I went to Travis’ reading a few weeks ago. It was held on a Saturday in the Depot District at Two Sisters Bookstore. It took me a few minutes to find–I had never been there before. This despite having lived in Richmond for a decade or so, and despite having lived only seven or eight blocks from the depot district for the first half of that decade. When I went out walking I generally liked to walk along the railroad tracks heading east, under the J Street bridge, past the old mattress and the heaps of garbage and what looked like abandoned jungle camps. I imagine it’s all still there, five or so years since the last time I saw it.
During undergrad I’d walk along the tracks to a wooded area where a large patch of polk grew not far from what looked like an old factory made of red brick. When I first found the place, I had hoped mushrooms grew there, but they didn’t. In the late spring and early summer, before the plants had grown tough and woody, I’d gather the polk with a pocket knife and a grocery bag and bring it home to eat. Strip off the poisonous red skin and cut the stalks into rings to batter and fry. I’ve never eaten the leaves before-they’re poisonous, too, and you have to boil them twice–though I’m aware people do. Tastes like fried green tomatoes.
I walked through town often enough when I lived in that part of Richmond, though I rarely walked through the depot district. I liked the straight up and down lines of the number and letter streets. I never really met anyone that I hung out with for very long–I’d hang out with roommates, when I had them, but I wasn’t very social otherwise. I’ve never been very good at being part of a community. When I was an ed. major one of my instructors asked me, after I had explained I was half an hour late because I had locked my keys in the house and had had to walk from E Street, why I hadn’t simply called someone for a ride. I told her I didn’t know anybody I could ask for a ride. She didn’t believe me.
The Saturday of Travis’ reading I was tempted to message him and say I couldn’t make it. Technically, Dad was coming up to help me caulk my leaky shower, but I had informed him of the reading and we planned to be finished in time. I was anxious about being around other people. Isolation is something that people with bipolar disorder do to themselves. We avoid parties. We shut ourselves up in our houses. We play video games by ourselves all day. I want to go, though, so even though I think I’ll probably have to talk to other people I get in my car and drive toward Richmond.
It was sprinkling in the Depot District when I got there. I had to drive around for a bit to find the bookstore and more to find a place to park. I’m familiar with the parts of Richmond where the streets are laid out like a grid–numbered streets running north and south, lettered streets running east and west. The Depot District and Old Richmond are confusing. The roads are laid out like a can of worms, as Uncle Elbert had once described Cincinnati. I parked in an alley just away from the shelter of the bridge, about a block away from the store.
When I stepped through the doors I had to stop for a moment. I had never been in a bookstore before. Not like this. I had been to Barnes & Noble, Borders, Hastings, different college bookstores, but this was different. It felt like a church is supposed to feel. The woman at the counter must have noticed my hesitation–she asked me if I was there for the reading and I said yes. Just walk straight back to the room at the end. Bookshelves that stood about a foot or so shorter than me criss crossed each other on either side of the path I walked. They were stained dark, or were naturally dark, and looked old. Handmade, maybe. It was quiet, sacred, like a library, and there were a few people browsing the shelves. A family of four. A couple. A young woman. I wondered if they were there for the reading.
In the back room I noticed three things immediately: One, I was under dressed. Two, Mary Fell was there. And three, all the seats were taken. I didn’t say hi to Mary or indicate that I knew who she was. I only had one class with her a long long time ago, and I wouldn’t expect her remember me. I thought she was cool, though, and I liked her. She sat between Travis and his wife, Karen, with the same gray hair running down to her shoulders in ringlets like she had years ago. She wore slacks and a flowy blouse. Everyone was dressed nice–business casual it looked like.
Travis must have introduced me as a professor at Ivy Tech, because someone commented that I looked like a professor. My hair, as always, was unkempt–short curls sticking out at all angles. My beard had started to go wild–I was in need of a trim. I wore a pair of dark blue sweatpants long ago spattered with white and green and red paint. My olive green sweatshirt was, likewise, spattered with a bit of paint. On my feet, foam flip-flops. Travis went around the room introducing everyone, his friends, to me–I don’t remember their names. There were six or seven of them including the readers: One of Travis’ former instructors from Earlham, reading from a book of poems that she had had published, the other a woman reading from her novel that was about to be published. The author with the novel had a man with her who I assumed was her husband–or maybe he was introduced as her husband, I can’t remember. There was another couple–the man, with his salt and pepper goatee reminded me of Ian McShane. There was Karen. There was Mary Fell.
The room was small, and the seats were taken. I stood chatting a bit, terribly conscious that I was standing in the doorway. The only other place to stand was behind the podium. Travis’ former instructor must have noticed my discomfort–or maybe she just wanted to get me out of the doorway–and offered her chair to me. Thank God. I sunk into the green vinyl chair, hoping to sink out of sight, and she went out to find additional seating, bringing back a couple of folding chairs.
I took in the room. I want to say the walls were painted green, though maybe they had some kind of patterned wallpaper. There was Sherlock Holmes paraphernalia everywhere–books, a street sign that said “Baker’s St.,” statuettes and busts on the mantle above the fireplace. In front of the fireplace was one of those black music stands to serve as the podium. Sofas and chairs surrounded the coffee table in the center of the room. Eventually, someone else came to the room–she was wearing crocs, a t-shirt, and walking with a cane. The reading began shortly after she was seated.
I can’t remember a word of it, but it stirred something in me. I’m unsure what I thought about as I listened, either except: Why am I not doing this? Why am I not trying to publish? Why am I not writing? Why am I not reading? I don’t even journal anymore. I don’t have answers, either. My favorite instructor told me once, while we were discussing my writing and the difficulty I had understanding why I had escaped and my friends had languished, “Riley, you’re living the life of the mind,” but whatever else she said didn’t stay with me. Without realizing it, I had always imagined myself a part of that life. Some of the poems, as I thought about myself and I thought about them–what might have inspired them, how they were written, how much work went into them, how much the writer reveals–made me tear up.
Travis is the last speaker. We clap as he finishes and sits down in his chair between Mary Fell and me. “Pretty good,” I say to myself. I stretch and stand. “Welp, Travis, that was pretty good.” He thanks me for the compliment, and I head out through the doorway, past the shelves, and out into the depot district. I’m conscious that my immediate exit might seem odd, but I want to be alone. It’s stopped raining, though the sky is still overcast. I walk down the sidewalk, glancing at the pushed together shops–coffee, ice cream, art, consignment, glass. Down the alley, on either side of me are run down homes–apartments attached to the shops. Crossing under the bridge, I stop and look for the Blues Brothers car but I don’t see it. I find my white Impala and climb in.
On the way home, I drive past my old house on E Street. It looks the same: Bad stone work–a web pattern–on the outside. Empty cement porch. A “for rent” sign is staked into the ground by the sidewalk. The store across the street is empty again. A couple of battered cars sit in the parking lot of the Tally Ho Pub. Mrs. Black, the shut-in who lives across the alley (if she still lives) still has a yard full of garbage. I turn left at the light, driving over the J Street bridge. I look out east, tracing the four parallel lines of the railroad tracks as they curve off into the horizon. I drive home.
Sophistry and Solipsism in the New Millennium 