Joan’s is the only stationery store in the town of Mercy on the far north coast of California, and if sales continue to decline as they have for the last few years, Joan’s won’t be open much longer.
“Why do you call this store Joan’s when you’re Turk?” asks Ramon Castañeda, eighteen, holding his phone out to record Turk’s reply.
“I don’t own Joan’s,” says Turk Arslan, sixty-nine, big and mostly bald, a former Mercy deputy sheriff. “I just work here four days a week. It’s called Joan’s because the woman who started it eighty-seven years ago was named Joan.”
“She dead now?” asks Ramon, a standout on the Mercy High soccer team and devilishly handsome.
“Yes,” says Turk, chuckling. “She died forty years ago. You can find her headstone in the town cemetery. Joan Mirzoyan. Pink granite.”
“Seriously?” says Ramon, half-frowning and half-smiling. “Sick.”
“Rudy Contreras owns Joan’s now,” says Turk, unsure if by sick Ramon means great or horrible. “Rudy bought it from Maggy Spencer who bought it from Jane Minasyan who is also buried in the town cemetery just a few headstones away from Joan Mirzoyan.”
“Awesome,” says Ramon, who has to write a report about Joan’s for his Social Studies class. “I’ll check it out.”
“You may be interested to know,” says Turk, who started working at Joan’s a few months after he retired from law enforcement two years ago, “that Joan Mirzoyan opened the original Joan’s in her house on Manzanita Lane and ran the business out of her living room for ten years before moving to a storefront on Main Street where Joan’s was until twenty years ago when Maggy Spencer bought the business from Jane Minasyan and moved it here to Mill Street.”
“You just wrote my whole report,” says Ramon, turning off the audio recorder on his phone.
“Don’t you want to know why I work here?” asks Turk, giving Ramon an inquisitive look.
“Sure,” says Ramon, reactivating the audio recorder. “Why do you work here?”
“I’ve been shopping here ever since my sister and I moved to Mercy twelve years ago,” says Turk, looking around the spacious store. “I write lots of letters and this was the only place in town with a large selection of note cards and postcards and good pens and excellent paper and envelopes, so I came here all the time. Then when I retired from the sheriff’s department and the job here came open, I thought I’d give it a try, and I love it.”
“Epic,” says Ramon, squinting at Turk. “Hey do you remember when you busted me for speeding on Main Street?”
“I do,” says Turk, vividly recalling the terrifying moment when fifteen-year-old Ramon drove three blocks through the heart of town going seventy.
“I was an idiot,” says Ramon, grimly. “Coulda killed somebody.”
“You almost did,” says Turk, trembling as he remembers. “Helen Morningstar was just stepping into the crosswalk when you went by. You missed her by inches. And if you had hit her… well… thank God you didn’t.”
“If I had killed her,” says Ramon, bowing his head, “I wouldn’t want to be alive.”
“Life is full of close calls,” says Turk, putting a hand on Ramon’s shoulder. “I was a cop in Fresno for thirty years before we moved here, and every day was one close call after another.”
*
On a sunny Thursday morning in April, Rudy Contreras, the owner of Joan’s, enters the store and wishes for the umpteenth time he’d never bought the business or the old two-story building the store occupies. A short rotund man who wears expensive three-piece suits and goes to his barber once a week to maintain his impressive silver pompadour, Rudy owns several other buildings and businesses in Mercy, all of them vastly more profitable than Joan’s.
When Turk is done selling a customer a birthday card, Rudy approaches the counter and says to Turk, “How’s business?”
“So-so today,” says Turk, who likes Rudy despite disagreeing with him about much of their inventory. “I’ve had two more people ask about custom framing today, and two more people wanting higher quality oil paints than what we carry. So I’m wondering if you’ve given any more thought to…”
“I’m closing the business and selling the building,” says Rudy, interrupting. “Sorry to break it to you so abruptly, Turk, but I just came from my accountant and he says this is unsustainable.”
“Sorry to hear that,” says Turk, stunned by Rudy’s news. “How much are you asking?”
“Nine hundred thousand,” says Rudy, guessing that’s nine hundred thousand more than Turk has. “I’m selling cheap because the place is a fire trap and whoever buys it will have to do a compete rebuild before they can open anything new here. I’m essentially selling the lot.”
“When will you put it on the market?” asks Turk, about to cry.
“Two weeks,” says Rudy, looking around the store. “If you win the lottery before then, I’ll sell it to you for eight hundred thousand.”
“Shall we have a Going Out of Business sale?” asks Turk, unable to quell his tears.
“After the building sells,” says Rudy, turning to go. “We’ll keep things going until then.”
*
That afternoon Turk is standing behind the counter staring into space and wondering what he’ll do with his life after Joan’s closes, when the poet Helen Morningstar, Turk’s great pal, enters the store and it’s all Turk can do not to shout Helen! Rudy’s closing the store and selling the building.
A beautiful woman in her mid-fifties, Pomo on her mother’s side, Latino on her father’s, Helen and Turk are both crazy about fine stationery and both worship Ricardo Alvarez who plays piano every Thursday evening at Big Goose, the pub Helen owns with her husband Justin Oglethorpe.
“Got your call, Turk,” says Helen, breathlessly. “Came as soon as I could.”
“Here they are,” says Turk, bringing forth a box containing four large notebooks of exquisite writing paper from France. “Price went up quite a bit since the last time I ordered these for you. Sorry about that.”
“No problem,” says Helen, opening one of the notebooks to caress a page. “Nothing in the world takes ink like this paper.”
Now she brings the notebook close to her face and inhales the scent of the blessed parchment.
*
Alone again, Turk resumes grieving the death of Joan’s, and he’s just about to close up shop an hour early when two of his favorite customers come in, the siblings Tenaya and Tuolumne Larkin.
Tenaya is twenty-three and gorgeous, her long red hair in a ponytail, and Tuolumne is twenty-one, a dashing hunk, his long brown hair in a ponytail, too. They were raised on a homestead ten miles from Mercy and home-schooled by their parents Donovan and Cass, who themselves are the grandchildren of beatniks and hippies who settled near Mercy in the 1950s and 60s when land around here was practically free and half the houses in town were vacant – a far cry from the real estate madness of today.
Neither Tenaya nor Tuolumne ever watched a movie or used a computer until five years ago when they convinced their parents to let them go to Mercy High for a year, after which Tenaya spent three years in New York City studying art at The Cooper Union before returning to Mercy where she works as a waitress at Big Goose and creates exquisite handmade signs for local businesses. Tuolumne went to UCLA intending to become a filmmaker, found academia and city life stultifying, and after nine months in Los Angeles returned to Mercy and restarted his apprenticeship to Bertram Hawley, a master wood sculptor.
While Tenaya pays for several large sheets of poster board and Tuolumne waits to buy a sketchpad and two fine-tipped black ink pens, Turk smiles sadly at them and says, “You two wouldn’t want to go in with me and buy Joan’s and this old building, would you? We can get it for eight hundred thousand if we come up with the money in the next two weeks. Otherwise… no more Joan’s.”
Tenaya and Tuolumne exchange wide-eyed looks and Tenaya says, “We were just talking about that. Right before we walked in.”
“I told her about how you want to offer custom framing,” says Tuolumne, grinning at Turk, “and that got us fantasizing about what else we’d do if we owned Joan’s. This is amazing.”
“Fantasizing is the key word here,” says Turk, wistfully. “I could come up with fifty thousand, but…”
“Oh we’ve got the money,” says Tuolumne, nodding assuredly. “From our grandmother. The question is can we make this business profitable? We don’t want to throw our inheritance down the drain, so to speak.”
“You wouldn’t be,” says Turk, shaking his head. “The building is worth at least a million, and if we bring it up to code it’ll be worth twice that. You know there are two big apartments upstairs we could rent out once they’re made habitable, and there’s a huge storage area up there that could be converted into something. Or two somethings.”
Tenaya and Tuolumne exchange even wider-eyed looks and Tenaya says, “We’ll talk to our parents. My gut feeling, however, is we can do this.”
*
Tuolumne and Tenaya’s father Donovan is fifty-two, a renowned maker of dulcimers. Tall and lanky with long brown hair he habitually wears in three braids of various lengths, Donovan is also renowned for telling stories composed entirely of non-sequiturs. Their mother Cass, forty-five, is a shapely redhead who usually wears her long hair in a single braid. A singer songwriter, her instrument the zither, Cass handles the business of selling Donovan’s dulcimers and also sells honey, beeswax candles, rabbit-pelt berets, and slender leather belts.
Their ten-acre homestead surrounded by a vast redwood forest boasts a spectacular half-acre garden, two big greenhouses, three houses, two barns, three workshops, and a quarter-acre pond teeming with tasty trout. They grow almost all the food they and Tuolumne and Tenaya and Cass’s parents need, and they also have a big flock of chickens for eggs, seventeen beehives, and every year raise a pig to butcher and freeze.
When Donovan was seven, his mother Alice divorced Donovan’s father Kyle and moved to Los Angeles where she married a man who owned a chain of car washes. When Alice died three years ago, she left a million dollars to Donovan and a half-million each to Tuolumne and Tenaya, and this is the money they would use to buy Joan’s and the Joan’s building if that is what they decide to do.
*
So a few days after Turk broached the possibility of buying the Joan’s building with Tuolumne and Tenaya, Cass and Donovan come to town and meet with their kids and Turk in Joan’s to consider the idea.
“I love this store,” says Donovan, who has a profoundly deep voice that carries far even when he speaks quietly. “Where is everybody?”
“Business has not been great lately,” says Turk, apologetically. “Most people nowadays buy what we have to offer online.”
“Tragic,” says Cass, gazing tragically at Turk. “The end of community. The end of the actual. The final fraying of the collective fabric. No wonder things are the way they are now.”
“Yet people long for the actual,” says Donovan, gesturing expansively. “They long for three-dimensional connection. We sell my dulcimers on the Interweb, it’s true, but why not sell them here? Why limit our concept of store to stationery and art supplies? Why not make this a general store in the sense of an eclectic depository for myriad objet d’ soul?”
“A sofa here,” says Cass, moving to a sunny corner at the front of the store adjacent to a rack of notecards. “A place to sit and read poetry with one of the store kitties on your lap.” She beams at Turk. “We’ll sell books of poetry. Songbooks. Scarves and slender leather belts and rabbit-pelt berets. And stationery, of course. The foundation of connection.”
“Huge money in poetry and rabbit-pelt berets,” says Tuolumne, winking at Turk. “So you like it, huh Mom?”
“Love,” says Cass, smiling out on the sunny day. “I’m madly in love. We’ll give concerts here and poetry readings and…”
“Oh buy the place,” says Donovan, taking a large sketchpad off a shelf. “And I’ll buy this sketchpad and a box of envelopes. What’s not to love?”
*
So Tenaya and Tuolumne buy Joan’s and the Joan’s building, Turk keeps his four-day-a-week job, and a new and exciting adventure ensues.
*
When Turk joined forces with Tenaya and Tuolumne, he had no idea they were both excellent and indefatigable carpenters. Nor did he expect their parents and grandparents would come to town every day to work on the Joan’s building, which they do, arriving in the wee hours of morning and working until the late afternoon six days a week.
Cass’s father Max, seventy-three, a master carpenter, explains to Turk one Thursday morning, “Yes, technically, Tenaya and Tulo own this place, but in truth we, their extended family, own it, too. They’re fourth generation hippy communists, you see, and this is how we do things.”
“And now we’ll have a pad in town,” says Louise, seventy-two, a massage therapist and beekeeper. “Is this groovy or what?”
“This is groovy,” says Turk, who previously eschewed the word groovy and now finds groovy an entirely appropriate and accurate descriptor for what’s going on here.
A moment after Louise and Max go upstairs to work on the apartments, Diana, Turk’s best friend and soul mate, dances into the store. A comely gal in her fifties, her graying auburn hair in a ponytail, Diana is a waitress at Big Goose and Turk’s main reason for getting up in the morning.
“Hey T,” says Diana, giving Turk a splendiferous hug. “Place is a veritable beehive of activity.”
“Three generations of hippy communists hard at work,” says Turk, never in a hurry to end a hug with Diana. “Rudy came by yesterday and said he must have been crazy to sell this place for so little.”
“Brokered by angels,” says Diana, kissing Turk’s cheek. “We on for tonight?”
“Wild horses etcetera.” says Turk, blushing. “Meet you at the Goose at six.”
“I’ll be there,” says Diana, dancing out the door.
*
Twenty minutes later, Tuolumne enters the store with his mother Cass, both of them wearing tool belts, work gloves, and mauve Donovan’s Dulcimers baseball hats. Tuolumne is carrying a pry bar, Cass a vacuum cleaner.
“Turk,” says Tuolumne, after Turk finishes selling Jack Ziskin a box of purple ink pens and three Fred Astaire notecards. “We’ve reached a major turning point in the renovation.”
“Do tell,” says Turk, giving Tuolumne his full attention.
“We have come to the moment when we must close the store for a few weeks,” says Tuolumne, looking at his mother for a corroborative nod. “We need to bring lumber and sheet rock and all manner of material through the front door, and we have to completely rebuild the inside staircase. And while we’re at it we might as well renovate the ground floor, too, replace the windows with the latest and greatest, install a much grander entrance, rewire, sand the floors, repaint the walls, build new display cases, and so forth.”
“And then the grand re-opening,” says Cass, her eyes sparkling. “The rebirth of stationery.”
*
So Joan’s closes not for three weeks, but eleven weeks, and on a Friday afternoon in September, a party is held in the spectacular new store, a party to which the entire town is invited and to which most of the town comes.
At the height of the festivities, Tenaya rings a big brass bell to quiet the crowd for Donovan to proclaim basso profundo, “Everybody please traipse outside for the unveiling of our fabulous new sign.”
The hundreds of revelers obediently go outside and watch Tuolumne pull on the rope attached to a big white tarp covering the large new sign over the gigantic new glass front door – the crowd gasping and cheering when they see the new sign does not say Joan’s but Turk’s, and Turk gasps loudest of all.
*
On a rainy Thursday afternoon in late November, Turk’s is jammed with Christmas Hanukkah Solstice shoppers buying cards and calendars and scarves and notebooks and beeswax candles and pens and colored pencils and volumes of poetry and rabbit-pelt berets and slender leather belts. Tuolumne and his grandfather Max are manning the busy custom-framing counter while Tenaya and Cass are expertly operating the two new cash registers on either end of the magnificent wide-topped counter.
Turk and Diana are restocking the shelves with fast-selling art supplies, and Diana stops what she’s doing to look at Turk for a moment.
“What?” he says, looking up from a box of tubes of the finest oil paint and blushing as he always does when she gives him a look of love.
“Nothing,” she says, meaning everything. “Just looking at you.”
fin
Happiness and Unhappiness a very short movie with Todd and Marcia