It started on a grim Monday morning. A letter arrived, stamped with an ink seal portraying a golden book. Long had I heard the legend of the shadowy bookseller underground, the bookafia conspiracy. The bookumati. The New Book Order. Now they were exposing themselves to me. Like a brazen Peeping Tom.
“What do they want?” Harpo asked me, nibbling on his fingernail and sweating profusely. Harpo too had heard the stories of the bookumati, most of which were exaggerations and down right lies fed to him by myself.
“They’ve summoned me to a secret meeting,” I said.
“In the library.”
“The library? But we don’t go to the library Bookman.”
“Hmmmm, the dastardly bastards.”
A normal man might have ignored the invitation, or replied to it with an expletive or, at the very least, went alone. But I’m not normal, and suffer in equal measure from curiosity and cowardice, so I ended up travelling to that sacred meeting in Stout Trout’s Hiace van, with Harpo sticking his head in from the back frequently to tell us about some unfounded rumour he had read on Facebook.
“BJ from Barney and friends has aids,” he said. “There’s a gofundme account to send him to Nigeria for treatment.”
Stout Trout’s ample stomach was pushed up against the steering wheel as he squinted to see out the dirty windscreen. “I think you’re making a big mistake meeting these book people,” he moaned. “In my professional opinion, these people are delusional and quite possibly violent. They may assault you, physically and sexually.”
“They’re book dealers Trout, not the bloody khmer rouge.”
“You don’t know what they are,” he cried. “Anyone who sends out letters sealed with candle wax is mentally ill.”
Harpo sticks his head back in. “Brexit means the price of Fredo bars will go down. There’s a sliver lining on every cloud.”
The library was closed but a class of elderly computer students were still working away. I mistook them for the bookumati at first. “Are you the fabled secret order of the book sellers?” I asked one old man.
“No, I’m Tom.”
“Right.”
A stern looking library worker, with big eavesdropping ears, pointed me in the direction of a previously unseen staircase, leading down into a basement. I had specifically told Trout and Harpo to wait in the van, but already I could see the trout peeking in the mass windows and waving inappropriately at a group of old ladies.
The staircase was in near darkness, lit only by a single candle at the bottom. As I got closer I realised a bony armed man was holding the candle stick and watching me.
“Welcome to the sacred order of the book sellers,” he said coldly. “You are not permitted to bring any electronic equipment or fried food inside the temple of noble book trade.”
He led me into a cavernous room, where a group of older men sat around an ornate round table. They all wore black ceremonial robes and watched me intently, but said nothing until a fat ginger man stood.
“So you’re the one selling trashy novels for a euro each?”
“I keep the really trashy ones behind the counter,” I grinned. “Especially the ones with pictures. Lots of well read perverts around.”
“You see what I mean Elder,” a tiny bespectacled gentleman sneered. “He has no reverence for the ancient art of book selling. He has dragged our traditions into the gutter.”
“Are you boys some sort of Union? Because I’m really not interested in joining a Union. I prefer the type of socialism where you don’t have to pay an annual subscription.”
“We are not a Union Mr Bookman,” the fat ginger man snapped. “We are the ancient and sacred order of the book sellers. We have existed since the dawn of time, when the first crude tablets of marked stone were passed around to ensure the ethical and professional trade of written information.”
“The bookumati?”
“We have many names. Once we were all powerful, able to topple governments and start wars at the turn of a page, but now we have been driven to near extinction by the twin plagues of chain bookstores and…. Amazon.”
The mention of Amazon sent the other initiated into spasms of pain and screeches. One guy was even rocking from side to side with his eyes closed. A possible victim of a violent kindle assault.
“And now to top it all off,” the fat ginger man continued. “We have you. A gobshite selling books below their worth out of a shed in the middle of nowhere, both devaluing the books and the reputation of the noble book dealer.”
“I see,” I said. I didn’t see but I was starting to think that Stout Trout had been right about the mental state of these people and wasn’t prepared to argue with them. “So what do you want?”
“We want you to join us,” the elder said sternly. “Keep your friends close and your competition even closer,” a haggard looking man said, before collapsing into a fit of senile laughter.
“Is there a subscription?”
“My dear Mr Bookman, we are the ancient and sacred order of the book dealers. A noble tradition passed down from father to son for eons. How dare you compare us to some fly by night scam.”
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled.
“Apology accepted. Of course, there will be a monthly direct debit donation and an annual tariff, but that is little when you consider the benefits of being indoctrinated into the bookumati.”
“Which are?”
“We have our own bookmarks and a 5% discount at O’ Briens Sandwich Bar.” I decided to leave but found my progress blocked by the ginger elder.
“You can’t just walk away from the Bookumati, you know. We can destroy you.”
Somewhere in the distance, far above us, I heard the unmistakable sound of Stout Trout telling someone that they were very attractive. He was shouting, so obviously pursuing some poor unfortunate. So much for my back up.
“I’ll give you a ring sure,” I told him, side stepping and heading briskly for the stairs.
“You’ll be back,” the fat ginger elder cried. “You can’t sell books without us. We are the book trade!”
“I’ve got ya on whatsapp,” I shout back. “Under nutters.”
I’d like to say that I made a quick getaway in Stout Trout’s van, and that we could see the bookumati waving their fists at us in the side mirrors, like disgruntled natives in an Indiana Jones film. But we didn’t. Because Trout lost the keys of his Hiace while he was attempting to romance an old age pensioner with extreme varicose veins. (A slow moving target.)
Instead we were on all fours in the library lobby, searching for keys underneath their plush sofa, when the bookumati came up out of the basement. We exchanged pleasantries and one of them even gave the Trout their number.
“They seem nice,” Harpo smiled after they had left and we had finally found Trout’s keys. In his breast pocket. “For a secret society I mean.”
Trout’s van broke down outside the hospital. He blamed the bookumati and claimed they had tampered with his engine. Then he remembered his fuel gauge was broken and we had ran out of diesel. So we walked back to the shop. Very, very slowly.
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