It was the summer of 1981, I remember, because it was very hot that year and I was in my first year working in the library of the large newspaper here. They called it the morgue in those days but it's just called the library now. Back then we were on the third floor where the presses had been for decades. There were no windows to let any light in and all the walls had a black decay like under the fingernails of the pressmen. We were a floor below the editorial department so we rode the elevator to hand them research clips or photo files. But for some reason Jared thought that meant I had connections with the paper.
He was an aspiring writer, like everyone else without much sense. He wrote bits on open houses and art shows for the local community press, but those were the days not too long after Watergate and everyone had delusions of Pulitzer Prizes and bringing down the government. Jared had some thoughts about taking on those new upstart computer companies but no one would listen to him until he could actually work for a real paper.
That's where I came in. Jared thought of me as his connection to the paper. We had been friends since high school, although not especially close, and somehow he was the one friend who didn't move away and lose touch after college. We were both 25 and I felt anxious about actually starting my life. Jared's plan was to dazzle the paper's editors with a story so incredible they would have to hire him. Maybe he'd even win an award. He needed me to hand in the story and because I had a camera. I had nothing interesting to do on a Saturday so I agreed to help him. He promised me photo credit.
Jared picked me up in his green Nova at 9:30 and I was still groggy because I usually liked to sleep in on weekends and get started around noon. My head was freshly wet from a shower and I felt clean like in new skin.
"Did you bring the camera?" he asked.
I patted my camera bag. It was a Nikon 35mm I got for graduation and hadn't really used much but I didn't let him know that. "Two rolls of film enough?"
"Should be plenty," he said.
We drove way up north I-75 through Butler County to Middletown which I couldn't remember ever stopping in. I asked Jared exactly what our story was.
"There's this guy that lives up here we're going to talk to," Jared said. "It's a human interest story." No matter how hard I pressed Jared just said wait till we get there. I enjoyed the drive but Jared's A/C was busted and my T-shirt and shorts clung to my body by the time we pulled into a driveway of a tight wood and white brick house with a porch that leaned in eager invitation.
The street was lined with thick trees in full bloom with thrush green leaves. Most of the older neighborhoods in Ohio look much like this. The driveway ran all the way back to a small garage separate from the house. Tiny grass blades sprouted through cracks in the concrete. It felt like an old Packard should be parked there instead of us and I felt such an anachronism.
"We're here," Jared proclaimed, switched off the engine, and pocked his keys. I followed him without a word, an intruder in this world of my parents. The roof had broken shingles sliding down the angled slope ready to leap from the roof and I knew they would disintegrate and never touch the ground.
"This place belongs to Chester Auger," Jared said. He slid his sunglasses from his face through his shirt collar and rang the bell. "I've heard stories about this guy. Supposed to be a really sweet guy, helps out at centers for latchkey kids and stuff."
At that moment my friend looked as foolish as I did, as though neither of us knew that there were rules to the game we were playing.
We heard the click of the lock and the door gasped air as it opened. At first it was just a head, a fuzzy fruit bobbling through the ether. Then his features pierced the skin, a smile first, teeth as white and crooked as his hair. Black horn rimmed glasses made his eyes far away and I coveted them as though behind a storehouse window.
Jared introduced us and mentioned I was with the Enquirer without really lying and I questioned whether Jared had arranged this interview or had just shown up.
This man who did say he was Chester Auger greeted us warmly inside. The screen door opened the opposite way as the front door and he spread his tree branch arms wide to allow us in.
Only natural sunlight poured through faded white drapes so it took our eyes a few moments to adjust to the relative darkness. The smell closed me in, moth balls, dust and a musk I attribute to old people and new babies. Mr. Auger led us over a dark blood-orange carpet in his living room. He had two old chairs that didn't look at all comfortable and a simple TV set with a shoot of rabbit ears. Along the far wall sat a rolltop desk with carved divots to place ink bottles and a black wraith ink stain frozen down its side. A garish copper lamp set atop an old-fashioned radio like my grandfather had when I was a kid.
He brought us into his kitchen bright as the inside of a lemon. Jared remembered he needed a pad of paper and went back out to the car. I decided to set up my camera while we waited and Mr. Auger offered me a glass of lemonade. "You'll waste away in this heat," he said, and his voice surprised me with how real it sounded. I felt in a different world.
He poured three glasses and plunked two ice cubes into each glass from a cold metal ice tray. I sat at the tiny white-top kitchen table and emptied my camera case. The blackness of the camera drained the brightness of the room and I thought of the old Indian superstition that a camera steals a little bit of your soul.
Mr. Auger handed me a glass and I drained it by half in one gulp. He took more measured sips and sat across from me.
"So what do you fellers want to talk with me for?" he asked.
"That's Jared's department. I'm just the photographer," I said, indicating my lens and feeling he could see through me.
He was an awkward old man, his bones much smaller than his skin. He wore a light blue shirt and denim overalls that seemed both borrowed from a scarecrow and the only thing he ever wore. Flecks of gold stung his clothes. Besides his smile, his hands were the most striking. Arthritic, the joints were swelled to twice the size of the rest of his fingers and his fingernails were jagged and plagued by hangnails.
Jared returned and made his way to the kitchen. He gulped down the lemonade with a breathless thanks. I couldn't remember if I had thanked him. Jared asked that I case around the house in search of a good spot for the photos while he talked with Mr. Auger and they left me.
I loaded the camera, attached the appropriate lens, and looked through the viewer as I'd seen the real photographers do. My stomach bubbled. I had no idea what I was doing.
A back door through the washroom led to the backyard. The grounds were brown and brittle and weeds had completely overgrown the bits of lawn. The neighbor's dog had frequented here. The lone tree was sickly and dropped stained berries over the garage. The sun was blinding right through the lens, and unless we waited till after noon to shoot this, Mr. Auger would be squinting in shadows.
I figured the front would be much the same but there was more shade from the other trees. I walked down the drive and found Jared and Mr. Auger just stepping out on the porch.
"It's such a nice day I'd hate to be inside for this," Mr. Auger was saying. Jared agreed and they saw me. "Come on and join us, son."
I decided to sit on the grass under the thickest tree in his yard absently listening as they circled the yard at a slow pace and Mr. Auger answered all Jared's questions. Mr. Auger volunteered weekdays at a center for latchkey kids who had nowhere to go after school. He often read them stories from the Old Testament. Saturdays he organized a hike through the woods or a trip to the zoo in good weather. He sounded pleasant and I wondered why he did it but Jared didn't ask. I fiddled with the light meter trying to see what F-stop to use in the shade if they decided to take a shot out here. The lighting was actually nice. I hadn't noticed that I had actually nodded off leaning against that big tree until Mr. Auger tapped my shoulder.
"It's nice out but terribly hot. Don't want to nod off too long," he said.
"What time is it?" I asked. I checked my watch, a quarter past noon. Blinking away sleep. I realized Jared wasn't there.
"He had to use the bathroom," Mr. Auger said. "Do you need a hand up?"
I again felt foolish that such a frail old man was offering to help me. I asked if he'd mind if I took a few shots out here. He seemed pleased and I snapped half a roll in front of the tree, on the porch, in the grass with dandelion faeries twittering at his feet and in everyone he was an angel blissfully unaware he was no longer a cherub.
The sun had passed overhead. I wanted to try some in the backyard. As we walked down the drive Mr. Auger asked me a question: "What do you want to get out of life?" I thought it was an odd question and felt hot that he would ask me and we came up to the garage before I had the guts to answer.
I glanced inside the garage window. I saw a rake, snow shovel and mud-crusted tools leaning beside a rusty Schwinn bicycle the red-ochre of a Radio Flyer wagon.
"Don't need all this space, I guess," Mr. Auger apologized. He leaned close to see through the window as well. His ears were butterfly wings spread out from his head and brushed against my shoulder.
"No car?" I asked.
He shook his head. "Never did learn to drive the fool things. That there's all I need," he said, pointing to the Schwinn, "when my legs aren't enough."
"You ride a bike everywhere?"
He seemed embarrassed. "When I work at the latchkey center Robert Goodkey picks me up. The bicycle's for pedaling the bibles." His eyes were always in a satisfied squint and his grin did likewise. "That was a joke. Pedaling like a bicycle."
"Where do you take them? The bibles," I asked.
"Whoever needs them," he said. "I meet a lot of people. I don't have much but I have plenty of time. Time enough for the kids, time for your friend. I have time now. I hand the bibles out to whoever I think deserves one or needs one."
"You just give them bibles?"
"The more consistently you give, the more consistently you receive," he quoted.
"What is that?" I asked. "A proverb?"
"Fortune cookie. And tasty."
At sometime I noticed that either I passed into his world he passed into mine.
"How do you know who should get a bible?" I asked.
He suddenly stretched his arms in disconnected movements, guided by some unseen puppeteer. "Ah, cramping up. Sorry 'bout that, son. God has ways of telling you things. Maybe I should go sit down a bit. Excuse me."
He walked the steps to the back door and again I thought of a marionette being guided along with no intention of turning into a real boy.
The light was good so I decided to finish the roll with some outside shots. Impetuously, I cracked open the garage door. It was heavy but on rollers and I peeled it back to the sound of thunder.
Flakes of dried mud foot-stepped to the bicycle. The tires were bald and caked in dirt. I could see rust had abscessed in the gears. There was no kickstand so it leaned against the wooden wall of exposed two-by-fours. This was the one possession Mr. Auger had that he didn't give away. I stole a picture of it and quickly escaped out of the garage.
I had just closed the garage door and twisted the latch when Jared burst through the back door. The lightweight door banged against the wall. "Oh my God! Jim!"
"What's the matter?"
Jared was pale and his breath caught in his chest. "I think he's dead."
The boiling knots in my gut churned. I stumbled into the washroom and stopped.
A glass was tipped over but the lemonade never reached the floor. Chester Auger was draped over the table top.
The strings had been cut.
I don't remember calling the police to report it but I do know they came and took Mr. Auger away. They asked us a few questions but since we really didn't know him we weren't too helpful. Neighbors all came over to see what was going on. I saw the dog who had come to the backyard so often. No one seemed to know if he had next of kin.
At some point I found myself in a spare room with no bed, just a desk and a chair and stacks of papers crisp with age. On the desk was a weathered old bible, it's spine nearly broken, the pages and cover torn and dogeared. There were sheets of goldleaf and a sharp drill bit used to stab the gold into the leather. He had engraved the bibles himself. And they weren't new, they were his bibles. I touched the one he had been working on. The cover was soft like I thought his swollen fingers must have been. Scraps of paper marked certain passages and some were underlined. One scrap came from a fortune cookie. He had only gotten as far as the first name on this one.
There was no way the newspaper would be interested in a human interest story when the man was dead, so Jared had to settle for an obit. I let him take the credit because the freelance rate was better that way. I got a photo credit. Jared eventually did make it as a journalist and is a Washington correspondent for the St. Petersburg Gazette. We keep in touch through Christmas cards.
I don't know if this really did change me in anyway. That fall I met Anna and we got married two years later. I found I enjoyed working in the library and I'm assistant librarian now, there almost twenty years. I'm not rich but I'm not unhappy and I volunteer organizing the church bulletin every week. I still have that bible Mr. Auger was working on. It could have been meant for some other James but I like to think he was actually done with it. And sometimes when I think of Mr. Auger I feel that my movements are not my own.