Another Life
In the early 80’s I worked at an independent bookstore called The Book Mark on Speedway Boulevard in Tucson, Arizona. A guy named Ed owned the bookstore. He was wheelchair bound, and he roamed the aisles. He knew where all the books were. The store’s manager, Anne, was in her 40’s and severely anorexic—you could see her bones through her dress. She hunched over the receiving table every day, unloading books and telling those of us who worked for her where to stock them. She loved books.
Every Friday afternoon, Ed would call all the clerks up to the cash register. He had a board that rested on either arm of his chair, forming a table on his lap. On it, he had neatly laid out piles of cash for each of us—our week’s pay. One day, a guy came walking in—he had jet black hair, a dark beard, a mustache. He walked right up to Ed and asked for a job. Ed gave him one on the spot. Come to think of it, that’s how I got my job there, too. The mysterious dark haired guy was David Jewell. He was new in town, at least that’s how I remember it. I introduced him to my good friend Guri, who lived in a bungalow a few streets down from the bookstore. We were all poets. So we started meeting regularly—reading our poems, discussing them, sharing favorite books and authors. After I left Tucson, I saw Dave one last time when he was living in Austin. He was doing a stand up routine—part comedy, part poetry. Then we fell out of touch. Recently, he found my website, and now I have linked two of his sites to this one.
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OMG, I was just thinking about the Book Mark and suffering a wave of nostalgia. Or was it a hot flash? Anyway, that was the best bookstore ever.
Guri May 28, 05:57 pm