Royal Order of Steven Page

I had a neighbor with a huge stack of repair manuals in her garage from his ex girlfriend. She was a mechanic at the local repair shop. He kept them she had written in them along with thoughts about the manuals and what to remember for subsequent repairs little thoughts about him that he still could not part with, at least not just yet. It was oddly romantic of him. His name was Chilton. Books were a big part of him. Repair manuals, cooking books, phone books. He had a place for them his home. There were not the stacks of them: there are of the repair manuals because those had love in them.

He only had a few small shelves devoted to his odd hodgepodge of books. He wanted them vintage because the older the motorcycle repair manual s got, the more artistic the manuals got. The same was true of cooking books. There was a quaintness there that entranced him. He thought anything old was art in the world of books. Modern books had gone too synthetic, too polished, too faultless for his tastes. The faults were what made those books interesting for him and the reason that he collected them.

In one of the old manuals he found a bit of history. It was from an old man in New Jersey who wrote to him and others that could read his words from the 1960s, informing people to toss coins in an automobile for luck and to place the medallion of Saint Christopher on the rear view mirror for a safe and uneventful journey. He was also wicked good at getting you a parking spot if you needed. If you got lost, the old man recommended you ask Saint Anthony for help. Though I was never one much for superstitions of any kind, my neighbor took the advice to heart when he bought a new truck. He still litters the bottom of his cabin with coins after he washes it and polishes the medallion. The stacks of old repair manuals Chilton keeps in the garage too, except for a special one hidden beneath his seat. I tried to read it once, but he was coming out of the Circle K before I could finish it.

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