Not finding parking near the Dolphin Gym on 24th Avenue proved fortuitous today to the floating bookshop. I set up under the tree on Bay Parkway and 85th and had spectacular luck. The percentages were overdue or, as author Monica Brinkman put it in the her novel, it was The Turn of the Karmic Wheel. I recognized Sue, a lifelong resident of Bensonhurst, immediately. Although we were never in the same class, we were contemporaries at St. Mary's Elementary School. That's not the only place I'd seen her. She worked the counter at a local deli and she is the cousin of five brothers who lived across the street and one house down from mine. When I told her Close to the Edge was set in the neighborhood, she bought it and said goodbye. I soon sold The Complete Guide to Design and Illustration, a beautiful coffee-table-like book, to a young man. Then I spotted Sue walking toward me. "Uh-oh," I thought. She'd read the first 15 pages and had returned for A Hitch in Twilight. I was surprised. I always hope strangers will buy Hitch first, as it is strictly a fun read that will in the least show the writing to be competent, whereas Edge is virtually humorless, downbeat, described by many as "disturbing," which I intended it to be. As we were gabbing, I asked if she were related to Paulie, an Exchange supervisor who became a commodities trader. He was another of her cousins, who, tragically, died of cancer at about age 50. Still another of her cousins is a guy affectionately known in that lunatic asylum as Joe Piss for his frequent bathroom breaks in his years as a data entry reporter. He is a piece of work, someone who always sees the negative in everything, buys in to every conspiracy theory. "The glass is half full," I often told him at lunch, frustrated by his life view. He could not see it as anything but half empty, probably even a lot less than that. He found relief in food, which led to health problems, procedures, umpteen medications and disability. These days he is being sucked dry financially by his ex-wife, despite the fact that she is living with another man.
Sue is now working as a supervisor at the Department of Motor Vehicles in downtown Brooklyn. She has grown children and grandkids. As we continued to converse, a young man, here from Turkey only three weeks, stopped, mesmerized by the books, of which he bought six hardcovers. His English was surprisingly good for someone here such a short time.
After Sue left a gentleman approached to see what was what. Louis M. Gelormino is the author of The Gent's Prayer (Authors of Unity Publishing, 2005), an inspirational autobiography of transformation. He's had feelers from film producers, and publishers who want to release it on a wider scale. He surrendered two copies, one for me and the other to sell. Sure enough, I sold it to a young man 20 minutes later.
Thanks to everyone who made this a banner day.
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