The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry(9)

“Don’t do that, A.J. Don’t blame yourself,” Daniel says.

“It’s a wake-up call is what it is,” A.J. says. “I’m definitely gonna cut down on my drinking.”

“Right after this beer,” Daniel quips. They clink mugs. A high school girl in denim cutoffs so short her buttocks peeks out the bottom walks into the bar. Daniel holds up his mug to her. “Nice outfit!” The girl gives him the finger. “You gotta stop drinking. I gotta stop cheating on Ismay,” Daniel says. “But then I see a pair of shorts like that, and my resolve is seriously tested. This night’s been ridiculous. The nurse! Those shorts!”

A.J. sips the beer. “How’s the book coming?”

Daniel shrugs. “It is a book. It will have pages and a cover. It will have a plot, characters, complications. It will reflect years of studying, refining, and practicing my craft. For all that, it will surely be less popular than the first one I wrote at the age of twenty-five.”

“Poor bastard,” A.J. says.

“I’m pretty sure you win the Poor Bastard of the Year Award, old man.”

“Lucky me.”

“Poe’s a lousy writer, you know? And ‘Tamerlane’ is the worst. Boring Lord Byron rip-off. It’d be one thing if it were a first edition of something f*cking decent. You should be glad to be rid of it. I loathe collectible books anyway. People getting all moony over particular paper carcasses. It’s the ideas that matter, man. The words,” Daniel Parish says.

A.J. finishes his beer. “You, sir, are an idiot.”

THE INVESTIGATION LASTS a month, which in Alice Island PD time is like a year. Lambiase and his team find no relevant physical evidence at the scene. In addition to throwing out the wine bottle and cleaning up the vindaloo, the criminal had apparently wiped down the apartment of fingerprints. The investigators question A.J.’s employees and also his few friends and relations in Alice. These interviews result in nothing particularly incriminating. No book dealers or auction houses report any copies of Tamerlane turning up either. (Of course, auction houses are notoriously quiet about these matters.) The investigation is considered unsolved. The book is gone, and A.J. knows he will never see it again.

The glass case, now, has no use, and A.J. is unsure of what to do with it. He has no other rare books. Still, the case had been pricey, nearly five hundred dollars. Some vestigial, hopeful part of him wants to believe that something better could come along to put in the case. When he bought it, he was told he could also use it to store cigars.

As retirement is no longer on the horizon, A.J. reads galleys, returns e-mails, answers the phone, and even writes a shelf talker or two. At night, after the store is closed, he starts running again. There are many challenges to long-distance running, but one of the greatest is the question of where to put one’s house keys. In the end, A.J. decides to leave his front door unlocked. In his estimation, nothing here is worth stealing.

The Luck of Roaring Camp

1868 / Bret Harte

Overly sentimental tale of a mining camp that adopts an “Ingin baby” whom they dub Luck. I read it for the first time at Princeton in a seminar called the Literature of the American West and was not moved in the least. In my response paper (dated November 14, 1992), the only thing I found to recommend it were the colorful character names: Stumpy, Kentuck, French Pete, Cherokee Sal, etc. I chanced upon “The Luck of Roaring Camp” again a couple of years ago and I cried so much you’ll find that my Dover Thrift Edition is waterlogged. Methinks I have grown soft in my middle age. But me-also-thinks my latter-day reaction speaks to the necessity of encountering stories at precisely the right time in our lives. Remember, Maya: the things we respond to at twenty are not necessarily the same things we will respond to at forty and vice versa. This is true in books and also in life.

—A.J.F.

In the weeks after the robbery, Island Books experiences a slight but statistically improbable uptick in business. A.J. attributes the increase to the lesser-known economic indicator known as “the Curious Townie.”

A well-meaning townie (W-MT) will sidle up to the desk. “Any word on Tamerlane?” [Translation: May I turn over your significant personal loss for my own amusement?]

A.J. will reply, “Nothing yet.” [Translation: Life still ruined.]

W-MT: Oh, I’m sure something will turn up. [Translation: Since I have no investment in the outcome of this situation, it costs me nothing to be optimistic.] What’s new that I haven’t read?

A.J.: We’ve got a couple things. [Translation: Pretty much everything. You haven’t been in here for months, possibly years.]

W-MT: There was a book I read about in the New York Times Book Review. It had a red cover, maybe?

A.J.: Yeah, that sounds familiar. [Translation: That is excessively vague. Author, title, description of the plot—these are more useful locators. That the cover might have been red and that it was in the New York Times Book Review helps me far less than you might think.] Anything else you remember about it? [Use your words.]

A.J. will then lead the W-MT over to the new release wall, where he makes sure to sell him or her a hardcover.

Strangely enough, Nic’s death had had the opposite effect on business. Though he had opened and closed the store with the emotionless regularity of an SS officer, the fiscal quarter after her death had posted the worst sales in Island’s history. Of course, people had felt sorry for him then, but they had felt too sorry for him. Nic had been a local, one of their own. They had been touched when the Princeton graduate (and Alice Island High School salutatorian no less) had returned to Alice to open a bookstore with her serious-eyed husband. Refreshing to see a young person coming back home for a change. Once she died, they found they had nothing in common with A.J. except their shared loss of Nic. Did they blame him? Some of them did, a little. Why hadn’t he been the one to drive that author home that night? They consoled themselves and whispered that he’d always been a little odd and—they swore they didn’t mean this in a racist way—a little foreign; it’s obvious the guy’s not from around here, you know. (He was born in New Jersey.) They held their breath as they walked past the store, like it was a cemetery.