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Authors: John Dunning
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wouldn’t imagine you
could do that.”
“Why not? At least sixty percent of the used-book
dealers in this world are too lazy, ignorant, and cheap to
know what they’ve got on their own shelves. They
wouldn’t invest in a reference book if their lives
depended on it. They might as well be selling spare parts
for lawn mowers, that’s all books mean to them.
Don’t get me wrong: I love these people, they have
saved my life more times than you would believe. I take
their books from them and sell them to one of the other
book dealers—”
“One of the forty percent.”
“One of the
ten
percent; one of the guys who wants the best of the best and
isn’t afraid to pay for it. You bet. Take from the
dumb and sell to the smart.”
“That’s gonna be hard to do tomorrow,
though, if you’ve got no money.”
She opened her purse. “Actually, I’ve got a
little over three dollars in change. Pennies, nickels, and
dimes.”
“I don’t think you could buy much of a book
with that.”
She finished her soup and thought it over.
“I’ll tell you a story, and you see what you
think about it. I was down and out in L. A. I was broke,
just about like this, down to my last bit of pocket change.
So I hit the bookstores. The first one I went to had a copy
of
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
. You ever hear of that book?”
I shook my head, lying outrageously.
“A guy named James Agee wrote it and another guy
named Walker Evans illustrated it with photographs. This
was a beautiful first edition, worth maybe three or four
hundred dollars. The dealer was one of those borderline
cases—he knows just enough to be dangerous, and he
had marked it ninety-five. He knew he had
something
, he just wasn’t sure what. I figured my friend in
Seattle might pay me one-fifty for it, but of course I
didn’t have the wherewithal to break it out of there.
I also knew it wouldn’t last another day at that
price—the first real bookman who came through the
door would pick it off. I drifted around the store and
looked at his other stuff.” She sipped her water.
“You ever hear of Wendell Berry?”
The poet, I wanted to say. But I shook my head.
“The poet,” she said. “His early books
are worth some money, and there was one in this same store,
tucked in with the belles lettres and marked three dollars.
I counted out my last pennies and took it: went around the
corner and sold it to another dealer for twenty dollars.
Went back to the first store and asked the guy if
he’d hold the Agee for me till the end of the day.
The guy was a hardass: he said he’d hold it if I put
down a deposit, nonreturnable if I didn’t show up by
closing time. I gave him the twenty and hit the streets. My
problem was time. It was already late afternoon, I had only
about an hour left. What I usually do in a case like that
is sell some blood, but they’ll only take a pint at a
time and I was still seventy dollars short. So I worked up
a poor-little-girl-far-from-home hustle. It was the first
time I’d ever done that, but you know
what?…it’s easy. You guys are the easiest
touches; I guess if you’re a young woman and not
particularly hideous, you really can make men do anything.
I just walked in cold off the street and asked twenty
shopkeepers in a row if they could let me have two dollars
for something to eat. One or two of them snarled and said,
‘Get out of my life, you effing little
deadbeat,’ but you get a thick skin after the first
two or three and then it all rolls off. One guy gave me a
ten. In a cafe on the corner I got money not only from the
owner but from half the guys at the counter. I could
probably make a living doing that, but it has a kind of
self-demeaning effect, except in emergencies. You
don’t learn anything, and one day you wake up and
you’ve lost your looks and can’t do it anymore.
So I made a pact
could do that.”
“Why not? At least sixty percent of the used-book
dealers in this world are too lazy, ignorant, and cheap to
know what they’ve got on their own shelves. They
wouldn’t invest in a reference book if their lives
depended on it. They might as well be selling spare parts
for lawn mowers, that’s all books mean to them.
Don’t get me wrong: I love these people, they have
saved my life more times than you would believe. I take
their books from them and sell them to one of the other
book dealers—”
“One of the forty percent.”
“One of the
ten
percent; one of the guys who wants the best of the best and
isn’t afraid to pay for it. You bet. Take from the
dumb and sell to the smart.”
“That’s gonna be hard to do tomorrow,
though, if you’ve got no money.”
She opened her purse. “Actually, I’ve got a
little over three dollars in change. Pennies, nickels, and
dimes.”
“I don’t think you could buy much of a book
with that.”
She finished her soup and thought it over.
“I’ll tell you a story, and you see what you
think about it. I was down and out in L. A. I was broke,
just about like this, down to my last bit of pocket change.
So I hit the bookstores. The first one I went to had a copy
of
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
. You ever hear of that book?”
I shook my head, lying outrageously.
“A guy named James Agee wrote it and another guy
named Walker Evans illustrated it with photographs. This
was a beautiful first edition, worth maybe three or four
hundred dollars. The dealer was one of those borderline
cases—he knows just enough to be dangerous, and he
had marked it ninety-five. He knew he had
something
, he just wasn’t sure what. I figured my friend in
Seattle might pay me one-fifty for it, but of course I
didn’t have the wherewithal to break it out of there.
I also knew it wouldn’t last another day at that
price—the first real bookman who came through the
door would pick it off. I drifted around the store and
looked at his other stuff.” She sipped her water.
“You ever hear of Wendell Berry?”
The poet, I wanted to say. But I shook my head.
“The poet,” she said. “His early books
are worth some money, and there was one in this same store,
tucked in with the belles lettres and marked three dollars.
I counted out my last pennies and took it: went around the
corner and sold it to another dealer for twenty dollars.
Went back to the first store and asked the guy if
he’d hold the Agee for me till the end of the day.
The guy was a hardass: he said he’d hold it if I put
down a deposit, nonreturnable if I didn’t show up by
closing time. I gave him the twenty and hit the streets. My
problem was time. It was already late afternoon, I had only
about an hour left. What I usually do in a case like that
is sell some blood, but they’ll only take a pint at a
time and I was still seventy dollars short. So I worked up
a poor-little-girl-far-from-home hustle. It was the first
time I’d ever done that, but you know
what?…it’s easy. You guys are the easiest
touches; I guess if you’re a young woman and not
particularly hideous, you really can make men do anything.
I just walked in cold off the street and asked twenty
shopkeepers in a row if they could let me have two dollars
for something to eat. One or two of them snarled and said,
‘Get out of my life, you effing little
deadbeat,’ but you get a thick skin after the first
two or three and then it all rolls off. One guy gave me a
ten. In a cafe on the corner I got money not only from the
owner but from half the guys at the counter. I could
probably make a living doing that, but it has a kind of
self-demeaning effect, except in emergencies. You
don’t learn anything, and one day you wake up and
you’ve lost your looks and can’t do it anymore.
So I made a pact
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