the secret origin of the reluctant sleuth, part 1

used comic books were the gateway drug

My first literary affair was a shameless pre-teen infatuation with DC comics. A three block bicycle ride down the rutted mud back lanes of May Street, in the south end of Thunder Bay brought my 8, 9, 10 year old self to Bill’s Used Bookstore. The adventures of Superman, Batman, the Justice League, and the Legion of Superheroes were available for a nickel per beat-up, dog-eared, often coverless copy.

This was not the comic collector’s paradise of my late teens and early twenties. Bill, or more often, his assistant Jerry relegated the objects of my obsession to the bare floor, in a U-shaped area walled in by the backsides of tall shelving units weighed down by every yellow-bordered issue ever of National Geographic Magazine.

this is the building, no longer what it once was, but still standing

Comics with intact covers started at 15 cents, and the treasured, thick, multi-storied annuals at a quarter each. The prices were stamped in blue inked numbers with one of those price markers they used to use in grocery stores. Bill’s ka-chunk, ka-chunk was the final verdict, no more negotiable than the thump of a judge’s gavel.

The store was dimly lit, and had creaky worn and dirty white pine floors. The dank must was accented by curls of smoke from the dark thin cigarillos through which Bill breathed. The place was a little seedy, which added to the sense of exploring a mysterious, possibly taboo realm.

The comics were in the back, to the left of Bill’s counter. To the right were the shelves of Playboy and Penthouse, and other such. I always went left.

On the cramped route to the precious piles of comics, I’d brush up against black wire rotating racks of tattered and often tawdry paperbacks.

It would be inaccurate to say I graduated from comics to paperbacks. When I discovered Bill would accept any kind of book or comic in trade for any kind of book or comic, I just widened my search for treasure.

this is Bill, also known as “Grumpy Bill”

I was an active re-cycler of printed materials, long before it became fashionable. There were often multiple bike trips to Bill’s of a Saturday, to replace what I’d just rushed home to read. The white plastic treasure bags got lighter on each return trip, as the trade-ins decreased in value. Bill had to make a living.

I found things I’d never see at the library, and unlike the overly curious librarians, Bill and Jerry could care less what I brought to the counter to trade for, or buy outright. Brick-thick paperbacks on Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster. Harry Houdini. UFOs. Biographies of NASA astronauts. Books that promised the truth about the mysterious powers of pyramids, the Bermuda Triangle, and our as yet un-tapped psychic abilities.

Was it the illicit thrill of being privy to the esoteric? Was I looking for the secrets of the universe, or seeking clues to my own confusing existence?

Stay tuned for the next installment…

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And, peaking of next installments… Tomorrow two more chapters of my mystery The Book of Answers go live. Subscribe here for access to the earlier chapters, which are now parked in the section of my substack page called “reluctant sleuth press”.