Look, I Can’t Hear You
By Erin “Erica” Quick
“…the miracle. Which is, of course,
…that with these words…
we manage to make sense to anyone at all.”
--Lucia Perillo, “Short Course in Semiotics”
I get attached to my customers. We booksellers can’t help it. We spend our days peddling books, those odd and beautiful agents of language. In fact, when it comes to our customers, nearly everything we do is about thought and communication. The intimacy involved in such transactions is sometimes startling, and almost always rewarding.
Like the delightful night when one of my favorite regulars was loading up on cookbooks. When I asked her if she liked to cook, she smiled and said no, in fact she did not. This was her bedtime reading. When I looked puzzled about the contradiction, she just smiled and told me that it was like people who read porn but don’t have sex.
Then there was the rather awkward time when I got busted for not having finished my staff pick. On my way to dinner, I ran into a friend of mine, and we milled a bit over what I was reading. When he saw A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters tucked in my arm and paused (“Wait a minute – isn’t that your staff pick this month?”), I knew I had breached some area of trust in the bookseller/reader relationship. (I have long since finished the book, which I loved all the way.)
I have book soul-mates with whom I have made no end of discoveries, who call me just to tell me how much they are enjoying Gregory Orr or Octavia Butler. Each time they come into the store, I feel as though we are preparing a meal together, sharing food and time and a table. And we always go home sated.
But one of my most unforgettable, most cantankerous, and most beloved customers was Senator Thomas Eagleton.
Senator Eagleton was quite a presence. He had a big voice, a friendly smile, and an assurance about him. He was one of those customers who always knew exactly what he wanted and how he wanted it. I was rather intimidated by him, aware of his prominence in the community and his robust personality. And that’s not to mention stature – all 4’8” of me, even standing on the riser behind the counter, never quite reached eye-level with the Senator. I was so nervous every time I had to help him that I always seemed to do or say the wrong thing.
Early on in my bookselling days, we had a most disagreeable encounter. As many people know, he was quite hard of hearing, which made for a slew of miscommunications. On this particular day, I got to be involved in one of those. Impatient and frustrated with me, he blew me off in a most unpleasant manner. Being new and nervous, and wanting to be of service, I continued to try to help him, which only irritated him further. In the end, I wound up walking tearfully away, hoping against hope that he would forget who I was so the whole incident would blow away and I could just go on being invisible when he came around – feminism be damned.
As it happened, he never did forget. And he spent the rest of our short-lived friendship (yes, even he referred to it as such) trying to make it up to me. Even though he never got my name quite right, he always made a point to find me when he stopped in. He even haunted my days off, leaving friendly little notes. And the apologies never ended. Each visit, while often still confusing, was quite pleasant. I even came to the point of being one of the few people in the store able to decipher his handwriting – another feat in our quirky communication.
The last time I saw him, I made probably my biggest bookseller blunder of all. He came in on a Saturday morning, greeted me with his usual smile, and asked me to recommend a good new history book. The man who always knew exactly what he wanted, who got frustrated with me when I was unable to understand exactly what he wanted, now wanted me to tell him what he wanted. In my nervous haste, I picked up the closet history book to me, Nixon and Mao. Senator Eagleton threw his arms up and said, “Oh, Erica, don’t give me any of that Republican crap!” I felt devastatingly embarrassed. He only smiled and selected for himself a copy of Spymistress: The Life of Vera Atkins, the Greatest Female Secret Agent of World War II. In the moment when he might rightly have taken some personal offense, and certainly might rightly have gotten frustrated with me, he only laughed, and double-checked that he had my name right – which, of course, he didn’t.
I did not know Senator Eagleton in much of a political sense. I was a young child during his service in the US Senate. But I feel lucky. As his bookseller, I got to experience something a little more memorable, and endearing – we got into a fight and had to make up.
I am going to miss him.
“…the miracle. Which is, of course,
…that with these words…
we manage to make sense to anyone at all.”
--Lucia Perillo, “Short Course in Semiotics”
I get attached to my customers. We booksellers can’t help it. We spend our days peddling books, those odd and beautiful agents of language. In fact, when it comes to our customers, nearly everything we do is about thought and communication. The intimacy involved in such transactions is sometimes startling, and almost always rewarding.
Like the delightful night when one of my favorite regulars was loading up on cookbooks. When I asked her if she liked to cook, she smiled and said no, in fact she did not. This was her bedtime reading. When I looked puzzled about the contradiction, she just smiled and told me that it was like people who read porn but don’t have sex.
Then there was the rather awkward time when I got busted for not having finished my staff pick. On my way to dinner, I ran into a friend of mine, and we milled a bit over what I was reading. When he saw A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters tucked in my arm and paused (“Wait a minute – isn’t that your staff pick this month?”), I knew I had breached some area of trust in the bookseller/reader relationship. (I have long since finished the book, which I loved all the way.)
I have book soul-mates with whom I have made no end of discoveries, who call me just to tell me how much they are enjoying Gregory Orr or Octavia Butler. Each time they come into the store, I feel as though we are preparing a meal together, sharing food and time and a table. And we always go home sated.
But one of my most unforgettable, most cantankerous, and most beloved customers was Senator Thomas Eagleton.
Senator Eagleton was quite a presence. He had a big voice, a friendly smile, and an assurance about him. He was one of those customers who always knew exactly what he wanted and how he wanted it. I was rather intimidated by him, aware of his prominence in the community and his robust personality. And that’s not to mention stature – all 4’8” of me, even standing on the riser behind the counter, never quite reached eye-level with the Senator. I was so nervous every time I had to help him that I always seemed to do or say the wrong thing.
Early on in my bookselling days, we had a most disagreeable encounter. As many people know, he was quite hard of hearing, which made for a slew of miscommunications. On this particular day, I got to be involved in one of those. Impatient and frustrated with me, he blew me off in a most unpleasant manner. Being new and nervous, and wanting to be of service, I continued to try to help him, which only irritated him further. In the end, I wound up walking tearfully away, hoping against hope that he would forget who I was so the whole incident would blow away and I could just go on being invisible when he came around – feminism be damned.
As it happened, he never did forget. And he spent the rest of our short-lived friendship (yes, even he referred to it as such) trying to make it up to me. Even though he never got my name quite right, he always made a point to find me when he stopped in. He even haunted my days off, leaving friendly little notes. And the apologies never ended. Each visit, while often still confusing, was quite pleasant. I even came to the point of being one of the few people in the store able to decipher his handwriting – another feat in our quirky communication.
The last time I saw him, I made probably my biggest bookseller blunder of all. He came in on a Saturday morning, greeted me with his usual smile, and asked me to recommend a good new history book. The man who always knew exactly what he wanted, who got frustrated with me when I was unable to understand exactly what he wanted, now wanted me to tell him what he wanted. In my nervous haste, I picked up the closet history book to me, Nixon and Mao. Senator Eagleton threw his arms up and said, “Oh, Erica, don’t give me any of that Republican crap!” I felt devastatingly embarrassed. He only smiled and selected for himself a copy of Spymistress: The Life of Vera Atkins, the Greatest Female Secret Agent of World War II. In the moment when he might rightly have taken some personal offense, and certainly might rightly have gotten frustrated with me, he only laughed, and double-checked that he had my name right – which, of course, he didn’t.
I did not know Senator Eagleton in much of a political sense. I was a young child during his service in the US Senate. But I feel lucky. As his bookseller, I got to experience something a little more memorable, and endearing – we got into a fight and had to make up.
I am going to miss him.
posted by Left Bank Books at 3:22 PM
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