{"id":50,"date":"2014-05-22T08:12:02","date_gmt":"2014-05-22T14:12:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=50"},"modified":"2014-05-26T18:41:17","modified_gmt":"2014-05-27T00:41:17","slug":"adventures-in-book-buying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2014\/05\/adventures-in-book-buying\/","title":{"rendered":"Adventures in book buying: Eccentric men, a rabid dog"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor’s Note<\/strong>: This essay first appeared in the summer 2011 issue of the Montana Quarterly. We are publishing it today on Last Best News because it is included in a new anthology<\/a>, “An Elk River Books Reader: Billings and Livingston Area Writers,” which is officially being released tonight at Elk River Books in Livingston.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

File photo by Acroterion\/Wikimedia Commons<\/p>

The Mai Wah, about how it would have looked in the mid-1980s.<\/p><\/div>\n

The Mai Wah Building on Mercury Street in Uptown Butte is a Chinese cultural museum these days, but when I lived in Butte in the early 1980s, the main room on the ground floor housed a junk shop. The first time I saw it, the store was closed, so I pressed my face to the window to see what was inside.\u00a0 What I saw, amid the heaps of tools, battered home furnishings, tennis racquets, bottles and decomposing rugs, was a small collection of books.<\/p>\n

To me, there is nothing more promising than a collection of old books, especially when seen like this, dimly, from a distance. At that moment there is always a chance, however infinitesimally small, that one of them is a first edition of \u201cMoby Dick,\u201d inscribed by Melville, or, since we\u2019re in Butte, maybe a journal that belonged to Wobbly martyr Frank Little, murdered by gun thugs in 1917.\u00a0 Or \u2014 and why be restrained in that first wild moment of imagining \u2014 what if I stumble upon the lost book of Cicero, that single manuscript once owned by Petrarch, lent to a friend and never seen again?<\/p>\n

You never know.\u00a0 Even after decades of disappointment I still allow myself to hope.<\/p>\n

A sign in the window said that if the shop was closed, to knock on the door at the top of the stairs, which were just to the left of the main entrance.\u00a0 As I began to make my way up, the first couple of stairs creaked under my weight.\u00a0 In response, from behind the door above, there erupted a furious racket of barking and snarling, as if somebody had touched a cattle prod to a dog already predisposed to unpleasantness.\u00a0 He attacked the door, too, throwing his body against it and tearing at it with his claws.\u00a0 I stood there frozen, wondering if I should proceed.\u00a0 The door didn\u2019t look particularly strong.\u00a0 What if the dog broke it down, or pushed it far enough to slip out?\u00a0 All indications were that I would be ripped to pieces before I could even turn around.<\/p>\n

But those books. \u2026 You just never knew.\u00a0 And so I kept climbing, clutching the railing to support my trembling legs.\u00a0 With each step the dog reached a new pitch of fury, but I made it to the landing at last and timidly knocked on the door, as if the junk shop owner, if he were home, hadn\u2019t been sufficiently alerted to my presence already.\u00a0 When he did finally come to the door, he didn\u2019t open it, but shouted out, \u201cWho\u2019s there?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody,\u201d I said. \u201cI mean, nobody you know.\u00a0 I just wanted to look around your shop.\u201d<\/p>\n

We were both screaming to be heard above the barking of the dog, and when the man wasn\u2019t speaking to me he was cursing at the dog.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy shop?\u201d he shouted. \u201cWhat do you need?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell,\u201d I said, feeling as if I had already let him down somehow, \u201cI just wanted to look around.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was silence for a moment, then another communication.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m busy right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Busy? I said to myself. Busy? What, making a bomb? Butchering some unfortunate \u00a0 urchin?<\/p>\n

\u201cCome back tomorrow,\u201d he said. \u201cNoon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once more into the breach<\/h5>\n

So, I went back the next day, repeating the whole terrifying scene.\u00a0 The dog seemed even more enraged than the day before.\u00a0 But I knocked again and told the owner, whom I still hadn\u2019t seen, that I was the fellow he had told to return today.\u00a0 He seemed doubtful, but eventually he opened the door a crack, a crack into which snarling dog inserted his snout, slobbering, growling and barking.\u00a0 The man whacked the dog on the head and then pushed him away with his foot as he slowly squeezed himself through the slightly open door, all the while swearing and threatening.\u00a0 He got through at last and slammed the door shut, and the dog, as if this were a game with regular rules, immediately stopped barking.<\/p>\n

The man before me was tall and very lean, hawk-faced, with black glasses taped at the extremities, intense blue-gray eyes, and a jaw so distinct and angular that it looked detached, like something from an archaeology dig.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sorry about Scout,\u201d he said. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t like people. Hell, he doesn\u2019t even like me. Now, what it is you were interested in?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBooks,\u201d I said, looking up at him from a couple of steps below the landing. \u201cI like books.\u201d<\/p>\n

He eyed me sharply, as if he thought I was being funny, or trying to pull something over on him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have many books. But I suppose you can have a look. Come on.\u201d<\/p>\n

I let him pass and he led the way downstairs.\u00a0 He opened the door to the junk shop with an old skeleton key, held it open and motioned me inside. As soon as I got within a few feet of the small shelf of books and had a better look, I figured it was hopeless. They all looked like books that had suffered some water damage and then been stored somewhere very cold, somewhere susceptible to mold.\u00a0 But I felt obliged to look at each title, and to pull a couple of volumes off the shelf for closer inspection.\u00a0 I was getting nervous because after putting the owner to so much trouble, it would have been awkward to leave without making a purchase.\u00a0 Then I saw a title I was actually interested in: \u201cAmong the Nudists\u201d by Frances and Mason Merrill.<\/p>\n

\"Mildewy<\/a>

Mildewy and moldy, but with an irresistible title.<\/p><\/div>\n

It was mildewy and warped and the orange cloth covers were in bad shape, but it looked too odd to pass up. It turned out to be an examination of the culture of Nudism, published in 1931 and illustrated with black-and-white photographs of naked men engaged in a tug-of-war, naked families playing with enormous medicine balls and circles of naked men and woman cavorting in a glen.\u00a0 Except for the nakedness of all present, the photos looked like something out of a Soviet compendium of healthful proletarian pursuits.\u00a0 A few samples showed the prose to be very serious and sober-minded, deliberately avoiding the least hint of titillation or salaciousness.\u00a0 I was almost certain I\u2019d never read it, but I also knew it would make a great conversation piece, especially since I had more or less risked my life to look at it.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow much for this one?\u201d I asked, and when he saw the title he looked at me funny again, trying to decide whether I was a wise guy, or whether, God forbid, I had something more unseemly in mind.\u00a0 I hoped he wasn\u2019t considering siccing his dog on me. But at last his instincts as a merchant overcame his doubts and he said, \u201cThree bucks.\u201d<\/p>\n

At that time, three bucks was too much for a book in that condition, and three bucks would have bought me two beers in the Silver Dollar Saloon next door, but I had to make a purchase and this book was the only one I wanted.\u00a0 So I paid up, we walked outside, he locked the door and then he went back up the stairs, back to his rabid companion.<\/p>\n

\"Healthful<\/a>

Healthful pursuits.<\/p><\/div>\n

It was one of the strangest transactions in what is now a 40-year hobby of buying used books, but it was also a good reminder of why I collect them. I spoke above about the possibility of finding something rare and valuable in the junk shop, but there\u2019s more to it than that. I just happen to love old books, the way they look and feel and smell. I don\u2019t scorn paperbacks, but generally speaking I want to have in my hands a book that is worthy of its contents. There have been certain great works of literature that I could not bring myself to read for many years, until I managed to find them in suitably attractive editions. They are easy enough to find these days \u2014 just a click or two away on eBay or Amazon. Too easy, I think. I still enjoy the hunt, the anticipation, the idea that any odd collection, whether in a junk shop, garage sale or thrift store, might hold a book that has been waiting for years, just for me.<\/p>\n

All in his head<\/h5>\n

Even not buying a book is sometimes an adventure.\u00a0 Not far from the Mai Wah in Uptown Butte was a secondhand store run by a fellow known as Tony the Trader.\u00a0 He had a huge collection of curios, treasures and oddball collectibles, including some good books.\u00a0 But nothing, as I recall, had a price tag on it. If you asked, Tony would rap his finger on his noggin and say, \u201cI got all the prices right here.\u201d So I\u2019d ask him, \u201cHow much for this book,\u201d knowing the volume in question was worth maybe five bucks, and Tony would hold it up, squint at it, scratch his head and say, \u201cThat one\u2019s $37. It\u2019s a good book.\u201d<\/p>\n

And so it went with every book, and I never bought a thing from him.\u00a0 Though I don\u2019t know for sure, I assume he was like that with everything in the store.\u00a0 I would find out in time that it\u2019s not unheard of in the secondhand business for merchants to be unwilling to part with their wares.\u00a0 Some of them are collectors who open stores to convince themselves they are not hoarders, or perhaps to convince their spouses of the same.\u00a0 Whatever the case, Tony\u2019s books were in no danger of leaving the store.\u00a0 I will say this for Tony, though: At least he let me look.

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/p>\n

There used to be a bookstore in downtown St. Paul, Minn., in which not even looking was allowed.\u00a0 The store in question was a jumble of dangerous-looking stacks of books, books that looked as though they hadn\u2019t even been sorted, just tossed in at random from the front door. What made this establishment unique, as far as I know, was that the proprietor apparently wasn\u2019t willing to let people in.\u00a0 I suppose there could have been something about me personally, but all I know is that I went there on at least three occasions and never got past the front door. The owner (I guess it was the owner) was a very large man, dressed in denim overalls and a white T-shirt, who sat in a folding chair right in the entryway, so there was no way around him unless he moved. He\u2019d sit there smoking cigarettes and reading the paper, and if you walked up and stood in front of him, he\u2019d wait a few long moments before looking up, and even then he didn\u2019t seem to be acknowledging your presence so much as wondering what was casting a shadow on his newspaper.<\/p>\n

The first time I went there, silly me, I thought I\u2019d browse. Nothing doing. He said I couldn\u2019t go in and look around. \u201cTell me what you\u2019re looking for,\u201d he said. I made something up, like, \u201cThe Grapes of Wrath.\u201d He put his head down, ready to get back to his paper, and said, \u201cI don\u2019t got it.\u201d I tried a few more titles, but his negative response came more quickly each time, in the last instance before he could possibly have known what book I was asking for.<\/p>\n

That was a first: a store owner who didn\u2019t want you, or me, at any rate, in his store under any circumstances. Was it a front for some illegal operation? Did the guy really have his merchandise memorized and was just trying to help? Was he stark-raving mad? I settled on stark-raving mad. I confirmed it a couple of other times over the years, getting no further either time, and when I went back for the last time, I think in the late 1980s, the store was gone.<\/p>\n

The chances of his having anything worth a damn were slim, but it galled me that I never got a chance to browse. I suppose I could have broken in after hours, but that seemed a little extreme, or tried showing the guy some money or attempted to get a court order on the grounds that the proprietor was discriminating against persons of German-American heritage, but I let it go.<\/p>\n

There were things I was not willing to do to satisfy my craving for used books. I would not pay the outlandish prices demanded by an eccentric, nor challenge the dominion of an apparent mad man. But to overcome the terror of a ferocious dog, not once but twice, to take myself up a steep flight of stairs not knowing if I would ever come down?<\/p>\n

I could do that, and I might even do it again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor’s Note: This essay first appeared in the summer 2011 issue of the Montana Quarterly. We are publishing it today on Last Best News because it is included in a new anthology, “An Elk River Books Reader: Billings and Livingston Area Writers,” which is officially being released tonight at Elk River Books in Livingston. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":178,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[31,35,33,30,32,34],"class_list":["post-50","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-butte","tag-cicero","tag-frank-little","tag-mai-wah","tag-tony-the-trader","tag-wobblies","prominence-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}