The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits. -- Ecclesiastes 1:6

Back when I worked at a used book shop I had the opportunity to meet many of what people charitably refer to as "characters". The Book Stop, a small store with narrow labyrinthine aisles, seemed to draw more than its fair share. The owners tolerated and perhaps unconsciously encouraged the eccentric clientele, who added as much to the atmosphere as the musty smell that was like incense to an antiquarian book lover.

My favorite shift was Sunday night when I worked alone and did as I pleased. Not that I shirked - I helped customers find what they were looking for; I bought a few books and rejected many more; and I did a little shelving. But even with all that, I still found time to sit behind the counter and read a little from any recent acquisition that caught my eye - or I chatted with customers who cared to do so. However, Sunday night seemed to draw a terse solitary crowd, those who enjoyed being by themselves yet around others, loners but not lonely. Working in a bookstore like this was a little like being a bartender - you were available to talk to, but you knew when to leave someone alone.

One evening, an older gentleman walked into the store and began to peruse the shelves. I usually noted everyone who walked in, just to keep track of who was there. I had once closed up shop - 11 pm was our closing time - and got a phone call from one of the owners a few hours later. It turns out I had left someone in the bathroom and the abandoned customer had called the police when he discovered he had been locked into the store.

As well, the Book Stop had once been robbed. The clerk working at the time said that towards the end of an evening shift she had been approached at the counter by the last customer in the store. She asked if she could help him find anything. He said, "Yeah, can you help me find - give me all your money!" He said this melodramatically as he brandished a knife. The clerk couldn't help laughing - but she gave him all the money in the cash register, which let me tell you is never that much. After this the robbed clerk designed a bogus sleeve for a book that she entitled Give Me All Your Money. It sits on the shelves behind the counter to this day.

At any rate, this older gentleman was looking through the stacks very earnestly. He handled the books gently - almost reverently - which I always liked to see. I maintained the same high regard for books, not necessarily for the words they contained, but for the pages and binding - their gestalt. I had once been told that used books contained the psychic energy of those who had handled them before or of the dwellings where they had been shelved. I'm not sure I believed about psychic energy being stored in the pages, but I found books -- as objects in space -- to be viscerally pleasing.

My first instinct when handling a book was to riffle the pages close to my face and take a deep whiff. My second impulse was to look for any receipts, newspaper clippings, or pamphlets hidden in the pages. Tradition at the Book Stop was to leave all such supplementary material with the book, so that the customer bought everything that the original owner sold to the store. Often this material told you more about the original owner - or was more interesting -- than the book itself. Only after these preliminaries would I begin to read the title page and scan the first few paragraphs of the book - something I'm sure would be egregious to the one who had worked so long and hard to write the words.

The elderly gentlemen was dressed in Levis, plaid shirt with sleeves rolled up a few turns, old running shoes, and a beat-up ball cap - what I considered Tucson regimentals for any male upwards of middle age, ranging from groundskeepers to associate professors. The customer appeared to be in his sixties but looked wiry and fit. He finally lit in front of a set of encyclopedias - 1910 Encyclopedia Britannica - and began to pull volumes from the shelf, thumbing through each. One volume in particular seemed to captivate him.

At this point another customer stopped by the counter to talk to me. It was a regular named Jay, who had been a bass player in several local bands, and who I knew from the Tucson punk-new wave scene of the late 70s. He worked at the post office -- as good a job as any for a history major -- and was what I would classify as a Repeat Offender. I had developed a sort of field guide to customers in my time at the Book Stop. A Repeat Offender was a customer who would buy the same books over and over. He would sell the books back to the store and months or even years later buy the same book again.

I rarely commented on the books that customers brought to the counter for purchase. I imitated the example of the owners and looked briefly with interest at the book, opened it to find the price, and then made the financial transaction. You don't want to ignore the books that a customer wishes to purchase - making a choice can often be a long and agonizing process for them -- but neither do you want to comment on the books because customers can sometimes feel self-conscious or embarrassed about their choices. However, if I had gotten to know a customer, I would sometimes skirt this guideline, as I finally did with Jay.

"You must really like the Iliad," I commented one evening.

"I'm not sure," Jay replied sheepishly.

"Well, this has to be the sixth time you've bought it in the last couple of years."

"That's true. But I've never gotten beyond the first few pages. I feel like it's something I should read. I've read a lot of interesting stuff about Homer, but when I actually read him, it's just....blah."

"But you're going to give it another chance?"

"Well, I feel like I should, you know?"

"Why don't you just read more books about Homer. That seems to be what you really like."

"Hmm, I never thought of it that way." Jay bent over and lowering his voice spoke to me. "You see that old guy over there?" Jay gestured with his head to the gentleman reading the encyclopedias. "Rumor has it that he's well over a hundred years old."

"He looks pretty spry for his age," I replied.

"He sometimes goes to Bentley's, and there are a few regulars there who claim to remember him when they were kids. He used to hang out downtown, and he looked exactly the same."

"Maybe he aged prematurely and has been in a steady decline since then."

"Well, here's the thing. The guys who remember him, some of their parents also remember him when they were kids. And looking the same age. That would be in the 1920s or 30s."

"Maybe they remember this guy's father, who looked very similar."

"Ha! You're always the skeptic. But isn't the idea of it incredibly cool?"

"Absolutely!" I replied, grinning. "I'm all for cool ideas."

We had been talking softly so that the man couldn't hear us from where he sat on the other side of the store, but I motioned to Jay to stop talking when I saw the old guy arise and start walking towards the counter. He was carrying the volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica that he had been so interested in.

"Would it be possible for me to purchase just this volume of the set?" he asked, handing me the heavy tome.

"Unfortunately, we need to sell the whole set. No one would want to buy the rest of the set if it was missing a volume."

The old man nodded. "That's what I thought," he said. He seemed dejected, or perhaps he was just the kind of person who was permanently glum. His eyes at first appeared to be light gray, but when I looked closer I could see that though his irises were finely ringed with blue-gray, the inner parts were almost colorless, letting the pink of the blood vessels show through. I also noticed that the man's skin had the parchment-like texture of an older man but the color like translucent alabaster. I wondered if he suffered from some sort of albinism.

"If you like," I said, "you can put the whole set on hold for up to two weeks. Or we can do a layaway plan."

The oddly pigmented man considered the offer with a thoughtful expression.

"Well, maybe I will come back when I can afford the whole set," he finally said.

"The set has been here for a few years," I replied, "so it's likely it will be here a while longer. But you never know."

"Thanks for your time," he said on his way out.

Jay and I watched him stand for awhile just on the other side of the glass door as he watched the cars pass by on the street out front. Then, donning a pair of sunglasses he had taken from his shirt pocket, he began walking south along Campbell Avenue. I looked out the storefront window and saw him continue to walk till he disappeared from site.