The old and the new

I met this morning with a former client, who is, for a little while, a client again. He called before the holidays, saying he needed some assistance.

I'd helped him for several years with his project, which officially ended last spring. He has written a book, which he calls a textbook. It's filled with facts and stats and I know a lot more about a particular war than I ever dreamed I would know.

The book is not exactly dreadful but neither does it offer up much new information, which I suppose is primary for a nonfiction book. Of course there is little new information because my client used mostly secondary sources. I think he has about four footnotes in the entire 550+ page tome that are primary sources.

The kicker is my client is in his 80s. He is a kindly old gentleman, very much the southerner with polite manners and a pleasing drawl. Without giving too much away, not because he knows anything about the Internet but his children or grandchildren might, he was once a leader of grand proportion in this area of the country. And I suppose in some circles he still is a leader. He has a commanding presence and an indomitable spirit, and I imagine in his younger days he was a very handsome man. I am truly honored to have been a helper to him and I have learned a great deal from my time with him.

However, the work was downright painful for me. For years - yes, really, years - our twice-weekly work sessions went like this: he sat on the sofa while I sat, pen poised over a legal pad, in a wing-backed chair that killed my back. He would not use a tape recorder, nor could I use a laptop or anything else because it created a barrier between us that he did not like. He wanted my full attention.

He sat, thinking, for long interminable minutes, sometimes as much as a quarter hour. Many times I dozed, waking with a start as my head lolled. Sometimes I wrote scraps of poetry, but I could not get too far off in my thoughts because at any moment he would erupt into dictation. Occasionally it would be such a long time that I would fear he had stopped breathing, and I would begin peering at him. I would be greatly relieved when I could see his nose hairs twitching, a sure sign that he had inhaled.

I was not his first "secretary," but when I picked up this task (thinking it would be more editorial work than personal secretary, I assure you) I think he had about 250 pages of words. He added (he very seldom subtracts) much more information. Every time he found a new book, he would find new facts to place in his story. Over the years, he sent the thing off to one publisher, who turned him down, and then another, who also turned him down, and yet another, who did the same.

In our last year of working, that is to say, 2005, my patience lapsed, not in the least because I was bored out of my skull. I also had many other things on my mind, as I was working on my Master's (which I have not completed) and freelancing, and when he called me back in early 2006 for some wrap-up work (like we're doing now) I was ill. I was - and still am - certain that his house, which is musty and moldy because it is an older home, under the trees, was a contributing factor to the allergies that flared up so badly last year that I thought I might die from them.

I never told him I was miserable but I suppose he could sense it and our time together petered out, because I lost interest totally and the book was, as best I could tell, as finished as it was going to be. Having decided that the book was never going to sell, and that he would never turn his attention to another more exciting project (I do wish he'd write his memoirs), I found the work even more difficult, and I did not feel it ended well. I was, however, glad it ended.

Of course, a large part of what he was paying me for was my company, because I can carry on a decent conversation, and could match him with observations about the political climate in the valley, or most anything else, for that matter. But that eventually became a chore too, because I wasn't feeling well.

I kept in touch with him last year, calling him twice just to see how he was getting along. I don't dislike him, after all, and he has been kind to me. His call asking me for assistance wasn't completely unexpected, as he'd hinted at it the last time we spoke, in September.

I thought he had given up, with the submission last spring, but he now has yet another publisher's name. He told me this morning that he wants to make minor corrections and send it out yet again. About 12 hours work, all told, perhaps.

I can do this.

Things were a little different this morning. He was prepared for me, with notes in hand, and we sat at the kitchen table (thank goodness) instead of on the sofa and the wing back chair. The house still smells musty and old, but hopefully my (very expensive) allergy medication will keep whatever that might stir up at bay. And while I had some moments of utter silence whilst I stared out the window and watched two squirrels go at it on a branch while he thought about something, it was, for the most part, work.

And I much prefer to work, but honestly, I'd probably help the old guy out just because.