proof God reads the Baxblog

Toward closing last night one of the semi-transparent old timers who haunt the neighborhood from their subsidized apartments in the hotel across the street bought a book for the first time.

He usually kills a few hours reading quietly in an out of the way corner before shuffling back across the street, but last night mysterious forces compelled him to pick up a biography of James Jones. He sounds exactly like one of the characters in Vernon, Florida ("and that's just the TOP of it!"). He never trims his nails and they curl yellow and jagged over his fingertips, like an inscrutable mandarin from a 1930's Yellow Peril serial.

A few years ago he was looking scabbier and acting more disoriented than usual and I figured he was due for a last ride in one of the ambulances that circle the block like taxis around a bus terminal.

But after a short disappearance he returned, minus his belt and with a couple of plastic hospital bracelets on his arm. It took him several months to lose the bracelets and find his belt, but otherwise he seemed good as new.

Unaccustomed as he was to buying things, assembling payment became a haphazard business involving several pockets and the sifting of copious handfuls of scrap paper and gum wrappers. The requisite folding money was gathered after some touch and go moments.

Then came the change.

"Oh, wait..I can't give you this one!" he fluted in his high pitched Vernon, Florida voice.

"That's NORTH DAKOTA, I need that one!"

"Guh," I moaned.

"Yeah! Did you know, they started making these STATE quarters?"

"Ahhhhhhhhuk," I sighed.

"At the mint! PEOPLE COLLECT THEM!"

"Hurrrrrg," I gurgled.

Eventually he found a useable quarter and departed to his lair, taking James Jones and a not inconsiderable piece of my sanity with him.