Then you can have it,” he says with a shy blush.
“Thank you.” I take it from him and place it carefully on the back seat of the Volvo.
I help him buckle his seat belt, making sure it doesn’t catch him under the neck. I quickly flush from my mind the potential consequences of a collision with the seat belt riding under his neck. Caleb’s lifeless body, a deep purple bruise under his Adam’s apple flits through my brain. Sometimes it is as if my thought path wanders through the hallways of a suburban multiplex theater and from the dark hall I mistakenly stumble into the theater that shows a grizzly slasher movie on the screen above me. I look up at the screen where I see heads are being lopped off, race to the exit and then I must ploddingly retrace my way through the labyrinthine gray hallway to the light romantic comedy for which I bought a ticket.
“T-ball at four,” I say. I know he won’t be pleased. Caleb is not an athlete. For that matter, except for sailing, neither am I. He doesn’t complain, which only makes me feel like more of a bully for dragging him to this court of scant pleasure. But it is in his best interest I tell myself. Caleb needs to coordinate his young reflexes and he must learn the team ethic to prepare him for high school, because as we all are painfully aware, high school is the last stop in social progress.
“Can we get Twisters?” he asks. He believes he is doing me a giant favor by going to T-ball and the Twister is his quid pro quo.
No need to negotiate. I’m proud that he prefers an original Twister (soft-serve ice cream mixed in a blender with your choice of cookie and candy pieces) at funky old Foster’s Freeze to the poseur McFlurry at McDonald’s. What can I say? He is an old soul.
At the park ballfield on the industrial edge of town, sated after having had a medium Twister with Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Oreos mixed in, Caleb is pushed into the on-deck circle by his coach for the Santa Monica Meridians (the local appliance dealer who initially bankrolled the uniforms chose the team name for an inexplicable reason). Nearly all T-ball batters will get on base as six-year-old infielders rarely can make the throw to first for an out. Since the ball sits on top of a tee, there are no strikeouts. To make sure the game ends finitely, the rules dictate that the inning is finished after each player has had one turn at bat. The first kid at bat on Caleb’s team pops one past a napping shortstop and he’s at second base in a flash.
When it is Caleb’s turn (near the end of the roster) he dribbles a small grounder down the first base line directly to the first baseman who traps it and touches the bag. Caleb doesn’t seem to be bothered at all when he’s called out and returns to the bench wearing a benign, goofy smile. Whether it turns out to be an asset or a liability for him in his life, it seems he will not be tortured by the remorse and recrimination that dog a man with a fiercely competitive nature.
The last member of his roster dinks a single, but the inning is over nonetheless. To his credit, Caleb looks around and notices his teammates putting on gloves. He finds the flimsy, Chinese-made fielder’s glove I bought for him in the sale bin at Big 5 and ambles distractedly out to deep left field where he is left-fielder number two. An eleven man T-ball roster allows for two players to cover each of three sections of the outfield (there is no pitcher), and the coach places Caleb far enough back that he would never actually come in contact with a live ball unless Barry Bonds were to arrive at the plate (or should I say “tee”). Caleb is perfectly pleased not to have the performance anxiety that would accompany any real possibility of having to field a ball and throw it to one of the bases.
Left-fielder number one, the son of a litigator, crouches with cheetah-like attention. He is ready to attack any long balls that might come his way and to incidentally cover any territory that might remotely be considered Caleb’s (for the sake of the team, of course). My progeny looks up at the sky, perhaps scanning for birds in flight, then down to the ground, maybe looking for odd crawly things. Then he picks absently at a scab on his wrist. All the while he is completely unmindful of the young batter about to address the ball that sits poised at the top of the 30-inch tee.
I am on the peeling bleachers and settle in for a long inning. By choice I am at the end of an empty row, distanced from a gregarious gaggle of parents and their condescending suggestions about how I might work with Caleb to help him build confidence. I could never explain without sounding neglectful that Caleb’s approach to T-ball is not simply a matter of confidence. I tried explaining his gentle spirit once to a beefy sportsmother as she nodded in a patronizing way that was code to me as mock sympathy for Caleb’s incipient gayness.
Fortune smiles on Caleb as only a couple of Jaguar batters manage to get past the infield. One well-hit ball is easily scooped up by the litigator’s son who throws smartly to third base where the uncoordinated Meridian third baseman bobbles it and the runner, at the insistence of an overwrought parent acting as third base coach, trots home for what must have been the fortieth run. There is no scoreboard but the parents on the other end of the bleachers assiduously keep the tally.
When the last hitter on the other team hits a bouncing single, the inning is over. The Jaguars, our estimable opponents, slide on their gloves and head out to the field as the Meridians trot in. Except Caleb, who simply stands there. He remains in place as the Jaguars left-fielder number two takes his position next to him. Parents titter. I feign unconcern under their sideways glances. The coach, Larry, a pleasant-enough, out-of-work sitcom writer, yells out to him.
“Hey Caleb!”
Caleb looks at him, but stands statue motionless.
“Time to bat!” Larry yells good-naturedly.
This time Caleb shakes his head in the negative, holding his body straight like a stick.
“Caleb? Come on in, kiddo!”
Caleb stands his ground. The Jaguars coach looks impatiently to Larry. I watch as Larry sighs and walks out in Caleb’s direction. Caleb hasn’t moved, even with the apparent urging of the rival second left-fielder. I hear a mother’s whisper in the bleachers next to me.
“Maybe he peed his pants.”
I want to tell her that Caleb has a very strong bladder. Perhaps there are bladder control problems in her family, but not in ours. Not that I know of. Larry reaches Caleb, and says something to him, but Caleb shakes his head. Larry looks imploringly to the stands, finds me. Under the gaze of the team and the other parents I walk from the bleachers onto the field. When I reach Caleb, Larry and the other young fielder back off to give us some father-son space.
“You okay, Caleb?”
No response.
“Your team’s at bat. You’re supposed to come in.”
“There’s a bee,” he says with a look of panic and urgency.
“What?”
“There’s a bee.”
“Where?”
“Out here.”
“Where?” I look around and don’t see a bee.
“He was here.”
“He must be gone.”
Caleb isn’t a particularly fearful child, although this must make him sound that way. Up to this moment I didn’t know that he was afraid of bees. He has never been stung to the best of my knowledge. He is phobic about needles and I suppose that bees similarly have something sharp that violates your epidermis.
“If he was her
e, he’s gone now.”
“He’s here! He’s here!”
“You can’t stay here, Caleb.”
“Yes I can!”
“Do you want me to carry you in?”
I ask this question only to prod him to move. But he doesn’t respond, just looks up hopefully, wide-eyed.
“Do you want me to carry you in front of everybody?”
He nods. “Yes.”
“Really?” I ask.
“Yes.”
If he can stand the humiliation, why can’t I? I look at the tittering parents, at his giggling teammates, at the impatient coach. I reach out my arms and Caleb grabs immediately and firmly. I hoist him up and carry him off. When we arrive at the dugout he seems pleased and proud that his Dad had been there for him as he announces to his teammates with wide-eyed wonder, “There was a big bee out there.”
I retreat to the bleachers and stand on the side, not wanting to sit. A couple of mothers regard me with feigned empathy.
“There’s a big bee out there,” I call to them. I turn to watch Caleb as he waits his turn at bat. I wonder where he carries his shame. Certainly not where I can see it. I admire him.
Back in the apartment after the game Caleb settles in on pasta shells with meat sauce, a favorite of his. I make them with a little bit of fresh Italian sweet sausage. The rest is Ragu and Ronzoni and a sprinkle of basil from a spice tin. Usually I make a point of sitting down with Caleb for a facsimile of a family meal, but tonight he sits on the floor in front of the TV and watches cartoons as I go to my computer to satisfy my nagging curiosity.
My business model doesn’t include antiquarian books. Hard-to-find books are my meat and potatoes. A relatively obscure text on aerodynamics, culled for a few dollars from the estate sale of an engineer who once worked for Douglas Aircraft, for example, might sell for a hundred dollars, although I can’t say the trade in these kinds of books is brisk. Amazon, where I sell, is a good place to buy and sell hard-to-find books. Signed and antiquarian books, however, are best sold elsewhere, either at venerable auction houses like Sotheby’s or Pacific Book Auctions, or by reputable dealers with small storefronts in quiet neighborhoods. There are websites that specialize in valuable books, but mostly they allow dealers with actual physical stores to list their wares online. Who wants to buy a very old, very expensive book from an email address?
Typing www.addall.com produces a master list of rare books from many individual bookselling websites. In the parlance of cyberspace, this cornucopian indexing is called a metasearch. It parallels the workings of the mind, very much like a depressed person who might gather all the indignities and humiliation of his or her experience and conjoin them into an all-encompassing funk. In this particular area of computation, Microsoft would have to take a backseat to my personal operating system.
The web form appears. I know the drill. I put “Ernest Hemingway” in the author box, “The Old Man and the Sea” in the title box, and “first edition 1952” in the keyword box. I wait for twenty seconds while holding my breath. Suddenly there is a list of books with prices. Here’s one:
US First Edition; First Printing, Hard Cover, 8vo, Good in good dust jacket. New York, NY, U.S.A.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1952. An exceptional, crisp First Edition/First Printing copy in good condition with some spine sunning, crisp dust-jacket with much less browning and chipping than usually seen, a rather minute closed tear in the back, showing the original price of 3.00 and bearing Hemingway’s blue tinted portrait on the back.
“Rather minute?” Give me a fucking break. Are you trying to sound British? Try “small.” Try telling the consumer the actual length of the tear, you fraud. Anyway, the big question—“how much?” BOING BOING BOING.
EIGHT THOUSAND, SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS.
Jesus! Okay! Wait. Here’s another.
NY: Scribner, 1952 F Hardcover Dust Jacket Included Published in New York by Charles Scribner’s Sons in 1952. First Edition, contains capital “A” and seal on copyright page which refers to first edition. Book fine except for slight wearing on corners and spine ends. DJ near fine except for wearing at corners, spine ends, and joints, slight fading and discoloration on covers, spine, and flaps. DJ price reads $3.00.
How much?
NINE THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS!!
There’s more. If it’s flat-signed (Hemingway’s signature by itself) it’s worth fifteen thousand. If it’s a good presentation copy (personally inscribed, best to a famous person) it can be worth thirty thousand. I never thought to look inside the book. It could have been signed. This cannot just pass.
I normally avoid Helmet Head. If, on a Saturday morning when I am cruising garage sales, I see his decrepit motorbike leaning precariously on its kickstand with plastic shopping bags dangling from the handlebars, I move on. He’s never not trouble.
At a church rummage sale he will shove to the front of the line of people waiting to get in when they open the gate. When the sale begins he pushes his way to the books and elbows away anyone bold enough to get close to him. He then grabs big armfuls of books and dumps them in a pile in a corner. He doesn’t have a smartphone price scanner (HH having a price scanner would be the book scouting equivalent of Uzbekistan having the H-bomb) so he slowly studies and sorts the books that he has cached, outlasting anyone else who might have an interest in one of his selections. An hour later when the initial flurry of customers has subsided and he has made his final selections, he leaves his discards scattered willy-nilly on the ground and takes his purchase to the cashier. That’s where the real fun starts.
“Look, this one has a coffee stain on the first page here,” he will exclaim as he flashes the book in front of the blue-haired church lady cashier.
Used to dealing with the tireless haggling of old Russian babushkas she may not be easily fazed by a would-be negotiator. Her mistake.
“Well, they’re two dollars each, and if you don’t want it, that’s fine. You can just put it back.”
But that’s not where it ends. Not with HH. “And this one’s got scotch tape marks on the back cover. At Saint Anne’s they only charge a dollar a book, but these books all have problems and you’re charging twice as much.”
“As I say, you don’t have to buy them.” She tries to look away from him, toward the next customer. Of course there’s a line building up behind him, and people in line are rolling their eyes to each other. That’s only encouragement for Helmet Head.
“How about ten dollars for the pile?”
“There’s fifteen books there.”
“They’re junk books.”
“Some people will want them. Nobody is telling you to buy.”
He holds up a book and waves it.
“Do you actually think this book is worth two bucks? I thought the Methodist church was supposed to be honorable.”
“There are people waiting here.”
“Do you think it’s fair for a place of God to ask two bucks for a book that’s full of coffee stains?”
“I’m sorry. We have one price.”
“Well how much do you think it’s worth?” He leans over the table and his halitosis wafts over her.
“I think it’s worth two dollars. If you don’t—”
He reaches for his wallet and slaps a ten and a five on the table.
“Fifteen dollars. Okay? That’s fair.”
Here’s the thing—half the time the woman will take the offer. Just to get him out of there. There are people waiting and he’s scary and he smells. And if she doesn’t take it, he’ll stay and harangue her until some brave guy from the church comes over and sticks out his chest and tells him to leave. Of course that isn’t the end of it. HH won’t leave on request or command.
“This sale is open to the public and I’m here to buy something,” he insists. He continues to intimidate and wear them down. It’s his playbook. Sometimes the only thing that ends it is a volunteer pulling out a cell phone and dialing 911. That elicits a final offer from HH. At th
at point, many find it easier to just accept. HH can then fill his plastic bags with books and ride off on his motorbike to his next victims.
What my esteemed peer actually does with his booty is a subject of speculation among booksellers. Where, for example, does he keep his stock? Is there a landlord that actually rents to him? Does he have a computer and an internet line? If he just resold his books to the local bookshops, we would all know about it, so he must sell online, but not even Nick knows if he sells on Amazon or eBay or Alibris or what. He is a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a scuffed helmet and dirty leather jacket.
Chapter 12
The buy and hold stock strategy works only if you accept the basic premise of markets. If you choose to buy 100 shares of Apple listed at $34, a seller is glad to unload 100 shares at $34. It is the equilibrium of the desire of one person to buy and the desire of another to sell. What you own is by its nature sensibly priced by a democratic market consensus that is, as a whole, better informed than you. Buying and holding implies that you have made a trade that is reasoned and conservative but optimistic and you are willing to stay tough through the sometimes cruel vicissitudes of the market with the belief that your company has lasting value and will ultimately prosper in a developed economic environment.
I believed that, as a couple, True and I would be classified as buy and hold. I was twenty-eight and True was twenty-six when we married. We are both acceptable-looking examples of our species, but not movie star material. We are average tall. I am six feet. True is five feet nine inches. Our educations were roughly equivalent; she has an advanced degree, but my BA came from Yale. Our values of family, honesty and worth came from the middle mainstream. Neither of us came to the partnership with more than a few thousand dollars of personal savings. My wound-up wit was countervailed by her easygoing candor. We loved each other. We felt we were made for each other. There is a part of me that despite everything still feels that way.
If you are a young man and you think that the woman you have won as your mate is somehow a spectacular deal, beyond your most optimistic expectations and not to be passed up, you have probably miscalculated. It is the nature of life’s marketplace that a golden-haired woman with an alabaster tummy and perfectly poised breasts who holds her own on Ukiyo-e and Jimi Hendrix, plays a good game of tennis, and cavorts puckishly with her devoted golden retriever will ultimately reveal herself in other ways that will bring sense to the value of the original deal. Perhaps it will be a previously masked propensity to bipolar behavior, or an inability to bear children or a fear of travel. In coupling as in the NASDAQ, if it appears too good to be true it probably is.
Some Books Aren’t for Reading Page 10
