The Notebook

"The Notebook Part--1" A lonely figure wanders into The Write Tools Stationary Shop searching for a notebook but walks away with something completely different.

 Part 1

 

Damn Jesus holidays’ll be the death of me yet, Thomas Brimm grumbled half aloud half to himself as he trundled down the empty side street towards the Write Tools Stationary Shop. He looked at his watch–it was five minutes to midnight, Christmas Eve, dark, with a rabid wind snarling and biting at his oversized Army Surplus parka. Just up ahead a lone pool of amber light spilled out of the storefront window and onto the ice-slagged street. He took this as a good sign.

       Brass bells tinkled overhead as he shuffled inside. A cozy fire-log warmth sat in the store and a brisk shiver iced his spine. A notebook. It was the last thing on his to-do list: he had gone to Macey’s and picked up the gin and the cigarettes, took the cross town to Solbey’s for the power cord and a box of frozen chicken pot pies and now this, The Write Tools Stationary Shoppe, this was his last stop. As he stomped his boots on the the brown welcome mat, an old Chinese man popped his head up from behind a cranky looking cash register and nodded distractedly at Brimm, who nodded back and scanned the store with his drug stained eyes. It was the kind of bookstore he liked: everything slightly off kilter and squat with a musty dome of nicotine-stained light hanging over everything, books poked everywhere, stacked willy-nilly, in a neat, yet chaotic order that necessitated a semi-conscientious book hunt. He loved the hunt too. But not tonight, he reminded himself. Got a lot of work to do yet.

       “You open?” Brimm asked turning his attention back to the old man. “Sure, sure,” the Chinese man said without looking up from his paperwork. “Take you time.”

       “Hey thanks,” he said back, “but I gotta get going ya know. It’s late and all. I was wondering if you got any of those Faber-Castell Notebooks? The Limited Edition ones with the hard covers and the embossed silver lettering. I need a black one.”

       The old man put down his pen and looked up at Brimm. His square face was rather too large for his thin coat hanger shoulders, but its size only emphasized his eyes which were the worn color of monk’s robes. “So,” the old man asked chewing on the arm of his glasses and slouching back in his chair, a pose that lent him an air of dispassionate intellectualism. “Why you want one of those notebooks for?”

       Brimm groaned. Hadn’t it been this way all day? Incompetence lurking at every corner, everyone conspiring to prevent him from getting his errands done and back to his desk? He looked down at the plastic Solbey’s bag hanging at his side and let his mind drift like a snowbank over the day. First there had been the b*****d in the snowplow who piled the snow onto his front step and the obligatory hour of shoveling; then, there was the fool at the liquor store who argued about the sales price on the bottle of gin; the power cord, he had to admit, hadn’t been too traumatizing, but the weather was s****y and getting worse, and now–now–there was this little gremlin with his questions about his tastes in notebooks.

       “Well, why do you want that kinda book for? Mister…?” The old man repeated, his voice curling higher in pitch and leveling off as he waited for an answer. The old man’s snobbish air had evaporated. Now, there materialized the near-to-condescending smile of the friendly neighborhood proprietor. Brimm played off this quick shift in temperament and played along. “Brimm, Thomas Brimm” he said, squeezing his plastic bag closer to his leg. And why the hell not? Tis the goddamned season.

       “Well, Mr. Brimm. What do you want a Fidel Castro book for?”

       “Just ’cause I like ‘em, I guess,” he said letting the slip pass.

       “I know the ones you’re talking about but they betty betty cheap. Not good for your purposes, I don’t think so.” The old man plucked his glasses out of his mouth and held them up to the light, examining them for grease stains. Brimm waited as the old man searched then cleaned his glasses with the hem of his beige guayabera shirt. “This is an important question you know, Mr Brimm, what you purpose is. Anyway, anyway. Drawing or writing?” he asked suddenly, then stuffed his glasses back in his mouth. “There’s a big difference.”

       “For writing, I guess.”

       “You guess?” the Chinese man chuckled. “I think you know. I can see that writer’s slump in you. It’s in your shoulders. I mean, not that you are in a slump or anything, it’s just that you got a writer’s slump… to your shoulders. Anyway, anyway,” the old man barreled on, “slump or no slump, you don’t need that Castro book for writing–that’s the problem.”

       Brimm knocked his shoulders back. What is he getting at? I’m not in no slump. “So, where is it?” he said trying to get the conversation back on track.

       “That’s not the one for you.” The old man replied. “I’m telling you, a notebook has to be just right.”

       “Just right, huh?”

       “Ye-up, just right” the old man chirped. “And don’t forget,” he said leaning forward and looking over his glasses. “You break the block with the right tools.”

       That was it. Enough oriental b.s. Brimm angled in and pointed what he hoped was a menacing finger. “Look. Enough of this cryptic crossword mumbo-jumbo, alright? No more crap about slumps and problems and stuff. I just want to know if you’ve got any Limited Edition Faber-Castell notebooks. Not Fidel, either. But Faber, Fa-ber.” 

       “Hey-ey,” the old Chinese man whined then sat up and snapped the yellow notepad from off of the counter. “No offense, okay?” He said jerking his thumb towards the window. “It’s my slogan, that’s all. Your book’s in da back.”

       Thomas looked out the window and watched the store’s sign swing in the wind. On the other side of the road a million billion particles of snow whirled into a cyclone, grew in radiance, achieved stasis, collapsed, picked up again, twisted, fell. Oh, to see a world in a flake of snow, Brimm thought and left the old man at the counter fully aware that he was not going to get another word out of him anyway–even if he did apologize, which he wasn’t about to do.

        He wandered down the Used Books aisle surveying the collection of poetry and novels, a faint thwip, thwip, thwip, following in his wake as he ran his fingers along the spines’s of Lethem’s, Miller’s, Pynchon’s, Roth’s. His mind drifted over the titles: Mailer’s “American Dream,” Ellis’s “American Psycho,” Swift’s “Last Orders”… Order. Was that what the old guy was getting at? That he needed to see the patterns swirling under the surface of his life? Was his recent writing slump–well, maybe not so recent; it had been five years now–and the slump in his shoulders one and the same thing? But he had produced four books of notes all ready. Things were rolling. And in just five weeks! It was all there. Alive. He could see the patterns forming; just waiting there for him to organize into real literature, too. He smiled at the thought. One day his novel would be sitting between Anton Breton and Charles Bukowski–-a nice place to be.

       He pulled out a dog-eared special edition of The New York Trilogy and turned it over. It was three bucks. Three s****y bucks. He looked back at the counter where the old Chinese man was slumped over his paper work. Maybe he’s not so bad, he thought, a soft petal of admiration tickling his throat as he replaced the book and headed towards the back. The old man’s comments gnawed at him, though. It was as if he had held out a message, but in such a circuitously bullshit Zen manner that Brimm couldn’t be bothered trying to figure it out. Was there something about order and life and purpose that he was supposed to piece together? F**k that, he thought. That Paul Coehlo New Age crap is all just bullshit anyway. He let it slide.

       The back of the store smelled faintly of old cigars and burlap sacks. The ceiling was low and sloped down to six feet in height and he had to duck slightly as he investigated the rows of wooden shelves storing a fine collection of notebooks and writing accessories. To his left stood a lone book rack made of a simple black iron which contained a number of handcrafted notebooks. From the accessories box he snapped up a Faber-Castell Uniball, black ink, mid tip pen and rolled it between his fingers admiring the keen attention to ergonomic detail. The pen was triangular with rounded edges and a comfortable black rubber casing. Perfect. Just perfect.

       He went to the back wall and lifted a black Limited Edition Faber-Castell notebook from off of the shelf and ran his hand over the cover, frowning. For the last two weeks now he had blanketed the city searching for these notebooks; now not even Colby’s Books or Bult’s had copies anymore. He had one now though, finally, and waves of calm flowed through him. He opened it and flipped through the pages. Best use it wisely, he thought and put the book under his arm and turned to leave. But instead of going straight to the cashier’s counter he drifted over to a small bookrack and twirled it slowly.

       It’s slightly bent axis vocalized a soft click–click–click as he eyed the selection of handmade notebooks. He was hypnotized by their beauty. From afar they didn’t look like much, but up close they shone. A white and grey hard bound journal with a water color of the Taj Mahal leaned next to one made of a tough brown leather with side stitching. He slid the Faber-Castell next to an expertly bound notebook adorned with a stylized Asian dragon sitting atop a steep mystical mountain. Propped there next to it made the Faber-Castel look dull and withered.

       He stood back and scratched his neck. It was clear: his notebook was in there somewhere.

       He gave the bookrack another spin–this time with force. The books blurred passed–click-click-click-click-click-click-click. His head turned in tight circles as he tried to focus on one of the books. Nothing came. Random–to hell with the old man and purpose and all that junk–what he wanted was the book to select him. He leaned closer, but nothing happened. Annoyed, he swatted at the rack and it clacked faster. He hit it again. And again. With each hit his anger rose. He swung harder and it tilted from side to side. The fact that it didn’t fall enraged him and he swung at the rack. It swayed and lurched but didn’t fall. He leaned back and gave it one final smack–as he did so, one thought, crystal clear in snowflake white, shone in his head: that f****n’ b***h.

       The bookrack crashed to the floor. His mind filled with old images of her and he sagged to the floor with his head in his hands, the plastic Solbey’s bag slumped at his side. That f*****g b***h. He saw her as he remembered her best: cinematically. It was a sunny day in July and they had taken the midmorning bus up to Madeleine Falls. Whipperwills wafted through the air of ambrosia. They ate brunch on a blanket and headed to the falls where she leapt up onto the deck’s wall and skipped about. He asked her to come down, –you might hurt herself–but she was emboldened by his ticklishness and broke into a little Judy Garland song and dance number, her legs kicking out while she raised her tattered umbrella high over her shoulder. Behind her, the waterfall roared with applause. He snapped a picture and she jumped into his arms, laughing.

       He sobbed, but didn’t cry. Couldn’t cry. There were no more tears; like a wet newspaper, anger, frustration, and shame seeped out of him thickly, blackly. Inside of himself he felt the familiar hollow, the sleepy hollow that remained after she had left him and now completely drained him. He wanted to go home and go to sleep. He dragged the bookrack up onto his lap and shoved the notebooks back into their slots and after they were in place, half dazed he picked himself and the book rack from up off of the floor. As he did so a notebook slid out and landed on the hardwood.

        He looked over his shoulder towards the front of the store sure that the old man would be marching down the aisle to see what all the racket was about, but there was no sign of him. Only the yellow legal notepad remained sitting atop the counter. The store was as silent; as an empty coffee mug.

       He edged over to the book, circled it. He hadn’t noticed this one when he looked before. He bent down on his hands and knees to get a closer look. It was extraordinarily plain: handmade, constructed of a tough recycled cardboard, no pictures, no ornamentation; not dark not light, just a simple tan peppered with darker flecks. On all fours he bent over the book and sniffed it, then stood up. From this high angle it looked like some strange doorway bolted into the ground. Where does it lead?

        He swept the book up off of the floor. Its craftsmanship was simple yet impressive. Long-stitched with a sturdy brown leather cord that wrapped around the recycled cardboard cover and tied in a neat little knot in the front, its parchment-like pages were blank except for a thin line that stretched across the top. Other than that it was blank.Good. No obstructions, he thought jamming the power cord back into his plastic back and rushing back to the counter.

        ”I, ah, got a book,” Thomas said laying it on the counter and standing back to play with the frayed edges of his coat sleeve. Where did he come from? he wondered. He was sure the old man hadn’t been there a minute ago. Was it really just a minute ago? Time seemed to tug and warp around the density of the situation and he could no longer be sure how long he had been in the store. He brushed his confused thoughts aside. “Oh and this pen.”

       “No problem,” the Chinese man said ringing in the products. “I see you went with one of the handmade notebooks.” He turned and looked directly at Brimm, who noticed something dark hunched in his arched asian eyes. He had switched again. The intellectual had evaporated, the friendly sage had sulked off, and now there was this. This what? Brimm edged away from the counter incapable of taking his eyes off of the old man who bore through him with his faded brown eyes. He was looking through Brimm. Passed his skin and fat cells and into his blood stream and beyond that into his leukocytes and plasma. With out warning, the dark thing darted away and the old man sagged back in his seat. His eyes faded to beige, he mumbled “Brimm” three or four times then snapped upright, “Ah-ha! I got it! You know the one: ‘Years steal fire from the mind as vigor from the limb; And Life’s enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim?’”

       “Ah, no,” Thomas said, worried that the little Chinese man would start speaking in tongues again.

       “That’s Byron. You like Byron?”

       “Yeah, of course,” Brimm said his eyes skipping over the countertop and the shelves behind it. The faux cherry wood clock read 12:55. I’ve been here for a f****n’ hour! How the hell did that happen?

       “Byron sure loved to, ya know, baboom-boom, huh? Had maybe, like a thousand flumpities as he like to call them. And as many men too! And little boys, I think he mostly preferred little boys.” Brimm watched as the Chinese man’s color deepened, then his hair-line fracture of a mouth cracked open and he wheezed with laughter. “That’s a lot of baboom-boom, isn’t it Mr. Brimm?”

       Thomas handed over ten bucks, the old man took it his shoulders still shaking with laughter and dug in the cash register for change.

       “But, do you know who Byron’s real love was? I mean, love, you know? Not the baboom-boom kind, but love.” He was all marble statued seriousness now.

       “No, no I don’t.”

       “Botswain.”

       “Botswain?” Thomas said eyeing the door.

       “Yeah, this great big huge Newfoundland dog. That dog was the true love of his life. Byron never got over it, losing that dog. He even had a monument made when she die.” The Chinese man leaned forward, arched an eyebrow. “What about you Thomas Brimm?” he asked holding out Brimm’s change. “You got a baboom-boom buddy? Huh? Huh? She must be worry now. It’s late and Christmas is tomorrow, you know?”

       Thomas grabbed the pen and notebook from off of the countertop and charged for the door. The old man called out after him–Hey mister your change!–but before he could finish, Brimm bolted through the door and headed out into the growing storm.

 

Author's Note

Please, all criticisms are welcome! Dialogue, grammar, content--everything--is up for grabs. Thanks for taking the time.
Wellum Hulder

Reviews

[sheets]

I have to say that I really feel that you are off to a good start with this book. Always remember, when reading on a computer screen everything can look jumbled together. Don't be afraid to break it up a little. Maybe, even cutting it short, spreading it out and just doing chapters. If your afraid that people won't read all the chapters? Trust me, they will. Great start, I look forward to reading more.

[meagansphilosophy]

When I first started reading this, I thought it was just going to be one of those short stories that ramble on about plainly nothing. But after the first few lines, I lost myself completely!
Your amazing as turning a simple thing as a notebook into something amazing, it felt as though I was there, standing beside Thomas Brimm as he spoke to the chinese man and found the notebook he ended up purchesing.
Also, I wounder how only that kept him in the store for a full hour. I suspect something strangly odd about the notebook he ends up buying, could I be wrong? (:

[renea hanna.]

i wasn't planning on getting sucked into this when i started reading, but the best laid plans of mice and men, ya know. excellent writing! i really enjoyed reading this and the dialogue was believable. the flashback of the encounter with the girl seemed idealisic, however, i think you meant it that way? it makes sense that memories of something you once had that you miss would be idealistic so that works. the only thing that i noticed while reading is that in some instances the chinese man's dialogue is inconsistent in its inflection. maybe try reading through just his dialogue and see if it needs to be tweaked in certain word choices to maintain his believable speech pattern. just a thought. anyway, i enjoyed it very very much and look forward to reading more.