* * *
It’s a stock-market Tuesday, the second saddest day of the week, behind Monday, of course, since Wednesday is almost Thursday, which is the day before Friday, which is a day he can manage, considering all he has to do is make it to five o’clock and then, well then, he has to cope with the weekend, but at least he’s not at work, he can say that at least. A Tuesday is no one’s birthday, there are no government holidays on Tuesdays, Tuesdays are always just another day, even when he’s on vacation: “oh, it’s Tuesday, we’ve still got four whole days left”, it is the most neglected day of the week. This Tuesday, a stock market Tuesday, with things important for only an exclusive few appearing from time to time, but otherwise, same old, same old, the sky is overly mixed, appearing gray, but not noticeably gray, not: “hey, do you think it will rain” gray or “boy, I think it might clear up” gray, just gray like a crayon, non-judgmental gray. The sidewalk is still recovering from the night before, Monday night, when the inclement temperature dropped and the moisture in the air became ice on the pavement so that every so once in a while someone stepped on a patch and keeled over right in front of everybody in one of those humorous: “oh my god I’m falling, must catch my balance, break my neck, whoaaa” falls that erupt without notice, forcing the unfortunate person to flail their arms, scramble their feet, make funny faces, and embarrass themselves involuntarily, or causing some random motorist, not paying attention, but taking a few moments to sip their coffee, or fix makeup, to slide out of their lane and into on-coming traffic (this was Joseph’s excuse after all, after he’d driven Ralph Cinn-Cola’s car into a truck going the other way, which is why poor Joseph can be found walking to work after taking the train in), attempting to correct their folly, while remaining on the ice, so that they veer strongly, too strongly, turning their car like a top, three hundred and sixty degrees three times, out of control, of course coffee goes everywhere, burning hot coffee right on his lap, a big streak of bloody red lipstick across her cheek, before hitting non-icy pavement and grinding to a “holy shit I thought I was dead, am I alright, I almost died” stop in the middle of the road, other drivers passing, shaking their heads, thinking how absurd he looks as he steps out of his car with his pants all wet, steaming, like he pissed himself, or how desperate she appears with that tawdry smear of rouge skidding up her profile, that wild, doe-eyed, near death (but not really) look of “someone please stop and comfort me” until someone finally does, some grinning handy man who’ll look over her car for her and say: “its fine, no major damage, just a scare” to comfort her and get her to wrap her arms around his neck again, because it was so dramatic “I thought I was dead”, that smell of perfume, that half-made face mimicking the look of a woman after love making (subconsciously), when her makeup has leaked, her lipstick been deluded by saliva, her eye shadow and blush disintegrated by sweat and friction. “No problem” he says, as she collapses against him melodramatically, furthering the fraternal dominance, until he can get her to “just calm down” and she takes a moment, the first moment of consciousness, to check herself in her tiny vanity mirror: “oh god, oh my god”, worse than her exclamation after the almost accident (actually quite an inevitable occurrence caused by immutable natural laws), she begins fussing with her hair, her lips, and her cheeks.
Joseph though, has large feet, large tennis racket like duck feet, so when he steps on a patch of ice, he feels a short, millisecond joggle, and recovers without anyone noticing, not so for the woman behind him, but by that time he’s already cleared the hidden obstacle and forgotten about it, although he hears the “whooaaaa”, he doesn’t turn to see what happened, which is unfortunate, since the sudden exposure of concealed femininity would have done him some good, but he hadn’t because of what was coming that day — at work — stooped his shoulders. The woman had hit the ice, tottered violently, before her legs jumped out from under her and she hit the cement with a flabby gynecological thud, stunned, not recovering for two and half prime voyeur seconds, until she clamped her knees together, assured herself that no one had just seen up her skirt and accepted the invitation of a passing gentleman to be helped to her feet. Joseph hadn’t no attention because he was gazing at a small, lean-to sign in the middle of the sidewalk ahead, causing the streams of people coming and going to treat it like a delta, making it visible from quite a distance. The sign read:
CARL REAGAN READS FROM “THE RABBIT’S SAVIOR” TODAY!
He did not know why he stopped, why he wanted to meet Carl Reagan and hear him read from a children’s book, but he did.
Behind a table, with brand new, hardbound versions of the story displayed nicely, was a bald, black bearded man with intense eyes. He was reading a thick volume and ignoring the loud racket of children screaming, pleading with parents, arguing over toys, reading out loud, and kicking the legs of chairs. He was Carl Reagan, renowned author of twenty children’s books. The Dr. Seuss of his day. He was reading a book and waiting for the program to begin. He was asleep.
Joseph stood at the table and picked out a particularly clean copy of the book. He thumbed through the pages, staring at the familiar pictures, drawn by the man snoring behind the counter.
“Mr. Reagan?” Joseph whispered. “Mr. Reagan?” The man awoke and looked up at the speaker, unalarmed. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, my children love your books.” A yawn followed by a slight raising of the eyebrows, big, bushy eyebrows that look like pubic hair of a Cro-Magnon, before the hand goes up to the mouth, two seconds too late, as the yawn has already occurred and will forever be left uncovered. “Well, I just wanted to let you know,” he continues uncomfortably, out of necessity, “I’ve read them all, twenty or so of them.” Now he’s focused, he looks in Joseph’s eyes, perhaps slightly motioning with his head in agreement, perhaps he’s shivering because of the daunting number of little urchins howling like mad invaders in metal chairs, impatiently waiting for the sleeping man to begin to read. “Do you intend, I always wanted to ask you, or, well, I’ve realized it’s a question I have for you, if you don’t mind me asking, what, before the reading has begun, just between the two of us, I always wanted… well I was wondering, perhaps it’s silly to think there is more to the story, but I, well I wondered: are you suggesting that through communication a practical effect may emerge, may emerge because of conceptual distinctions,” Joseph asked Peircely, “and that these distinctions should be correlated with the effect?”
“Evil odes or prose do live.”
Joseph, head aside, lips moving as he repeats after, two wrinkles over the bridge of his brow, looks down at the book in his hands. Says it again and again, looking for an apparent answer. He places the book up to his mouth, reflexively beginning to chew on the tough corner, “I guess what I was asking, I beg your pardon, is well, from what I can gather, I’m not a writer, a bit of a bibliophile in my youth, you could say, not by any means a connoisseur, like yourself, or a creator, but it appears to me, well it seems as though many of the books I’ve read to my children, yours and say, Father Nicholas’ or the Timera series, can’t remember who wrote them off the top of my head, well it seems that you have, like the Brothers Grimm or Aesop, anecdotal purposes, satirical observations, and the like, and I was just wondering, well, if that was intentional?”