Chapter 35

35

Once I regain control of my spiraling thoughts I pop another fifty cents into the pay phone and redial John's number.

I convince him to meet me here at the bookstore in half an hour for coffee and conversation.

"If you don't believe me after that, I won't bother you again."

With time to kill I enter the bookstore, consciously avoiding the store clerk I manhandled yesterday. Making my way over to the fiction section I begin scanning through the B's. After all this time I'll be surprised to find my books shelved, waiting for that lonely college student to absently thumb through their pages.

Barthelme, Becket, Bukowski...sandwiched among these greats, to my surprise, I find five novels, a collection of poetry and a volume of short stories packed quite nicely into three anthologies covering over fifteen years of my work. Perhaps, during those twenty-five years, I was more alive than recently thought.

He walks into the bookstore, that lonely college student from before, passing time between classes, searching for some sort of enlightenment.

He is an aspiring writer, a young, attractive man of twenty who has tired of the classics. He has an interesting approach to finding new authors to read. Caring not for classmate recommendations, he randomly selects a book from the shelves and flips it over, reading over the summary quotes, looking for inspiration.

The author of this particular novel is compared to another author of the same generation and his treasure hunt begins. By pointing him in a general direction, the sharpie marked X is laid out before him and he wanders in search of the second author.

He continues on in this way for some time, allowing the books themselves to guide his attention. Based on comparison, all roads are leading him to me.

Selecting one of my anthologies from the shelf, he flips it over to read the back, expecting this book to lead him to Kerouac. Yet, he finds no praises, no laudatory comments espousing the greatness of my novel. All I've left for him is a cover page doused in red with the white lettering of the word, "Mayonnaise."

A year or so ago this young man, during a fit of desperation, penned this poem into a pink, spiral bound notebook.

When I Die
Do Not Bury Me Like My Ancestors Before Me
I Do Not Wish To Be Set In Suit
Preserved In Death, Mimicking Life

Do Not Allow A Ceremony To Take Place
For Those Few Who Would Attend
Would Not Need A Eulogy
To Remember Me By

Do Not Allow Mourners To Pass By My Grave
In Order to Preserve Their Flowers,
For My Children's Children
Who Would Love To Lay Among Them

All I Ask For When I Die
Is A Lovely Finished Jar Of Mayonnaise
With An Inscription Written With A Felt Tip Pen
Reading, "He Came, He Saw, He Ate."

And we've connected. Through our written word, from beyond breath and life, he understands me, and I him. Suddenly, holding my published work of fiction, I understand what I've done all this creating for.