After a four-day stay at NYU Hospital in August I was signed out for release. I dressed in my street clothing, thanked the staff for their care, and descended by elevator to the ground-floor to hit the streets. I spotted a gift store in the main lobby and stopped to get a newspaper or a book having read Cookie Mueller’s collection of short stories WALKING THROUGH CLEAR WATER IN A POOL PAINTED BLACK as well as Tim Mohr’s amazing history of punk under communism in the DDR.
I was shocked to discover the store offered no newspapers or novels other than coffee table books.
I caught the subway south to Chinatown and stopped in the 169 Bar.
Dakota was behind the bar and greeted me with a smile.
“How you feeling, old man?”
“A little tired, but otherwise not bad,” I recounted everything in 100 words or less and ordered a cranberry juice and soda.
“So no more drinking?”
“Nothing if I want to live. It’s been four days. The longest I’ve been sober since my climbing Kilimanjaro before the pandemic. Actually this was the first time I stayed in the hospital since my birth.” I said nothing about my condition or future. I had a ways to go before I knew anything, but I mentioned about the gift store’s lack of reading material, since Dakota is an avid reader.”
“No books?”
“None.”
We spoke about our favorite writers and poets; Hart Crane, James Elroy, George Orwell’s DOWN AND OUT IN LONDON AND PARIS. The other drinkers at the bar failed to join in the conversation and I said aloud, “America is technically illiterate.”
Two out-of-state slummers glared at me. They were in their 40s and one with glasses said with a Midwestern accent, “Everyone who isn’t a foreigner knows how to read English and if not English most can read their own language.”
“Actually the literacy rate in America is 79% according to Wikipedia.” I had checked that site on the subway ride.
“Can’t be!,” his friend exclaimed and Dakota countered, “I’m a substitute teacher and most students in New York City are struggling with reading, although probably because of the curriculum of Shakespeare and English poetry.”
The four of groaned remembering reading the Bard’s plays.
“Worse was having to discuss the meaning of it all,” said the first speaker, who introduced himself as Blair from Iowa.
“Enough to put you other drama for the rest of your life.”
“On the train only a few people read books,” said Dakota.
“But they all read and write on their phones.”
“Badly.” Text messaging has proved that not everyone can write, but they do understand the hieroglyphics of emojis.
“He’s right. I can’t remember the last time I read a book,” admitted Blair’s friend, “All the libraries near my town have been closed due to budget cuts and the book selection at Walmart is horrible, plus I don’t have the time.”
Dakota and I suggested books and I said, “New York’s libraries are open, but there are much fewer books almost as if millions had been burned to make space with empty shelves. Even the main library at 42nd Street isn’t what it was, because the trustees wanted to open a retail space in the stacks and removed most of the volumes to New Jersey or just shitcanned them.”
“Like the crumbling books in the library in HG Wells’ THE TIME MACHINE. The Eloi didn’t read, because they didn’t have to,” said Blair about man’s future. “We might be like them, but in the movie they were all beautiful blondes raised to feed the subterranean Morlock overlords.”
“Ignorance is easier to achieve than enlightenment and oblivion even more so. Dakota let me buy these guys a drink. I can’t anymore, so you’re my designated drinkers.”
They toasted HG Wells with well whiskey and the prurient value of old stroke books with beer.
I told them all about THE ITCH, Steven Hammer’s masterful voyage through perversity on Olympia Press.
“I must have read it a thousand times.”
“To THE ITCH.”
“I just ordered it from Amazon. Thanks for the recommendation.”
“My pleasure,” I offered leaving the 169. I was heading back to Clinton Hill. I was looking forward to my own bed and a book between my hands leading me to sleep. Nothing too serious. Maybe Ian Fleming’s THUNDERBALL. It’s always good to read an old friend.
Chapter 1 – TAKE IT EASY, MR. BOND.
