The Pot Thief Who Studied Ptolemy [02] (14 page)

He also has an ongoing and difficult volunteer job trying to bring me in to the digital age. I’ve probably read over 10,000 books while waiting for customers, so I have more information than most people. Susannah says most of it is useless. But the digital age is not about information. And it’s certainly not about age. Most everyone in it is under thirty. Neither does it – etymology not withstanding – have anything to do with your fingers. The digital age is about gadgets.

I sometimes think I’m the only person on the planet who does not, never has, and never will own a cell phone. Tristan has, however, introduced me to a few electronic widgets. My favorite is satellite radio, which I admit I resisted at first. I gave in because regular radio is not fit to listen to. There are two great things about satellite radio. The best is I can listen to Trummy Young, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton, Jack Teagarden, and all my favorites at any time with no commercial interruptions. The second best thing is listening requires no technical skill beyond pushing a button.

Tristan installed a laser beam across the door of my shop that triggers a bong sound when anyone enters or leaves. I didn’t really want it because I already had a little bell dangling on an arm above the door that served the same purpose with a more pleasurable sound, but Tristan wanted to do it, and I gave in.

I thought technology would intrude no further than the laser, but then the three goons came in to my shop with their baseball bats. We live in an unruly world, and I decided I might as well face facts and secure my stores. Which is why I had come to see Tristan again. That and the fact that I have great affection for him.

Tristan dwells a block south of Central near the University and a block east of a coffee shop that’s a popular hangout of the students. I tapped three times lightly on his door, wrote the name of the coffee shop on the yellow Post-It Note, and went to the coffee shop to have breakfast.

Which I didn’t because there was nothing fit to eat on the menu. There was nothing fit to eat on a plate for that matter, so I had coffee and amused myself by observing the tattoos and body piercings sported by the students. It was a little like being an anthropologist in New Guinea. I only imagined that. I’ve never been to New Guinea. In fact, I’ve never been outside the U.S. except once when I walked across the Rio Grande from El Paso to Juarez, Mexico.

Here is my conclusion as a professional anthropologist. Our society is currently stratified along an age line about 15 years younger than my age. The only people above that line who have tattoos are former sailors who got too drunk in Manila and woke up the next morning with something they have since come to regret. I speak here of tattoos. The other thing some of them woke up with can be cured with penicillin. The only people above the stratification line who have metal in their bodies are those who’ve had a hip or knee replacement.

Below this dividing line of age, virtually everyone has tattoos and/or piercings. The older people think this will hamper the younger ones because they think that when the youngsters get older, they won’t be able to enter professions such as law because lawyers don’t have tattoos or pierced bodies.

But the situation is temporary. The obvious fact being overlooked by my generation is that all the current lawyers will die, not an altogether bad thing. The only replacements will be from among the current crop of young people with their body adornments. So the stratification will disappear until some future generation decides it’s cool
not
to decorate themselves as their elders have done, and we will then have the same stratification, but in reverse.

I was wondering whether my profound conclusion deserved to be added to my Schuze’s Anthropological Premisses (SAP’s) when Tristan arrived. He was wearing black cotton pants with a drawstring and a Sierra Club sweatshirt. If he has any tattoos or piercings, they are located in areas not visible in public. What he does have is a layer of baby fat he hasn’t yet outgrown and what all the girls seem to think of as bedroom eyes. Despite his Northern European name, he has Mediterranean skin the same tone as Sophia Loren. Come to think of it, his face is somewhat like hers – large intelligent eyes, good cheekbones, and pouty lips that you don’t think of that way because he’s always smiling. Thankfully, the comparison ends with the face. He has a normal chest and small hips.

He ordered a cappuccino and something called the Lobo Special, hash browns smothered with chili and cheese. That’s ‘chili’ as in ground beef, beans, tomato sauce, and chile powder, not ‘chile’ as in the only green vegetable that actually tastes good.

I told him about the pot smashing and my desire to protect my shops. He suggested a magnetic lock that would release only when I pushed a button under the counter. The doors to both shops have windows in them, so I could screen people before letting them in. I didn’t much like the idea, but I told him to install the locks.

28

After my visit with Tristan, I fabricated nine duplicates of the clay piece I had retrieved from the fourth floor stairwell bolthole.

I thought about making an extra one for Stella as a gag gift, but then I came to my senses.

After lunch I opened the store and settled behind the counter with the book on Ptolemy. It’s the sort of reading Susannah gives me a hard time about because nothing I learn from it will have any practical application.

As I was thinking about Susannah, I looked up and there she was, coming down the street from the west and carrying a coffee in each hand. She walked methodically up to my door and kicked on it.

I drew back the door and asked, “To what do I owe the honor of—”

“Close the shop, Hubie, and let’s sit down in your kitchen.”

I had just opened, but what difference did it make? The odds were I wouldn’t have any customers, so I did as I was told and followed her back.

She took the tops off the paper cups and poured the contents in to the two mugs. I handed her the Kahlua and she poured a generous shot in to one of my mugs.

“You want some?”

I shook my head and she took a large gulp of her liquor-laced coffee.

She appeared shell-shocked. She looked up like she was going to say something and then she swallowed another gulp of the coffee. She stared down at her cup and took several deep breaths. “Well, Hubie, I know you’re not the type to say I told you so, but you can say it if you want to.”

“The guy’s message to me was witty and urbane. He poked fun at computer dating and even admitted he hadn’t told anyone he was doing it because he thought it was hokey. Then he wrote – here, let me read it to you,” she said and pulled a crumpled paper from her purse. “‘I tried the singles bars but all the gaiety seemed so forced, all the patrons so young. I sat at the bar and wondered what cruel twist of fate had placed me in this farce. So I figured computer dating couldn’t be any worse. After the first hundred messages I got, I decided I was wrong. It
was
worse. Then I read what you said, and I thought I sensed a kindred spirit’. Doesn’t that sound great, Hubie? Isn’t that exactly the sort of response I was hoping for when I placed that edgy paragraph you suggested?”

“You think I should have suspected, Hubie? He writes well. He thinks the people in singles bars are too young, and his name is Frederick. That’s not all that common a name. Maybe I subconsciously didn’t want anything to go wrong, so I suppressed my caution.”

“I arranged to meet the guy who wrote what I just read to you. In fact, I met him a few minutes ago at Alfredo’s Coffee House. That’s where we arranged to meet.” She took another slug of coffee.

“And?” I prompted.

“And I recognized him.”

I paused briefly to think. “Well, of course you recognized him. That’s sort of the point, isn’t it? What did he do? Wear a monocle? Hold a rose between his teeth?”

“No thanks, straight Kahlua is fine. You don’t give your last name in computer dating. That’s supposed to keep freaks from finding out where you live.”

“So you
do
have to do something like wear a monocle,” I said triumphantly.

She rolled her eyes to indicate my example was ridiculous, but she said I was right. “He said he had a thin moustache and would be wearing a black windbreaker. I said I would have on a green corduroy dress. So I walked in, glanced around and spotted a man with a thin moustache and a black windbreaker, and it was him.”

“Of course it was him. How many people wear thin mustaches and black windbreakers? And on top of that, he was there at the right time and—”

“No, Hubert. Not
him
as in the person I was supposed to look for.
Him
– the person I already know.”

“Let me give you the clues again. Well-educated, old enough to think people in singles bars are too young, has a thin moustache, and is named Frederick.”

“Well, I’m relatively well-educated and I think people in singles bars are too young, but I’m not named Frederick, and I’ve always been clean-shaven, so it wasn’t me.”

“He’s a famous actor, well-educated, often sports a thin moustache, has the right name. I wouldn’t be surprised if he wears a black windbreaker. He’s quite dashing.”

I mulled it over. “Frederick. Thin moustache. Since you keep mentioning education, I assume he’s a faculty member. I can’t think of …oh, no. It wasn’t—”