{"id":5211,"date":"2022-01-08T10:52:29","date_gmt":"2022-01-08T17:52:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/?p=5211"},"modified":"2022-01-08T13:42:40","modified_gmt":"2022-01-08T20:42:40","slug":"joans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/archives\/5211","title":{"rendered":"Joan’s"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Joan\u2019s<\/em> 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\u2019s<\/em> won\u2019t be open much longer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy do you call this store Joan\u2019s<\/em> when you\u2019re Turk?\u201d asks Ramon Casta\u00f1eda, eighteen, holding his phone out to record Turk\u2019s reply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t own Joan\u2019s<\/em>,\u201d says Turk Arslan, sixty-nine, big and mostly bald, a former Mercy deputy sheriff. \u201cI just work here four days a week. It\u2019s called Joan\u2019s<\/em> because the woman who started it eighty-seven years ago was named Joan.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe dead now?\u201d asks Ramon, a standout on the\nMercy High soccer team and devilishly handsome. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes,\u201d says Turk, chuckling. \u201cShe died forty years\nago. You can find her headstone in the town cemetery. Joan Mirzoyan. Pink\ngranite.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSeriously?\u201d says Ramon, half-frowning and half-smiling. \u201cSick.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRudy Contreras owns Joan\u2019s<\/em> now,\u201d says Turk, unsure if by sick<\/em> Ramon means great<\/em> or\nhorrible<\/em>. \u201cRudy bought it from Maggy\nSpencer who bought it from Jane Minasyan who is also buried in the town\ncemetery just a few headstones away from Joan Mirzoyan.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAwesome,\u201d says Ramon, who has to write a report about\nJoan\u2019s<\/em> for his Social Studies class.\n\u201cI\u2019ll check it out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou may be interested to know,\u201d says Turk, who started working at Joan\u2019s<\/em> a few months after he retired from law enforcement two years ago, \u201cthat Joan Mirzoyan opened the original Joan\u2019s<\/em> 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\u2019s<\/em> was until twenty years ago when Maggy Spencer bought the business from Jane Minasyan and moved it here to Mill Street.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou just wrote my whole report,\u201d says Ramon, turning off the audio recorder on his phone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDon\u2019t you want to know why I work here?\u201d asks Turk, giving Ramon an inquisitive look.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSure,\u201d says Ramon, reactivating the audio recorder. \u201cWhy do you work here?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been shopping here ever since my sister and I moved to Mercy twelve years ago,\u201d says Turk, looking around the spacious store. \u201cI 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\u2019s department and the job here came open, I thought I\u2019d give it a try, and I love it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEpic,\u201d says Ramon, squinting at Turk. \u201cHey do you remember when you busted me for speeding on Main Street?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI do,\u201d says Turk, vividly recalling the terrifying moment when fifteen-year-old Ramon drove three blocks through the heart of town going seventy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was an idiot,\u201d says Ramon, grimly. \u201cCoulda killed somebody.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou almost did,\u201d says Turk, trembling as he remembers. \u201cHelen Morningstar was just stepping into the crosswalk when you went by. You missed her by inches. And if you had hit her\u2026 well\u2026 thank God you didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf I had killed her,\u201d says Ramon, bowing his head, \u201cI wouldn\u2019t want to be alive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLife is full of close calls,\u201d says Turk, putting a hand on Ramon\u2019s shoulder. \u201cI was a cop in Fresno for thirty years before we moved here, and every day was one close call after another.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On a sunny Thursday morning in April, Rudy Contreras, the owner of Joan\u2019s<\/em>, enters the store and wishes for the umpteenth time he\u2019d never bought the business or<\/em> 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\u2019s<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Turk is done selling a customer a birthday\ncard, Rudy approaches the counter and says to Turk, \u201cHow\u2019s business?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo-so today,\u201d says Turk, who likes Rudy despite disagreeing with him about much of their inventory. \u201cI\u2019ve had two more people ask about custom framing today, and two more people wanting higher quality oil paints than what we carry. So I\u2019m wondering if you\u2019ve given any more thought to\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m closing the business and selling the building,\u201d says Rudy, interrupting. \u201cSorry to break it to you so abruptly, Turk, but I just came from my accountant and he says this is unsustainable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSorry to hear that,\u201d says Turk, stunned by Rudy\u2019s news. \u201cHow much are you asking?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNine hundred thousand,\u201d says Rudy, guessing that\u2019s nine hundred thousand more than Turk has. \u201cI\u2019m 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\u2019m essentially selling the lot.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen will you put it on the market?\u201d asks Turk, about to cry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTwo weeks,\u201d says Rudy, looking around the store. \u201cIf you win the lottery before then, I\u2019ll sell it to you for eight hundred thousand.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShall we have a Going Out of Business sale?\u201d asks Turk, unable to quell his tears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAfter the building sells,\u201d says Rudy, turning to go. \u201cWe\u2019ll keep things going until then.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

That afternoon Turk is standing behind the counter staring into space and wondering what he\u2019ll do with his life after Joan\u2019s <\/em>closes, when the poet Helen Morningstar, Turk\u2019s great pal, enters the store and it\u2019s all Turk can do not to shout Helen! Rudy\u2019s closing the store and selling the building.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A beautiful woman in her mid-fifties, Pomo on her\nmother\u2019s side, Latino on her father\u2019s, Helen and Turk are both crazy about fine\nstationery and both worship Ricardo Alvarez who plays piano every Thursday\nevening at Big Goose<\/em>, the pub Helen\nowns with her husband Justin Oglethorpe. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGot your call, Turk,\u201d says Helen, breathlessly. \u201cCame\nas soon as I could.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHere they are,\u201d says Turk, bringing forth a box\ncontaining four large notebooks of exquisite writing paper from France. \u201cPrice\nwent up quite a bit since the last time I ordered these for you. Sorry about\nthat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo problem,\u201d says Helen, opening one of the\nnotebooks to caress a page. \u201cNothing in the world takes ink like this paper.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now she brings the notebook close to her face and\ninhales the scent of the blessed parchment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Alone again, Turk resumes grieving the death of Joan\u2019s<\/em>, and he\u2019s just about to close up shop an hour early when two of his favorite customers come in, the siblings Tenaya and Tuolumne Larkin. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 \u2013 a far cry from the real estate madness of today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/em> 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Tenaya pays for several large sheets of poster\nboard and Tuolumne waits to buy a sketchpad and two fine-tipped black ink pens,\nTurk smiles sadly at them and says, \u201cYou two wouldn\u2019t want to go in with me and\nbuy Joan\u2019s<\/em> and this old building,\nwould you? We can get it for eight hundred thousand if we come up with the\nmoney in the next two weeks. Otherwise\u2026 no more Joan\u2019s<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tenaya and Tuolumne exchange wide-eyed looks and\nTenaya says, \u201cWe were just<\/em> talking\nabout that. Right before we walked in.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI told her about how you want to offer custom framing,\u201d says Tuolumne, grinning at Turk, \u201cand that got us fantasizing about what else we\u2019d do if we owned Joan\u2019s<\/em>. This is amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFantasizing<\/em>\nis the key word here,\u201d says Turk, wistfully. \u201cI could come up with fifty thousand,\nbut\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh we\u2019ve got the money,\u201d says Tuolumne, nodding\nassuredly. \u201cFrom our grandmother. The question is can we make this business\nprofitable? We don\u2019t want to throw our inheritance down the drain, so to\nspeak.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou wouldn\u2019t be,\u201d says Turk, shaking his head. \u201cThe\nbuilding is worth at least a million, and if we bring it up to code it\u2019ll be\nworth twice that. You know there are two big apartments upstairs we could rent out\nonce they\u2019re made habitable, and there\u2019s a huge storage area up there that\ncould be converted into something. Or two somethings.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tenaya and Tuolumne exchange even wider-eyed looks\nand Tenaya says, \u201cWe\u2019ll talk to our parents. My gut feeling, however, is we can\ndo this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Tuolumne and Tenaya\u2019s 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\u2019s dulcimers and also sells honey, beeswax candles, rabbit-pelt berets, and slender leather belts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their ten-acre homestead surrounded by a vast\nredwood forest boasts a spectacular half-acre garden, two big greenhouses, three\nhouses, two barns, three workshops, and a quarter-acre pond teeming with tasty\ntrout. They grow almost all the food they and Tuolumne and Tenaya and Cass\u2019s\nparents need, and they also have a big flock of chickens for eggs, seventeen\nbeehives, and every year raise a pig to butcher and freeze. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Donovan was seven, his mother Alice divorced\nDonovan\u2019s father Kyle and moved to Los Angeles where she married a man who\nowned a chain of car washes. When Alice died three years ago, she left a million\ndollars to Donovan and a half-million each to Tuolumne and Tenaya, and this is\nthe money they would use to buy Joan\u2019s<\/em>\nand the Joan\u2019s<\/em> building if that is\nwhat they decide to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So a few days after Turk broached the possibility of buying the Joan’s<\/em> building with Tuolumne and Tenaya, Cass and Donovan come to town and meet with their kids and Turk in Joan\u2019s<\/em> to consider the idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI love this store,\u201d says Donovan, who has a profoundly deep voice that carries far even when he speaks quietly. \u201cWhere is everybody?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBusiness has not been great lately,\u201d says Turk,\napologetically. \u201cMost people nowadays buy what we have to offer online.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTragic,\u201d says Cass, gazing tragically at Turk.\n\u201cThe end of community. The end of the actual. The final fraying of the\ncollective fabric. No wonder things are the way they are now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYet people long for the actual,\u201d says Donovan, gesturing\nexpansively. \u201cThey long for three-dimensional connection. We sell my dulcimers\non the Interweb, it\u2019s true, but why not sell them here? Why limit our concept\nof store<\/em> to stationery and art\nsupplies? Why not make this a general<\/em>\nstore in the sense of an eclectic depository for myriad objet d\u2019 soul?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA sofa here,\u201d says Cass, moving to a sunny corner\nat the front of the store adjacent to a rack of notecards. \u201cA place to sit and\nread poetry with one of the store kitties on your lap.\u201d She beams at Turk. \u201cWe\u2019ll\nsell books of poetry. Songbooks. Scarves and slender leather belts and\nrabbit-pelt berets. And stationery, of course. The foundation of connection.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHuge<\/em>\nmoney in poetry and rabbit-pelt berets,\u201d says Tuolumne, winking at Turk. \u201cSo\nyou like it, huh Mom?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLove,\u201d says Cass, smiling out on the sunny day.\n\u201cI\u2019m madly in love. We\u2019ll give concerts here and poetry readings and\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh buy the place,\u201d says Donovan, taking a large sketchpad off a shelf. \u201cAnd I\u2019ll buy this sketchpad and a box of envelopes. What\u2019s not to love?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So Tenaya and Tuolumne buy Joan\u2019s<\/em> and the Joan\u2019s<\/em> building, Turk keeps his four-day-a-week job, and a new and exciting adventure ensues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

* <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019s<\/em> building, which they do, arriving in the wee hours of morning and working until the late afternoon six days a week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cass\u2019s father Max, seventy-three, a master carpenter, explains to Turk one Thursday morning, \u201cYes, technically, Tenaya and Tulo own this place, but in truth we, their extended family, own it, too. They\u2019re fourth generation hippy communists, you see, and this is how we do things.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd now we\u2019ll have a pad in town,\u201d says Louise, seventy-two, a massage therapist and beekeeper. \u201cIs this groovy or what?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is groovy,\u201d says Turk, who previously eschewed the word groovy<\/em> and now finds groovy<\/em> an entirely appropriate and accurate descriptor for what\u2019s going on here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A moment after Louise and Max go upstairs to work on the apartments, Diana, Turk\u2019s 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<\/em> and Turk\u2019s main reason for getting up in the morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHey T,\u201d says Diana, giving Turk a splendiferous hug. \u201cPlace is a veritable beehive of activity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThree generations of hippy communists hard at work,\u201d says Turk, never in a hurry to end a hug with Diana. \u201cRudy came by yesterday and said he must have been crazy to sell this place for so little.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBrokered by angels,\u201d says Diana, kissing Turk\u2019s\ncheek. \u201cWe on for tonight?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWild horses etcetera.\u201d says Turk, blushing. \u201cMeet\nyou at the Goose<\/em> at six.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ll be there,\u201d says Diana, dancing out the door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Twenty minutes later, Tuolumne enters the store with his mother Cass, both of them wearing tool belts, work gloves, and mauve Donovan\u2019s Dulcimers<\/em> baseball hats. Tuolumne is carrying a pry bar, Cass a vacuum cleaner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTurk,\u201d says Tuolumne, after Turk finishes selling\nJack Ziskin a box of purple ink pens and three Fred Astaire notecards. \u201cWe\u2019ve reached\na major turning point in the renovation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDo tell,\u201d says Turk, giving Tuolumne his full\nattention. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have come to the moment when we must close the\nstore for a few weeks,\u201d says Tuolumne, looking at his mother for a\ncorroborative nod. \u201cWe need to bring lumber and sheet rock and all manner of\nmaterial through the front door, and we have to completely rebuild the inside\nstaircase. And while we\u2019re at it we might as well renovate the ground floor, too,\nreplace the windows with the latest and greatest, install a much grander\nentrance, rewire, sand the floors, repaint the walls, build new display cases,\nand so forth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd then the grand re-opening,\u201d says Cass, her\neyes sparkling. \u201cThe rebirth of stationery.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So Joan\u2019s<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the height of the festivities, Tenaya rings a\nbig brass bell to quiet the crowd for Donovan to proclaim basso profundo<\/em>, \u201cEverybody please traipse outside for the unveiling\nof our fabulous new sign.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hundreds of revelers obediently go outside and\nwatch Tuolumne pull on the rope attached to a big white tarp covering the large\nnew sign over the gigantic new glass front door \u2013 the crowd gasping and\ncheering when they see the new sign does not say Joan\u2019s<\/em> but Turk\u2019s<\/em>, and\nTurk gasps loudest of all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On a rainy Thursday afternoon in late November, Turk\u2019s<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turk and Diana are restocking the shelves with fast-selling\nart supplies, and Diana stops what she\u2019s doing to look at Turk for a moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d he says, looking up from a box of tubes of\nthe finest oil paint and blushing as he always does when she gives him a look of\nlove.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNothing,\u201d she says, meaning everything<\/em>. \u201cJust looking at you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

fin <\/em>  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Happiness and Unhappiness<\/em> a very short movie <\/a>with Todd and Marcia<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joan\u2019s 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\u2019s won\u2019t be open much longer. \u201cWhy do you call this store Joan\u2019s when you\u2019re Turk?\u201d asks Ramon Casta\u00f1eda, eighteen, holding his phone […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[7236,7238,7145,7234,7239,7230,7237,4305,7233,7232],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5211"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5211"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5227,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5211\/revisions\/5227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}