My Memories of Tom Verlaine

Hanging Out at Strand Bookstore

I was very sad to hear of the death of Tom Verlaine. I am not really familiar with his music, and cannot therefore add to the many words of appreciation that others have contributed. I got to know Tom quite well in recent years through our mutual delight in browsing among the $1 or $2 books stacked on the trolleys outside Strand Bookstore on Broadway and 12th Street.

Tom would spend hours a day meticulously going through each one of the trolleys parked outside the store, starting from the top shelf and working his way down to the bottom shelf. Every day, he would show up at least twice—once in the morning, once in the evening—and devote himself to hunting down what he considered rare finds.

After a while, I began to look forward to going to the Strand most evenings in the certain knowledge that I would see Tom there, either straining his eyes in the darkness (making sure that he didn’t miss a single book or pamphlet) or engaging in long, lively conversations with fellow-Strand aficionados

His interests were extraordinarily wide-ranging. He would greet me very excited, having found some book about traveling through New York in the 1930s or a volume of verse by an obscure poet from the 1960s or a vegetarian cookbook or the score of a long-forgotten musical or a memoir of the music scene in the 1980s. He would often come over with a book to where I was browsing and recommend that I buy it. Since, as likely as not, the book was about something I didn’t know much about—and the book only cost $1—I would generally follow his recommendation. However, I soon came to notice, he never reciprocated. Not once did he follow my recommendation. Out of politeness, he would place the book back on the cart and promise that he would buy it the following day.

His physical abilities were awe-inspiring. He was a tall man; so in order to be able to go through, one by one, the books on the bottom shelves of the trolleys, he would have to crouch down. To my amazement, he could stay in a crouching position for extraordinary lengths of time—cigarette in hand or dangling from his mouth— completely absorbed in a book he had just discovered. His eyesight too was amazing. As anyone who has frequented the Strand in the evening knows, it’s not particularly well lit outside. And the books on the trolleys are old, with the lettering on the covers sadly faded, almost invisible. Yet, the dark didn’t bother Tom: While I couldn’t make very much out below the upper two shelves of the trolleys and couldn’t in any case maintain a crouching position for any length of time, he could somehow spot an interesting title anywhere.

When Tom wasn’t reading a book he had just picked up, he would be tidying up. Most perusers of the $1 or $2 trolleys are very careless about the way they put the books back: some place the books upside down or back to front, some don’t put the books back at all and simply leave them lying around. This would infuriate Tom. He always wanted to see the trolleys tidy, with books neatly shelved, smaller books at the top, bulkier books at the bottom.

Every hour or so, some lugubrious Strand employee would come out to refill the trolleys. Tom would immediately rush over to help out. Of course, that enabled him to get a head start on everyone else and grab for himself any interesting tome. However, he also didn’t think that the Strand clerks did their jobs very well. Sometimes they packed the trolleys too tightly—sometimes too loosely, as a result of which books would fall over or fall to the ground. At times, Tom would stand angrily by the Strand exit on 12th Street, glowering at the Strand employees inside, hoping his angry face would shame them into stopping whatever they were doing and starting to wheel out badly-needed bookshelf replacements.

When Tom wasn’t reading, browsing or tidying up at Strand, he would be engaged in lengthy, energetic conversation with almost anyone. He was friendly, charming and modest, and always interested in what others had to say. He would chat happily with a young Math teacher about the space-time continuum, with me about politics, with someone else about computers. He seemed interested in everything. Every so often some musician from the 1970s or 80s would stop by to chat, as would someone who once owned a recording studio or someone who used to hang out at CBGB or someone who once owned a club in Boston or someone Tom once shared a house with. It was almost as if Tom were the host of a daily Strand party. I would arrive at some point in the evening, stay for an hour or so and leave: he would be there when I arrived and still there when I left.

This went on for a number of years—I have lost track of how many. When I last saw him, it was to tell him that I was leaving New York probably for good and that therefore I wouldn’t be hanging out at the Strand anymore. He was taken aback by the news. However, over my shoulder he saw the gloomy Strand clerk come out with new books to refill the shelves. Tom immediately cheered up and rushed over to examine the fresh batch.

Tom Verlaine RIP