Paperback Writer

"Is this the end of the line?"

"We think so," two women in front of me said, looking a bit unsure.

There was another line of people on the other side of the room, so I was skeptical.

After a minute more I asked, "That is him, isn't it?" (Maybe this line was for someone else.)

"It looks like him."

Him. We were all there for one reason. To see him. To see his art. To get his autograph. His work was hanging all over the gallery, splashes of vibrant color dabbed onto canvases with his sweeping signature featured prominently and price tags on the walls that had way too many digits.

Our line moved, and I glanced nervously at the growing queue on the far side, certain that something must be wrong. Our line moved again. And then, the women in front of me were next.

"I have a poster autographed by you," one of them said to him, "but I didn't see you in person. Would you sign this?"

She handed him some sort of concert ticket that was clearly printed just several days before. It must have been the only paper in her purse. He smiled and signed in the narrow margin, and he showed it to a man with a camera standing nearby who smiled in turn.

And now I was at the front of the line.

"I'm ashamed to say that I never made any of the airplanes," I said as I stepped up and held out a small paperback I had brought along.

"Good for you!"

I heard someone whisper, "...the paper airplane book...."

He opened it to the title page and held it out. I stood there and watched what he was doing. He shook the paperback gently and held it closer to me.

"Hold this," he said.

So I held the book as he took the top off his pen and began to write.

"What's your name?"

"David," I said.

He signed the verso and doodled a little D-heart on the recto.

4 DAVID cool MAX 2009

I'm not sure why, but I had tears in my eyes as Trudy and I walked past the other line of waiting people and out into the sunshine. I guess it's because his color and his shapes and his doodly art are burned so indelibly into my memory of way back then. And they are so much part of the back then that I'd like to go back to now if I could.

And you know I can't tell you how that book stayed with me all these years, but it'll certainly be here a while longer now.

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