No sales but…
One morning, S. came up to me. He had his usual stuffed shopping bags, two in each hand. He had been a fine tenor player. He has an MA in Theology. But all the time I’ve known him, he has slept on the grounds of a church whose minister slips him a few dollars each week that allows him to call himself a security guard.
The reason for this visit was that he had come across a copy of “Best Ride” with the first few pages torn out but my cover photo intact. The content had thrown him. “Crazy stuff,” he said. “I thought, I know that guy, but he never talks like that. Where did that voice come from?”
I asked if he’d like an in-tact copy.
He shook his head. “If only you’d written about handball.”
Another morning a woman with long brown hair said, on her way out “Your sitting here working is an inspiration.”
“Wanna buy a book?” I said.
She threw me a thumbs-up sign.
Another morning still, a grizzled fellow in his early 70’s sat down across from me. He said he liked the table because you could see all the good-looking women. “I wonder the origin of the word ‘muse.’” His voice was Spanish-accented.
“I’ll look it up,” I said. After I had Googled, I asked where he was from.
“I’m a ‘tourist,’” he said, “native-born.” He had lived in Brazil and in Portland but, for seven months, had been in a Berkeley shelter waiting on a list for low-income housing. “Have you heard of Walt Lucas, the unofficial Poet Laureate of Portland? He was a friend of mine.”
I hadn’t heard of Walt Lucas.
“You can look him up too.”
There he was. He even had a Wikipedia page. “I’ll buy one of his books. Can I give you one of mine?”
He ran a skeptical eye over my display. “I like Bukowski.”
“I’ll have to give that some thought,” I said, “and get back to you.”
Now I’m thinking “Most Outrageous.”
Later that very same morning, a Chinese man came over. He had close-cropped grey hair and wore grey sweats. He asked in heavily accented English if I was a writer. When he said he was too, I suggested a swap. He looked at “The Schiz” but detoured to “I Will Keep You Alive.” I don’t know why. And all I can tell you about his book is that it has 54 chapters, is 215 pages long, and comes from the Dixie W Publishing Corporation of Montgomery, Alabama. Everything else is in Chinese. I don’t even know anyone who reads Chinese.
During subsequent conversation, he showed me his proposal in English for a 450,000 word book about dictatorship and individuals, lessons from China for the US.
Seems timely.
In other news…
My publisher says the fact that we haven’t heard further from China may mean my book is printing. Whether my changes were accepted won’t be known until the advance copies arrive in about a month.
And the tariffs don’t seem to apply to printed material.
So many Bob Levins on the Internet; I'm the Bob Levin who writes.