The Little Black Notebook

It was a cloudless first day of May when I found it. I always stopped by the bookstore when I walked in that part of town. On sunny days, the owner put out a table filled with books that hadn’t found a home. Besides the books, there was a coffee can chained to the table and a sign that said “Take a book. Donations accepted.” The can had a slot in its lid where you could put a little money if you had any and thought a book was worth it. Sometimes, if I had any, I’d put some change in. Most of the books, well, let’s just say there was a reason they were on that table. Occasionally, though, a gem hid amongst the dreck.

The table always contained a mix of new and used books, some with a previous owner’s name in the front, or even notes in the margins. Those books were my favorites. I always wondered about the journey that brought them to that table. Was the owner dead or did they just grow tired of the book? Or maybe, just maybe, it was a gift for my benefit alone. The universe is funny that way.

No wonder, then, that this book caught my eye. It was a classic Moleskine notebook with an unadorned black cardboard cover and an inside filled with pages of fine-lined ivory paper. But these pages weren’t blank, oh no. Someone had filled them with tiny cramped printing. Page after page packed with disjointed words and phrases, numbers, codes, and occasional sketches of what I can only call sigils.

What could it be? An engineer’s notes? A witch’s grimoire? A mad scientist’s lab results? Whatever it was, the pages called to me. Fate had deposited that little black notebook there for my benefit. I reached in my pocket for some change. Three nickels and two pennies. Seventeen cents, all I had to my name. This book was special though, I could feel it. I put all my change in the can, stuck the notebook in my depleted pocket, and went to find a spot where I could study my find.

I spent days poring over those pages, sitting on the sidewalk with my can in front of me and the cardboard sign that said, “Please help, anything is appreciated.” I was so lost in the numbers and codes and diagrams I didn’t even notice people passing by. When I’d hear coins hit my can I would mutter an automatic “Thank you, God bless you,” but that was it. The book became my entire life. The contents made no sense. There was no structure. Some pages had occasional names or dates, but they didn’t seem to connect with anything. There were no titles, just words, numbers, letters and diagrams all jumbled together. I’d discover a pattern only to watch it shift and dissolve. What was this book? I had to know!

I stopped interacting with the people passing by, but it didn’t seem to matter. The first four days I spent with the book, I had a handful of singles amongst the change, then a five. Five dollars—a fortune to me! I stuck that magical bill in a different pocket and vowed not to spend it. Anything over a single was special, and more than I needed to survive.

That started happening more often. I never saw who was putting bills in my can, never looked up from the book. But most days, I’d find a fiver in there. Then a ten, then a twenty. Twenty dollars? Who gives twenty dollars to a panhandler, especially one just flipping through the pages of a little black notebook? I lived on the change and singles. Every time I got anything bigger than a single, it would go in my pocket with the first fiver. After a month, I pulled those special bills out of my pocket and counted them. Two hundred and forty-five dollars! More money than I’d ever held at one time. I crammed it back in my pocket before anyone could notice. Whatever was going on, I knew the book had to be behind it. The more I’d probe the secrets hidden in the notebook, the more big bills I’d stuff in my pocket.

On good days the numbers and letters and words and sigils would all dance in my head, putting me into a trance where patterns flitted through the pages. I sensed that this was a puzzle I couldn’t solve in pieces; I wouldn’t understand anything until I understood everything. I must be getting closer because I kept finding more money in my can. Someone—or something—was rewarding for my work, but I didn’t know why.

Weeks and months passed, the seasons changing, summer gone and the chill winds of fall biting through my old wool blanket as I sat huddled on the sidewalk. Days were shorter, and fewer people walked the sidewalks, but still the large bills would come in, tens and twenties, even a fifty a few times, and then one day a hundred-dollar bill. I’d never even seen one of those before. I hadn’t noticed a single person that day. The weather had turned cold and wet, and I huddled in a sheltered corner to get out of the wind and rain. No one even walked by me, but somehow there was that bill, all alone in my can.

I counted my money that night. Nine hundred and sixty-five dollars plus that magical hundred-dollar bill. I had over a thousand dollars! I had never even dreamed of that much money before. But still I didn’t spend any, I just kept it all crammed in my pocket. I felt I had to solve the puzzle before I could spend any of that money.

Ignoring the larger bills had been easy during the summer, when I might pull in twenty dollars in singles and change on a good day. Now, though, need tempted me to dip into the special reserve. Some days I’d be lucky to make a couple bucks in change. There were many hungry nights, but I kept my resolve.

That wasn’t the only hundred that showed up. They were never common, but on days when I didn’t see a single soul passing by, I would find one in my can. I never saw who put any of the big bills in my can. I had no idea who my benefactor was or why they were contributing, other than that it must have something to do with the notebook.

Fall turned to winter, people stayed home, and money grew scarce. Sometimes I would need a week to save enough for one dented tin of tuna. Most of my meals came out of a dumpster. I might have starved if Christmas hadn’t come when the days were at their shortest. That wonderful shopping season when the sidewalks bustle again and people feel generous. Experience had taught me not to spend all the extra income because by the new year it would vanish again, and things would be lean until the weather warmed up. The big bills never stopped, though. Just one or two a day, but every day now. Almost always twenties or higher, too. I didn’t dare count it. If I knew how much I had, I might spend it. I’d just stuff those magical bills in my now bulging pocket.

The snows of January and February gave way to the blustery rain of March, and before long, the days were longer and the weather warmer. I still sat on my corner, huddled in my blanket holding my little black notebook. April flew by until at last it was April 30. Tomorrow would be May Day again, or Beltane as I’d heard it called, one year to the day from when I’d found the notebook. On that last day of April, for the first time in many weeks, there were no large bills in my can. Instead, there was a note, a scrap of paper torn from another notebook like mine, with words written in that same cramped hand.

“You don’t need it anymore. Pass it on.”

That’s all it said, but I knew there would be no more large bills in my can. I pulled out the money I’d saved and counted it. Twice. Three times. Each time was the same. Twenty thousand dollars exactly.

The note was right. I hadn’t solved the puzzle, but I didn’t need the notebook anymore. I could close my eyes and see every page. Countless hours of study left the notebook indelibly etched into my brain.

The next morning, the first of May, I returned the book to the table outside the bookstore, leaving it for the next person. I took a little of my stash of money and bought some new clothes, and got a haircut and a proper shave. It was time to find a job. On a whim, I tried the bookstore where I’d found the book, and to my surprise the owner, Stan, was looking for someone to help. He’d grown old and his eyesight was getting bad, and it was just too hard to sort through all the books, to figure the prices, to keep track of the bills. He hired me on the spot. When I brought the books in from the sidewalk table that night, the little black Moleskine notebook was gone.

One year later, on another fine May day, the notebook came back. It did so each May, like clockwork. I never saw who took it or who brought it back, and I never figured out what the contents meant, though I still know every page by heart. I only hope that it brought each person the same joy and wonder it brought me. It’s been fifteen years now. Stan died last year. I figured that was it for my employment, but he’d left the shop to me as he had no family. So now I run the bookstore, and will until I die as well, if only to keep the magic of the little black notebook going. I’ll be looking for an assistant soon, someone who can appreciate the charm of a used black notebook. If you know anyone like that, please send them by.