J. J. White

 

Normally I’d sit on the cushioned stool behind the counter and hide my textbooks out of the view of customers.  The outside of the counter was covered with large mirrors that let customers admire the shoes they were trying to decide whether or not to buy. The mirrored counters were standard décor for the shoe stores located inside shopping malls. The men’s shoe store, where I worked, was considered upscale even for a mall.  We sold mostly Florsheim and Bally shoes.  The after school job helped pay for my college expenses.  I worked the hours of four to nine and most of that time I spent studying.  Usually there were few customers in our part of the mall during the evening hours.

I first noticed the “Writer” on one of those quiet nights in the mall.  I had yet to wait on my first customer, and it was my second day on the job. My school textbooks were spread out on the big desk. Fred, my co-worker, watched the floor so I could concentrate on my engineering problems.

About 4:30, the “Writer” walked in the entrance near the J. C. Penney’s and sat down on the wooden bench in front of our store.

I guessed his age to be early fifties.  He was dressed in a rustic, multicolored, cotton, long- sleeve shirt and light brown khaki pants with large pockets everywhere.  There were zipper pockets and button pockets on both sides of his pants.  He untucked his shirt to hide the forty or fifty extra pounds he was carrying.  His full head of dirty brown hair, small beard and mustache gave him the look that was popular with college professors back in the seventies.

 He unzipped one pocket on the left side of his pants and brought out some reading glasses, which made him look ten years older.  He unzipped a right hand pocket and retrieved a pack of unfiltered Camels, a lighter, and an ashtray.  He placed the ashtray, cigarettes, and lighter carefully on the bench.  Then he took a notebook from under his arm and placed it on his lap, opened it to the first page and pulled several pencils out of the many-pocketed pants. He lit a Camel, smoked for about a minute, and then put the cigarette on the ashtray.

  Then he started writing.  And writing.  And writing.  He continued writing until 8:45.  At exactly 8:45 he got up, emptied his ashtray in the trashcan, put the ashtray, pencils, glasses, lighter, and cigarettes in his pockets, tucked the now full notebook under his arm and walked out the Penney’s entrance.  Although I thought this seemed a little unusual, I didn’t pay that much attention to it that night.

But the next day he came back and went through the same routine.  He arrived at 4:30 and left at 8:45.  The routine was exactly the same. The cigarettes, the ashtray, the glasses, and the pencils.  The notebook was identical to the one he had the previous day, except it was blank.

This time I paid more attention to his routine. I noticed a few idiosyncrasies I had missed the night before. At 7:30 he got up from the bench, stretched his arms and walked over to the ice cream kiosk diagonally across the hall from our store.  He ordered a vanilla ice cream cone, sat at one of the tables and ate the ice cream. At 7:40, he wiped his face, threw away the napkins, and walked back to the bench where he continued to write until 8:45.

The man never varied from this routine.  From the pencils, to the writing, to throwing away the napkins, it was always the same.  He followed the same exact routine, Monday through Saturday.  Never faltering, ever diligent, always the same.

The mall was open on Sunday, but I assumed he took that particular day off because he was a religious man or maybe because the mall closed at six, it threw off his routine.  Otherwise, he was there, faithfully writing until a quarter of nine.

But, what exactly was he writing?  I estimated he wrote over a hundred pages a day, for the two years that I worked at that store.  It’s possible he was writing several books. Maybe he was a technical writer, but I never saw him use notes or reference books.  He just thought and wrote; and thought some more and wrote some more.

Fred wasn’t much help when it came to solving this mystery.  I asked him questions about our mall mystery writer, but he knew very little about him. 

“The girl over at the jewelry store said he’s been coming in for at least four years,” Fred said. “No one knows his name or what he’s writing about. Mall security leaves him alone as long as he doesn’t cause any problems or bother the customers.”

After watching him for a week, I decided to try to learn more about him, or at least try to figure out what he was writing.  One night he was sitting on the bench with his back facing our shop. I asked Fred to keep an eye on the floor.  I told him I was going to see if I could sneak a look at what the guy was writing. Fred laughed.

“This I gotta see.  I can guarantee you won’t be able to see much. I know.  I’ve tried before and the guy’s too quick, John.”

“Yeah, but I’m not even going to let him see me,” I said. “Watch.”  I stepped out of the store and casually walked up behind the man.  As I looked over his right shoulder he shifted his body to block my view of the notebook.  I moved quickly into position over his left shoulder for a better look.  He shifted again.  Frustrated, I looked back and saw Fred grinning at me.

Alright, fine then, I’ll take the offensive.

 I walked to the side of the bench and sat next to him.  I was about to start a conversation when he stood up and moved to another empty bench.  Fred laughed again.

I found out in subsequent days that this was his routine.  If someone sat next to him, he got up and moved to another bench until his bench was empty and available again. As the weeks went by, it got to me. 

Weeks and weeks of his endless writing, chain smoking and ice creams turned into months and then years.  Two years of endless curiosity about this writing machine. Was there a world renowned author sitting at our bench?  Who knows? No one even knew his name.  Surely, at least, he was a genius to be able to write so much material and never use references or notes.

Sometimes in the middle of writing, he would pause as if he had a problem with a sentence or paragraph.  But then he’d raise his pencil in the air or clap the side of his head as if to say “Eureka,” and then get right back to his marathon writing, successfully solving whatever literary problem that had faced him.

Two years I suffered, wanting desperately to know more about him.  I was obsessed.  I wanted to know if he was married, or if he had children. Was he a published author?  Was he writing about the Civil War or World War II?  Does he eat anything besides vanilla ice cream?  (The large belly indicated that he did).  But the thing I really wanted to know was “Why is he here?”  “What made someone spend that much time doing one thing?

Then one Friday night, the routine changed.  The traffic was light in the mall and the ‘Writer’ arrived at 4:30 just like every other Friday night for the last two years. He had the notebook on his lap and the Camels were next to the ashtray.  At 7:30 he ate his ice cream and at seven forty he continued writing.

At about 8:30, I was helping a customer with some shoes when something out of the corner of my eye caught my attention.  The “Writer” stood up.  Not particularly unusual if it were 8:45, but it was 8:30.  It was much too early for him to leave, and no one had sat down next to him on the bench.  I placed the shoes down and stood to look over at him.  He turned slightly to his right and looked directly into my eyes.  His eyes were bright blue.  For two years, I realized, I had never seen the color of his eyes.  It occurred to me that he probably was a very handsome man in his youth.

He dropped the notebook and pencil, and grabbed his left arm with his right hand.  He grimaced in obvious pain.  His knees buckled, and he seemed to fall in slow motion to the floor. As his knees touched the floor, he grabbed his chest with both hands, fell forward to the floor—and died.

I ran out of the shop over to the bench.  Several customers and employees of other shops walked or ran to him and surrounded him in a half circle. I turned him over on his back, and listened for his breathing.

A woman said loudly, “Oh the poor man”.

 A man behind me said, “He’s dead, just look at his lips.”  The lips were light blue. 

 “Did someone call an ambulance?” I asked. 

“Yes. Cyndi’s calling over at the jewelry store now,” someone said.

Security arrived soon after that and ordered everyone to just “Move along please!”  I walked back in the shop, and when I turned back to look at the commotion, several more security guards surrounded the body.

And then, I noticed, behind the bench, was the “Writer’s” notebook.  I nonchalantly walked out of the shop and picked it up.  The security guards were too busy to notice me.  I’m sure if they had, they would have asked for it.  I thought about offering it to them, but then the two years of my obsessive curiosity about the notebook’s contents prevented me. I put the notebook near my chest, covered it with my arms, shielding it from Fred, customers, and security guards. I walked over to the mirrored counter, and hid the book under the shelf.

 Finally, I get to see what he has been writing in those notebooks for all these years:  for all those endless hours!  My heart raced and my hands shook in anticipation.  I opened the notebook to a middle page.  I stared at the page, awestruck. 

There were three sentences on each line.  The same three sentences, over and over again on every line of the page. I flipped through the pages. Each page was identical to the previous one. 

 Every notebook he filled over the years must be identical.

Stunned. Almost in shock, I read the lines again.

 

‘I miss you Mary.  I’m sorry.  Please come back.’

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