“No you don’t. You just want to be sure that I don’t die here on the steps. Well that’s probably a good thing. I talked the landlord into giving me free rent fifteen years ago. I am an Austin institution like Leslie Cochran. The sucker that would be my last year. I want to keep annoying him for awhile.”
The apartment had a slanted ceiling and smelled like an old people’s home. The floor’s yellowish linoleum was worn through in a couple of places showing grime-blackened wood beneath. There was a bed with sheets that had not been washed in awhile with an army blanket on top of it. A roll-top desk was the single nice piece of furniture in the room contrasting with the two broken down orange plastic chairs clearly salvaged from some alley. A small nightstand had a hot plate on it with a rather disreputable looking copper teapot.. There was an open bottle of Benchmark bourbon and case of assorted can goods set next to the nightstand. Mixed veggies and Fancy Feast—so people really do eat cat food. Cheap overstuffed bookshelves covered the walls. There was no TV, no radio, and no phone. John went into the small bathroom, and closed the door behind him. The fifteen-watt bulb didn’t give much light, and given the filth inside John was glad of that. He heard Frank sit on the bed. He flushed and went back to the main room.
Frank said, “You can see that I don’t entertain much anymore.” He waved a shaky hand around the room. “Are you disappointed? Expected a pleasure palace after all of my stories?”
“I think wherever you live is a good place because it has a grand old man there.” said John.
“Oh Jesus save the mark!” said Frank. “I outlived everything and everybody. That’s why I can’t stand our young friend. He’ll miss all of his connections too. I am going to cure him of dreaming.”
“Did someone ever cure you of dreaming?” asked John.
“No. Dreaming’s all I got. At night I’m the emperor of China.” Frank stood up. His color grew paler and his steps were unsteady. He walked over to the roll top desk. He started to open it, and then said, “You’re a good man John. I think you’re good enough. I thought that when you let run-always live in your little shop and work the counter. You didn’t know I knew that, did you?”
“I try to keep it a secret so the shop won’t attract the wrong kind of people. One a year or so is all that Haidee and I can afford.”
“See? You are a good man. I wasn’t good enough, but I’m not bad man. I did one good thing in my life. I always kept ’em guessing—that’s the best thing you can do if you want to be a very old man.” Frank suddenly shook again and John helped him back to his bed.
“I think I should call someone.” said John.
“No, no I’ve got what I need here. I’ll take care of myself when you’ve left. You just remember what I said,” said Frank.
“Well, I’ll make you some tea at least.”
There was small box of Lipton’s Tea. John brewed Frank a cup. He spotted the tiny refrigerator by the bed and was gratified to find it clean on the inside and stocked with milk and margarine and a half a hamburger. John sat on one of the orange plastic chairs, and waited until Frank had drunk half of his tea. Frank’s breathing had become more regular and his color returned.
The afternoon was shot. He went home and waited for Haidee to get home from work.
He didn’t see Frank during the week. Jeff came in once, just at closing.
He didn’t seem himself at all. Rather than planting himself at the counter and telling John about his latest schemes, he moved quickly and quietly, picking up a couple books from the legal section. They were books on wills. He wouldn’t look John in the face.
“So you talked the old man into leaving you everything?” asked John. John couldn’t imagine there was anything, except the stories. You can’t leave anybody your stories.
Jeff looked up. “It’s not your business. Someone needs to take care of him. It should be someone that understands what he has to offer. I can do a very good job being a caretaker. My lover died of AIDS four years ago. I am very patient. I am very understanding.”
“You shouldn’t take care of someone unless you love them. Not because they can give you something.”
“Everyone eventually takes care of someone because of what someone gives them, even if it’s love, or just a few good stories.”
John said, “You better be sure that he has what you want.”
“He’s got this book called Yoga for Bolsheviks. This local Communist met a Mazatec shaman and learned the secret of dream control. You know the Mazatecs?”
John smiled, “Not personally, but they introduced the West to psilocybe mushrooms, morning glory seeds and salvia divinorum. Do I win the Oaxacan trivia contest?”
Jeff smiled. “You win. What no one knows is that they developed a practice similar to Tibetan dream yoga.”
This should be a good deal for Frank, hell maybe he could cure Jeff of dreaming. Poe and ghost should work, but John couldn’t stop himself. He poured himself a cup of coffee and asked Jeff, “Well here is your trivia, do you know Professor Joe Gould?”
“Is he an ethnologist?”
“He was a hobo panhandler, a Harvard graduate, a real character in the ’40s.”
Jeff made an attempt to look interested while putting a white and orange trade paperback of The Complete Book of Wills, Estates and Trusts by Alexander A. Bove Jr. Esq. on the worn wooden counter.
“The New Yorker ran a piece on him during World War II. ‘Professor Seagull’ He carried Big Chief tablets with him all the time—claimed to be writing The Oral History of Our Time—it was going to be a million word history of the people, the shirt sleeves multitude. He became enough of a legend that a New Yorker big shot followed him around. Turned out Professor Joe had both hypergraphia and writer’s block. He just kept rewriting some trivial incidents of his life.”
“Fascinating. What a deep parallel to my situation. I want to help an old man, and there have been other old men who are con artists. Why ‘Seagull’ anyway?”
“One of the ways Joe Gold earned money was making weird noises and dancing. He claimed to speak the language of the seagulls. He said he translated over ninety percent of Longfellow into sea gull. He said the poems sounded better in gulclass="underline"
“All the wild-fowl sang them to him,
In the moorlands and the fen-lands,
In the melancholy marshes.
Chetowaik, the plover, sang them—my great aunt won a prize at the Texas State Fair for declaiming the Song of Hiawatha. I imagine it would sound pretty great in gull. Look you like Frank, he has told me that you have given him dozens of paperbacks over the years.”
“When the big shot wrote the article on Joe Gould, Joe became a caricature of himself. The big shot caught Joe’s writer’s block and then didn’t write for thirty years.”
Jeff said, “Just sell me the books. I’ve been a good customer. I won’t need you any more.”
John rang up the books.
“They’re $18.85.”
Jeff handed him a twenty and told him to keep the change.
Jeff did his best imitation of storming off.
When John told Haidee that night, she suggested that he was jealous,. Not many people adore Frank like you do. Maybe you want to be the only to do the good deeds for the old man. Maybe you think you are the only worthy of the stories.