The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap: A Memoir of Friendship, Community, and the Uncommon Pleasure of a Good Book

by Wendy Welch

  “Tell me to call, then be on the phone?” Isabel scolded. “Lemme talk at ’im.”

  Jack walked Steve over to the location where classes were held, which turned out to be just a few blocks from his home. (We were afraid he’d get nervous about finding it based on street signs and landmarks.) While he was gone, the phone rang again—someone from the youth agency had phoned the person who ran the classes, and she was returning my call.

  When he got back, Jack sat at the table fingering a cool drink—it had to have been at least ninety degrees out there—and said, “That was amazing.”

  “I’m feeling a bit dazed myself,” I said. “Fifty-four years old, and only able to read his name?”

  Jack’s hand waved in negation. “I meant how fast we activated the network. He got hooked up within—what, ten minutes?”

  I hadn’t thought about the undercurrents of what had happened, but its import suddenly flooded me. First, a man who probably felt that he had every reason to be suspicious of judgment or ridicule from those incomer owners had walked into our store and asked for help. Next, I had known who to call. And last, all three of the people contacted returned my call almost instantly—on a Saturday.

  Jack leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms over his head. “I don’t know which feels better: helping him, or getting help to help him.”

  Four years earlier, at Witold’s house, the moment when he’d called us a community center had passed quietly; we’d thought we were settled in then, but later discovered a bit more work to be done. This moment also passed without a great deal of hoopla, and it stuck; one day we were outsiders, the next an integral part of the duct tape and black jelly beans and baling wire that holds society together. And while we can tell you the day we knew our status had changed, the exact point when it did slipped past in a blur of just getting on with what was in front of us to do.

  Helping to keep a community cohesive is part of what a bricks-and-mortar bookstore does; what computer could handle the day-to-day doings of a bookshop with half as much dignity, grace, or humor? Of course, a computer probably would be too logical to get into such precarious positions in the first place.

  Running a bookstore is one big bundle of paradoxes. It is joyfully absurd, yet about the time you think you’ll die laughing, someone comes along with a story that breaks your heart. It is poignant and painful, but when you get depressed by the human needs and grievances, balm from twenty generations of collected wisdom waits on the shelves. Not to mention the collected wisdom of friends.

  If I had to pinpoint the biggest gift this place has given us, it would be creating a sense of belonging, of community. Take the time our friend Becky’s sister died, after a long, tense illness that ripped at the fabric of the family. While Becky and her husband attended the funeral, Isabel and Jack split cat-sitting duties for Chunky Monkey, Patches, and Minnie. (I was traveling a fair bit so couldn’t participate.)

  Becky’s three cats took little notice of the new sitters one way or another, and no one worried about a thing until Becky and Tony returned.

  Tony called that afternoon. “Where’s Chunky?”

  Uh-ohhhh.

  Turns out Chunks had taken advantage of the new arrangements to fulfill his lifelong dream of seeing the outside world firsthand. He’d slipped through the front door during either Isabel’s or Jack’s visit. The fact that it could not be ascertained on whose watch he escaped meant both Isabel and Jack felt like miserable heaps of failure.

  “She didn’t need this, the day after a funeral,” was all Tony said, driving the knife in deeper with that one gentle statement. Jack, Isabel, and I swung into overdrive.

  Flyers sporting Chunky Monkey’s picture went up on telephone poles, store windows, anything that held still long enough. No one called. Becky, Isabel, and I patrolled the streets, calling “Chuuuuuunkeeeeeee.” No cat answered.

  The second week, we took out an ad in the local paper. Two days later, a woman called Becky. “I think I have your tomcat. I found him in the grocery store parking lot. I opened my car door and asked if he wanted to come home with me, and the big guy jumped right in.”

  The woman couldn’t get to Becky’s house before seven that evening, so Becky was on tenterhooks. “Chunky’s not that friendly. Would he do that, just hop in somebody’s car? But maybe he was hungry, poor baby.”

  All day long it went on like that, until the woman arrived. None of us was there except Tony, who told us later that when the lady carried the cat up to the door, Becky reached out and grabbed him in exuberance. “Chunks!” she shrieked as the cat cuddled against her bosom, purring and rubbing and smiling.

  The woman had become attached to her foundling, so she’d rather hoped it wasn’t Becky’s cat. Becky, being Becky, had been feeding two tuxedo-colored kittens in her garage, cuddly creatures who longed for a life of soft laps and caresses. She moved swiftly, introducing the kittens—who were at their most winsome point of fuzzy irresistibility—to her cat’s benefactor. The lady went home with the twins, and Chunks moved back onto Becky’s lap.

  Except …

  The Tuesday after the reunion, when the usual gang of women met for Needlework Night, Becky stayed home to bond with Chunky, and talk turned to the happy ending.

  “Have you seen the new Chunky?” Isabel asked me as we stitched.

  “What do you mean, ‘new Chunky’?” I replied.

  “He’s older. And oranger, and has more stripes. And he’s really friendly. I don’t remember too well what Chunky looked like, but I always thought he was more … yellow. Not to mention standoffish.”

  Lynne chimed in. “Yeah, he seems … different.”

  I opened my mouth, but Sarah beat me to it. “Still, if Becky’s happy, what does it matter?”

  We all nodded assent. “Difficult funeral, hard times, what’s a little denial if it makes her happy” mutters went ’round the table, and we counted our stitches, content to let it go.

  All except Mark, husband to Needlework regular Elizabeth, and a plain dealer. Becky cleans house for Mark and Elizabeth, and Mark and Becky are the best of buddies. Sweeping their kitchen floor that Friday, she prattled on about the change in Chunky’s personality (and fur) brought on by “his ordeal.”

  Mark emitted a skeptical noise. “You know that’s not—”

  Words died in his throat as gentle Becky suddenly pinned him against a cabinet with her dust mop. “It’s Chunky,” she growled, shaking the weapon at his abdomen.

  “Of course it is, absolutely, right, yeah,” Mark babbled, and then slipped away to his man-cave, presumably to get a shot of nerve-calming bourbon. Having Becky yell at you is rather like being attacked by a golden retriever.

  Another week passed. The next Needlework Night, Becky mentioned that Minnie Mae, Chunky’s sister, showed “reattachment issues. She just doesn’t seem to like him anymore.” Eyebrows shot up around the table, and someone began talking, fast and high-pitched, about a movie they’d seen the night before.

  When the girls left that evening, Isabel hung back and confided to me, “You know, this Chunky thing has got me rattled. I see yellow cats everywhere these days. I’ve been feeding a stray one under the empty house across the street for almost a week now. Well, good night.”

  In the middle of the night, I bolted upright. Jack stirred next to me, aided by my hand gripping his shoulder and shaking hard.

  “It’s Chunky,” I said.

  Jack sighed the sigh of a husband in peril. “We’ve been over this before. If Becky thinks it’s Chunks, then … wait a minute, it is Chunky?”

  “No, not Chunky, the other Chunky. That Chunky’s not him, but the real Chunky, he’s Chunky,” I said in triumph.

  Turning on the bedside table lamp, Jack held his head in his hands. At the foot of the mattress, Bert the terrier jumped down and ambled, stiff-legged and resentful, into the living room to get some sleep.

  I clarified. “See, the Chunky that Becky says is Chunky, we all know it’s not Ch
unky, but since she really wants it to be, we’re not saying anything. But the Chunky that really is Chunky, that’s the stray cat Isabel is feeding under the porch.”

  Jack stared in disbelief. “Do you mean to tell me that the whole time everyone, including Isabel herself, has been scouring the town for Chunky, Isabel has been feeding him back at her house? And never made the connection? Do you really believe that’s possible? Oh, never mind. All right, we’ll call first thing in the morning.”

  By the time we awoke, the story had ended. Isabel had gone home that night and rung Becky. “I know you have Chunky Monkey back and all, but there’s a yellow stray across the street from us, and—”

  “I’ll be over first thing in the morning,” Becky said. At dawn, Isabel’s doorbell rang. Isabel, yawning, led Becky across the yard to the abandoned house, where she started to rattle a food container. But Becky let out a high, keening “Chuuuuuuu-uuuuuunks,” and the cat shot from under the house into her arms.

  “Oh, poor stray thing,” Becky said, her face buried in the cat’s fur as he nuzzled and purred, glommed to her chest. “I’ll take him to the vet and get him—er, it—checked out.” Exit Becky, wearing an extra fur bosom.

  Isabel received a phone call later that day. “Don’t be mad at me,” Becky begged.

  Bewildered, Isabel said, “Of course I’m not mad. But why did you keep sayin’ that other cat was Chunky if he was still missin’? I might have connected the dots sooner.”

  “Well, I didn’t lie about the other cat, it’s just that … well, you and Jack were so miserable, and it was just nicer, easier, if I told everyone the other cat was Chunky, and then when you said about this cat, I just couldn’t help it, I had to find out. So now we’ve got our baby boy back plus we’ve got Dudley.”

  “Dudley?” Isabel stammered.

  “Tony named him that. He’s Dudley-Do-Right, because he helped us do right by our friends.”

  It has to be a sign of love when your friends will deny reality on your behalf. Dudley and Chunky continue to live side by side, brothers in all but biology. And the sisterhood of friends who would go deep into denial for each other continue to live side by side, too, and gather every Tuesday night at the bookstore.

  It is easy to love one’s friends. Yet even the customers we sometimes wanted to throttle showed us care and concern, made us feel part of a community. Lulu—she of the Scott stamp—came by when I was under the weather, tucked up in bed and croaking. Jack probably didn’t look much better, since he’d had to manage the shop, cater to my every whim, and give the hated quiz to my cultural anthropology class the night before. (I had started adjuncting.)

  Enter Lulu, slamming open the shop door with her customary “Hey-ho there!”

  Jack gave her a halfhearted wave.

  LULU: Where’s Wendy?

  JACK: Sick in bed, I’m afraid.

  LULU: Huh.

  JACK: [fingers crossed to prevent the wrath of God because he’s lying] She’ll be sorry to have missed you. After anything special?

  LULU: Huh. What’re you gonna do for supper?

  JACK: Pardon?

  LULU: If your wife’s sick, what’re you gonna eat?

  [Stage director’s notes: Jack is a better cook than I am. He is a dab hand at curries and omelets and paellas, plus many other fine foods. The idea that he would eat poorly because I was poorly flummoxed him into speechlessness—no easy task.]

  LULU: Never mind. Go across to the store and get me a pound of cheddar cheese. You got macaroni noodles? [moving toward kitchen; we still had one downstairs then; Lulu steps over the privacy gate and opens our fridge] Hmm, get me some milk, too.

  JACK: Er, I can’t leave the shop just now.

  LULU: [straightening] Tell you what, this will be easier at my house. Back in a little while.

  [Two hours later, Lulu appears just as the bookshop is closing and thrusts a rectangular object wrapped in a towel into Jack’s arms.]

  LULU: Heat that at 350 until it’s warm through. Can’t stay. ’Bye.

  Jack said it was the best macaroni and cheese he’d eaten since his mother’s.

  CHAPTER 21

  Ceridwen

  It often requires more courage to read some books than it does to fight a battle.

  —Sutton Elbert Griggs

  PERHAPS LIBRARIES AND BOOKSHOPS SEEMED noisy in part because they contain such competing ideas within their walls, varied values and beliefs that have a hard time living side by side in people. Certainly Jack and I learned, as we settled into being a part of the town and the region, that what a bookshop sells, and to whom, can be a powerful political (or personal) act open to many interpretations. But one of the things we love most about the community that has formed around the bookstore is its encompassing nature—and we work hard, consciously, to protect that.

  As Quakers, Jack and I believe in Jesus as God’s resurrected sin offering. Beyond that, we’re not big on theology. Yet negotiating even such limited boundaries in the shop proved tricky. Our part of Appalachian America has a reputation for … shall we say, seeing things one way only, and we wanted neither to offend those with narrow views nor become part of their team.

  The 1800s German poet and journalist Heinrich Heine correctly predicted that “Where one burns books, one will eventually burn people.” I’m not going there with my life or my shop, so in addition to Bibles, we sell the Koran, assorted Jewish texts, the Book of Mormon, and tarot cards. The shop opened with two shelves for Christian titles, later joined by a comparative religion shelf. (We thought “comparative religion” sounded encompassing yet noncombative in a predominantly Christian region.) At some point a really nice set of scholarly books on Jewish holy days and rituals came in: Pesach, Seder, Yom Kippur. We shelved these expensive and esoteric volumes in comparative religion, where a browsing woman spotted the handsome blue and brown volumes one day. Her nose wrinkled as she came to me, holding at arm’s length an open book showing side-by-side Hebrew and English.

  “Why are you selling occult books?” she demanded.

  I was speechless. Jack came to my rescue, explaining in his beautiful, get-away-with-murder Scottish accent that the pages taught about rituals found in the Old Testament. The woman, clearly having a hard time understanding Jack’s accent, sniffed. He repeated himself, more slowly, until she appeared mollified. Closing the book, she laid it on a shelf.

  “Well, I thought that writing was something else. I believe in the New Testament.” She had the grace to sound embarrassed. It turned out she thought the writing was Arabic. (Don’t ask me about the mental processes that took her from “Arabic” to “occult.”)

  Quick confession: raised in a religious tradition that perhaps emphasized fear over love, I have worked very hard to kick the apple as far as possible from the tree without undermining the bare essentials. Keith, a college pal who is also a lay pastor, once summed up my theological standpoint as “Jesus is Lord; now let’s have tea and cookies.” He wasn’t being flip, just descriptive.

  Quakers tend to be pretty relaxed about theology, believing people who disagree shouldn’t be considered evil on that basis alone. Just try talking first, get to know each other, and if you still want to declare the other person Satan incarnate after supper, that option remains open to you. Jack and I keep this as our baseline when dealing with people and books, although I do pray over tarot cards before setting them out. (It seems like a gentle way of quashing any negative influence they might have without pawing the ground, snorting and angling for a chance to lock horns.)

  Back when I was a full-time storyteller, the tourism officer from Wigtown—Scotland’s town made up of bookshops, like the famous Hay-on-Wye in Wales—hired me to tell stories at a festival. My hubby planned to travel along so we could enjoy some serious browse time prior to the performance, but two weeks before the festival, Jack’s ninety-one-year-old mum began failing fast. Jack said not to cancel, but he clearly wouldn’t be going with me. The night I left for the gig, Mum went into t
he hospital, not expected to come out again. I took the scenic route to Wigtown, through a secluded nature preserve, driving along the windy forest road trying to de-stress and not feel guilty. Jack really wanted me to go, but it felt wrong. Suddenly, knowledge hit. She was gone. I glanced at the clock: 7:20 P.M.

  On the call home after arriving at the bed and breakfast, Jack told me his mum had died at 7:20 and he didn’t want me to come back tonight. The funeral would be as soon as I returned two days hence, the arrangements made long before by Mum herself. Everything should stay as normal as possible. He needed that. We said good night and I hung up the phone, pushed through the fog of unreality to my room, and cried myself to sleep.

  Next morning I wandered the village, lost and alone. Each bookstore has a theme in Wigtown, but I wove in and out of the shops indiscriminately. I wound up in Ceridwen’s Cauldron, a store carrying Wiccan and alternative healing items. Ceridwen is the Celtic Lady of Inspiration, patron of poets and those seeking wisdom. Willingness to listen to other viewpoints or not, I never would have walked randomly into a Wiccan store had it been a normal day.

  It wasn’t a normal day, not by a far cry. My mother-in-law, a lovely woman with considerable strength of character, who had held my hand two days before in her hospital room and said, “I’m glad he’s got you,” was dead. And Jack sat home alone. Nope, not a normal day, not normal at all.

  The shop owner chatted to me, asking where I came from, was my trip business or holiday. Whoosh, out came the story as guilt and confusion drilled a hole through self-control. Only pride kept me from bursting into tears. At one point I actually heard myself saying, “And I shouldn’t even have come in here because I know it’s a shop that sells bad things but I wasn’t paying attention.”

  You can only kick that apple so far.…

  The owner, a round-faced woman with curly black hair, acted as though she dealt with hysterical, grieving bigots every day. She rose, said “Just a minute,” and went through a low door in the back wall. She returned a few moments later with a laden tea tray. “Come into the garden.” She led me through and indicated a small wooden table in her courtyard. “Sit down and take your time,” she said, laying out cup, saucer, milk jug, sugar bowl, and biscuits. “No one comes back here. There are books in the shed if you want something to look at.” Exit the owner of Ceridwen’s Cauldron, closing the courtyard door behind her.