Mendel stopped
in the Midwest and listened to its music. (Chapter 5)
Humans have always questioned “reality.” Plato said our lives are shadows of a more real life. Poe wondered in a poem if life is a dream within a dream. I read Poe as a teenager. Coleridge pondered the same thing. Late in life, Mark Twain wondered the same thing in several of his works. I was obsessed with Twain for 30 years and am still interested in him. Plato came in college. One of the big best things about college is that you’re forced to read works you never would otherwise. * * * I said last week that the mall was a place of wonderful stories. One day in July, 1971, a young man with small, cold eyes appeared, walking around the mall. It was just about the time that senior citizens discovered that the mall was a good place for exercise. So every morning there were two old men and three elderly couples, walking, faces serious with concentration on the exercise they were imposing on their bodies. Suddenly this guy in his early 30s showed up and at exactly 9:15. He walked around the inside of the mall twice before the stores opened. The mall at that time was small and the store managers and sales people formed a small community. “Who the hell is that guy?” Grant, the barber next door, asked. He was a huge man with long brown hair and a bushy beard. I shrugged. “No idea. Strange one.” Bernie, the 19-year-old manager of the record store on the other side of me, always had a lurking look about him. He was skinny and walked with slightly hunched shoulders as sneaking around. I had thought he was gay until I walked into our common store room one day and found him making love to a pretty girl. They invited me to watch but I said that was okay, I was working. “The guy’s spooky,” Bernie said. “He never says anything. And he never stops in any of the stores.” “How do you know?” I asked. “I had him tailed,” Bernie said. I looked at him. “How could you have him tailed in an empty mall without him seeing you? “I followed up as far as Walden’s then I had Jimmy take over. He followed him to Sears and Buster picked it up. When the guy hit CVS, Goony finished.” He said it in a matter-of-fact way as if he set up tailing operations everyday after his morning coffee. I just nodded in wonder. Only Bernie. “And he never stopped in a store.” Bernie shook his head. “Not one.” “Bernie, the reason he doesn’t go into the stores is that the stores aren’t open yet.” Bernie thought about this. “I’m going out back and have a joint. Want one? I shook my head. “No. Just make sure you open the back door. And make sure there aren’t any cops around.” He shrugged. “They don’t care about a little dope.” The next morning the little man appeared again. Same routine, walk around the inside of the mall twice, looking into each store as he passed, staring in at us with those small eyes that seemed to have no human emotion, staring through us, almost. Strange. It turned out, we shouldn’t have laughed. Not at all. More next week. (Commercial: If you haven't bought The Perfect Song yet, I do have PayPal. Go to the store and check it out. All profits from the book will be used to create a scholarship for future writers).
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