The author²⁶

I often go to a bookstore across from the Jamaica Savings Bank. The owner has known me for a long time, but to him I was just a customer. He had never been particularly interested in me.

Today when I went there, right on the front of his desk I saw Beyond Within and Eastern Light for the Western Mind.

I said, “These are my books.”

He said, “Heh!”

I said, “Yes.”

He asked, “You are the author?”

I was wearing shorts and he was looking at me as though he didn’t believe me.

Then he started asking me questions, and we talked for ten minutes.

I told him I wanted a daily prayer book. He found one and gave it to me. He said, “I will give you a little discount. I will sell it to you for eleven dollars.”

So I took out a ten-dollar bill and a single, but he gave me the one back and said, “Please come back again and again. I like to talk to you!.”

I have been there so many times, but this is the first time that this has happened.