“I’ll kill you if it takes years!”
“Hey! Listen to him—years!”
“If it takes forever!”
“Forever! That’s rich! Toodle-oo!”
“Freeze, dammit!”
Walter lurched up.
“Son of a bitch!”
“Right!”
“Bastard!”
“Hallelujah! Happy New Year!”
“What!?”
“Prosit! Skoal! What was I once?”
“Friend?”
“Yeah, friend!”
I laughed a physician-doctor-medicine man laugh.
“Bitch!” screamed Walter.
“Me, yeah, me!”
I jumped out the door and smiled.
“Me!”
The door slammed.
THE COMPLETIST
2003–2004
IT WAS ON A SHIP in the mid-Atlantic in the summer of 1948 that we met the completist—that’s what he called himself. He was a lawyer from Schenectady, well dressed, and he insisted on paying for the drinks when we met by accident before supper, and then made sure that we were seated with him at dinner, rather than at our regular table.
He talked and kept on talking during dinner with wonderful stories, grand jokes, and with an air about him that was convivial and worldly and wise.
At no time did he allow us to speak, and my wife and I were entertained, intrigued, and willing to silence ourselves to let this amusing man describe the world he traveled, from continent to continent, from country to country, and from city to city, collecting books, building libraries, and entertaining his soul.
He told us how he had heard of a fabulous collection in Prague and had spent the better part of a month crossing the world by ship and by train to find and purchase the collection and return it to his vast home in Schenectady.
He had spent time in Paris, Rome, London, and Moscow and had shipped home tens of thousands of rare volumes, which his law practice allowed him to buy.
When he spoke of these things his eyes glowed and his face was suffused with a color that no liquor could induce.
There was no air of braggadocio about this lawyer—he was simply describing, as a cartographer describes a chart—a map of places and events and times he could not help but relate.
While he did all this he did not order any meal that would have to take his attention. He gave little mind to the immense salad before him, which allowed him to keep talking as, on occasion, he devoured a mouthful and then ran on with his descriptions of places and collections all over the world.