Sports teams have mascots so why shouldn't antiquarian bookshops?

For as long as I've been a bookseller, frequenting the Sally Ann, flea markets, and other venues where books are found, I've been buying lots of other things as well as books because of the pleasure it gives me to surround myself with objects either beautiful or curious.

I tend to group such things together under the generic heading of, "My other flukes," although Debra Dearlove likes to point out that that is merely a ploy to avert criticism.

"Admitting openly that a sickness is a sickness does not absolve you from the consequences of your folly, Mason, as you seem to think. Stupid is still stupid, and junk is still junk. Just admit it's worthless crap and you are a twisted person, almost a degenerate hoarder, probably lost already." Few justifications seem to work with Debra Dearlove.

I was at an auction some years ago buying books when a papier-mache model of Humpty Dumpty was placed on the podium as the next item in the sale. It was a round ball, all face, with tiny arms and legs protruding and about a foot high. Its joll~ rotundity captivated me. The auctioneer told us that it wasn't a kid's toy but a work of art by a known Canadian artist. I had never heard of the artist and, of course, I knew better than to accept any superlatives offered by any auctioneer, but I found Humpty Dumpty so delightful that I began bidding on it without thinking. I bought it for around $500 including added premiums and taxes. In spite of my apparent folly, I was not upset with myself as I carried it home. Indeed, so much did I like it that I soon brought it into the shop, where for years it has been ensconced on a case beside some large stuffed models from Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are that I had picked up somewhere, also probably on a whim.

I sometimes try to imagine the conversations that Humpty and the Wild Things conduct at night when we're not there. Would a Wild Thing say to Humpty, "You were invented by a silly old goose--maybe a shrew. At least we were created by a genius."

"Don't be presumptuous, you're nothing but stuffed dummies. Without your ventriloquist and his clever words, you're nothing," Humpty might respond.

"My creator has amused countless generations of children, many of whom, as adults, can still recite the verses she taught them. I am real, you're just a passing fad."

I picture them, silent during the day, plotting and planning their attacks for when the lights go out again.

My guess is that they will both survive, as all true art does, and that all their secret nightly fights are just another example of how common are envy, jealousy, and malice. Still, I often feel I can detect a small, self-satisfied smirk in Humpty's smile, so vanity and arrogance probably belong on that list as
well.

Humpty Dumpty has never been for sale, for my pleasure in his presence has only increased with the years. He has also come to seem to me a most appropriate symbol for the fate of all booksellers everywhere. Especially in these sordid, degenerate times, when bookstores have been falling like flies. For, as all booksellers know, once a bookstore has fallen and broken, it can't be put back together again. That's why their presences should be preserved as carefully as I guard Humpty Dumpty.

And Humpty Dumpty has also provided me with other wisdom, such as the futility of attempting to make a living by offering an indifferent world the sort of wonderful treasures that my bookstore,
and every other one, offer for sale. For literally hundreds of people have come into my store and ignored my books, but tried to buy Humpty Dumpty. My first line of defense has always been, "Humpty is not for sale. He is a member of the family." But many people persist, so the second means to deter them is to casually repeat the quote of that shameless auctioneer, "It's not a toy, it's art. I paid $500 for it." Some think my response is simply the beginning of a negotiation and press on, so when it doesn't work, my only recourse is to be bluntly rude. Many people are not deterred by any response, however; victims of the common delusion that money is the solution to everything.

When an old friend said, "My grandson would love that in his room," I thought, You son of a bitch, you're even richer than I thought. I won't be in any hurry to pick up the bill in the restaurant with you anymore.

Finally, I realized that I probably shouldn't have become a bookseller. I should have entered the papier-mache business. Or the Humpty Dumpty business. Or, better, I should have listened to my father, the banker,and got a real job and made a lot of money like my friends did and then I could bully some poor bookseller for discounts and try to wheedle his papier-mache Humpty Dumpty out of him.

All these vulgar attempts on Humpty have only endeared him to me more. We would no more sell him than we would our live mascots, Sadleir and Henry, the cats who are supposed to keep us rodent-free, but who always seem to be eating expensive cat treats, or sleeping, or being petted by the women who work in the office next door.

I have quite a few other mascots in the store, all, unfortunately, deceased. I have a stuffed beaver, which we have put on the covers of some of our Canadiana catalogues, and four or five pheasants
bought at flea markets. But my favourite is a stuffed raven, one that for years inhabited the Atticus Bookstore and which Michael Freedman gave me when he retired. The reason I like it so much has nothing to do with Poe's raven; it is dear to me because the raven is a central character and symbol in my all-time favourite Canadian novel, Solomon Gursky Was Here. Ravens, along with foxes, are noted for their sly cunning and troublemaking, two attributes I greatly admire, as did Mordecai Richler.

I once had a stuffed red fox, which I was also attached to for personal reasons, but Debra Dearlove made me get rid of it when one of its rear legs was attacked by some sinister creatures and the entire skin slid down its leg like a sock that had lost its elasticity, leaving the bone exposed. It was a bit creepy, I admit, so I finally acquiesced and put it outside at closing. It had gone by morning, picked up by someone less squeamish than Debra Dearlove.

I also had three stuffed armadillos -- very cute creatures, which is why I had three of them -- until yesterday, when I sold one to a young man who came in asking for ephemera on embalming and taxidermy practices. You'd be surprised at some of the people we get and what they are looking for. We once had a customer who collected pictures of and books on tombs and graves. This young man, a rock musician, sent us Christmas cards every year with scenes of crypts rather than Santa and holly and bells, with effusive personal thanks for introducing him to book collecting. Naturally, his book interests reflected his views and also his dress (we could always tell when he was coming up the stairs to the Queen Street store. "Here comes Mitch," someone would say, "I can hear the chains clanking." He always wore black, usually leather, and black eye-rnakeup, as did all his girlfriends, who usually had deep-black or white-blonde hair and were also invariably dressed in black. This guy also provided another lesson in not judging people by their appearance. He was always quietly courteous and spoke impeccably. I never heard him swear. We became quite fond of him. Edgar Allan Poe would have been his most up-beat author, and it went down from there, towards the European decadents of the nineteenth century. When we introduced him to Huysmans, whom he'd not encountered, his gratitude was heartening. He took to self-publishing his own decadent poetry and I retain with some nostalgia the copies he gave us. Later, he moved to Montreal and we lost him, although some of his girlfriends here dropped in to say hello for some years afterwards. I know he wouldn't have wanted to buy Humpty Dumpty, which I didn't have then, but I bet he'd have loved the raven. He could quote Poe at length, and often did.

So you see, booksellers compensate for not making much money by having very interesting customers.

The young actor who carried away my armadillo yesterday turned out to be working here in the The Phantom of the Opera chorus line. Too bad Mitch wasn't still here; that would have been an interesting conversation. We speculate that Mitch would have been wildly envious -- The Phantom of the Opera! Mitch's chains would have worked beautifully in the chorus.

The young man told us he had a small antique store in New York City, and that he gravitated to stuffed animals, hence the armadillo. Like so many seemingly weird areas in which people collect, there was an underlying logic to it. His attempt to buy the armadillo was so sincere that I sold it to him for what I'd paid for it. Surely, I'll find another one.

I couldn't help imagining the customs official's face when he asked the young man, "Do you have anything to declare?" to be told, "Only an armadillo. But he's dead."

In spite of accusations from Debra Dearlove, I haven't carried my interest in stuffed creatures to the level of pathology by naming my mascots, with the exception of the raven. He's called "Mordecai" to honour Canada's great writer. Like his namesake, time and dust have rendered him somewhat battered and seedy, which I find an appropriate homage.

Humpty Dumpty sits facing my desk next to Mordecai, smiling at me and conferring comfort and moral uplift on me when I require it; something which seems increasingly necessary of late.


-David Mason