That year Christmas came in July.
There was no decorated tree or wrapping paper, no chestnuts roasting on an open fire. The weather was hot and sticky, and Santa Claus was a skinny old man wearing big thick glasses.
I was at home when he called me.
“Mr. Minick?"
“Yes?”
“This is Mr. Porter. I want you to come and look at some books.”
In his crisp, squeaky voice, he gave me directions to his home, set a time for our meeting, and left the telephone conversation as quickly as if he had vanished up a chimney.
There was no decorated tree or wrapping paper, no chestnuts roasting on an open fire. The weather was hot and sticky, and Santa Claus was a skinny old man wearing big thick glasses.
I was at home when he called me.
“Mr. Minick?"
“Yes?”
“This is Mr. Porter. I want you to come and look at some books.”
In his crisp, squeaky voice, he gave me directions to his home, set a time for our meeting, and left the telephone conversation as quickly as if he had vanished up a chimney.
Mr. Porter’s telephone call caught me off guard that day. I knew him from the bookstore I then owned on Main Street in Waynesville, North Carolina. Once or twice a year he came into my store, a slight man wearing a trench coat who looked like Mr. Peepers. He acknowledged my greeting with a nod of his head, rarely spoke, and never said good-bye. From the few secondhand books he purchased, I knew Mr. Porter and I share a liking for the classics, but I must confess I disliked him. He was abrupt, cold, and distant. When we occasionally passed each other on the street, I would say “Hello;” he would give a brusque nod and scurry off. He was originally from New England, and without any disrespect to New Englanders, he had all the warmth of a Maine January when the snow has drifted to the windowsills and the trees groan with the cold.
When I pulled into his driveway the next afternoon, Mr. Porter was waiting for me. True to form, he didn’t say hello, but instead waved me to his open garage. “Here are the books,” he said. “Look them over.”
I had expected a few boxes of rough-looking books. Instead, I found myself standing beside a double row of fine books piled high as my knees and half the length of the garage. In these stacks were scores of the old blue Oxford Classics, scores more of Modern Library books, and several hundred other books gems whose titles I knew and whose texts I loved. Though the books would not appeal to an antiquarian bookseller—they were not rare, and most were marked in pen or pencil with Mr. Porter’s remarks—I felt as if I had stumbled into a bookman’s treasure trove.
Unfortunately, I was a bookman without capital. I lusted after those books the way a man may lust after a certain woman, without reason or any possibility of satisfaction, yet no matter what scheme I contrived, I knew I lacked the money to pay what those books were worth.
When Mr. Porter came outside again, I told him he had a fine collection but we should call a dealer I knew in Asheville. “He’ll give you a better price than I can,” I said, with a blackness growing in my chest as if I were announcing a death.
“I’m not selling you those books,” Mr. Porter said in his clipped tone. “They’re not for sale. You may have them.”
“Mr. Porter, I’m sure the man in Asheville will pay you well for these.”
“If you mention payment again,” he said, “you don’t get the books.”
After packing the books into my van—I worked in a daze, as if walking through a dream—Mr. Porter and I went inside and sat at his kitchen table. There Mr. Porter began to talk about himself. He was moving to a condominium, he said, because his wife Helen had died earlier that year. He told me they had read aloud to each other from those books nearly every day for fifty years. He cried a little telling me about her and their reading, and I thought of the books sitting in my van and of how for so many years I had disliked him, and I felt like crying with him. I thought to myself how often in my life I had judged people by the way they dressed or spoke or behaved, and a shame rose in me so thick and powerful that even now, all these many years since my Christmas in July, I wince at the memory.
Over the next two years, Mr. Porter and I became friends of a sort. He kept offering gifts—more books, a stereo, and records—always with the admonition that if I tried to pay him he would give these belongings to someone else. The books I had acquired from him I marked at bargain prices because of the way they came to me. His books and the bargain-basement prices were so popular that for a brief time some customers would ask if we had received any more “Porters.” One customer even contacted Mr. Porter through me and took him to supper.
From other people and from Mr. Porter himself, I learned a little about his past. He was an orphan, raised by Catholic nuns in New England. Someone told me he later entered seminary for a time. (Though he sometimes prayed at the local Catholic church, he was buried as a Methodist.) He became a librarian at a private school in New England; Helen was the headmistress. He loved jazz, the Shakers, and the Transcendentalists. He had a quiet and deadly sense of the absurd. He liked to communicate with his friends by means of handwritten notes adorned with quotations from his favorite writers. He and Helen had no children. He loved his wife so deeply that he bore the pain of her death like a wound in his eyes.
His speech could be as tart as a New England pie. An example: after the Methodists had added a wing to their church, a friend took Mr. Porter on a tour of the new facility. He showed him the gymnasium, the new offices and classrooms, a kitchen. When they completed the tour, the friend said, “So, Bob, what do you think?” Mr. Porter gave him the gimlet-eye and said, “Where’s the chapel?”
Robert Porter lived his life in books, and he died by a book. A murderous knave who was then writing books about the best way to kill yourself taught Mr. Porter well, and he died by his own hand in an assisted living community in Brevard. (After hearing this news, I walked to the library, pulled this book from the shelf, and buried it behind a shelf little used by patrons.) His death hurt then, and hurts now, for like a number of his friends, I have often wondered what I might have done differently, if anything, to ease the burdens of his failing body and the breaking of his heart.
That was the year when Christmas came in July, when a skinny Santa Claus with big glasses and a squeaky voice taught me about generosity, charity, and judgment.
When I pulled into his driveway the next afternoon, Mr. Porter was waiting for me. True to form, he didn’t say hello, but instead waved me to his open garage. “Here are the books,” he said. “Look them over.”
I had expected a few boxes of rough-looking books. Instead, I found myself standing beside a double row of fine books piled high as my knees and half the length of the garage. In these stacks were scores of the old blue Oxford Classics, scores more of Modern Library books, and several hundred other books gems whose titles I knew and whose texts I loved. Though the books would not appeal to an antiquarian bookseller—they were not rare, and most were marked in pen or pencil with Mr. Porter’s remarks—I felt as if I had stumbled into a bookman’s treasure trove.
Unfortunately, I was a bookman without capital. I lusted after those books the way a man may lust after a certain woman, without reason or any possibility of satisfaction, yet no matter what scheme I contrived, I knew I lacked the money to pay what those books were worth.
When Mr. Porter came outside again, I told him he had a fine collection but we should call a dealer I knew in Asheville. “He’ll give you a better price than I can,” I said, with a blackness growing in my chest as if I were announcing a death.
“I’m not selling you those books,” Mr. Porter said in his clipped tone. “They’re not for sale. You may have them.”
“Mr. Porter, I’m sure the man in Asheville will pay you well for these.”
“If you mention payment again,” he said, “you don’t get the books.”
After packing the books into my van—I worked in a daze, as if walking through a dream—Mr. Porter and I went inside and sat at his kitchen table. There Mr. Porter began to talk about himself. He was moving to a condominium, he said, because his wife Helen had died earlier that year. He told me they had read aloud to each other from those books nearly every day for fifty years. He cried a little telling me about her and their reading, and I thought of the books sitting in my van and of how for so many years I had disliked him, and I felt like crying with him. I thought to myself how often in my life I had judged people by the way they dressed or spoke or behaved, and a shame rose in me so thick and powerful that even now, all these many years since my Christmas in July, I wince at the memory.
Over the next two years, Mr. Porter and I became friends of a sort. He kept offering gifts—more books, a stereo, and records—always with the admonition that if I tried to pay him he would give these belongings to someone else. The books I had acquired from him I marked at bargain prices because of the way they came to me. His books and the bargain-basement prices were so popular that for a brief time some customers would ask if we had received any more “Porters.” One customer even contacted Mr. Porter through me and took him to supper.
From other people and from Mr. Porter himself, I learned a little about his past. He was an orphan, raised by Catholic nuns in New England. Someone told me he later entered seminary for a time. (Though he sometimes prayed at the local Catholic church, he was buried as a Methodist.) He became a librarian at a private school in New England; Helen was the headmistress. He loved jazz, the Shakers, and the Transcendentalists. He had a quiet and deadly sense of the absurd. He liked to communicate with his friends by means of handwritten notes adorned with quotations from his favorite writers. He and Helen had no children. He loved his wife so deeply that he bore the pain of her death like a wound in his eyes.
His speech could be as tart as a New England pie. An example: after the Methodists had added a wing to their church, a friend took Mr. Porter on a tour of the new facility. He showed him the gymnasium, the new offices and classrooms, a kitchen. When they completed the tour, the friend said, “So, Bob, what do you think?” Mr. Porter gave him the gimlet-eye and said, “Where’s the chapel?”
Robert Porter lived his life in books, and he died by a book. A murderous knave who was then writing books about the best way to kill yourself taught Mr. Porter well, and he died by his own hand in an assisted living community in Brevard. (After hearing this news, I walked to the library, pulled this book from the shelf, and buried it behind a shelf little used by patrons.) His death hurt then, and hurts now, for like a number of his friends, I have often wondered what I might have done differently, if anything, to ease the burdens of his failing body and the breaking of his heart.
That was the year when Christmas came in July, when a skinny Santa Claus with big glasses and a squeaky voice taught me about generosity, charity, and judgment.
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