19. An Essay Interrupted

Sometimes we go looking for adventure. Sometimes the adventure comes to us. Hurricane Sandy visited us. Living 75 miles from the ocean and not near any rivers or significant streams, we were not afraid. As large as Sandy was in size, when it came ashore at Atlantic City, it was only a category 2 hurricane. It weakened as it crossed New Jersey to reach us. I am more afraid of Romney winning the election than I was of Hurricane Sandy.

Last night, Hurricane Sandy raged against our apartment building. That was Monday night, 29^th October 2012. Sandy tried its best to distract me from composing this essay. We live to the northeast of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Powerful gusts rose and fell like a slow breathing giant. The building creaked. I had started work on this essay while the storm was most violent. All about us communities were losing electricity. The lights in our apartment blinked. I had to restart the computer. Then I decided to compose this essay with pen and paper for fear of the computer crashing and losing what I had written. I kept a small flashlight on the desk beside me just in case. There were candles stored in the cabinet above the refrigerator, but we never lost power.

Earlier that evening, Ms Keogh insisted on taking a walk for her health and I went along to better experience the hurricane, and to keep her from blowing away. Ms Keogh is my more significant other. We dressed in warm clothes, over which we wore water-resistant garments, and went for our stroll. It was invigorating. We had to speak loudly to make ourselves heard. She linked her arm through mine for support. The wind kept changing directions. Sometimes it slowed us and we had to lean into it. The tall trees bowed first one way, then the other, manic dancers in a distraught fury.

What was this essay originally to be about? I had intended to write about the bookstore.

Trenton, the capital city of New Jersey, has but one downtown bookstore and it sells predominantly second-hand books. What does that say about Trenton, there is only one bookstore? The city began the 20^th century as a vital manufacturing and industrial center. The city has been in decline these last forty years, its downtown in decay, its reputation stained by crimes and murder. Just this last month, Trenton’s mayor was arrested for bribery. He was exploiting his position in this sadly neglected city. He laid off a third of the city’s police, he allowed municipal buildings to run out of toilet paper, and he sold city property to cronies cheap. Poor Trenton, its four branch libraries had been closed leaving only the main branch.

The city is crumbling. Its many red-brick townhouses, 150 years old, are begging to be saved, restored, not unlike what has been achieved in Philadelphia’s Society Hill. The downtown is ugly. The Capital Complex is a patchwork of discordant buildings wedged together and disjointed. The downtown’s newer buildings are concrete monstrosities in the style of the Soviet Bloc. And I still have not broached the subject of Eric Maywar’s bookstore, Classics Used and Rare Books, as it reads on his business card, or as the green sign with gold lettering on his storefront reads, Classics Books & Gifts.

The small bookstore is a bright spot in a blighted city. Until recently, the shop was crammed into a narrow space that ran deep. It could get quickly crowded and closet-like. One felt they had entered a tight cave in search of gold. Despite its spatial restrictions, it was more than a bookstore, it was a community center for – well, bookish people. And Friday nights, they were playing Scrabble in the back.

A couple of weeks ago, the bookstore moved around the block to a new shop. The move was accomplished by many friends, which included Ms Keogh and me. On an afternoon, we walked the thousands of dusty books from the old shop to the new, the mismatched bookcases too. The new place, while not bigger, is wider, giving a roomier feel. It is also brighter from the placement of two large windows along its length. And even though the bookstore moved only a few yards, the new location is better for business, being directly across from the Marriott Hotel.

Small independent bookstores have suffered since the advent of the big box bookstore chains. But those mall-based bookstores in the suburbs are market places for what is popular, for what can be sold in quantities that earn corporate-size fortunes. There is something industrial in the quantities involved, in books new and flashy like mass produced automobiles. The same books are offered in every store, as if fixed with the identical interior design. There is a loss of charm and uniqueness in those book supermarkets, yet I like them too. I like all bookstores, except maybe Christian bookstores.

I like secondhand bookstore the most. Is this inexcusable, a romantic longing for an archaic medium? Aren’t movies the new books? Isn’t the internet our new encyclopedia with everything and anything displayed and explained in conveniently short articles? Still, judging by the ubiquitous Barnes & Noble stores that dot the America landscape, books are more prevalent than ever before, not less.

I have always wanted to own and operate a small bookstore.

Eric had decided to go back to a real job in order to earn a significant income that might help support his family. Still, he could not bring himself to abandon the bookstore. Ms Keogh volunteered to work four days a week keeping Classics open during lunch in exchange for a small bit of space to sell “art”. She has, in turn, volunteered me to help by keeping her company.

Trenton is only a fifteen minute drive from where we live. It was on Monday that the edge of hurricane Sandy had reached us. On our short drive to the bookstore, what began as a breezy sprinkle grew into a strong wind with rain that set signposts rocking and hanging traffic signals swaying. It was the last beautiful autumn day, the leaves having peaked. The hurricane was denuding the trees. The city was closed, shops, eateries, even government, but not the bookstore. We were there ready to do business. We did our two hours, from noon to two o’clock, without any customers visiting, but having each other’s company was pleasant enough. Ms Keogh pondered all those electric lives, all those bored people denied their televisions by Hurricane Sandy. I envied Eric his bookstore. I could have spent my life the proprietor of a small bookshop, could do so now for the remainder of my life.