The Book Reader

It was almost thirty-five years old — older than Alison had been when she bought it for her literature class at the community college.  It was the only book she had saved from her college days.  Lewis cradled the battered book in both hands, his eyelids fluttering a bit as they closed.

Mrs. Savala had not liked Alison's term paper about Tender is the Night.  Alison had pleaded with her to read it again and be a bit less critical of her somewhat overblown interpretation of Fitzgerald's symbolism.  Finally, Mrs. Savala had relented and given her a passing grade.  Alison had graduated from the community college three weeks later, taking a job as a stenographer.  But she married impulsively a few months after that, and her life took a swift and discouraging turn.

A loud metallic clanking roused Lewis from his contemplation.  He sighed heavily and opened his eyes.  The sour-looking woman with the frazzled hair was clattering through an assortment of pots and pans with ill-fitting lids.  She looked up at Lewis from time to time, shaking her head at the comical trance-like behavior of the strange little man.

Lewis frowned a bit and smoothed the thinning hair at the back of his head.  He laid the book on top of his stack and returned his attentions to the dilapidated bookcase, scanning briefly to find the spot where he had left off.  "No...  no...  no."

Three shelves later, Lewis extracted a clothbound copy of The Old Man and the Sea.  He already owned four copies, but that was never an issue.  He fanned the pages, savoring the faintly musty aroma.  The inside front cover had been labeled with a rubber stamp. Over time, humidity had caused the stamp pad ink to bleed into the heavy stock of the book's cover, creating a ghostly purple aura around each of the block letters.  "From the library of Garry Musgrave," it said.   Lewis held the book close, and a stream of images began flowing through his mind.

Garry Musgrave was an old man when he died in his own bed after a relatively short bout with cancer.  He had lived in a small town in Vermont, where he had been a well-respected pillar of his community.  A retired bank president, he had indulged his love of books by assembling an immense library, eventually building an addition to his home to accommodate the sprawling collection.

Mr. Musgrave was well known for helping the neighborhood kids with their homework, and frequently suggested and sometimes loaned books to students assigned a book report.  Justin Lawrence had borrowed the Old Man and the Sea from Mr. Musgrave, but had never returned it.  It wasn't his fault, though.  No, something had happened to Justin — something sudden, something awful...

A loud crying commenced at that moment from another corner of the thrift store.  Two children were playing with Star Wars light sabers, but one of them was not using The Force.  The reddening welt on his face was evidence of this and his tearful appeal to his "mommy, mommy!" was proof positive.

Lewis pursed his lips in annoyance and put copy number five of The Old Man and the Sea on his growing pile of stories.  He heard a low rumble of distant thunder, and wondered how long it had been going on.

He tried to hurry, but another fifteen minutes passed with Lewis emitting a low, monotonous, "no...  no...  no."  The last shelf did not look promising.  It held another clump of National Geographics, some children's books, a book on how to beat the tables in Las Vegas, a self-help book entitled "That's Just the Way I Am," a microwave cookbook, and one very slim leather bound volume that was backwards — spine facing in instead of out.  Lewis' knees popped audibly as he crouched and eased the book out from the shelf.

"The Book Reader," it was called.  He had never heard of it, or the author, but it struck his fancy somehow.  He thumbed the pages checking for damage, but there was none.  In fact, it was in perfect condition; the binding crackled crisply as he opened it, as if he were the first.  There was no name or other indication it had ever belonged to anyone else.