A Novel

by

M. Clifford

 

 

KINDLE EDITION

 

 

* * * * *

 

 

PUBLISHED BY:

M. Clifford on Kindle

 

The Book

Copyright © 2010 by M. Clifford

 

 

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

 

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

 

Kindle Edition License Notes

 

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

 

Paper Is Not A Crime

Words Are Not A Crime

Keep Freedom Alive

Do Not Lend This Book

 

 

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Also by M. Clifford

 

PROPAGANDA FROM THE DESK OF MARTIN TRUST

DIRECTOR OF HISTORIC HOMELAND

PRESERVATION AND RESTORATION

 

THE MUSE OF EDOUARD MANET

 

 

* * * * *

 

 

For My Father

 

He was a sprinkler fitter

He was a simple man

 

To those few he loved more than himself,

He was a hero

 

 

* * * * *

 

 

 

 

* * * * *

 

 

“The one who tells the stories rules the world.”

– Hopi Indian proverb

 

 

“Young readers, you whose hearts are open, whose understandings are not yet hardened, and whose feelings are neither exhausted nor encrusted with the world, take from me a better rule than any professors of criticism will teach you. Would you know whether the tendency of a book is good or evil, examine in what state of mind you lay it down. Has it distracted the sense of right and wrong which the Creator has implanted in the human soul? If so – if you have felt that such were the effects it was intended to produce – throw the book into the fire, whatever name it may bear on the cover.”

– Southey

 

 

“It is sure to be dark if you close your eyes.”

– unknown

 

 

* * * * *

 

 

DON'T READ THE BOOK

 

 

* * * * *

 

 

000-0

 

 

Don’t read The Book.

That phrase has followed me my entire life.

I was never trained to tell stories. Most people these days aren’t born in that percentile. Those who are write passive sonnets about duty, honor and glory to the government. Complacency that breeds. This tale, however, has never been told and you are risking your life by continuing. We, the people, have learned that while there is danger in the printed word, so is there power. In the days of our ancestors, it stirred us to revolution. Words were honored and protected. They were spiritual and rehabilitating. But that was before recycling sustained the world and asphyxiated our minds. For the sake of clarity, I’ll save those details for another page.

If you are reading these words from a source other than a bound stack of printed paper, the following pages have been compromised. Including the sentences above, there are a total of 97,544 words in this story. You need to brand this number to your mind. If you reach the end of this book and the number is incorrect, the following pages have been compromised. Remember a single word can change the world. You must always keep track of the word count so it won’t happen again.

Before we begin, I would like to offer you a guarantee. This will be difficult and you will come to a point between paragraphs where you must choose one of two diverging roads – either continue and learn the truth or stop flipping the paper pages, suppress what you have read and tell Robert Frost that all the difference can go suck a grenade. Forgive the disjunction and my insensitive language, but I need your undivided attention so it won’t happen again. So the people we love most won’t die because we tried to fix things too quickly. If we have learned anything from the Editors, it is to be patient. Subtlety is the greatest weapon. Combined with truth, it is an unstoppable force. For that very reason, you are still holding this book. You want to learn the truth. To read the truth, unedited. Ex Libris. If you are willing to be patient, I’ll need to start from the beginning. Our beginning, at least. That way, despite how desperate things still are, you’ll be able to appreciate how far we’ve come and how bad it was, once upon a time.

I knew him. I am one of the few people, few fortunate people, who can say that. In fact, I loved him before any of this began. When he was a simple-minded journeyman. When he wasn’t hated by every single person in the world. No one knew him like I did. If they had, they wouldn’t have believed what they were told to believe. I tried to change their minds after he was gone, but people assumed I was disillusioned. Even those who should have known better. But I believed him. I knew he was telling the truth. Even before he told me, I knew that he had discovered something none of us lemmings knew. On that day, in that windowless Chicago bar, the truth of our deception was exposed. Before he knew it, our emancipation rested in his hands.

He’d say it was the best of times. Holden always did because he loved quoting Dickens. It was the best of times. Of course, by the end of the day it would feel like the opposite, but it was Friday and he was riding the elevated train home from work.

 

 

* * * * *

 

 

001-590

 

 

His fingernails were dirty. Of course they were.

He closed his Book and glared down at the notice that slithered across the screen, sealed into the black, leather binding. The words faded away and came back, breathing: Update in Progress. With an irritated huff, Holden Clifford glanced up from his seat to watch as everyone on the train closed their Books to search for something beyond the foggy windows. Something in the distortion of rain that could occupy their minds for the next two, exasperating minutes. For Holden, it was his fingernails.

His hands were generally caked in filth throughout the day. Why clean the grease and pipe dope when it would only resurface after lunch? A pant leg ordinarily did the trick until five o’clock, when he could expect the long train ride home. Holden would glide to the sink, tailored in grubby jeans and a torn flannel shirt, and scrub his arms like a cardiologist before surgery. The other sprinkler fitters were used to his ritualistic insanity, but they still poked a joke now and again. Not many water monkeys read novels. Especially pre-digital novels. If sprinkler fitters even used The Book for anything beyond studying blueprints, it was for the sports column. What frustrated Holden, as he took the nail file from his shirt pocket to scrape the grime from his forefinger, was that he even noticed his hands at all. He should have been lost in the final chapters of Edwin Drood, seeking to understand the lurking mystery. This was the third time in two days the Editors of The Book had interrupted him, and everyone else in the world, with another futile update. Of course, he couldn’t complain. The Book was the most significant device to come out of his grandfather’s selfish, unwilling generation. He really couldn’t complain.

Holden had been born into a world where The Book was a necessity. Everyone on the planet had at least one copy. There were many different versions available with almost infinite design possibilities, including hundreds of applications for deeper study and general convenience. Holden had two copies, but he’d say that, on average, most people had three.

It was understood that The Book was a part of life. The portable reading device was used to learn the alphabet, to study history in school, to develop your career and to eventually retire in your favorite story.

As one global society, they read.

Often.

With his hands as clean as they could be, Holden turned his attention to the sharpened nail on his pointer finger. It was duller than usual. He scraped at it with six long slashes, filing the tip to a fine, angled spear. Outlawing paper made writing utensils pointless and the stylus pen that once came with the touch-sensitive Book was replaced over time by a swirling pointer finger. The lack of a single sharpened fingernail was the scarlet flag of the non-reader and it waved itself to the society of Book lovers. That number was dwindling by the decade.

A rumble coursed through the elevated train. Holden was unsure if it was the decaying wooden tracks below or the impatient excitement of expectant readers. He was annoyed that he’d been interrupted, but the update was necessary. Perhaps a new book had been published today, or the first draft of a story was included in the superfluous addendums that accompanied every purchased novel. Holden didn’t need an explanation on the significant conditions surrounding every story to understand its purpose or relevance, but he respected those in the world that did. Two minutes a day was worth the benefit because, like everyone else in the world, Holden Clifford loved The Book.

The screen breathed Update Complete and Holden watched as the teenage girl on the seat beside him slipped back into her Book. Her device was blue, with generous detailing of thin, red and white stripes. It had been a popular model ten years ago and was obviously a hand-me-down, but she personalized it by lining the inside cover with a patchwork of neon stickers. On a normal day, Holden would engulf himself greedily in his story and ignore everyone during the train ride, but he couldn’t stop staring at her fingers as they swirled along the screen. Two of her dazzlingly gold nails were sharpened points and they danced an elegant minuet to a sonata unheard beyond the tiny, blue buds in her be-jeweled ears. Holden had never seen a ballet, but he imagined that the intoxication would return when watching women dance with such similar grace. She was clearly using the device to talk to a friend and it made Holden wonder about the times when she wasn’t talking. What stories filled her Book? Which one did she return to when life was disagreeing with her?

The train jerked to a stop and the doors opened with a familiar chime. The girl growled beside him, closed her Book and ambled off the train with a few others. Holden watched her dive for shelter from the rain as the car sealed its doors and rolled on to the next stop.

Seeking to be withdrawn from the rest of the commute, he flipped back the leather binding of his Book and watched as the inside screen flickered away from its black slumber and shifted to green. No, not green. More of an eerie white that pretended to be blameless and clean. There were some who preferred to read from a crisp white background in the comforts of their home computer, but those people weren’t true Book lovers. Those with a sharpened pointer finger found the murky green filter soothing and would always prefer to go green even if a white version had been available.

Black text swam to the surface, interrupting his story with the Gratis Press digital newspaper - a bonus for buying the latest edition of The Book. Holden longed to return to his story, but the scrolling headline drew him in. The Free Thinkers, terrorists against knowledge and history, had attacked another city.

That afternoon, city politicians mourned a once impeccable monument to twentieth century architecture. At street level, the north face of the Sears Tower had been branded with the emblem of The Free Thinkers. Holden swooped his fingernail around the photograph in the article and it enlarged to the width of the screen. Police surrounded the tower’s jet black aluminum facing, studying the trivial design. Upon a stately crest was the ornamental script of their motto: Think Again. Above this, Holden noticed the delicately etched icons of a bow and arrow and a revolver. Although the insignia was exquisitely drawn, the brand scarred the building in a violent technique, eating away at the seamless material.

Holden skimmed the article, but it was the same old news. Nothing much was known about the group other than the obvious; they were a syndicate of anarchists linked to the destruction of major historical monuments and meaningful pieces of our global history. When he reached the bottom of the article, a video began streaming of a man at a press conference. In the top right corner was the graphic of an American flag swimming in windless air beside the words: Gallantly Streaming. The man at the press conference behind a podium that carried the seal of the United States was sharp, attractive and, despite a similarity in age, was in an entirely different category than Holden. His name was Martin Trust. As the video continued within the brackets of unprinted text, Trust announced his commission as the head of a new sector of Homeland Security. He continued by affirming that it was the job of the Department of Historic Homeland Preservation and Restoration to protect and rehabilitate the nation’s most cherished antiquities. Trust comforted the press by declaring his passion for tracking down The Free Thinkers and Holden felt himself nod. He wasn’t the type to care much about history, but he also disliked people that rocked the boat.

Holden was bored with the images of demolished buildings that begged him to read on, so he found the recycling emblem for the Book and swirled his finger around it. The triangled arrows of the icon animated slowly before vanishing in a velvet haze of green. The Mystery of Edwin Drood bled back to the screen with an invitation to learn more about the author. He denied the request and sat back in his seat, quickly enveloped in the digital universe of his mind.

 

 

* * * * *

 

 

002-2007

 

 

Holden stepped off the train, instantly bombarded by a repeat offense of regret. Living eight blocks from the tracks was still a bad idea. He tried to shelter himself under the awnings of shops along Montrose Avenue, but the jog home from the station was muculent and wet. The gravel driveway to his historic, but not preserved, residence was like tar in the downpour that sucked onto his boots from below dark puddles. Gripping his duffle bag, Holden climbed the unbalanced steps to the covered porch, shook himself free from the rain and went inside.

He tugged the cord that hung from the ceiling and a florescent glow reminded him of why he hated living there. Home again, home again. Jiggety Jig, Holden thought, as he searched his forever-empty mailbox before heading to the second floor. Every surface in the narrow stairwell was coated in the same thick, mint green paint as the exterior. When he first rented the place, he envisioned the house being dipped in fresh-smelling toothpaste. Unfortunately, the preventative act hadn’t killed the moist bacteria or cleared the grime from the corners or overtaken the stench from the many molding crevices. Like most historical buildings, the house where Holden lived was falling apart. It cost too much to restore and it was against the law to tear down. At least the rent was cheap. Holden often dreamed that the house would collapse one winter night under a tide of snow and swallow him while he slept.

The striped bamboo door to his apartment closed with significance. Holden lowered his eyes as he dropped his duffle bag to the floorboards, rolled his shoulders and cracked the top of his spine with a long, exhaled breath. He was home and it was time for the ritual to begin. Leave work at the door, take off the boots and break the seal of a richly deserved, locally brewed beer. Jiggety Jig. Yes, his family life was non-existent. But Holden was content with his small story. Most days he strolled directly to his easy chair and picked up where he left off on the train. On special days, he went back to his father’s copy of The Book that sat by the window and returned to his favorite story. Today, there was a kink. The phone on the wall was blinking.

Sweaty beer in hand, he closed the fridge and approached the answering machine, already knowing what he was about to hear and already regretting his actions of the past forty minutes. The two messages were from, or about, his two favorite people in the world. Shane and Jane.

Shane was his best friend. In fact, they had the All-American relationship. They grew up in the same neighborhood, dated the same girls, fought over the same girls and spent every moment they could together to this day. Like Holden, Shane worked for General Fire Protection. His message was typical and to the point.

“Meet me at The Library, man. Maybe we can reignite what happened last month with the librarian,” Shane’s charred, confident voice chuckled before he continued. “I know it’s raining, but don’t spend the weekend at home, bro. I’m buying and the game starts at six. Don’t be late.”

He clicked to the next message and looked at his watch, hoping the call would be from Jane. It wasn’t. Jane was Holden’s eleven-year-old daughter. Their relationship could be summed up in two conflicting words: simple and complicated. They barely saw one another. On the off chance that Holden pulled himself from his nothingness to see her, it was under the discretion of his militant ex-wife, Eve. Jane loved her father, but life kept them separate. That, and Holden’s unwavering forgetfulness.

Eve’s message was blunt.

“How many times is this going to happen, Hold? You were supposed to pick up Jane an hour ago. What a surprise!” Her stringent, acid-laced tone curdled in his ears. He cracked his beer open. “Why don’t you just enjoy that drink I’m sure you’re holding and I’ll make something up again. I can’t watch her sit by the phone waiting for your call. So don’t call.”

He took a swig from his beer and laughed. Despite being disappointed in himself for abandoning his daughter again, this was the first time in years that Eve hadn’t finished a conversation by calling him ‘predictably unreliable’ or mentioning that pipe fitters shouldn’t have pipe dreams they couldn’t finish. Maybe that wasn’t a good thing, Holden thought, as he reached for the picture frame on the shelf beside the phone. The digital frame held thirty pictures from Jane’s ninth birthday. Eve looked miserable in every over-exposed shot. What made Holden put it down and reach for his beer was that he realized these were the only photos of Jane in the whole house and they were two years old. He felt so suddenly guilty. What kind of a father didn’t have a recent picture of his kid?

In a glance, Holden’s reflection in the frame spoke a thousand words. The brown fuzz of his hair was coarse and his long, ragged, unshaven face was four days past socially acceptable. His notched nose, broken by a young Shane during one of their many childish arguments, carried a slight twist that most women found markedly attractive. Eve had been one of those, long ago. Holden stared into his dull brown eyes. Once young and gleaming with lightness and hope, they now drooped from his face, empty. He was thirty-three going on fifty and felt more lost than ever.

Holden eyed the phone’s dusty receiver and debated if he should call Jane. With a twisted lip, he ran a hand through his hair, used his middle finger to carry the beer from inside the bottle neck and tugged his duffle bag to the window with the oversized easy chair that beckoned him to relax in its downy, plush embrace. Maybe later he would watch the game. For now, escaping into the written world of his favorite story was an easier way to ignore his inadequacies.

Resting on the windowsill was his father’s copy of The Book. It was a first edition, passed down from his grandfather. It had a linen-wrapped, hard cover binding with a thick screen, so that it mimicked a printed book. The antique device reminded him that there had once been a time when people needed an easy transition to such technology. For Holden, there was something romantic about the archaic device. He got settled into the chair and picked up The Book, rubbing the front cover with his thumb. The recycling imprint of the Publishing House was missing from the binding. It hadn’t been mandatory at that time. Holden lifted the cover to reveal the darkened screen. By design, current day Books revived themselves when the cover was lifted. With his father’s Book he had to press the oval button in the corner to ignite the power. He always found a simple joy in that. The worn screen awoke to a plain list of options. Holden felt the thin arrow key on the right side of the device and used it to scroll down to the only author listed.

The name was J.D. Salinger.

The preliminary version of The Book stored an unremarkable one thousand mid-sized novels. That didn’t matter to Holden. There was only one story loaded onto the ancient appliance. The same story that had been there when Holden got The Book from their family’s estate lawyer. Apparently, it had been his father’s favorite novel and the origin of Holden’s unique name. After receiving The Book in his father’s will, Holden read it repeatedly, hoping to understand some unknown part of the man. Quickly, The Catcher in the Rye became the standard; the novel by which he judged all others, and the one he always ran to when there was a need to forget the present. He knew those pixels of narrative like the arrangement of tiny, white hexagon tiles on his monotonous bathroom floor. There was an unyielding order to it all and he found comfort knowing what came next.

Holden switched on the lamp beside his chair and nestled into the worn, single pillow. He sipped gently from his beer and flipped the page, exhaling instantaneous relaxation. And just as he began to read the words he had read so many times before, the screen went from dull green to black. The relic had powered down.

Aggravated, Holden rose from his comfort, snatched the adapter cord from the wall and plugged it into the binding. No light. No response. The battery was acting up again. He closed his eyes to calm himself and gulped a fifth of his beer before grabbing his new copy of The Book from his duffle bag. But when Holden returned to his seat in search of rest, he noticed that the small, rectangular display built into the leather cover above the recycling icon was breathing a phrase that drove him to toss The Book onto the windowsill, reach for his jacket and leave the apartment in heated frustration.

That phrase was: Update in Progress.

 

 

* * * * *

 

 

003-3533

 

 

Cold rain nagged the window of the cab with a constant, maddening rhythm that seemed to disagree with the swiping wipers. Holden watched them glide silently along the glass as the driver clicked her turning signal and pulled over below the elevated tracks of the Uptown train station.

Holden paid the woman and stepped into the irrelevant rain. The red door he had opened and walked through so many times before stood ominous beside the shadow of a nearby alley. For John Q. Passerby, there were no windows to shed light on the character of the business. In fact, the building would have appeared vacant if it weren’t for the single neon image of an open book hanging unsteadily over the doorway. Holden shook the water from his coat, scraped it over the rough fuzz of hair on his cold head and ran for the door. He reached the wide, curling handle and saw the thick carving at the center of the rotting wood. His eyes traced the remnants of two words, once engraved in ornate script and framed in baroque molding. It was difficult to discern, but Holden had frequented the bar often enough to know that it read, The Library. He tugged the handle and the door gave way, blasting him with a puff of warm, stale air and muffled voices.

Throughout Chicago, boutique bars blinked the corners of many elite intersections while a multitude of sports bars lingered nearby like cockroaches. The Library was one of the oldest bars in the once trendy neighborhood of Uptown that wouldn’t fit into a singular category. Decades before the neighborhood was overrun with musicians and artists, the bar had established its presence. Which meant that the crowd was always an older one. That began to change once the owner retired and left the business to his daughter. Marion Tabor, commonly known by regulars as the librarian, began hosting music acts and themed sports nights every week until she eventually drew a younger crowd. That group included Holden and Shane, who would have normally avoided such an eccentric venue for controlled inebriation.

The Library got its name from its peculiar and controversial interior design. The windowless walls of the bar were clothed with pages from hundreds of recycled books. The building had broken ground during a vital junction in the history of the world, when the selfish ways of our forefathers were recognized and recycling was evolving into a powerful tool for allowing mother earth to thrive. Laws were being passed and using paper for recreational means was frowned upon, to say the least. Like the few creative minds of that decade, Marion’s grandfather searched for an innovative solution to the problem and chose to line the walls of his new bar with pages from recognizable books before recycling them for the sake of the planet. At a time when the words Reduce, Reuse and Recycle were fast becoming the mantra of the intellectual world, such innovative design made The Library a custodian for progress and environmentalism. But sadly, like most novelties, the bar was forgotten and its crumbling, fragile façade soon joined the landscape of deserted, but historically protected, buildings along Wilson Avenue.

Tonight, Holden entered the bar like the rest of those before him. He ignored the yellowing book pages that crusted the walls like rotting fish scales, hung his jacket on one of the tarnished brass hooks near the warm wood bar and searched for his best friend.

“There he is.”

The graveled voice came from the thick stone fireplace at the center of the large seating area. Shane was standing on a shelf of stone that circled the base of the column, half obscured by the flat screen television. He adjusted the volume, hopped down and threw an arm around Holden as if they hadn’t just spent every moment of the work week together.

“Glad you could make it out, bro!” he barked, tugging his old friend toward their usual booth. His brash attitude lit up the tiny eyes that were ever shadowed under his tattered baseball cap. The Blackhawks jersey he wore hung from his sloping, definitionless shoulders like a red garbage bag. Unlike Holden’s sturdy frame, Shane Dagget was as thin as they came and not the least bit aware of his shortcomings. “Thanks for getting all dolled up.”

Holden looked down at his raggedy work clothes. He had left the house so quickly, so agitated, that he had forgotten to change. “Didn’t realize this was a date,” he replied, squeezing into the varnished oak booth.

Shane took the cigarette from behind his ear and sparked his butane lighter. “Sweetheart, I thought Friday was date night.”

Holden grinned at his friend’s overt eye batting and attempted to pull the cigarette from his hand. “I just got here. Don’t get us kicked out.”

“Where have you been, Clifford? The ban on smoking was lifted last week,” Shane tugged his hand back, pulled a long drag from his cigarette and spat a laugh of smoke at the ceiling. “I swear, bro, I thought you’d be Mickey the Mope all weekend reading that stupid Book of yours.” Holden pursed his lips and nodded as a smirk curled the edge of Shane’s sly lips. “Don’t look now, but Marion’s been eyeing you like an empty glass. I told ya. That girl wants what you’re sellin’.”

Holden stole a glance over his shoulder and pretended to watch the pre-game arguments on the plasma screen before turning back. “She’s lookin’ at you, Dagget.”

“Not a chance, sailor,” he smirked, digging in with the nickname Holden would never live down. “I’ve been your wingman since we turned nineteen.” Shane paused to release another haze of glorious smoke, “I know when a girl is checking you out and she is check…ing…you…out.”

“Whatever.” Holden rolled his flannel sleeves and cracked his back again, trying to gather what crumbs of comfort were available in the cushionless booth.

Shane delighted in another slow drag before tilting his head curiously. “Hey, weren’t you supposed to have Jane this weekend?” In a glare of unspoken frustration, Shane knew what had happened. “It’s like that, huh? Man.” He slid an empty bottle across the table and clinked the glass with the edge of his full one. “A.D.A.D. right?”

Holden nodded sheepishly. “A.D.A.D.”

Another Day. Another Dollar. Where the phrase originated from, neither of them knew. They picked it up when they were young and somewhere between summer vacations and joining the pipe fitters union, the saying stuck. Eventually, it became the smartest, most carefree response to any situation in life.

If the situation wasn’t a big deal, or they didn’t want it to seem like a big deal, they abbreviated. It was hokey and nonsense to them now, but it was how they communicated and it worked.

Shane drank eagerly from the microbrewed lager and used the back of his hand to wipe the froth from his mouth, already searching for a subject to override the topic of Holden’s failed home life. “Numbskull has me pulling doubles tomorrow. I think it’s some new building on Wacker.”

Holden shrugged, uninterested, before glancing back at the television screen to watch the game begin. The opposing team snatched the puck and Holden stared as they glided delicately across the ice like a flock of geese until one of the men went sprawling into the wall. He was too engulfed in the game to notice Shane beckoning the bartender to their table.

“Think I’m gonna run off to the bathroom or something before your girlfriend gets here. Leave the love birds to the branch, ya know what I’m sayin’, bro?”

Yanked quickly back to reality, Holden reached for his friend’s jersey. “Come on, don’t do me like that. I told you…she just needed a ride back to her apartment. Shane.”

Holden collected himself and twisted casually away from the bar to admire the series of book pages that plastered the wall. The gloss that once glued the printed paper to the bar, bonding them together to create a seamless surface, had gradually degraded to a rough, clear texture. The recycled pages were flaking earnestly from the wall. Holden found this a pleasant distraction from the fact that Marion, the librarian, had already strolled up to the booth with her digital notepad in hand looking harmless and polite. He tried not to notice her, but the attempt was a failure from the start.

Marion was beautiful in the sense that she was unattainable and confusing to most of the men that vied constantly for her attention. She had strong features, but her face was still kind and elegant. Holden knew she was special. She had a rare personality and a look that could only be defined as grubby, but gorgeous. To Holden, Marion Tabor was a greasy, bohemian princess. The piece of her he liked best was the delicate Japanese floral tattoos that snuck a glance at him when she leaned to hand over a drink and her short sleeves grew shorter. There was an attraction there. One night it almost led to a here’s my place kiss. But Holden came with complications and any woman that didn’t mind adding complication to her life was someone to avoid. That rationalization was the only thing that kept him grounded when she would look deeply into his eyes or reach across the table to take his glass away.

“Hi Holden. Haven’t seen you here in a while.”

He turned absent-mindedly toward her as she swept a flirty tangle of dark brown hair over her ears and his breath cut short. “Work has been busy…” he grunted, clearing his throat. “Taking a lot out of me.” He tried to keep his cool, but instead his voice hung with passive, synthetic neutrality.

Holden flashed an adjourned expression as she returned to the bar and he tilted his head back to the quilt of overlapping pages. Having been so pulled away at home, so drawn out of his story when he needed it most, his eyes instantly scanned the pages for some form of fictitious freedom, only to discover that the text on the walls was neither literary nor inviting. Beyond the stacked condiments and laminated lists of drinks were a series of shadowed pages quite mathematic in nature with random equations that made no sense to Holden. He passed over them and many others with a glaze of dull consideration until he noticed something of interest.

He tilted in place to an awkward, acrobatic position in order to view a page behind him from a book entitled Little Women. He read the series of words and quickly discovered that nothing on the roughly 5 inch by 8 inch page, which was partially concealed beneath an historical account of the Incan empire, described the size of women, their height, their intellect or anything that would lend substance to the innocuous, yet intriguing, title. The mysterious story bore the signs of pre-digital fiction and it kept him enthralled for the few minutes before the librarian returned.

Marion stepped around the boundaries of the bar and walked the drink to his booth while Holden watched her approach with studying eyes. The amber liquid swayed with her hips and it absorbed him. Its ambient gracefulness recalling a sentence from the page he had just read.

 

 

Much like that language from another time, the approaching beer drew him in. Marion set the drink on the table and Holden nodded a thank you as he happily tipped the cold glass rim toward his welcoming lips.

Small talk? Holden felt suddenly distant and spoke his reply through a dripping sip. “Is it?”

“You feeling all right? You’re acting strange.”

“Don’t I always?” He faked a charming smirk and pointed a thumb at the wall. “Did you know these pages are coming loose?”

“Yeah,” Marion nodded, wiping down the scraps of garbage Shane left on the table. “I’d just paint over the whole thing, but then the name of the bar wouldn’t make sense, would it?”

Holden snickered. “You’d have to buy new stationary and everything.”

“Right,” she laughed, brandishing a wide smile. “Stationary.”

Instead of leaving, Marion narrowed the space between them and traced a hand across his right arm, pulling aside the fine crop of brown hair. “What is that?” she asked, spotting a blotch of bluish-black ink. “It looks like skin cancer or something.”

Holden tugged his arm abruptly, almost too abruptly, away and unrolled his flannel sleeve to cover up his embarrassment. “Yeah, just kids being stupid.”

Before Marion could ask, Shane skipped his chicken legs back to the booth, just in time to sit and revel in his friend’s discomfort. “Showing off your tattoo there, sailor? Did he tell you it was an anchor or that he got it from his girlfriend in jail?”

Holden shot daggers at Shane Dagget and lowered his head in an understood look of one more of those and you’re going to get it. Shane tossed up his hands in innocence and puffed, “I wasn’t going to tell her that you stopped mid-way because it hurt too much…” A boot crashed into his flimsy ankle and a surge of pain shot through his loose tendons.

“You don’t seem the type to give up.”

Holden continued to stare angrily at Shane as he sputtered, “Talk to my ex-wife.”

Gently, Marion pulled back Holden’s sleeve and edged closer to the half-inch wide, geometric blemish. “It looks like the number four.”

“It was supposed to be an anchor but…it hurt. So I stopped. It’s my fourarm.” Holden’s attempt at a pathetic joke lost its charm on her, or at least he thought it had. Marion didn’t laugh; the hand she placed on his shoulder before walking back to the bar was tender and comforting. Shane rose his arms in defense the moment they were alone because it appeared that Holden was about to lay into him. The serendipitous arrival of a phone call gave him an escape from certain punishment.

The tacky ring tone ceased as Shane flicked his phone open and yanked himself away from the booth through a barrage of flying peanuts. Clutching the phone, he laughed in surprise with one of their mutual friends over the fact that Holden had actually shown up. The crowded bar swiftly filled with jeers and jubilation as the score on the screen shifted. Holden listened to the tumult and was glad he could no longer hear Shane’s opinion of him, no matter how right it was. He knew he was usually unavailable to his friends on the weekends. He liked it that way. In fact, he was debating an escape that moment so he could return home to where the Book was fully charged and waiting for him.

Home was comfortable. The Book was comfortable. It gave him everything he needed. Friends, like life, were unpredictable. In his stories, he knew what to expect. He understood the characters and they didn’t need to understand him. The Book provided him with a life he didn’t have the energy to live himself. The digital lines of text scrolling below his eyes gave him adventure and solidarity. Beyond any person, place or thing in existence, he trusted The Book. He trusted those who wrote the stories; that they had his best interests at heart. It was more than he could say for Shane, who stood by the television laughing into the newest smart phone, leaving his best friend to nurse a lukewarm beer. Holden nudged his drink aside, pushed away from the booth and navigated the crowded bar toward the bathroom to release what he could before trying to escape without notice.

When he reached the dark and dingy room, a line of tottering sports fans told Holden that finding a stall was the easier route. He shut to door gladly and completed the deed he came to do. Although Holden was ready to leave (the odor alone had urged him to), he found himself staring at the pages on the wall, yearning to be drawn away from the languid existence, from the emotionless mirth that encompassed him. Something felt wrong about life. There was a creeping distrust that he couldn’t quite put his sharpened pointer finger on. Sometimes, even the shadow that followed his feet felt irregular. But there, standing before a cacophony of pages that held order despite the disorder, he was freed from his incarceration of doubt. He lost himself and found himself in the thousands upon thousands of sandy pages and printed words that covered the five square feet of wall space behind the toilet. He scanned them slowly as if searching for truth. Searching for wisdom in a single word.

He saw so many. The word vertigo. The word triumph. The word bliss. The word infantile. He saw the words retraction and conglomerate, God and sacrilegious. He saw the word, finality. He saw the word -

Holden slipped on the floor and caught himself on the toilet paper holder. It tore free from the 100% post-consumer recycled content divider walls. Fragments of the composite plastic material rattled on the floor of the stall and the toilet flushed as his shadow passed over the fixture’s cyclopean eye. Inebriated men at the urinals were laughing, but he didn’t hear them. Holden pushed himself terribly close to the toilet until he could see it again. See the word that had his heart cycling in erratic disagreement. On the haphazard, paper-coated wall he found the word. Beside a modicum of sexually suggestive graffiti art, Holden Clifford had seen his name.

 

 

* * * * *

 

 

004-6584

 

 

Holden was not a popular name. He could never seem to find it anywhere else in the world. He had only seen his name in digital script; and yet there it was in all its rare splendor. A piece of his favorite story had been pasted to a most inconsequential wall. The Catcher in the Rye. When Holden finally found his name again, his heart leapt. He had never seen a page from that book in person. The printed words were like manna to him and he devoured all two-hundred and seventy-seven with fervor. Each line was sheer delight and he read over them again the instant his studying eyes reached the awkward end. After the second read, Holden knew he had to read it again, but not because he was so overjoyed to finally be reading his favorite story from an actual piece of paper, printed with ink and touched by oily fingers. He had to read it again because something about the page was wrong.

Whatever it was, he couldn’t define the source. It was like seeing a reflection in rippling water. It was right and at the same time it didn’t make sense. Then, in the middle of the third read, it hit him. The entire scene he was reading was new. That was why he needed so badly to read it again. It was new to him. There was something new on the page. He couldn’t tell if it was a phrase or a paragraph or a word or a sentence. No, it wasn’t something that small. It was the majority of it. The majority of the sentences on the wall he had never read before.

One of the overlapping pages was dry and crusted, breaching the excerpt of The Catcher in the Rye like a hang nail waiting to be gnawed off. He blew delicately at the overhanging sheet and found enough space between it to know that the page wouldn’t be harmed if it peeled free. A crinkling, crackle; a delicate tear; and he could swiftly see the title along the ridge of the page. There was no question now. He was reading from The Catcher in the Rye, page two-hundred and forty-seven.

 

 

Holden exhaled a long breath, but he was no less confused. He backed out of the stall and stumbled toward the sink. He saw himself in the mirror, and yet there was a different person standing there. His forehead and eyebrows were knotted into a tangle of curls and wrinkles. His eyes were sharp and stunningly focused. Suddenly nothing else mattered. He didn’t know why, but nothing else mattered beyond the words he had just read. The page was prodigious. The very moment he had been thinking of his trust in The Book and faith in what was written between its digital pages, he was besieged by a sense of betrayal. There soon came a hollowness in his chest and Holden knew that none of what was happening would make sense until he could make sense of it all.

He left the bathroom imbalanced; his mind overflowing with indefinable possibilities. He stepped quickly toward the bar where Marion was laughing with a customer, drawing a long draft of vanilla white beer, and shoved his way through the giddy patrons watching the game on a small television that was integrated into the mirror behind her before spitting out to her, “Where did these book pages come from?” She noticed him and her eyes brightened. “Marion, where did these pages come from?”

She handed her customer his drink, pointed to her ear and mouthed the words, I can’t hear you.

Holden walked around to the side of the bar and ducked below the hinged countertop, joining her near the register. Marion couldn’t help blushing in his sudden presence. Holden closed his eyes and leaned close to her ear, repeating, “The pages on the wall…where did they come from?”

Marion shrugged. “I don’t know. I’d have to ask my mother. Why?”

“I can’t really explain. Find out for me, will ya?” Holden muttered, scurrying back to the legal side of the bar. Marion watched as he fought with his jacket, mumbled crazily to himself and left the bar. Shane looked as confused as she did, but he shook his head and assumed the same. Once again, Holden Clifford had to escape the reality of life.

In truth, the reality of life was becoming frighteningly clear for him. As each moment passed, Holden continued to fear the worst and told himself that what he was imaging was incorrect. What he thought he had just stumbled upon was too implausible to be true. He wouldn’t even consider it until he saw the text for himself. It was simply horrific; the connotations behind such a discovery were all together too frightening to accept. So he took a cab back to his neighborhood, walked slowly through the rain toward his apartment, stumbled absently to the darkened corner where he had left his father’s copy of The Book open and plugged in and fell to his knees before the greenish tint of the glowing screen.

With the excerpt from the bar in his mind, Holden scanned to the corresponding page. At once, he noticed it was different. Whatever scene he had read, it wasn’t on this page. He scanned two pages forward and two pages backward, and still nothing. For the sake of argument, he scanned back one more page and there it was. Or at least, there part of it was.

He was right. The majority of the scene was missing from The Book. He felt the smart of betrayal and didn’t even understand why. There was nothing overtly graphic or politically insensitive or anti-establishment enough to cause alarm to anyone. It didn’t seem important enough to be censored. In fact, he had never heard of such censorship. Censorship itself was extinct. He had been raised in a censor-free environment. The only occasion in which things were removed from society was when they could cause actual damage.

Or at least that was what he had been told.

He looked down at the page and realized that if what he was reading was three pages prior to wherever it had originally been, then more than just the scene from the bar had been removed. If that was right, what had it been? A word on each page? A phrase? Perhaps it was something larger. Maybe an entire character had been removed. There was no telling. The truth was, The Catcher in the Rye had been altered and the only reason Holden even caught it was because he had known the story well enough to recognize the difference. The question that remained in his heart, as he knelt on the floor of his decaying apartment in the green glow of The Book, hung heavy in his chest and pulled him down toward the digital screen.

What else had been altered?

 

 

* * * * *

 

 

005-8021

 

 

A shrill noise squawked from the invoice pad as Marion stuffed it into the back of her pants before wiping the sleep from her eyes. As the men continued to unload the shipment from the truck, the sound of clinking beer bottles and the perfume of stale alcohol created a dissonance of sensory overload. They so grabbed her attention that she didn’t notice Holden walking up to the truck looking frantic and confused.

“Hi, Hold. What happened to you last night?”

“I need to know where these book pages came from. I…I nee…I need to know. I…you don’t understand. I read the entire book last night. I read the whole thing through because I just couldn’t believe…myself. I just couldn’t believe. So, I read it all the way through. And…I mean…I think I know it by heart enough to notice…if I had the whole book. So, I need to know where the rest of that book is.”

“Hang on, tiger,” Marion responded in a soothing tone, “Why don’t you pick up one of these boxes and help me bring it inside.” Holden’s erratic breathing pulsed with the bobbing of his head as he bent to lift the case of beer and follow her into the darkened bar. She studied his irregular behavior and hollered back to the truck, “I’ll catch up with you guys in a minute.”

Without warning, Holden ran straight to the bathroom. Marion couldn’t help but laugh. What she liked most about Holden was that he was a mystery she just couldn’t seem to solve. He was a different sort of man than she was accustomed to. She could never figure out what he was thinking. Although he was solid and predictable overall, there was a lingering question that always hung behind his eyes - a question she wanted to answer.

Holden glided from the men’s bathroom with a torn scrap of paper and slammed it on the cold metal bar. It had come from the wall. Pieces of other books, torn and bent, bordered the single page. “Thanks for destroying my bar. Books don’t come too cheap these days. Oh wait, there aren’t any more books,” she spat sarcastically, reaching for the page. He swiped it back, blinking frantically. She dropped her hands to her sharply curved hips and bit her tongue. “What’s going on, wack jack? You’re acting crazy.”

“I am going crazy,” he agreed, continuing to blink rapidly. “Do you have a copy of The Book…with you?”

She shrugged absent mindedly and glanced down at the invoice pad the delivery guys were waiting for. “Um…somewhere. Why? I don’t really read, Holden.”

“Listen. I have a feeling that something terrible is going on all around us and I need you to trust me, okay?”

“You’re being a cuckoo bird, but...go ahead.”

“I need you to take your Book and search all the pages in this bar. Every single page. Most of the stories are public domain by now, so it should be free. Go to the corresponding page in The Book and check the writing on the wall. See if things match up. I know it sounds crazy, but I’m telling you that this page here,” Holden lifted the single sheet he had torn from the bathroom wall, “This is from my favorite book…and it’s different.”

“What do you mean it’s different?”

“It’s been edited. The Editors of the Publishing House have deleted things.”

“So? Maybe there was some racism in there.” Marion chuckled to herself and noticed instantly that Holden wasn’t amused. “I doubt this is as big as you’re making it. But even if you’re right, so what? To be honest, I couldn’t care less. So, they deleted some stuff. What’s the big deal?”

“What’s the big deal? Do you understand the implications of editing without approval? If an original printing is different than what we’re reading today, what does that mean? The Book is like…a hundred years old. When did the information change? And why? Who decided that something needed to be altered from the original? And that it was okay to do so…”

“Holden, I care about you. Maybe more than I should. I know it’s not a secret. But you’re not acting like yourself and it’s a little scary. Do you think that maybe you might be getting worked up about something that’s not that important?”

Holden exhaled and looked down at the torn page, realizing that she may be right. There were hundreds of reasons why the story could have been edited over time. What if the original copy of the book had been destroyed at some point and this page was from another draft? Maybe descendants of the author had decided to change some things.

“I guess you could be right. I’m sorry I’ve been acting so…weird. I just…” Holden couldn’t find the right way to explain how finding the inaccuracy had made him feel. “It seemed to make the world…understandable.”

Marion poured them a couple pints before bringing the invoice pad out to the delivery truck. Holden brewed in his thoughts as they sat silently at the bar for a half hour. He still felt a need to understand what had happened. Something was still incomplete and he was almost positive that if he could read the original manuscript, every question he couldn’t put into words would be answered.

“Did you have a chance to talk to your mother last night?”

She nodded through sips. “Could’ve gone without that. The conversation centered around all the men she’s been dating. How they’re half her age and yet I can’t find a decent man…da…da…da…”

“What about the pages?”

“It was my grandfather’s idea, I guess. He found all these books in the attic when he moved here and figured that he should recycle them because it was frowned upon not to. This was before the laws were changed, so everyone was lenient as long as you found a way to use the books for some higher purpose. He used a bunch of them on the walls of the bar. Rest of them he tossed. That’s it.”

“So there’s no more pages left?” Holden muttered, crashing onto the cushion of the bar stool as he realized that he may never fully understand why the page was different. Accepting this reality was going to be hard and if he needed to start accepting it now, he was going to need some air. “Thanks Marion, I’ll pay you back for the wall. Can I just hang onto the page for a little while? I don’t know…I just feel like I need to…look over it again.”

“Whatever klepto,” she joked, trying to lighten the mood. “Hey, relax. Things are fine. Okay?” She gave him a hug.

Being that close to her, smelling the scent that was only hers, he was reminded of the night they almost kissed. Feeling too vulnerable, Holden released her early, walked gently back to the exit door without saying goodbye and left her standing there, bewildered and bewitched.

Instead of returning home, Holden stepped onto the first bus he saw and found himself riding into the city. The bustling chaos of the weekend morning was soothing and it floated him away from his dramatic over-thinking. He looked out the window and watched as the buildings raced by. Then the park. And then the people. When the bus came to a stop outside the Art Institute, a spark of genius burned his brain and he looked around to find the map for the bus. It was heading toward the Museum of Science and Industry. Precisely where he needed to go.

The only other time Holden had seen a real book, a complete book, intact, it had been beneath a thick layer of glass at the Museum of Science and Industry when he was a teenager. Books had been rare if not completely extinct for over fifty years. The Great Recycling had taken care of that. Holden remembered enjoying the eminence of the book much more than those in his class. Most, if not all, looked upon it with disdain, unable to believe how insensitive to the earth their forefathers had been; raping trees to make paper and using paper to write fluffy fiction. The image of a man reading a book on a park bench, flipping the pages over and over, was akin to a savage Neanderthal tearing the flesh from an animal and devouring it over the sheer face of a cliff. Holden didn’t seem to care that mother earth had been raped. He was told to care. He supposed he was supposed to care, but he didn’t. If breaking trees down in order to communicate was all they’d had available, with their limited technology, then they did the best with what they had. The stories weren’t any different from that time and, in fact, when Holden would read them on his copy of The Book, he preferred reading things that most people wouldn’t enjoy. Digital and pre-digital work was easy to transition through because it had the same dull, green background. The same black text. The same simple margins and flickered movement between pages. It was fun reading pre-digital work because those authors hadn’t seen his world and he hadn’t seen theirs. It was his way to travel through time. To view the past through someone else’s written eyes.

Holden left the bus with a bad taste in his mouth and had to spit. Who had given the Editors of the Publishing House the right to silence someone who couldn’t be there to defend their work? These Editors were cowards, whoever they were. Holden was so worked up about it, he couldn’t move from the bus station. He stood outside the pillars of the museum and cracked the knuckles on his right fist. He was determined to find an original copy of the manuscript, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. He had to find it. The story seemed to call to him. It beckoned from across fields of pixeled black text and digitized landscapes in thirty-six hues of gray.

In a gust of wind, Holden realized that, for the first time in years, he was no longer lost. How could it be that, in these hours when he was the most misplaced he had been in his entire life, he no longer felt lost? Such emotions were impossible to decipher. It was similar to waking abruptly from a dream. Who was he, again? Where was he? What time was it? Hell, what day was it? Regardless of the unanswered questions, he could be sure of one thing – he was awake. The only questions that remained were: what world had Holden been so anxiously sleeping in and what world had he woken into?

The walls in the Hall of Publishing and Media were pristine white and resonating with harmonious jingles that resounded when patrons entered the welcoming alcove. Holden ignored the robotic voice that rang out an invitation from some hidden speaker. His face was blank and his eyes were unblinking as he strode forward, almost floating, with articulated steps that were both precise and resolute. It had been over a decade, but he knew where to go. He ignored groups of children with volumeless voices that marveled over the interactive machinery; he ignored the groups of older students sketching on digital pads and ignored the garish displays that begged him to pause in his journey to reflect on the many items of interest. The display case that held original manuscripts from a pre-digital age were only feet away and he wouldn’t allow himself to accept a yield sign of any sort. There was an overwhelming curiosity in him now that begged to be satisfied. No, it wasn’t even that simple. Holden felt as if he had some liquid answer lodged in his brain that wouldn’t drip from his ear no matter how hard he shook his head or how fiercely he pounded his temple with the butt of his palm. It unhinged him so quickly that it nourished a new need. Holden needed to know if he was willing to dig deep enough into his mind and risk sacrificing himself simply to get the answer out.

He reached the display case.

The display case was empty.

Holden blinked in the stark whiteness of the room and slowed his pace. The case that had once held ten books from his grandfather’s generation was empty. A synthetic cloth, cut to the shape of the inner counter, added to protect the spines, still held an imprint from the weight of the delicate artifacts. They had been moved. And recently.

The Catcher in the Rye was not one of the books at the museum; he knew that it wasn’t. Holden was hoping, in his desperation, to find some clue as to why the story had been edited or, at the very least, to find information on an establishment that had copies of books for study or view. But all he discovered was nothing. Nothing but glass and fabric and air in an echoey chamber of white walls and parquet floors. Holden turned in place. He twisted his tongue through his lips like a lizard. He had come to an abrupt end in his search and was unable to grasp his next steps. Then he noticed the expression painted on the face of the woman posted firmly in the corner of the room. She was a guard and had apparently found Holden’s overt distress amusing.

“The books. The books from the empty case. The ones that you are no longer guarding.” His question seemed obvious. “Wherever they disappeared to, it must have just happened.”

The guard released an exasperated breath, rolled her eyes and pulled her walkie-talkie up to her mouth, clicking the button with annoyance. “Jo, I’m in gallery two-oh-nine and I’ve got someone here asking about these books. You were working here this week. They were moved, right?”

“Yeah, they were moved.”

The woman looked at Holden as if that were enough of an answer to appease him. He laughed and kneaded his arms in a rolling gesture as if to say, And they were moved where?

The guard clicked the walkie-talkie and asked, “Where were those moved to, Jo?”

After ten seconds of dead air and staring back at one another, Jo, the woman whose nickname he could only assume was short for Joann or Josephine or Jolene, came back. “I wanna say it was that government preservation group, whatever the name is. I think they had to be moved because of all that terrorist stuff going on. Guy thought they might get stolen or something. I guess you can’t take chances with those Free Thinkers around.”

The guard lowered her walkie-talkie, but Holden was already ambling away, rapt in thought. Before long, he found himself standing outside the museum near the bus stop beside a few other people. His mind was blank. In fact, he was almost angry. It didn’t make much sense, but he was angry at Marion. Things, up until yesterday, had been fine. This was, of course, a lie, but it seemed right because life had made sense. Sure it wasn’t great; in fact, it had been pretty damn complicated. At least he knew what he knew and going through the motions everyday kept things safe. His routine was solid. But now, even attempting to rekindle that state of mind seemed impossible. It wasn’t working because this was huge. No, beyond huge.

Still, hadn’t all of it been so odd? Why Holden? How was it possible that this enormous detail about everyday life had lost itself on everyone except him? He wasn’t the type of person that thought about deep things or went on long arduous walks to contemplate the circularity of the universe. He was average. Below that, if he could have things his way. Sure, he was a reader - most people were. But beyond The Book, he didn’t think much. He watched television and hung out with his guys. The extent of his brain power was tested only with sprinkler fitting. He knew sprinklers. And his daughter, Jane. He knew he loved her. He also knew the names of every player on the Chicago Blackhawks, but that didn’t do him much good. And, of course, a point of pride was that he knew the streets. In fact, he could be blindfolded and dropped anywhere in Chicago and would have the ability to pinpoint what intersection he was at, simply through the sounds of the street. Those were the things he knew and he was fine with that. He always felt that most other people, with their dreams and goals, were brought into this world with a much larger mind. His birth category had smaller brains; but since his brain was smaller, he was plum happy that way. He didn’t know any better. Life was small. Life was simple. But hey, the guy was happy.

Still, if that was true, if those books and many others – bigger, more substantial books that Holden could never imagine – were edited and altered, how was it that no one else had discovered such irregularities? If stumbling on that single, inaccurate page in Marion’s bar meant that he was the first person outside of the Publishing House to know about the differences, what was he supposed to do about that? How could anyone, especially someone like Holden Clifford, react properly when met with such life-altering knowledge?

Without a clue of what to do, Holden trudged onto the bus with the rest of the museum-goers, found a seat and crashed into it. He wasn’t surprised to find that nearly every person on the bus had a face that was glowing with dull, green light. Clouds had unfolded across the sky while he was inside the museum and the fact that it was going to rain again made the green lights shine ever brighter on the focused faces of those holding The Book. Even with his reservations and unanswered questions, it was a natural tendency for Holden to reach into his jacket pocket to pull out his copy of the Book. He wanted to resist. To avoid falling back into his old rhythm because something was wrong. But he didn’t. He opened the digital reading device and flipped again to The Catcher in the Rye. Only this time, he found himself clicking through the many menus of extra notes and details.

There it was. A crisp photograph of the original, printed book. There were many pictures available. He was able to see the front cover, the back, the binding, and even a photograph of the author himself. Naturally, the Publishing House found the most crisp, unblemished images possible. Holden would have preferred something that actually looked real, with creases and stains. Something that didn’t looked fabricated and airbrushed for optimal pixel value. What he saw made him sad, but mostly for a different reason. Holden realized in that humid, condensed bus that this was likely the closest he would come to seeing his favorite book in person and that the rest of his life would be filled with a forced decision to forget.

 

 

* * * * *

 

 

006-11251

 

 

The bus came to a stop in Uptown and Holden stepped off with two others – people with a destination in mind that walked briskly toward it because the rain had returned. It was light and blowing pleasantly in the wind, but no less bothersome. Trudging through stagnant puddles on the way back to his apartment, Holden noticed the lights of a few shops along the street. One of the signs was blinking with false intention. The irregular rhythm forced him to stop and take notice. The sign was for an antique store that he had never seen before. A glimmer of hope promptly moved his legs toward the unwelcoming neon. Books were antiques. And it was very possible, although extremely illegal, that the shop owner had books for sale. At this point, Holden would have settled for an idea. A rough idea of where he could find an original manuscript.

Aisles of old furniture and scraps of history snaked through the long shop, dormant in a cracked, translucent skin of dust. The store wore a crisp smell of decay that made Holden recall every time he had been forced to squeeze along the many cramped rafters of a dying city with too many sprinkler heads in hand to cover his nose. It was repellent. But, no matter how unbearable, there were some problems in life he just had to accept.

Holden strolled cautiously to the immense oak counter where a skeletal man in a tight, red t-shirt was fiddling with the innards of a prehistoric computer. Three long, beaded necklaces draped his scraggly neck and his poorly-aged face, with oddly dark eyebrows and a handlebar mustache, was warped in concentration. Up close, Holden could see that the man was in his late sixties and was mostly bald except for a tangle of grey hair that swooped the crest of his ears to his neck. Holden knew he should wait until the man was available to answer his question, but he couldn’t help himself. He hadn’t gotten through five words before the shop owner interrupted him to laugh.

“You’re barkin’ up the wrong tree, kid,” he blurted, scanning Holden with a cagey gaze. “Books are illegal. Book pages are made out of paper which means they are against the Laws of Environmentalism. You ain’t gonna find any books here. If you do, point them out to me and I’ll have them destroyed.”

The man returned to his mound of microchips and circuit boards, leaving Holden aggravated. He normally wasn’t spoken to in that way. Most people respected guys with a lot of build and a little patience, especially when they had a confusing tattoo on their arm that could have come from prison. Holden reached into his jacket pocket, took out the page of The Catcher in the Rye he had torn from the wall of Marion’s bar and slapped it onto the counter.

“Listen, I don’t give a dog’s tail about your environmentalist viewpoint. I just need to know if you have a copy of this book or know where I can find a copy of this book.”

The man looked down at the page, shocked. And for a moment, Holden almost believed he saw a flicker of interest, a spirit of excitement kindled behind the man’s eyes before it vanished and Holden was wrenched over the counter like a blanket over a woman’s cold shoulders. The man looped his fist in Holden’s shirt and yanked him across the counter, toward a half-open door at the back wall, toppling many boxes of impulse items. There was a short flight of curving steps beyond the door and Holden fought to climb them under the man’s grip, but tripped on each one except the last.

Holden realized too late that the shop owner with mummified muscles was shockingly strong and was fully against the idea of discussing the topic of illegal, unrecycled books. At the top of the stairs, surrounded by boxes of curious items and a fort of furniture that yearned for its own demise, the man, half Holden’s size, charged forward and slammed him against the cracked, plaster wall. He crowded Holden, revealing a face as red as the shirt on his wrinkled back. He was close enough that Holden felt the tickle of the man’s beard and could smell whatever sauerkraut delight the shop owner had enjoyed during his lunch break. The pointy odor was the only thing that covered the must of molding antiques and, for a fraction of a moment, it was refreshing.

The man spat a fevered barrage of words. “I told you already, I don’t have any books. I don’t sell any books. No one does. It’s not worth the suffering we would go through. What are you here for? Who sent you here?”

Holden lifted the page he was still holding, stumbling over his tongue as it got in the way of his defense. “I’m just looking for this book. That’s all.”

“You’re lying to me and I’m going to find out who sent you here.”

“I’m not lying. I’m serious. I found this page from my favorite story and something wasn’t right when I compared it to my Book. I just want to see an original copy.” Holden fought the man’s grip and it loosened. “Just tell me…do you have a copy of this book? I’ll pay anything. I need to read it.”

The shop owner apologized with conscious embarrassment. “I am sorry. I’m afraid that I can’t help you. For your own sake, I suggest you forget that we ever had this discussion. The world of thought is not safe these days...”

Holden watched as the man’s expression gradually shifted to a well-controlled concern. He began studying the area around them, at the many boxes of remarkable items, and seemed suddenly more concerned that he had dragged someone into a space he never wanted anyone to see. Holden didn’t care about the contraband or paraphernalia the man was harboring. None of that mattered. It had been a mistake to come into the antique store, and that man, while he may have had a book or two hidden in that back room, did not have The Catcher in the Rye.

The long walk through the rain was shameful and when Holden returned to his home, if that was what you called it, he found messages blinking his answering machine again. Talk about antiques, that archaic machine had been getting more use that week than ever!

A short, delightful message from Jane compelled Holden to pick up the phone and call her back. They spoke for a short time about really nothing at all. Pleasant nothings between dad and daughter. When Holden hung up, he listened to the second message, which was far less enjoyable. Numbskull’s voice rattled the speaker in eagerness.

“I know you need another day of work like a hog needs a side-saddle, but a job has opened up for tomorrow morning and hey…luck of the draw, right? Side job, so off the books…which means cash, baby. If I don’t hear back from you by nine, I’ll assume your holiness is going to church instead.”

As the message crackled to a finish and beeped its last breath before deletion, Holden’s face lit up, and not from the hope of cash in hand. The answer to the question that was picking away at his brain had been on his answering machine the whole time, waiting for him.

He went to his fridge and cracked open a beer, nodding his head in realization. He wouldn’t be working a side job tomorrow. Holden had finally figured out where he would be able to find a copy of The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger.

And the drive would take forty-five minutes.

 

 

* * * * *

 

 

007-12549

 

 

The ladders clanged atop Holden’s wide, windowless, semi-white van, jerking the ropes taut as he banked a corner on Sheridan Road and drove further into the forest encroached suburb of Wilmette. He hadn’t slept last night. Two things had kept him awake: the lasting, raspy words of the antique shop owner, the world of thought is not safe these days and the message from Numbskull about a side job for cash. Throughout the night Holden watched as the sun gently rose through the milky bay window in his living room, knowing that he had finally figured out where he could find a copy of his favorite book and that the answers to so many unasked questions were only a wily, lie away.

At the end, when everything would make sense, Holden would recall this day, driving to Wilmette, as the culmination of seemingly unrelated acts that led to his beginning – a curious greed that forced him to accept a side job from an enchantingly worried elderly man named Winston and a lack of social skills that led to the discovery of the page from his favorite book. He thought, of course, that the answers awaiting him that morning would be simple. This was a gross error in expectation.

General Fire Protection had kept Holden constantly busy. His free time was limited because he often worked late into the evening. Even his weekends were detained for emergency calls and random side jobs that were too good to pass up. He made enough money to live well, if he chose to, but he was too cautious to enjoy it. You never know when Uncle Sam is gonna take a bite out of ya. It was good to feel a sense of security, no matter how false it was. But with such little free time available, it was better for Holden to turn down side jobs that weren’t worth the effort.

For that reason, when he was approached by an elderly man about a side job a year prior during his break at a café in Wilmette, Holden did his best to get rid of him so he could get back to his van and return to work. Fortunately, he hadn’t been able to. There was a deceptive persistence in the man who had eagerly introduced himself as Winston. Although his face was innocent and his manner gentle, Winston chose to place his walker fully between Holden and the door. Behind frail, thin glasses were two of the most active eyes Holden had ever seen. While Winston explained that he had seen Holden a few times that week and had noticed the emblem of a sprinkler head on the side of his clunky work van, Holden watched the man’s beady, gray eyes analyze his own. It was obvious that there was more happening at that moment than the man led him to believe.

“Well, I’m a wealthy man and I need to protect my house,” Winston continued, as he labored to recycle his plastic coffee cup. “I don’t move as well as I used to and if a fire erupted somewhere in my home, I fear I would be unable to put it out. The items within it are very precious to me.”

The man had one and a half feet in the grave. Holden had to laugh. You can’t take it with you buddy.

He tried to pass Winston onto someone from General Fire, but Winston continued. The man wanted Holden, and no one else, to do the work. When Holden pressed him for an explanation, the man dodged the question with ease. In an effort to end the conversation, Holden finally threw out a disgracefully high quote, assuming that the man would abruptly disengage and allow him to finish his croissant in the van. This was the moment when their conversation became the most memorable. Instead of responding, Winston asked Holden his name. When he replied, the man’s tender face brightened and he lost five years of age in a smile before speaking the words Holden would never forget, “Double it and the job is yours.” As Holden attempted to regain his composure, the man removed his copy of The Book from a satchel bag and rested the corner against Holden’s copy, transferring his contact information to Holden’s screen. “I expect you’ll be professional,” Winston continued, “because I intend to leave this off the books and pay you up front…in cash.”

Cash.

It was the only form of paper that was still legal. Really, the only use for paper anymore. All money was composed of synthetic material, but it was the paper element that proved authenticity. With the limitless technological advancements, anyone with a computer could create counterfeit money if it weren’t for the integration of paper. Paper was so expensive, especially clean, bleached paper, that it was nearly worth more than the bill itself. Cash was unforgable. Cash was untraceable. Receiving such an amount for a side job that was completely off the books was nearly impossible to pass up.

Holden slammed on his brakes and the van rocked to an abrupt stop as an over-eager driver tore out of their hidden driveway, yanking him back to the present. Their bumpers stopped inches apart from one another. The owner of the Jaguar ignored his recklessness and headed in the opposite direction without a worry in the world. Holden shook his head clear and took a deep breath before releasing the break and pressing the accelerator, throttling his memory further into the events that had taken place at Winston’s home a week after their first meeting.

That day had also been murky. Chicago clouds interrupted the sky with cumulus resentment, as if waiting for the moment to pour out their wet revenge on unsuspecting citizens who were enjoying life too much. When Holden arrived at Winston’s home, the man led him quietly throughout the large estate, pointing out the many locations where he would like added protection. While the estate was luxurious and divided into many bewildering rooms, it was all very typical. That is, until Winston brought him down to the cellar.

From first glance, the cellar appeared to be fitted for a lavish wine collection. The brick ceiling was vaulted and the long walls were lined with empty racks that jutted out at even intervals to create many rows. But something was odd about them. They were shallow, almost too shallow, and seemed impractical for displaying wine. It almost seemed that these little alleyways created by the empty rack system were used to store food or containers of some sort in expectation of an apocalyptic disaster. Whatever the items were that the man had been storing in the cellar prior to Holden’s arrival, they had been moved. The entire cellar was bare.

Holden began sketching out a plan for the arrangement of the piping system on his Book with a sharpened fingernail. Winston watched as the sketchy lines quickly transformed to a well-drafted blueprint with dimensions and line weights and interrupted by placing a hand over the screen. “This room is quite unlike any area you have ever done before,” he said, with unease. “And I find it necessary to request that you triple the average number of sprinkler heads.”

Holden grinned at this. He had seen such reactions before from people who were obnoxiously protective of their home, regardless of what he said to set their mind at ease. Although it made logical sense in Winston’s mind to cover the basement with an overkill of sprinkler heads, Holden’s experience was to always keep the spray radius simple and orderly. Winston’s reaction to Holden’s grin was unforgettable. The man stated that he wanted saturation; that not a centimeter of space should be dry if a fire began. He then squeezed Holden’s hand to punctuate his declaration. Holden remembered that this articulated gesture gave more substance to the discovery he would find later that day, because the items that the shelving had been built for were not as plain as fine wine or containers of food. No, it was something far more precious to the man. Something that could touch water, but not fire.

After the complicated structure of plans had been devised, Winston trudged back up the stairs, leaving Holden in the cellar to map out his array of sprinkler heads. The space was vast and hauntingly empty, like a train station without smoking engines, and Holden had difficulty finding the existing water system. He began his usual reconnaissance mission of following the piping in the ceiling and was soon forced to twist Winston’s old appliances from the walls and peek behind closed doors. It was then, when he found a closet with a short door that angled sharply from the handle to the hinge, that he stumbled upon the source of the elderly man’s insatiable need for protection.

The space beyond the door was misleading. It resembled a long hallway but it led nowhere and was lit by a single bulb that hung like a specter at the center of the tight space. The wall opposite the door was lined with plastic boxes stacked waist-high and draped in a thick, tangerine tarp. Curious despite his caution, Holden lifted the tarp enough to notice that the first box had a series of names written on it in thick, black lettering. Eleven surnames, to be precise. He remembered these names very clearly because the moment he noticed them, Holden understood why the cellar had been lined with shelving and why Winston had needed to hire a sprinkler fitter surreptitiously to protect it all. The names were: Farrell, Faulkner, Feynman, Fitzgerald, Flynn, Ford, Forster, Fowles, Frazer, Friedman and Fussell. Each name began with the same letter and each name was that of a famous author.

Except for one.

Holden pulled the tarp down and got to work. He finished the job in a remarkable three weeks. It easily could have taken triple the amount of time, but Holden wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. No matter how much he loved reading, he knew that he shouldn’t be associated with someone who was so blatantly disobeying the law. On occasion, he recalled the man and supposed that, at his age, Winston didn’t care if he were caught with such an extensive collection and arrested. What was a life sentence to someone with little life remaining?

But now, this day, feeling the weight of the single torn page in the front pocket of his jacket, Holden pulled into the man’s long, curving driveway, knowing that somewhere in that hidden closet, there had been a plastic box with surnames that began with the letter ‘S’. A box that very likely held a book by J.D. Salinger.

The rain instantly poured down as if, like in his recollection, the clouds were simply waiting to release their penetrating droplets the moment he left the van. Holden ignored the rain and tossed a bag over his shoulder (it held a random assortment of tools that would help him sell the lie) before rushing toward the door with a box of sprinkler heads under his arm.

From outside, the enormous lake-side estate was just as exquisite as he remembered with thick, stone walls topped by a sloping roof line that was shingled with a charming patchiness. Even standing under the eave with its reticent columns and cornice work, Holden knew this man had a wealth he would never attain, even in ten lifetimes. Paper was so rare that for a man to keep such a vast store of books, his wealth was likely without measure. Steadying the box of sprinkler heads against the heavy iron wrench on his belt, Holden approached the door and knocked. After a few moments passed, he realized he wasn’t patient enough to wait and rang the doorbell. Just as he depressed the button, Winston poked his head a bit into the side window, wearing a bowtie and a grin. A series of unlocking latches followed and it gave Holden a chance to review what he wanted to say. After an annoying chime was silenced, the door opened and Holden and Winston met once again under the darkness of a cloudy, overcast day.

 

 

* * * * *

 

 

008-14592

 

 

“A bit eager, are we? A knock and a ring?”

Winston stood uneven in the opening of his front door, sprouting a surprisingly adolescent tuft of hair from the bottom of his boney chin. Behind a new pair of thinly-rimmed glasses, Holden saw the same fiery gaze. The bowtie on Winston’s neck spoke of a gallantry long before this digital world, where men looked their best even if they were stewing in their home behind a light, fiberglass walker.

“Good Morning. I don’t know if you recognize me, but I installed the sprinkler system in your house.”

“Yes,” the man nodded with a grin. “Holden. A memorable name.” His words and tone were courteous, but his face said differently. A strong suspicion seemed to tighten the skin on his cheeks and his filigree of eyebrow feathers hung drastically lower than Holden remembered. Still, the pale-lipped grin gave Holden hope and he quickly went into the act he had rehearsed during the long drive.

“It’s very important for me to keep track of the homes I do work for and I believe that the sprinkler heads I installed here may have been faulty. If it is alright with you, I would like to replace them. Free of charge, of course.”

Winston nudged the door a little wider and stared down at the box of sprinkler heads under Holden’s arm. Gradually, his eyes rose to mark Holden’s face with a deep, inquisitive gaze. “You couldn’t come back another day?”

“The structure I installed was a dry system which means that the water only discharges when a fire is present. If you would allow me to do this today, I could be finished before lunch.”

Winston scratched the bushel of white hair atop his head, realizing that he was losing whatever game was being played. “Well then, it appears as if I do not have a choice. The protection of this home is paramount to me.” Before his next words, a grin tipped from the corners of his mouth and stretched like a stain across the contours of his face. He took Holden by the eyes, skewed his head to the left and said, “I was wondering how long it would take you to come back.”

Before a response could come, the elderly man stepped aside and allowed the door to open on the weight of its own hinges. Holden had once more been invited into the perspective of Winston Pratt.

The interior of the immense estate was exactly the same as when Holden had completed the job. The smell of leather and pipe tobacco hung in swags from the heights of darkened rafters; not an off-putting smell, but something that just didn’t seem to agree with Holden’s nose. The simple decoration, subtle furniture and clean environment were that of someone who had everything and had nothing. It was depressing, yes – but comfortable.

By the time Holden closed the door, Winston was halfway to the kitchen. “I was in the midst of brewing a pot of coffee, if you would like some.”

“Nope. I’m good,” Holden replied, turning his eyes toward the cellar door. “If it’s alright with you, I’m gonna jump right in. Get started downstairs.”

The man rose a tired hand and waved it flippantly with his back turned, marching his walker toward the kitchen.

Be my guest, it said.

Exactly what Holden wanted to hear.

His greedy footfalls echoed off the crown molding, harmonizing with the creaking tones from uneven floorboards as he moved through the sitting room, foyer and dining room before tracing the narrow runner toward the singular door that he had been envisioning throughout the night. It was positioned to the left of a wide, curving staircase and beckoned for him to open it. He approached the door like a man to a mirage, envisioning everything that could take place the moment he reached it. The dull brass handle was cold and it turned with an unrelenting shuffle to expose a wall of darkness beyond that smelled of something biting and unidentifiable. Holden set that aside for the moment and recalled the light switch to the right of the door before allowing his finger to unearth it in the evocative darkness. It snapped on with little effort and a crackle of electricity released before the cellar stairwell was coated with incandescent splendor.

Holden ground his teeth and turned the corner. Staring down at the unvarnished wood steps, he was almost frightened by the uncertainty of the place in which he was about to enter. Light traced gracefully down the hand rail and the wall to the left guarded Holden’s view from what he remembered to be a very open and cavernous cellar. When he reached the bottom of the stairs, the view that met his eyes and the smell that reached his nostrils were altogether astounding. The rows of shelving he had once seen empty were now lined with hundreds upon hundreds of books. Lanes of story and fact along a city of so much unrecycled paper. The stripes of tattered bindings stretched along each shelf like a rectangular horizon of dull rainbows. A potent, almost minty, smell caught itself in his nose and it made him want to simultaneously cough and breath deeper. The absolute quiet of the cellar allowed him to wonder for a moment if two of his senses had overpowered the other three. Holding The Book and knowing any story was a double-tap away had been one thing, but seeing them lining the space all around him - a new romantic fascination came over Holden.

In the silence, he noticed, from the sound of his own breathing, that his jaw had slackened, leaving his mouth open and vulnerable. Holden forced himself to abandon his shock for the moment, in fear that Winston would come to the stairs and see him standing there dumbstruck, and unloaded his box of sprinkler heads and tools. He stumbled into the nest of illegal paper and reached for the step ladder Winston had placed at the center of two aisles, no doubt to reach the top tier of shelving, and positioned himself below a pageantry of pipes to begin his fictitious renovations.

Over the course of the next seventy-two seconds, Holden breathed very evenly and allowed his eyes to soundlessly navigate the lines of the nearest shelving unit. He was simply amazed at the number of book spines and how the sheer volume of names embossed upon them with sparkling gold ink had chipped to leave a shadow of authors behind. He hadn’t come that morning expecting so much bewilderment. The reason he eventually rested on was the thickness. He had seen only a few books in his life and had never imagined the disturbing thickness of multiple books beside one another. So much information squeezed together in a printed form and yet, so little information taking up so much space. His digitized viewpoint was designed in the web of the internet and the green arms of The Book, where entire encyclopedias of knowledge took up less space than a pair of shoes. And yet, he instantly understood the man’s willingness to break so many laws and risk sacrificing his future for such tender obsession. Each one of those books had pages upon pages of shadowed text that, even at that very moment, were sitting stagnant, yearning to be flipped through. Among its dusty volumes, Holden could lock himself away and lose his life with a tome in hand. It was a dream he never knew he had.

A sprinkler head came free of its threading and fell to the ground, waking him swiftly from a dazed sleep. Holden had been unscrewing it, unaware. He stepped down from the ladder and reached for the fallen metal sprocket, but once down there, so near the closest shelf, he felt a duality of strength and sadness take over him and he dropped to his knees. The space around Holden seemed to pulse with an overwhelming power. It was as if the books were alive. And yet, there was a heartbreaking sensation lingering in the dust that reminded Holden of a job he had done a few years back at a small assisted living facility downtown. The two spaces shared the same air, and he knew why. It was the dissonant melody of life ending. Life that was barely holding on in a world that had forsaken it and moved on to something it believed was better.

Holden reached for the closest shelf and caressed the book nearest him. He felt the grain of the linen cover and memorized the sporadic stripes of black and white along the bead of binding, with a sympathetic spirit of guilt. In his jacket was The Book with all its gadgetry and perfection, the device he adored above all others. The Book suddenly seemed so arrogant. With the patience of an art connoisseur, he admired the novel in its entirety, memorizing the finest details, until he moved on to other books nearby. Holden felt a surge of excitement as he saw so many names beginning with the same letter. The shelves were in alphabetical order. His eyes scanned the walls until he discovered that in the shadowed corner, where a reading nook had been built with a small desk, couch and reading light, all grounded with a finely woven rug, was where he would find the letter he needed.

The step ladder folded effortlessly and Holden held an ear out for Winston. He remembered how easy it had been, when installing the sprinkler system, to hear the man shuffle his walker along the hardwood floor. For the moment he was safe to approach the shelves and he did so with the fervor of a monk before a row of succulent market beef on the forty-first day of a tiring fast. His eyes flickered past each name, trying with difficulty not to stop and admire the collection in his search for the one most important. On a shelf, sharing space with books by authors like Salman Rushdie and Edward Said, he found it.

His breath released in a long summer wind and Holden nearly lost his balance as he very carefully traced a finger over the top edge of the paperback book. It was solid, nearly solid, there had been so many pages packed in there. With the gentlest care, he pulled it free from its position on the shelf. It was lighter than it looked, less substantial than it felt. Holden rested the book with a protective hand on the desk beside him before absorbing the cover he had been longing to find on the bus the day prior. It was worn and bent, with more than a few smudges and a blushing ring of dirt along the rim. The capital letter ‘D’ in Salinger’s first initials was nearly smudged down to the white of the background. Droplets of sweat escaped Holden’s hair line and soothed the taught wrinkles of skin on his forehead as he pulled free the page from his pocket and rested it beside the book on the writing table. And then, carefully – very carefully – he lifted the limp cover of The Catcher in the Rye and turned the many pieces of paper to page two-hundred and forty-seven.

An overwhelming joy that he had never felt before in his life overcame him as a smile took precedence upon his face. The pages matched. Perfectly. From the first word at the top to the last words at the bottom, they were identical. Holden hadn’t realized yet the importance of such a discovery, but it didn’t matter. He was right and had found it, against all fear and doubt. And now, with the complete, unedited manuscript at his fingertips he would finally be able to –

“So that’s the one, huh?”

Holden awoke from his trance and turned to see Winston standing at the base of the staircase without his walker, wearing a grin that didn’t mean to make sense. Holden did his best in the moments available to decipher what the man meant, but was lost in the emotions laced within his grin.

“I…I’m sorry, sir. I couldn’t help myself. I noticed these books here and I…”

“Holden, please,” Winston complained, shuffling forward. “There is no need to lie, especially when you’re holding the book that revealed the lies to you.” As he lumbered near, Winston noticed the fragment of crumpled paper beside the book and approached the desk carefully, as if one wrong step could make the page disappear.

Holden thought the man was reaching for it when he passed his arm over the page and gently lifted the book from the desk. His grin shifted, but it remained unclear as he wiped the dust from the stained cover with ethereal delicacy. Holden had never before witnessed a person employ such a gesture with an inanimate object. This man, nearing the close of his life, had a love affair with the items on these shelves that Holden would never understand.

“The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger.” His shining, false teeth broke through the sly, enigmatic grin. “How ironic…that this is the book.”

Holden didn’t know how to respond, so he stood quietly and allowed Winston to continue.

“Did you know that, at one time, a printed copy of this book could be found in every school, book store, and library in the world? Shame…I don’t think many people read this book these days.”

“Listen, I didn’t mean to…”

“You have a good name, Holden. It makes me think that it called you to this book and the revision you found. Funny that most of this happened because of a name. It’s one of the reasons I trusted you with the act of protecting my library,” he claimed, with a glacial stare. “The other reason is parked in my driveway.”

“My van?”

“I had seen you in the café a number of times that week. On one of these occasions I was privy to an argument between you and another customer over your willful denigration of the planet. I doubt you recall it because I would think this argument happens on a regular basis. Your work vehicle is a gas guzzling hybrid.”

Holden rolled his eyes. “I know.”

“And yet you don’t care that this politically incorrect machine on its death bed, with laws against its constant use, may be one of only thirty hybrid vehicles in the city limits…maybe the state.”

Winston pulled the novel to his chest and closed his eyes. “Which is precisely why you were the only one I…the only one in so many years, that I felt I could risk inviting into my home.”

Holden shrugged. “I don’t understand.”

“When I see you, young man, I see someone who is willing to stay put when everyone else in the world feels required to move…to disobey the law and do what you want, regardless of the punishment threatened against you. Someone willing to deal with the daily insults and self-righteous glares, simply because it is your right to do what you want. A free-thinking man who persists even if it means he has to run his vehicle on individual quarts of gasoline bought under cover at the back door of a filling station. An anomaly of the socially acceptable.”

“It’s just a work vehicle, man.”

“No,” he whispered, with deepest conviction. “No, it is so much more than that. Now, I would love to get into this, but there is no time. We must act quickly.”

The blunt honesty in the man made Holden relinquish himself. With reluctance, he found a comfortable spot on the couch within the dark recesses of the reading nook and waited. Winston neared the desk and looked down at the ragged scrap of frayed paper Holden had ripped from the wall of Marion’s bar. He put his weight against the side of the desk and studied the torn edge of the page with a frail finger.

“Now, I can assume that wherever you got this…the source either has no knowledge of its absence or was fine with you taking it?”

“Yes.”

“And to have recognized such a minute difference in the story, you must have read it multiple times. I’m assuming by your name that I am correct.”

“It’s my favorite story,” Holden admitted with pride, unsure of where the man was leading him.

“That is to your benefit. But do not assume your luck will last much longer. For now, I think it’s safe to say that they aren’t aware of what you’ve realized.”

“Who are you talking about? And why would they care if I found out that a few words were changed in a book?”

“Please, let me finish. Time is crucial.” Winston adjusted his eyeglasses and neared closer to the page from the wall of The Library’s bathroom. “The first thing I’m going to ask you is very important. Depending on your answer, they may already be on their way.” He glanced down at the watch that hung loose on his thin wrist. “Where you came upon this page is important…very important. But, for the moment, there are more important things to discuss. What I need to know is, when you went to The Book to judge your discovery against the digital version…did you go directly to the corresponding page or did you use the Explore function to perform a search within the entirety of the story?”

“I went to the page and…it was different. Most of what was on the page had been deleted. It doesn’t make sense…”

“Right now, it doesn’t need to.” He waved Holden’s concern away with levity. “Might I also assume that you did not search the internet for an explanation of what you discovered?”

“No, actually…I didn’t. I really should have.”

“More luck, I suppose. The important part in all this is that you didn’t blindly search for answers,” he confirmed, before returning the book to its proper place on the shelf. “If you had, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. An average reader skimming to a random page in their favorite book doesn’t register as odd behavior and no follow-up searches online means no one is tracking the query about alterations. You’re okay so far, but not out of the woods entirely. ”

“Hold on a second.” Holden opened his jacket and pulled The Book out from his pocket. He lifted the leather cover and watched the screen flash to its dull hue of swamp green before Winston leapt over and slammed it to the table with shocking speed.

Winston looked down at his hand as if it had been contaminated by touching The Book, but left it there as he continued. Holden didn’t respond. He could see in the man’s eyes that something of greater significance was taking place. “I understand your need for answers. I do. But this is a time to be very brief.” Winston removed his glasses and replaced them with a different pair before unclipping a very fine screwdriver from his pocket and unscrewing the back of Holden’s Book. “You went directly to The Catcher in the Rye when you got here, so I can also assume that it’s the only story you’ve found an inconsistency with…and only on that page. Is that true?”

“Yeah.”

“And once you noticed the inconsistency, you did your best to track down an original copy of the book, which is how you came to arrive at my doorstep this morning. Because when you were installing my sprinkler system, you recognized, at some point, that I am a man with books.”

“Yeah, sorry. I did.”

Winston nodded as he removed the back cover of The Book and rested the device on the table, revealing the network of chips, plates and blinking lights. He turned The Book over in his hands and began reviewing the digital contents before replacing his glasses and walking over to his shelves. Holden watched in expectation as Winston carefully removed a few books from their resting places and stacked them upon his feeble arms, seemingly at random, before limping his way back to the writing desk. “I guess I will take this time then, to thank you for not telling anyone about the enormous secret I am keeping here. This assures me that I can not only trust you, but that I may be able to rely on you in some fashion.”

Holden couldn’t keep it in any longer. He had to speak up. “Really, sir. I was only…I mean, I just had this need to find out what the difference was and that’s it. I know you believe what you say, and that’s good and all, but as long as I’ve earned your trust, I’m glad. Because that means I can ask you what I came here to ask. If I could simply borrow this book, I would be forever grateful. I’m not looking to get involved in anything or put myself at risk here by being…you know…in league with someone who…no offense or anything…” Holden stopped when he noticed the look on Winston’s face; it was like a father watching his child attempt to tie a shoelace for the first time.

“Oh, boy. You really have no idea what you’ve walked into. You found that page. You found one of the last libraries, if not the last library in the entire world that isn’t controlled by our government. Holden, you are at risk.” The crackle of his raspy words was like the resounding gong of the Liberty Bell. Holden wanted to protest, but knew the man was right and watched as Winston, very lightly, laid each of the books he had gathered from the shelves at the center of the circular coffee table.

One of the books had a cover that had been taped together and was gripping onto the spine like eight fingers digging for dear life into the fragile dirt of a cliffside. Winston sat on the cushioned chair and beckoned for Holden to take up The Book, as if the man desired not to touch it any more than he had to. Holden did what was asked, completely unaware of what was about to take place, but certain that the lasting memory of the moment would be monumental. As Winston tilted The Book in Holden’s grasp, he removed a square chip from the back and rested it onto the table with trembling hands.

“You have eighteen minutes,” he said, rising from his seat. He walked across the room and began trudging up the stairs, without another word.

“Eighteen minutes for what?”

A moment later Holden was alone in the cellar before a dismantled digital reading device and five books that he had only read digitally. They were lying flat and unopened, but Holden could see that each of them had dollar bills inside. Some of them were large bills. This completely confused him until he opened the first book to where the bill had been resting. Over the face of the president were details written in a sloppy hand about what had been altered on the page the dollar had bookmarked. Holden could only assume that Winston had chosen these from his collection so that he could look up the corresponding versions in The Book and check the digital printing against the original.

Holden returned the bill to its home and looked over the five titles before reaching for the most perplexing. The book was Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne. He flipped to the correct marker and moved quickly with The Book to find the corresponding page. Before searching for the inconsistency, he read the note on the twenty dollar bill that was marking the alteration. In scratchy red handwriting was a simple, yet profound, statement:

 

“One word can change the world.”

 

The difference between the written copy and the digital was one word. Nothing extravagant or even legitimate. Just a single word that had been replaced with another. Holden couldn’t make sense of it. He shook his head, closed the children’s story unhurriedly and moved on to the next. It was a murder mystery novel; wherein many of the pages were lined with dollar bills. Apparently it had been heavily altered. Holden discovered, after only a few pages, that this had been for one reason alone: each of the alterations was the same. A singular revision ran the course of the story. For some unknown reason, the murderer was given a different first name.

Thus far, everything he had discovered was pointless and unpurposeful. He had been expecting obvious changes and deductions, but he closed each book more confused than before.

The third book, Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham, was, ironically, the novel in bondage. Holden carefully lifted the tape-coated cover and noticed, with excitement, that it had multiple entries. Each time he looked them up in The Book a phrase had either been altered or removed. On one page, an entire paragraph that seemed garish and unnecessary had been added and then he reached a section where an entire page had been removed - page three-hundred and ninety-nine.

 

 

The page that had been virtually ripped out of the digital version was startling to read. Holden didn’t know why, but it almost seemed as if the entry had been removed because it encouraged self-awareness. What sort of person would want to delete something so personal?

In the next book, the note upon the five dollar bill described that the entire ending after that point had been removed and completely rewritten. Holden couldn’t believe it. He had just read that book a month prior and he had to take the fifth and final book, Remembrance of Things Past by a man named Marcel Proust, which had a fur of money fluttering from its spine, and set it aside in order to fulfill his need to learn how the fourth story was supposed to end. Even then, his joy was stunted because he read everything except the final paragraphs. The moment he turned the page to devour them, Winston shuffled hurriedly down the stairs with an eye on his watch.

Far more energized, the elderly librarian strode fearlessly to the table, snatched The Book from Holden’s grip and returned the chip to the rear control panel before crashing into his oversized chair, gasping desperately for breath. Apparently eighteen minutes had just ended.

As Winston delicately refastened the back cover, Holden sat in a stunned paralytic state, unable to move in the knowledge that was slapping him in the face. Winston returned The Book to Holden, pushed the five stories aside and said, “I know you have a million questions, but I’m only going to answer a few of them…and in the order of my choosing. Let me preface this by confirming what you have just realized. What I just made you realize.” He slowly interlocked his arthritic fingers and rested them on the tightly buttoned vest that seemed to hold his organs in place. “The discovery you found in J.D. Salinger’s book was not a one page mistake. It wasn’t even a one book mistake. What you have stumbled onto is an atrocious reality…a mistake in every book. I chose books from your device at random to prove that the truth you found is universal.”

“Wait a minute.” Holden sat forward, mashing his eyelids tightly as if that would pull the thought quicker to his trembling lips. “You’re telling me that all books…every single book ever written has been altered in some form or another?”

“Yes. A very crucial fact that I could only illustrate through someone else’s words.”

“No.” Holden stood from his seat and crept past the table. “That’s not true. I don’t believe you. There’s no way you could know that.”

Winston adjusted himself on the chair so that he could cross his legs. It took him quite a while to get comfortable and in the silence of that long minute Holden was forced to linger on his final statement. When Winston came to a place where he was willing to speak again, his words were simple. “Indeed, I cannot prove that every book ever written has been altered, but what I can do is base my judgment on the fact that every book I own or have seen in person has been altered, which leads me to believe that the books beyond this rarely vast library have been altered as well.”

“Even if you’re right, it doesn’t make sense,” Holden argued, his voice echoing loudly in the brick-lined cellar. “Why is this happening?”

“I don’t know. I’m sure that somewhere in the past people knew why these pages were being adjusted, why things had to be changed, but we don’t know anymore. There’s no telling why they’re doing it. All we can glean from this is that we are forced to live without the knowledge of our own imprisonment. We willingly accept it, in fact, the moment a new edition of The Book goes on sale. The sad reality, Holden, is that we are all too stupid to know that we are being controlled, word by word, and, once realizing this, we would rather return to our stupidity because what we have stumbled onto is not a glorious endeavor toward a life of truth and peace, but a life of fear. And a short one at that.”

“But it’s all so wrong. What gives someone the right to censor people that way?” Holden barked, angry at Winston’s straightforward attitude. “How can you be so casual about this? The Editors of the Publishing House have stolen our freedom of speech.”

“Quite untrue. Don’t you understand? It’s not us, Holden. It’s our forefathers and their characters that have had their voices removed. You have accidentally stumbled upon one of the most tragic conspiracies of all time. The taming of all mankind through addition and subtraction. The only reason I’m opening you up to the entirety of it is because you need to realize that life will be very frustrating from this point forward because there is nothing, absolutely nothing that you will be able to do to stop it.”

Silence caved in the walls and brought a deafening pressure to Holden’s ears. An hour ago, he had been a pipe fitter in search of a few answers on his day off. What was he now? In what sort of deep horror did he now found himself swimming? For a time that felt far longer than it was in reality, Holden stared at his copy of The Book. It was so new, the cover still shined and carried the crisp musk of fresh leather. He had been so proud to have it with him every day. What a part of life it had been. And what was it, really? After today, the man Holden had been, with a simple mind and a small life, would be gone. There was no going back from this.

Holden turned to Winston and searched for something to break the silence before the sound of him getting sick all over the man’s adorable reading room would do the job for him. He reached down for The Book and turned it over in his hands.

“Why did you take this apart before I started looking through my stories for inconsistencies?”

Before responding, Winston cleared his throat and uncrossed his legs. “Every Book is installed with two tracking systems. One global. One internal. If you would’ve performed an Explore search through these five books for the words that were missing or jumped directly to pages that have a record of being altered, you would have been flagged, tracked, captured and recycled.”

“Sorry? What do you mean recycled?”

Winston looked up at the brick-vaulted ceiling and adjusted his glasses. “Why don’t we save that for another day.”

“Whatever. Just tell me then…that chip you took out of my Book made them unable to know what’s going on?”

“Precisely. Let me elaborate. This planet is completely networked, even over our oceans and deserts, but there are still untracked dead zones. Although they are extremely small, the Publishing House expects to deal with them once in a golden moon. If a Book on their network loses contact with the server, they allow eighteen minutes before reconnection. At that time, the user is guaranteed to pass over the miniscule dead zone. But, because the probability of any Book going off-line twice is so minute, really a mathematical improbability, that was the first and only time your Book can be taken off the grid. Otherwise, they will assume that you are manipulating the system. See, you can’t even imagine how lucky you are Holden. Most people who reach this information as you have make the very large mistake of combing the entire Book, going onto the internet and searching for similar incidents, or requesting information directly from the Publishing House on why things would have been edited in such a way. That’s why you have never heard about this. Those unfortunate people have been removed from society.”

“Wait a minute. So you’re telling me that if I searched my Book over and over for…”

“Yes.”

Holden tore from the cellar at a subsonic speed and Winston did everything he could to catch up. “Where are you going? There is so much more you need to know before you go out on your own with this knowledge.” By the time Winston had reached the top of the stairs, Holden was already in his van trying to get it started. Winston reached for his overcoat and cane, slipped on his house shoes and walked out into the driveway. “You told someone, didn’t you?”

Holden slammed his fists on the steering wheel and turned the key again, hoping for ignition. “Yeah. Where I found this page,” he spat, as the man hobbled to the driver’s side window. “It was from a bar. The walls are coated in pages like this. Right now, she’s probably searching every book she can to find the differences.”

“Holden.” The engine turned over and Winston reached through the window to take him by the shirt. “This will be hard to hear…but she’s gone. Believe me and forget what you want to do right now. She’s already gone.”

“What?” Holden erupted with incredulity, tearing himself free.

“An hour’s time is more than enough. There’s no way she could get more than that before they would flag it as suspicious activity and take her.”

“Holden…wait.” Winston called, out of breath as he skipped after the van. “You’re going to leave and there’s nothing I can do about that. But…there is more we have to discuss. You’re not ready yet. Please, you must return. We have to finish this discussion.”

“I will.”

“Go then, but take this with you. If you do succeed and she is still alive…if you can, at all, get more of the pages.” His face was tight with determination, his words aggressive and direct as he pointed his free hand at Holden. “You MUST do it. Those words are more valuable than you…or I…or this woman. Please, get as many of them as you can, because if it isn’t already, that place will be in ashes by nightfall!”

Holden turned the wheel, put the car in drive and flicked on the windshield wipers. He knew, and could clearly see, that he had put a lot of pressure on this elderly man who was not expecting the fallout from such a bomb. Holden had come to his house hoping to find relief, expecting some joy by seeing his favorite book in person and perhaps building a relationship with a man that knew more about books than he did. In fact, he wished he hadn’t discovered the extent of it all because a deep regret for what he had brought on Marion was taking over his mind. If Winston was right, Marion was in terrible trouble and he hoped to God that he could reach her in time before it was too late.

As the van careened down the slick driveway, Winston’s lips lowered to a frown while cold rain pelted the glasses on his face. “Be careful, Holden. They are always two steps ahead,” he whispered to himself as he watched the van disappear. “And they know more than you think.”

 

 

* * * * *

 

 

009-21152

 

 

For thirty-seven minutes, Holden drove.

Fourteen of those thirty-seven, he felt he couldn’t breath. He was so unable to get a handle on the moment that, like the tires on the rain-drenched expressway, seemed almost too slippery to grasp onto. Marion was gone? How could that man, that rich crime lord, have the nerve to look Holden in the eye and act as if her life meant nothing? It was true that Holden didn’t have feelings for Marion, beyond the physical (that he knew of), but she was a person and if there was at all some way that he could save her from whatever this was, whoever they were, he would do his best.

Recycled.

He couldn’t get that word out of his head.

What would they do to her?

The only wind of hope he could find as he glided into the city was in the way he had tried to recruit her help. Holden knew he had looked insane the day earlier. Maybe he had sounded crazy enough for her to have simply ignored him. Any other idea that came to relieve his anxiety was unlikely. He hoped that something had gone wrong at the bar. That the electricity had gone out because she had forgotten to pay the bill. That a keg had exploded. That a bar fight sent her to the hospital. Hell, he’d take a robbery at that point. Anything that would force her not to consider his ranting request. Anything to keep her from scanning The Book for the many pages on the walls.

As the van veered through traffic and he parked illegally outside the door of The Library, Holden could see at once that that something was wrong. The neon sign above the door was off. Marion usually opened early on Sundays; people needed a place to drink and enjoy their sports. But, as Holden wiped the condensation from the windshield with the back of his sleeve, he noticed one of the regulars at the darkened, red door, covering his head from the tenacious rain with one hand and tugging wildly at the handle with the other. It was locked. With no windows looking in, Holden imagined the worst. Instead of thinking out a logical way to confront the possible problem, Holden acted on pure, destructive instinct. He hastily pulled back into traffic before cutting dangerously into the shadows of the narrow alley that traced its way to the rear of the bar.

Holden couldn’t remember much before he heard the door to The Library slam to a close behind him. The impact of what he saw at that moment made the moments prior irrelevant. He remembered the door of the van slamming, the cool rain water on his face and crashing the rear door to the bar open as if he were a drunk, scrounging for booze. But the shock of so many lights amid such silence overtook his ability to retain inconsequential details.

The appeal of The Library was that it was usually rather dark. Most of the ambient light came from television screens or the few oil lamps on the walls that thrived off of clean, repurposed oil. It provided its customers with a dark and private atmosphere where they could drink the liquid that their liver hated most without consequence. Standing at the rear door, bracing his eyes from the abrasive light that streamed from the main seating area, Holden felt himself pulled to the conclusion of his life. He was staring at the light at the end of the tunnel that was created by mangy bathroom doors, empty kegs and beer boxes.

Droplets of rainwater followed along the contours of Holden’s ear and he heard a rustling. Immediately his mind allowed images of terrible things to flash in the bright white of the light beyond and he rushed forward to see the truth. It wasn’t until he saw Marion beside a series of work lights, huddled coolly on the floor with her back to him that he was able to breathe. His worst fears had been wrong. For now.

“Marion,” Holden gasped, scanning the room in disbelieving shock. She didn’t turn and he was glad because he needed a moment to gather the information that was bombarding his eyes.

The three walls that wrapped the bar were ravaged by a sharpened object. Its jagged edge left gouges and canyons in the bludgeoned, red wood paneling that had been hiding beneath yellowing scraps of paper, leaving the walls to resemble the fang-torn flesh of an animal attack. All around him, the floor was littered with scraps of paper. Corners and strips that were worth thousands of dollars. But there were no full sheets. With Winston’s cautious words in his mind, Holden wouldn’t allow himself the privilege to understand what Marion had done and called out to her again. That time, she hopped in place. Her legs uncrossed and she rolled to her right carrying the appearance of an Unfortunate. Like so many Unfortunates, homeless people to the minds of another time, Marion looked frightened, shocked, and disturbed by whoever was greeting her. He dared to charge toward her and lowered himself to her level, hoping to pull her from the trance she was in.

“Marion, what happened to you?”

“Holden. Oh, I’m so glad it’s you,” she cheered tiredly before wrapping her arms around him, only to release them just as quickly. “You were right. I’ve been checking everything. So many of these pages…” She held up a scattered pile of paper fragments and waved them absently in the air. Pieces fluttered freely from her grip as she lifted her other hand. It was an old edition of The Book and it was attached to a long, green extension cord. “It’s a word, right? Sometimes it’s just a word. And what’s the big deal about a word, right? But other times…other times, it’s big stuff. I mean, BIG stuff. And I’ve been trying to figure out why. I mean, why would they do this? Whoever is in charge…why would they change…this…paragraph. Out of everything, why this? And then…a whole character is gone. This book here,” Marion announced, scrambling for a few pages that rested on the fireplace, “This book is completely missing and…and…I can’t even find this author anywhere. And on this page, it was a scene where a married couple were sharing a memory. What’s wrong with sharing a memory?”

As she continued spouting her conclusion and interpretations of the pages that had surrounded her life, Holden saw in her eyes the same tenor of desperation and fear that he felt, only at a higher pitch. The only examples that had been revealed to him were chosen by Winston or found on the page of The Catcher in the Rye that started it all. What sort of monumental alterations had Marion discovered in the dark silence of the bar? What words carved from the wall had birthed such a fright?

CAND…Curklunk.

They reeled and stared wide-eyed at the front door. At some point during the night Marion had tipped over the immense coat rack to stop anyone from coming in. Whoever was at the door, rapped their knuckles a few times against the worn wood before trying the handle again. CAND…Curklunk.

“Marion, we have to get out of here.”

“What?”

She tilted her head and looked at Holden as if he hadn’t been beside her that whole time. Her blue eyes were distant as they trailed back to the page at her feet, the one she had been studying with feverish attention when he had come into the room. Holden watched as Marion absently returned to the party-of-one she had been attending, cross-legged on a wrinkled rug of paper that would look obscene to any other eyes but his. Next to them, perched delicately against the wall of booths, were eight large, black garbage bags, overflowing with paper feathers of history. Seeing them through the strings of hair that hung beside her face, Holden was beginning to understand a bit of the insatiable journey Marion had been on since last he’d seen her. Guilt throttled him for the awful things that coursed through her mind, of which he could only imagine.

CAND…Curklunk.

His eyes darted back to the door and he reached for her arm. “Marion, you have to wake up from this. We are leaving. If there is anything here at the bar that you want to see again, you need to get it now. Please.”

“Listen to me. Whoever altered these books…they had a reason. And it’s my guess that they don’t want anyone to find out. I can’t get into it all. Just trust me…we have to go.”

For a moment, her face resisted. Her mouth hung open with unspoken questions, but the grip Holden locked on her arm made her slacken. “There is something. It’s just beyond the bar. I’ll get it and we can go.”

Holden was prepared to skate across the shards of paper into the alley and get the van running when he remembered what Winston had said about the page Holden brought to the house. He spun on his heels, snatched two of the eight garbage bags filled with recycled book pages and skipped toward the door. He heard Marion rattling through a few drawers and then she was on his heels, holding the door open for him. Holden side-stepped the two bags of priceless paper through the back entrance and moved to the side door of the van. It slid open with a comforting screech that made him think of crisp mornings, warm cigarette smoke and aisles of oil-slickened pipe waiting to be installed. Memories of a much smaller life.

He twirled the bags closed and tossed them carelessly into the rear of the van before yanking the door shut. A few of the pages that had fluttered out as he walked them to the truck were resting on the filthy asphalt. The edges, once glazed in low VOC polyurethane, now softened in the wetness of the gentle rain. Marion reached down to pick one up and Holden shoved her into the passenger seat before nearly vaulting over the hood. Marion wanted to gripe, but she bent to his will, knowing that Holden was moving quickly for a reason. The van door slammed with importance. Holden cranked the key and clamped fiercely to the steering wheel. The alley was a one way street and he knew that if he didn’t hurry, they may be stuck dealing with the person who saw fit to wrench on the door despite the deadbolt.

The mufflerless van lurched slothfully toward the end of the alley. Without letting up on the gas, he jerked the wheel to the left and narrowly missed the sharp edge of a thickly bricked apartment building. Something heavy crashed behind him, metal on metal, but he wouldn’t dare check the back of the van. The buckets of built-in shelving were growing light in the folly of his reckless driving and he could hear the metal knuckles of many little pieces rolling along the plywood floor. They were half a block away from the gridlock of freedom when he noticed that Marion was holding her Book with an arrested grip. Without a word, he rolled down his window, tore it from her hand, and whipped it with all his strength against the rough, aged brick of the building. There was a spark and a shattering of material, followed by a pinched scream that escaped the passenger seat.

“Holden!” she exclaimed, “Why did you do that? I’ve had that Book my whole life.”

He forced the wheel to the right. “There is a GPS device located in the back. They’re probably tracking you and we cannot be followed by these people. I’m sorry.”

Marion didn’t respond.

Thinking quickly, Holden dodged a few cars, drove a few blocks down the next street and pulled into another forlorn alleyway. It was dark and unsuspecting, and it gave him a chance to stop his heart from beating itself to death. He was hardly ever forced to elude anyone, let alone something he couldn’t see. Although it was against his instincts, Holden assumed that stopping somewhere nearby the last known location of a wanted felon, if that’s what Marion was now, would be an unexpected move.

The van idled noisily in the falling rain. Holden closed his eyes and gripped the steering wheel with unanticipated force. Knowing that Marion was watching him, reserved in fear, he pushed his head back into the cracked pleather seat, took a deep breath and spoke his words plainly and evenly, hoping that the manufactured courage in his voice would seem genuine.

“That may not have been them at the door,” he began. “You may not be in as much immediate danger as I thought. But, for the sake of argument, we need to assume the worst. The bar is gone…and you can’t go back to your apartment again. If there’s something important to you there, tell me what it is and I’ll go back and get it. But you need to tell me in the next fifteen seconds. Because if there is nothing important enough for me to risk my life, we need to...”

“My diary.” Marion said without hesitation. “I’ve had it forever. My mother gave it to me and…it has my whole childhood. If there’s one thing I can’t live without, it’s that. Please.”

Holden sniffed. He nodded.

He loosened the tension in his eyelids and turned up the defrost to clear the fog that was either covering his vision or the windshield.