P__c_-N_z

My work had largely ground to a halt. I woke up some mornings uncomfortably sprawled over the giant cable spindles, odd-sized orange crates and double-rolled hobo blankets that formed the bulk of furniture in my shed-office. I would work some hours, as if in a fugue, but would review the words I'd written and find they were all complete garbage. I was unmoored. Also, I smelled a little funky.

Most nights I was sleeping in the house, and showering the next morning, but the number of hours spent in the poorly ventilated and badly decaying shed were starting to show in terms of odd smells permeating my hair and skin. I don't remember what exactly had happened, but one morning, I heard my neighbor mowing grass and I realized it must have been Saturday. I decided to walk the earth. Or at least walk the neighborhood.

Rondo, my neighbor with the lawnmower appeared to sleep approximately never. He wasn't like regular party-neighbors, overgrown frat boys and the like. He was of an undetermined age, and probably from some country in South America. He had large earlobes like an Inca, and was drunk between 50 and 75 percent of his waking hours. Sometimes his truck didn't work, so he would ride a bicycle. All the folks on our street lived in fear of the truck permanently ending its run on earth, because it was bound, therefore, to join the decaying Soviet-era Lada and similarly non-functional eggplant-colored Opel that marked the beginning of Rondo's large lot.

Rondo mowed the grass on Saturdays, quite early. He never 'won' the battle with the grass, and routinely was the subject of complaints from the townspeople. It is possible that this is because he mowed the grass still drunk from the previous evening's revelry. He told everyone he was an artist, architect of sculptor. Most people thought he painted houses for friends.

I wandered out past Rondo's wild patch of earth and saw him pushing the mower over a barren patch of dirt under heavy tree-cover. The mower was either missing a wheel or had the four wheels adjusted to different heights. I could see how his mowing was largely ineffective.

The walks had become more routine, but as the neighborhood had gentrified, there were less folks there Monday through Friday than on a Saturday morning like this one. I strolled down the street parallel to our own and thought about how smart it would have been to bring a dog on such a nice walk. I spotted a yard sale and decided to peruse the goods. There was very little chance I had any money to buy spend on my person, but I determined that there was equally little chance of finding something I really needed.

Then I saw the pince-nez.

They were in a leather pouch maybe three inches across and barely an inch tall. The inside was lined with delicate velvet. The tiny metal horseshoe that connected the lenses was gently used but silvery with a patina that made it beautiful. I may have even said it aloud, but I surely thought: "I must have this." I went to the person who seemed in charge of the yard sale to determine their price. My pockets were empty, I knew, but I felt as if these pince-nez had found me for a reason. I would possess them.

A clump of bills in my pocket formed my offer: "Seven dollars."

"Fine." The ornery homeowner turned his back on me and I dropped the leather pouch into my shirt pocket.

Returning to the shed at a half-run, I'm sure I looked like I had to use the men's room. I sat behind my word processor and with a flourish attempted to perch the pince-nez on my nose. In my head, a envisioned the great writers of a bygone era, sitting behind Underwood typewriters in tweed suits banging out exposes and muckraking novels with a pince-nez sharpening their focus. Upton Sinclair, I.F. Stone, F. Scott Fitzgerald, all surely used the pince-nez as an inspiration at one time or another.

The lenses were filthy. After some elbow grease, I made them usable. Perched on the end of my nose, with my head further than normal from the screen, I began to type. This would be my turning point. I would remember the pince-nez moment.