www.novemberjuliet.com

Impish.  Scruffy.  Hippy.

“Oh gawhhhhhd …” I think to myself, lingering a bit long on the awhhhhh as my eyes roll up, willing my glare to take me out of my body and out of view of the haggard stranger at my door.

I abandon my kitchen cleanup.  A wide smile.  Teeth gritted.  No armageddon today please, I think as I walk assertively to the front door.

“Hell-OHh!” I hear myself say with more friendly jolliness than I planned for.

“Good-day” he says softly, with a hint of Irish.  “I bet you didn’t know that it’s a great arts [pronounced ayarts] tradition in Newfoundland to flog your books door to door.  So, um, that’s wha’ I’m a doin’” he sings along.  

I focus on the tri-fold laminated collection of articles he’s waving and wonder why Belleville, why today, why me, and why not all at the same time.  His voice fades while my eyes take in the flurry of gestures and general energetic movement.  His eyelids close as he speaks.  Each sentence punctuated by a short blink before the next wave of story telling.  

Six books.  

Twenty-five thousand copies.  

Paddling.  

Cycling.  

Door to door.  

Africa.  

CBC.  

Aired.  

Shelagh Rogers.  

Snippets.  Snippets.  Snippets.  He blinks and smiles with a mouth that’s narrow and round, gnome-like and warm.

“So this is the book you’re selling today?” I say as I reach through the doorway towards it.  White cover.  Orange-y red block lettering.  Modest.  Home-made looking.  It could easily be mistaken for the annual collection of recipes published by the church of common experience.  “The travelling man enterprise” I read, noting the extra ‘l’, “have you always self-published?” I probe, expecting a quick yes.

“Oh gawsh”, eyelids close, “no.  Only after my experience with my first book aboot twenty-years ago.  Well it’s for a few reasons really.  You see … in Newfoundland the artists don’t pay tax.”

“Well they do” he adds, “if they take a government grant.  But I’ve never taken a grant.  It washes out the work.  It’s like funding crap [crrrep].”

“Ahhh” I say inquisitively, hoping he’ll offer more.

“McClelland ‘n Stewart did publish me first book.  

I got dirt for it.

It was a book aboot cycl’eeng’.”  

He doesn’t offer the title, assuming … correctly … that I had never heard of it.

“Made me so mad.  Stole me manuscript.  ‘Twasn’t ‘t all worth it.  I just wanted me script back.”

“Ahhh” I prompt with a nod.

“Tis a funny thing.  A few years after it was published, I was at a friend’s house in Toronto.  University professor.  Real quack of a bird he was.  I got to talkin’ to Eddie Greenspan at this party.  Do you”

My eyes light up.  “The lawyer.  The lawyer.” I interject excitedly.

“That’s him.  I got to tellin’ him aboot me books.  He bought one he did.  And I told him aboot McClelland and what they’d dun.  I didn’t think anything of it at the time.  He was really interested in the story.  It lit him up.  You never know with these people.  He’s Jewish you see,” he says tuned into my nods of approval, “intense, they get right up close into your space.”

“A month later I got a package in the post.  Me script and a letter of apology from McClelland.  I’ve self-published ever since.  It completely blew me ‘way wha he did.  You just don’t know what to expect sometimes.”

“And how much are you selling your book for?” I ask remembering that I spent my last bit of cash on lego for Z the hour before.

Come come.  I gesture him into my long hall.  Baffled that I’d almost poo’ poo’d him away in an earlier incarnation of Madame Snobby Snobberton.  “Will you take a cheque?” I call back to him, hoping he will let me quiz him on how and why he’s found himself in Belleville.

Chats of weddings and friendships and wandering and writing ensues.   A mutual adoration of Africa.  A shared affinity for meeting people.  A quiet shyness constantly overtaken by its companion - the curious spirit.  I’m humbled by his delight in our common experiences and his intrigue at those uniquely mine.  “A lawyer!” he exclaims “now that’s a right and proper profession! Well done!”

No longer embarrassed by my initial judgement of the cover that is his rugged exterior.  

Twenty dollars poorer.  

One book richer.

And sparked by the presence a chance exchange brings. 

Update on Sunday, October 4, 2009 at 11:17PM by Norma Jean Barrett

Some of the actual details of this story were lost to my excitement during its occurrence.  Any misattributions and mistakes are completely my fiction.  

For more info on Bernie Howgate and his books - see www.berniehowgate.com

I bought Zen and the Art of Paddling.  

As the back cover suggests: to all free spirits, go for it

                 Thanks Bernie.  I’ll do just that.