Running the Books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian (48 page)

“No man, I’m
serious,”
he told me, as we rounded down toward the grand staircase. “I wrote them all down, that was some serious shit you was spinning.”

“That’s true,” I said. “Jokes are serious. I’m glad you agree.”

We turned through the triumphal arch, past a clutter of columns and parapets, into the soft yellow, Siena marble arcade. The grand staircase. Under the murals of Aeschylus, Virgil, and Plato, we began our descent. He grabbed my arm, apparently in need of help balancing. We walked past the stone library lion—libraries really do need lions to protect them, the way that Officer Eddie Grimes had once told me, “the sword protects the pen.”

I continued telling him about my issues. It wasn’t clear that he was listening. We passed through the arched front door. It felt strange to walk about freely with an ex-inmate, with nobody watching, no restrictions or checkpoints. We stood under the heavy wrought-iron lanterns on the building’s facade. Through the warm air, a swirl of scents reached us, cotton-candy, burgers, and buses. A twist of sewage. It was a Saturday—and even though I no longer kept the traditions, I resolved to observe the loveliness of this particular Shabbat day, to walk the forty-five minutes home.

As I rattled on about my concerns for the various people I had left behind in the prison, Al stared out over Copley Square, toward Trinity Church and the reflection of Trinity Church in the mirrored John Hancock building.

Finally, he cut me off.

“Let me tell you a good one,” he said. “You told me this one. But I think you need to hear it again.”

He told me the joke, getting it mostly right.

A merchant bought a sack of prunes from his competitor
.

I smiled. I knew where this was going.

Opening the sack, he saw that the prunes had begun to rot. He went back to the seller and demanded his money back. The seller refused, and the two men went to see the rabbi to settle their dispute
.

The rabbi sat down at a table between the two men and emptied the sack in front of them. Then he put on his glasses, and without saying a word, he went to work, slowly and carefully tasting one prune after another and each time shaking his head
.

After some time had passed, the plaintiff finally spoke up, “So, Rabbi, what do you think?”

The rabbi, who was about to consume the last of the prunes, looked up and replied sharply: “Why are you fellows wasting my time? What do you think I am—a prune expert?”

“You
did
write those jokes down, didn’t you?” I said.

“I told you, man, that’s some deep shit.”

“What do you think it’s about?” I asked.

“I’ve thought about it,” he said, “and I’ll tell you exactly what it is: in this life, a man don’t got to have all the answers.”

“That’s funny,” I said, “I thought it was about a hungry thief who calls himself a rabbi.”

“Nah, man. Shit. You missed the whole point.”

He seemed genuinely agitated.

“It’s about a smart guy, okay, but he ain’t smart in the
right
way, see? Just ’cause you think about something a lot don’t mean you know anything about it. Maybe you went to rabbi school, or you’re an imam, or whatnot, but that don’t mean you know shit about no damn prunes.”

He gave me a stern look. We descended a few more steps. And I decided to accept his interpretation.

At the curb, Al released my arm—only when he finally let go did I realize how tightly he’d been clutching me. He gave me the Islamic farewell. I followed his lead: we alternated pecking each other’s cheeks until he seemed satisfied that the gesture had been properly executed, after what felt like forty, possibly fifty turns. Then we thug hugged. Then fist bumped. Then we shook hands, and parted ways. He in a cab, I by foot.

Acknowledgments

My thanks to the following people who, in different and indispensable ways, helped make this book possible.

To Steve Fredman, Anita Leyfell, Lorna Owen, Jed Perl, Marcie Richardson, and Sasha Weiss; to Jennifer Lyons, for her patience and wisdom; to my brilliant and clairvoyant editor, Ronit Feldman, the hard-working staff at Doubleday, and of course to the inimitable Nan Talese.

To Cathy, Charlie, Dottie, Forest, Kamau, Kelly, Mary Beth, Ming, Rick, Yoni, and all of the good people at the Bay.

To Kayla Yonit,
yonati b’chagvei ha-selah
. And to Abba, Ima, and Adena for, you know, everything.

A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Avi Steinberg was born in Jerusalem and raised in Cleveland and Boston. His work has appeared in the
Boston Globe
, the
New York Review of Books, Salon
, and other publications.