“I think I got everything, Mr. Reynman.” Said Jeff.
“Looks like it. If I have any more titles that have wandered off I’ll let you know. I am going out to the warehouse this weekend and I’ll check to see if I can find anything more.” Said John. “It comes to $83.75.”
Jeff pulled a crumple of money out of his jeans, a twenty escaped and hit the floor. Frank stared at it. John nodded at it and Jeff picked up the money saying “Sorry.”
As John made change, Frank walked up to the counter.
“Young man, I see that you are interested in the study of yoga.” Said Frank.
“I saw this Discovery special on it last night, and I was thinking how little time any of us are in control of our thoughts, so I thought I would change that about myself.”
Frank nodded. “Yes, it was the secret of yoga that gave me my long life and all of my happiness despite the circumstances of my life.”
Jeff looked at Frank’s palsy, his liver spots, and his ancient eyes. Frank looked at the watch.
“You studied yoga?”
“Not in the east, but here in Austin in the Thirties from James Cassutto. He was a great Western master, who learned a mixture of Indian and Native American techniques.”
“I’ve never heard of him” said Jeff.
“There was some controversy about his teachings.” Said Frank playing his trump card. “I could tell you more but I need to sit a spell.”
“Would you like me to buy you coffee next door?” asked Jeff. “I know the staff there very well.”
“That would be very kind, but I can’t stand coffee, could you get me a tea?”
Jeff scooped up his books and took the old man’s hand. There was even the pretense of buying the book about Tibet. John put it on Jeff’s tab. As many books as he bought he would never notice.
John Reynman ran into Jeff and Frank a couple of days later. John had help on Wednesdays and was able to take a nice long lunch at Sanna’s, a downtown restaurant and tea-room, a few blocks from the New Atlantis He was midway though a tasty Cesar salad with chicken when he saw them across the crowded restaurant. Frank wore an old gray three-piece suit that swallowed his shrunken frame and Jeff was in shiny black shorts and a blue-and-white-stripped cotton shirt. Frank was making expansive gestures with his hands and Jeff was watching him like a bunny watches a rattlesnake. The check came and Jeff picked it up and dashed out of the restaurant. Frank slowly surveyed the restaurant as he made his way to the door and spotted John. He headed over and sat at John’s booth.
“Watching my show were ya?” asked Frank. “Don’t be afraid he’ll be back in your store in a few days, I figure I can dine out for a week on him.”
“Are you teaching him yoga?” asked John.
“Yoga my ass. I am selling a tall tale to him for a few meals. He comes out much the better on the deal if you ask me.”
The waiter had come over and asked if John needed anything. Frank ordered a hot tea and a slice of chess pie.
“What tale are you selling him?” asked John.
“I don’t guess it would hurt you to know. I know you despise him.” Said Frank.
“I have no such feelings. Jeff is one of my most loyal customers.”
“I’m sure that’s true. But I see you there looking at him with disguised hate behind your coffee cup. Did you know you only drink your wretched coffee when you’ve got a customer you don’t like? You’re thinking about the fact that the guy is nearly thirty and his folks send him money to keep him from coming home.”
“I didn’t know he was that old.”
“Faggots look much younger than their age. It’s why I’ve always thought there was a gay gene. His folks sent him off to Austin to go to college and never come back. They have trouble dealing with his sexual preference up in Shamrock. His partner wasted away and that’s a big deal in rural Texas. You and I don’t have any trouble with that, but we have trouble with someone that can lay in a soft bed with a nice comforter when our alarms are going off at 7:00 and our heads hurt and we don’t know if our checks might bounce and we have to figure how to pay for our medicine and so forth. How much does he drop in your store every month?”
John shrugged and then said, “I figure about eighty bucks a month. He’s always got something he’s interested in. One month he was going to write detective novels so he bought all my books on writing and a dozen classic detective novels. Another month he was going to be a fashion designer. So what is going to be now?”
“Most of us really don’t get to choose what we want to be when we grow up. I didn’t. My choice was to be a Hollywood star, the next Clark Gable. He doesn’t know who Clark Gable was.”
John nodded and then realized that at forty-eight, he had never actually seen a Clark Gable movie except clips from Gone with the Wind on YouTube.
The pie arrived and Frank dug in. Although he still had the gift of gab, John could see how frail he had become. His breathing was shallow and irregular; his hand shook.
Frank continued, “You know twenty, thirty years ago there were some great underground papers in this town. The Austin Free Voice asked me to write for them, tell them stories of being a Wobbly or romantic nonsense about the Depression. Yep, we were starving then, it was dang romantic. But I tried to get something going. I took a Left Wing agitator that I really knew named Cassutto, and said that he had learned a deep magical secret from an Indian shaman he had met in a chain gang. This old Indian had told him how to control his dreams. It was going to be the secret of communism. See at night you could be anything you wanted to be, dreams would no longer be a land without freedom of choice and absence of will. You could be the Emperor of China at night, and then you would be willing to be a hard struggling comrade during the day. The Castaneda books were coming out and Chief Gray Eagle, and I figured I could sell Yoga for Bolsheviks by Cassutto. Well nobody snapped at my little hoax then, but I’m selling it to wonder boy these days.”
Frank had a coughing fit. John waited till it was done, and then asked,” Are you OK? Should I help you home?”
Frank looked really angry, and shook his head no, but said, “Yes. That might not be a bad idea.”
John helped him up. The old man leaned heavily on John’s arm. He lived in a small apartment over a shop that sold cell phones. Frank had told him that he had lived there since 1950 “outlasting fourteen businesses.” John had to pause at every step.
“You got any family?” John asked..
“Buried ’em. Buried my youngest sister ten years ago. I’ve got some nephews, but I don’t how to get hold of them, and I’m sure they don’t want to get hold of me. I just get by being a son of a bitch.”
They reached the top of the stairs. Frank said, “Thank you for helping me home. I hate to be a burden to anyone.” He began fumbling for his keys. His palsy was worse than at the restaurant. John said, “I need to come in and use your facilities.”