I asked him what his name was.

I came to my desk this morning and there, between the wrist pad and the keyboard, lay one bobby pin; plain, brown, and totally set on not giving up any information. How do you interrogate a bobby pin, you ask? You should've seen me.

He was bent, not too hard, this way, then that way. I roughed him up a bit, tapping him, very gently, against the edge of my desk. I held him upside down.

What's his age? Whether he's worked with straight or curly?
Wavy?

Was it a coworker of mine, who left him there? Mark? Bruno? Eric?
Liz T?

Was it an outside actor?
A circus actor?

Nothing. Silent.
I was left with much respect. For him, not myself.


This all had little or nothing to do with bookselling. The rest of the day is about that. This is about the mysterious drama that even a Monday morning in the Booksmith, not yet open and empty of customers, in the second week before Christmas, can bring.