The Story of a Boy: Part 5 (Who is Oliver Lee)

“Who is the author?” the young boy asked, not seeing a name or a title on the front cover.

“Someone I am sure you have not heard of.”

“Is it fiction?”

“In a way,” the old clerk said while passing the young boy and walking back towards the filtered sunlight of the front of the store. The boy’s interest was piqued.

“In a way? What do you mean in a way?” The boy followed behind.

Once leaving the catacombs of ancient books the old clerk stepped to the side. He looked out over the store, through the glass to the foreign world he did not understand, enjoying the sight of the now busy sidewalk of strange people with a renewed smile. The young boy stood beside the old clerk, staring at the man, wondering why he never saw him though the dust layered windows when he had been there the entire time.

“There was a man,” the old clerk said slowly as if feeling the words in his mouth before speaking them. “He wrote stories. Short stories and nothing else, as far as we know of. His name was Oliver Lee, or, rather that is what people called him. No one really knows who he is or where he came from. All anyone knows for sure of him is that he wrote. We call it fiction, he called it reality. Not because he thought of himself as anything more than a normal man, but because every story he ever wrote was told to him by a stranger, whether they wanted to tell it to him or not. They may not have come out and said it to him as I am talking to you, but it was through their own voice they told him of their dreams and nightmares. It is said they spoke to him through…a subconscious stream of thought. I am not sure how it was done, I’m not sure anyone is, but apparently Oliver Lee had the ability to do so.” The old clerk turned to look at the boy. He gestured with his hands as he spoke.

“You see, Oliver had the ability to read people’s thoughts. Not all people’s thoughts, but only those who had a story to tell. The words would come to him as if in a dream and he would write them down on loose sheets of paper, paper towels, napkins, anything he could get his hands on. Once finished he would leave them for others to read. It is only through these stories that we know of him and how he became silently famous. Some people say they have seen him, but no one knows for sure. He traveled from one end of the country to the other, from state to state writing stories and leaving them on tables or abandoned counter tops for all his life. He never spoke, only wrote, except once. When he gave me the book you hold in your hands.” The young boy looked down at the beaten cover. “It’s his personal diary. It has the few stories he decided not to give back to the world. It’s all written long hand, and can be hard to read at times, but it’s worth it. It gives you a glimpse at what it means to be human - to have emotion and to tell stories.” The old clerk stopped a moment before finishing. The young boy stared into the cover. “It’s now yours to read.”

The young boy looked up confused.

“What? I don’t want this. This isn’t why I came in.” He held out the book for the clerk to take back.

“Are you sure about that?” The old clerk smiled. Ignoring the extended text in the boy’s hand he began picking up books, moving them to different places throughout the store as he walked. He had a speed to his methodology that made the young boy marvel. Regaining his focus, the young boy tried to come up with a plausible excuse to not leave with the book

“Excuse me, sir. I can’t pay for this. I didn’t bring any money. If you would hold it while I ran home…”

“I didn’t ask for money.”

The old clerk continued to do his work.

“Do you want me to return it when I’m done?”

The old clerk said nothing.

The young boy looked around the store in hopes of finding any sign of explaining what was happening. He looked down at the unopened book in his hand. He began to open the cover when the old clerk noticed what he was doing and ran to him, dropping the books he held in his hands onto the floor.

“No! No! No! You can’t open it here.” The old clerk explained.

“I don’t understand,” the young boy said with frustration. “All I wanted was to come in and see who worked here, maybe look for a few books I haven’t read yet. Now you are giving me something I didn’t ask for. What is going on?”

The old clerk smiled at the young boy’s innocence.

“You have read a lot of books, and I’m sure you are extremely intelligent, but there are a lot of things you don’t know or understand. Not all knowledge can be found in a book. Sometimes we just have to trust that we are making the right decisions. That’s something you are going to have to learn. And whether you admit it or not, you know that book is the reason you came in here, and it is what you were looking for. It’s what kept you standing outside of my shop all summer long in hopes of discovering what lay in wait for you on the other side. You’re different from the rest, you are different from your father, you did what he couldn’t, you came in. It is up to you to find the rest of your way. ”

The old clerk said nothing else. Confused, bewildered, but knowing the old clerk spoke the truth, the young boy began to walk towards the door. Upon reaching for the handle he turned to ask the old clerk a question, but he answered before the words could leave his lips.

“He said, ‘Read.’ Nothing else as he handed me the book and walked out the same door you are.”

The young boy stared into the faded wooden floor for a moment before opening the door and walking out. The bell above the door jingled for a few seconds before finally settling into silence.

The young boy walked into his house and closed the door as if in a daze. His father was sitting in the living room, reading the newspaper - the young boy did not notice. He was completely engrossed in the mystery he held in his hand that he had yet to open.

“What did you find?”

The young boy looked up as if emerging from a dream.

“A book.” The boy mumbled more to himself than his father as his gaze shifted back to the cover of the black diary

“What kind of book?”

“Fiction.”

“Who’s the author?”

“A guy named, Lee…Oliver Lee.”

“Never heard of him. What does he write?”

“Mostly short stories.”

The young boy’s father leaned forward in his chair to have a better look at the binding of the book. “That looks like a pretty old book. They made them to last back then, you know. Not like books today.”

The young boy did not hear his father. His mind was on overdrive attempting to process all of the events that had just taken place. Everything seemed so strange; the old clerk, the constant rearranging books, the giving away of a diary the only of its kind, and the knowledge the sales clerk had about him and his life. It all happened so fast the young boy wasn’t sure what to make of it all. There were so many questions, and yet no one there to answer them.

The father noticed the young boy’s lack of attention to their conversation while studying the boys perplexed expression. He was amused and impressed at the boy’s focus on a universe of words rather than other problems, and troubles most kids his age were getting into.

After realizing he had been silent for quite some time the young boy looked up from the book and at his father.

“What are you doing home? I thought you had to work.”

“I came home for lunch,” the father said. The young boy shook his head in understanding and returned to studying the black cover.

The father laughed. “That book must be pretty interesting if it’s absorbing so much of your attention without even reading the first page.” The young boy smiled. “I won’t bother you. Go on and start reading. Just make sure you tell me how it is. We’re still on for this weekend right?”

The young boy nodded in agreement and went up the stairs to his room. His father went back to reading the daily paper before returning to work.

The young boy sat in his room confused and dazed. In his hands was a book he did not ask for, from an author he did know existed. His room was filled with books he loved to read. His shelves were filled with classics, the dark spaces beneath his bed hid away horror and fiction rather than old issues of Playboy other boys his age claimed to have beneath theirs. Corners and window sills contained tales of adventure, wildlife, nature, humanity, friendship, anything he ever wanted to do or be was found on those pages.

Black letters on a white page was food his soul could not get enough of; books were his passion and was why he decided to take the journal from the Antique Books Store at the request of the old clerk, along with an unexplainable attraction. He hoped the contents would lead him to answers the old clerk refused to give.

Leafing through the pages he saw the words were small and had been written in different forms of ink, pencil, and upon closer inspection different handwriting. The pages appeared rough, and woven into the cover as if from another book. He had never read a book that had been written free hand before. Being one of the first to read the words of another person before anyone else made him shiver with excitement. It was like discovering another planet, and being the first to explore its surface. There was no telling what lay inside. After settling his curiosity on what was in store he began to read.