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Bookeater

Adam Burnett

��My little brother has a habit of eating books. He got the idea from my mother, years ago, when he heard her mention that her brother Jack “absolutely consumes books! He can’t get enough of them.” My brother took it the wrong way. Now his lips are always black and my father can never find his copy of Newsweek.
��Once I had a book report due on Moby Dick so I purposely hid it between my mattress and my bed. When I came home the lump was gone. I accosted Johnny in the hall. “Johnny,” I began, but he cut me off. “Call meIshmael,” he said, and then patting his belly in a grandiose gesture he added “And call me stuffed.”
��He could tear out the pages with a blazing speed you wouldn’t believe. His hands were so small they were almost invisible. And he would always tear only one page at a time, never clumps, and in a perfectly straight line. I told him he should have been a magician and he told me “Watch: I’ll make this book disappear.” And he did.
��He would order books on the Internet the way others ordered pizza on the telephone. He would check the number of pages, and were they matte or stock, was it a cardstock cover or a glossy deal. Acid-free was his favorite. He said recycled paper tasted the worst. I told him that I guessed the recycling guys didn’t really have people eating the paper when the designed a scheme to save the planet but he only shrugged his shoulders and asked me if we had any sour crme.
��He said the best book he ever ate was this one from the seventies called The Hole Town. It began with the discovery of a pothole, and workers are trying to fill it in but the asphalt just keeps going and going more holes begin appearing, seemingly bottomless, until the entire town looks more and more like a great piece of swiss-cheese. How strange. The world draining through an hourglass! Johnny said it was drivel, actually used the word “drivel”. That kid killed me. He makes me laugh so much I wanna cry. He said he ate it just so no one else would ever be infected with it’s claptrap.
��He said the more of it he ate the emptier he felt inside but he laughed when he said it so he might have been joking. And then he used the word “poppycock” and I damn near bust a gut. I mean, can you believe it? A little kid like that sayin’ “Poppycock” like he was sayin’ his own name.
��Sometimes he’d roll the pages up like little cigarettes and suck on them slowly. Appetizers he’d say if you happened to catch him. He reminded me of a dog at a bone, sucking out the marrow.
��He told me that not all books get better with age, though this was the general truth. Some were like cheese, and just developed mould. Others were like wine whose flavor became richer with each passing year. I told him he had some Faust on the corner of his mouth.
��He called the library ‘the buffet’. He’d go into Tourist Offices or Red Cross Societies and pick up a whack of pamphlets for a “light snack”. Once I made him open his mouth and there was a neon post-it note stuck to his tongue. “You have to let it settle on the palette,” he explained.
��He was the only kid I knew who got excited when the Jehoviah’s Witnesses came around; he’d take The Watchtower over an ice-cream sundae any day. Prop-a-licious!
��Once when we were driving out into the country to visit an apple cider farm we became completely lost. I was in the passenger seat, with Johnny in the back, and my mother asked me to get the map out of the glove compartment. It wasn’t there and I told her so. She told me it must be there and she pulled over onto the unpaved shoulder to took a look for herself. A minute later she turned around. “Johnny!”
��“The east coast was much more delectable than the west. Moist,” he said. “B.C. and Alberta were just toorich. Greenland gave me a head rush: too cold. Brain freeze.”
��“Johnny how could you! Now we’re lost. Jesus, what the hell are we gonna do now!?!”
��Johnny reached over and slowly unwound his window. Then he stuck his hand out and pointed. “Why don’t you ask him?”
��My mother’s head craned right around and she let out a little gasp. There was a police officer standing not a foot and a half from her car, leaning over and staring her right in the face. He was wearing a pair of those sunglasses I always associated with helicopter pilots. “Some kind of problem here ma’am?” he asked, his voice rigid and humorless.
��My mother immediately blushed. “No officer, uh, not really. It’s just my son here, well, we got a little lost and--”
��The police officer, who was not blushing, cut her off. “You do realize this is a no-stopping zone don’t you? It’s illegal for you to park here.”
��The crimson on her face deepened. I couldn’t take my eyes off the two of them. “Well, no, actually I--”
��The police officer cut her off again, this time with a sharp gesture rather than words. He pointed at a sign not ten feet in front of our car. “NO STOPPING” it read. I might have briefly considered whether Johnny had ever eaten a sign before but the situation was too engrossing to run off on a tangent.
��“And when I came up behind you I noticed that only one of your taillights is working. That’s a hundred and ten dollar fine you know.” I watched as my mother’s mouth opened and closed like a goldfish, only nothing came out.
��The officer leaned down a little lower and took a good glance at me; I was hard pressed to suppress a shiver of unease. His head craned slightly and he examined Johnny who didn’t seem too concerned with the whole mess. I was though. A hundred and ten bucks was a lot of money. I wondered if Johnny knew that. I wondered if he would have been so cool about the whole thing if he knew just how many books that money could have gone towards. Selfish little spit I accused, but immediately regretted the thought and mentally took it back.
��Finally my mother resumed speech. “Listen officer, couldn’t we justoverlook this whole thing. I mean, it was an honest mistake. Everybody makes them, right?”
��The man in the deep navy uniform apparently did not agree. “Honest or not ma’am, it was a mistake. As an officer of the law I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t follow through on each and every offence I’m witness to. I’m not a judge nor a jury. I’m an officer of the law and as such it is my sworn duty to reprimand those that fail to uphold said law.” I was so in awe of this man’s control and composure that it would take days for me to realize just how rehearsed that whole speech had sounded. Johnny probably noticed right away; he was quick with things like that.
��“No, I don’t see how I have any choice but to” He paused, mid sentence, his left hand had disappeared behind his back, but now it re-emerged, empty. He used both hands to pat his pockets, including the breast. Now it was his turn for his face to crimson. He rubbed his chin pensively.
��“Well, it looks like this just might be your lucky day ma’am. It appears I’ve left my citation book in my car.” He stole a quick glance off behind us and my eyes followed; his cruiser was about fifty yards back. “But make sure you get that taillight checked out. And mind the signs, eh.”
��“Will do officer, and thank you. I appreciate it.”
��He only nodded in response while his hands flitted around his uniform, suddenly nervous it seemed. He made no move to leave. After a minute or so of him just standing there, staring off into space, Johnny stuck his head clean out his window and stared up at the man. “Thank you muchly officer. You’re a credit to the institution.” I saw my mother wince slightly at this, afraid that the man would take it the wrong way, but apparently he didn’t. He only nodded ‘yeah’ and then slowly began making his way back to his car.
��A minute later we were back on the road. “Awwww shoot,” my mother shot out suddenly. “I should have at least asked him for directions to the cider farm.” She shook her head.
��Johnny’s voice arose from the back seat. “Why don’t we just call it a day mom. I’m not really in the mood for apples anyway.” My mother looked at me and I shrugged and nodded in agreement. I agreed yes, but I didn’t believe him. I had a strong suspicion that Johnny just couldn’t wait to get home. There was a new item on the menu tonight, and this was a rarer find than any old first edition.
��Later that night I asked him if he knew what he had done was totally illegal. He only shook his head as though he had no idea what I was talking about. “After all,” he added before walking away, “possession is nine tenths of the lawand as you can plainly seeI possess nothing.” To illustrate this point he raised his empty hands high and wide and then swept them up and down the length of his body. A moment later a small gaseous burp secreted from out of his mouth, like air being let from a tire. “Oops,” he said as he placed a small hand to his mouth. He couldn’t fool me though. I saw his cheeks lift slightly and I knew what he was really hiding under that hand; he didn’t have a chance really. Smiles didn’t come much bigger than that.



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