Three days ago a pilgrim arrived at the shop I run on Fourth Street. I was fussing with boxes in a back corner when the tinkling of the old rusty bell above the door signaled a customer. It was a rare sound – customers weren’t in the mood for rare books these days, what with the economy in such a slump – so I quickly pushed a box of old magazines into a shelf and hurried to the front of the store.

I paused at the top of the three stairs that led down to the cashier desk – a pilgrim? There was a pilgrim standing just inside the door, his left hand still on the knob as it closed behind him. When he turned to check that the door was closed I quickly pushed my lower jaw up and maintained my composure.

“Good morning!” I said cheerfully as I stepped down behind the desk and casually glanced at the month calendar under the glass counter top. It was not anywhere near Halloween or Thanksgiving. In fact it was the middle of May.

The pilgrim had not yet responded to my greeting, so I continued, “are you looking for something special today?” It was my standard intro – I had tried a number of them in the last ten years of owning the store, but this was the one that seemed to work best. Most people found it patronizing when I tried “Looking for a rare book today?”, especially since it was a rare book store.

“How may I help you?” was a tried and true one, but it was also somewhat dismissive and too easy for them to respond with “Just browsing.” Those people would be in the shop for five minutes and leave without even touching a single book.

“Are you looking for something special today?” seemed to evoke mystery for the customer. Why yes, something special – they hadn’t thought about it that way but this was a special book store! Most of the time this question got a detailed reply, including a whole back story about why they had arrived at the shop on this particular day. The pilgrim did not disappoint.

“Something special?” he replied. “Something that goes beyond special young man. I have been to every book store in this city looking for something special – all they have are trash books. I do not need books about computers or about sex, but that is all they sell these days. But not you. You are going to show me something different today.”

It was the first time I’d had a customer tell me what I was going to do. Usually I was telling them where to start their browsing experience, and how to find a particular volume they were seeking. But this was new. He wanted me to choose from thousands of books on the shelves, and hundreds more in storage boxes in the back, to come up with something “special” for him to read? I instantly regretted not going with “How may I help you?” this morning.

“We have a number of special books here,” I began. “Is there a particular style or genre, or writing period that you’re interested in?”

The pilgrim seemed perplexed by the question. He put his hands on his hips and ticked his head to the left so quickly I was sure his hat would fly off into 1940′s Egyptology, but it was firmly attached. I thought I might have seen a hair-pin holding it down, but he moved his head upright before I could get a better look. He sighed deeply without saying anything.

I was about to give him a run-through of the major sections of the store, but he turned away from me and headed down the closest aisle – 1800′s Poetry. It was actually one of the more popular sections of the store, when people were in a buying mood, but an odd choice for a pilgrim I thought.

Then that thought gave me pause. What would be a normal choice for a pilgrim? And seriously, why is there a pilgrim in my store? Pilgrim’s aren’t something one sees in downtown Atlanta in the beginning of summer – or any time of the year outside a Thanksgiving festival.

I watched him in the large dome mirror on the ceiling as he stepped slowly past the rows and rows of poems. He periodically reached out to touch one of the books, but before his fingers could reach the worn cover he pulled his hand back with a jerk as if the book was a snake that would bite him. My face was a wrinkle of confusion. Was someone playing a joke on me? Did they pay this man to dress up in a ridiculous costume and give me grief?

In the mirror I saw the pilgrim spin around and stare at me. Well, not at me, but at me in the mirror. I jumped back from the cashier desk and hit the banister behind me. The pain hit the small of my back, but I clamped my mouth shut. It was embarrassing enough to be caught spying on my first customer in a week, much less having him scare me enough to hurt myself.

I saw him turn back around and continue down the aisle, then disappear into the tiny alcove of Shakespeare.

I took a deep breath and rubbed the spot on my back where the banister hit me, or rather where I hit it. I was going to have a bruise, I was sure of it. I stepped back up to the cash register and ran a quick inventory report to start the day, when I heard a loud yell from the back.

“I’ve found it!” the pilgrim cried out. “It’s here!”

I jumped back against the banister again, and this time I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. “Ow!” I grimaced. I was definitely going to have a bruise this time.

I waited for the pilgrim to share his find with me, and through the mirror I saw him stepping back through the poetry section toward the front, cradling a thick black book in his hands. His face was lit up – as if he’d just witnessed the birth of his first child – and with a grand gesture he set the dark book on the glass counter top in front of me.

Cautiously, I stepped forward and looked down at the book. The embossing on the cover was barely legible, and although he had referred to me as a young man I was no longer young enough to be able to read without glasses. With a finger tip I pushed the corner of the book and spun it around to face me and leaned in.

Pressed into the cover of the book were two words, and when I read them, I was sure I had never seen this book in my store before. I knew I hadn’t stocked it, and I’d never seen it on the inventory list, but there it was. Pilgrim’s Pride. A rectangular, dark, thick book that looked to be from the early 1900′s based on the style of the cover material. I was positive that I had never seen the book before.

I looked up into the eyes of the pilgrim and they were wild with excitement – an almost frantic look that made me take a step back for fear that he was going to attack me at any moment. I stood up straight and looked at the man again. “Pilgrim’s Pride,” I said. “Where did you find this book?”

to be continued…