Basement Follies

March 6, 2010
With enormous cheer, Tigran shouted to the party of sidewalk scavengers: "We're going to make America a book-loving country!" No one lifted their heads in acknowledgment.

They didn't want to take their eyes off the prize. Boxes and boxes of rodent-chewed, mildewed, water-stained books from Freebird's basement. After two years of procrastination and denial (and one week after getting engaged), I finally faced the mountain of junk lurking beneath the surface.

At the recommendation of Henry and Zack Zook at Book Court, I hired a local contractor named Tigran to tackle the salvage project. If you walked by the store this afternoon you would have seen him hauling up one cardboard box after another, depositing them on the curb where his friend Lincoln awaited with his empty van.

Initially Tigran was shocked by my request. "You want to dispose of all this?" he asked, sweeping his hand across the shambled vista. "In Russia, where I grew up, books were so treasured. You would never think of throwing them out."

It was a good point, and one that gave me pause for these last couple of years. But I was tired of providing a rent free habitrail for waterfront creatures, where paperbacks were miniature mattresses, if you catch my drift. I could live without their potential income. It was time to release them from their dungeon. Time to rid the special "odor" that occasionally wafted upwards and made customers ask to my embarrassment "what is it about used books that makes them smell so wonderful?" Finally, Tigran relented.

In between Lincoln's curbside pick-ups, passersby sorted through the books and haggled good-naturedly about the the value of the leftovers. Tigran, whose energy never flagged, conducted this scene with turbo-charged verve, peddling editions of The Scarlet Letter and Huckleberry Finn to the skeptical crowd. One would have thought he was a booster for the NEA. "Hey guys! Change your life. Read a Book!" In response, a woman thought it was all a joke: "Ha ha! He said 'read a book.'"

Tigran: "Here. You want a book on laughter?"
Pedestrian: "I like to laugh, but I don't want no book on laughter. Do YOU want to read a book about laughter?"
Tigran: "Of course! Who doesn't love laughter?"

I'm with Tigran. But in case you feel that Freebird is somehow making too much light of the situation and not preserving the sanctity of the operation, fear not. Books we got, and more are on the way. The purpose of clearing out all the literary debris in the basement is to make way for new neighbors. The charity Books Through Bars (a nonprofit which helps prisoners get access to literature) will occupy part of the cellar and use it as their base of operations by the end of this month.
--Peter Miller