This story took quite a while to finish. I started in the fall of 2002 and finished the
summer of 2004. It was a lesson in dialogue. I wanted students to see how the voices of
the characters moved a story far more effectively than the narrator. It is based on the
town my mother is from, so that gave me an opportunity to talk about basing one’s
characters on people that you know personally.
Finishing a Book
Jim Gilbert
If you are a careful map reader, and have no problem seeing miniature print, you
just might find Hawesville. The half spot of a town lies at the Kentucky base of the
Lincoln Trail bridge, an imposing structure that arches high like a huge angry gray cat
trying to keep its feet from getting wet in the river. Girdled by hills from the west and
south, the little village had once been victim to the unmerciful Ohio during the spring
floods, but the Corps of Engineers had stunted Mother Nature by shielding the hamlet
with a floodwall back in the 40’s. The people of Hawesville felt secure behind the
snaking mound of dirt and rock. In their minds it was an unfailing armament, keeping the
sullied river from defacing their well swept sidewalks.
All of the town’s thirteen-hundred inhabitants resided safely inside the wall
except one. Cyrus Hensley lived one-quarter of a mile upstream in a grounded
houseboat. Preferring complete isolation, he remained alone in the same remote spot for
almost twenty years. Few of the locals ever came in contact with Cyrus, and he became a
bit of a legend. A newspaper reporter from Louisville who wrote a feature story on the
town mentioned him as “The Hermit of Hawesville.” The nickname instantly stuck. The
younger citizens knew little about their famed citizen, and they created tales about him
worthy of a legend. After all, very few small communities could lay the claim of having
a hermit. The older residents smiled at the fabrication of Cyrus’ image, but they could
remember the days before he fled from civilization. To them he was just plain crazy.
Both generations agreed that it was best to leave him undisturbed, and they did just that.
Only his sister Grace and her husband John Blaser, who was the county sheriff, kept any
contact with him.
One summer morning Cyrus’ body was found downstream in Owensboro. After
searching the old houseboat, the authorities decided that no foul play was apparent. The
Hancock County Coroner ruled the cause of death as accidental drowning. Although the
death of the local legend created a great deal of talk for the townspeople, not many
showed up to the Friday night visitation at the Sander’s funeral home. Those that did
attend knew of Cyrus better than most, and they wanted to be a comfort for his grieving
sister.
“I tell you he was a mess. One of the worst things I ever saw, body swollen so
big, and his skin was white as a sheet. I got the call on the radio that they had found him.
When I got there they was just pullin’ him out; his skin would just slough off as they
tugged at him. Awful! On a job like mine you see plenty of dead people, but not like
this. It just about kilt Grace, she was shakin’ so. They didn’t let her see him till
yesterday morning, had to prepare the corpse they said. She was shakin’ and cryin’ like
ten women. The only way she could tell it was him was by the eyes, he had these green
eyes you see, one look at them and Grace began a wailin’ and hollerin’ to the Lord as
loud as she could. Terrible! But what you gonna do? You couldn’t watch him, he never
came from behind that floodwall.”
Sheriff John Blaser was addressing the semi-circle of chairs in the funeral home’s
outer parlor. The cluster of gray-heads had shown up to pay their respects. The night
was approaching, and the small-town sunshine stretched the shadows. Remnants of the
dull light leaked into the windows. The day had been wretchedly hot, and the early
evening temperature hadn’t dropped off. Young Charley Sanders had just spent a large
sum on the renovation of the funeral business he had inherited last year. The one
hundred-year-old building had been stripped and painted, and a brand new, state of the art
air conditioner had been installed. This new appliance was so cost effective that it failed
to work on the hotter days saving the enterprise several hundred dollars on utility bills.
“Christ it is hot,” said Sheriff Blaser wiping his large pink forehead with a slightly
spotted handkerchief. “How can you run a funeral home without air conditioning?
Those bodies in the back are probably smellin’ up to high heaven about now.”
“Been a hot summer, it has,” observed Tom Champer, a local authoritarian on the
subject of the weather. “But not too bad; not like back in ‘64; now there was a real
scorcher.”
Stacey Treadman tapped her foot while she waved a memorial pamphlet in front
of her face. She could remember a dozen or so summers that had been hotter, but she felt
it was a little too cliché for a gathering of older people to talk about the weather. “I do
wish that Grace would come in here and join us. It’s not good that she stay in there alone
with Cyrus.”
“Aww, she’ll be O. K.,” replied Sheriff Blaser, “Prefers to be left alone when
she’s like this. Can’t see the body anyway, they closed the casket on account of him
being mangled up so. The doctor seems to think he got caught up in a barge. I feel sorry
for the ol’ bastard, but it’s his own damn fault, livin’ like that, away from everybody.
And I’ll tell you, I could never talk no sense to him. Always looked right through me.
Once in awhile I would try to go fishin’ with him, but he just sat there. I might as well
have gone fishin’ with a rock. You could never get him to talk about anythin’; he’d just
always ask, ‘Where’s Grace?’ like she was the only person in the world. I tell you what it
was - he was always reading them damn books, all the time! I’d go out there and he’d
have a book in his hand; never saw him without one. Now I ask you, why would a man
read all the time like that? What good will it do to keep your nose pressed down in a
book, and never get anything done. Grace would always be buyin’ them for him, poor
woman. If it weren’t for her he would have never ate, he’d had died a long time before.
She took him food every Saturday, and more of them God-damned books. . .”
“Sheriff please!” interrupted Ruby Parker. “That language is most disrespectful.
I’ll mind that you don’t take the good Lord’s name in vain. . .”
“For pete’s sake Ruby Mae, this ain’t no church. Ain’t nobody gonna pray in a
funeral home. As I was sayin’, Grace would always take this poor bastard food. Since
their momma died she always took care of him and all. I never wanted her to go to that
ol’ rusted boat, always looked like it was gonna fall right off into the river; it was so close
to the locks that I was always afraid he was gonna be kilt by a runaway barge or
something. But Grace would be hard-headed and tell me that she had promised her
momma that she would always be there for him.”
“The poor fool,” said old Tom Champer. “You know, it really hurt him when his
momma passed away. She was a beautiful woman, she was. A saint to them children.
Now that was a big funeral; probably cost a fortune. I think old man Sanders retired on
the money he made off of them children that day. But that family always had money.
Their savin’s and loan was a little gold mine. When those corporates bought us that
bank, she made a killin’. Always good to them children, she was. They were never
without nothin’. Broke Cyrus’ heart when she died, it did. Right after that he bought up
that houseboat.”
“That old ugly boat!” popped Ruby. “Now how could anyone live in such a
trap?”
“I know exactly what you mean,” said Stacey. “Why, it looked like an overgrown
garbage can. How did he drag that big thing so far up on the bluff?”
Homer Newton spoke a little louder than everyone else. “Remember the big flood
we had in ‘78? Well, they were a closin’ off the floodgates when Grace hollered, ‘But
what about Cyrus?’ Seems like we all forgot about him. We looked over the wall, but
couldn’t see him; thought he might’a floated down stream. After the waters dropped they
found him up on the bank. He managed to tie himself off to some trees and pull his boat
closer to shore. Ended up propped up on that ledge. Flood waters never got him after
that.”
“I would see him up there time and agin’ when I went fishin’,” recalled Tom,
“but never could get him to say nothin’ much. He would sit out there on an old lawn
chair writin’ on some paper. Wouldn’t even wave most the time. Seemed mighty
unfriendly.”
Stacey leaned forward in her chair, “Well I think this whole thing is strange.
None of us have seen him in years except last month when he went up to Louisville for
Celene Thompson’s funeral. Now he’s dead, I just think that is just peculiar.”
“Say, what about that Thompson girl?” asked Homer. “What she die of anyway?”
“It was the cancer,” said Ruby taking out a tissue, “It was horrible. That city air
will kill you. I told her and Martin not to move, but he got that job at that Navy plant.
He said he couldn’t stay in a place like Hawesville after seeing Vietnam.”
“I tell you he was one of them crazy veterans that went around burning the flag,
he did!”
“Shut-up Tom, he weren’t no crazy man,” said Sheriff Blaser. “And don’t talk
that way in front of his cousin Ruby, don’t mind him Ruby he don’t know. Martin
weren’t no crazy man at all, he got shot up in that damned war. Stayed mad at the
government for sendin’ him there, but at least he fought for his country instead of movin’
to Canada like some of those long hairs. They called him up on that job in Louisville and
he took it. I would of done it if I was him; good paying job - workin’ on those Navy
guns.”
“Those guns make a powerful noise,” exclaimed Homer. “I was a gunman on the
Missouri during the Pacific Campaign, you know. We’d fire them shells all the time.
Louder than thunder!”
“That may explain why you can’t hear today, you old fool,” chastised Stacey.
“Now turn up your hearing aid; you’re about to burst my eardrums. Ruby, I’m terribly
sorry I didn’t make it up to Celene’s funeral. I just don’t have any time anymore, what
with this new grandbaby. . .”
“Thank you Stacey, but don’t you worry. We had plenty of people, and it made
Martin feel so good to see everybody. We were all especially surprised to see Cyrus. I
was taken aback when he walked in with the Sheriff and Grace.”
“Yeah,” began Sheriff Blaser “first time he had been out from behind that wall in
many a year. Grace had to go tell him that Celene died, he never got a newspaper or
anything. Christ, don’t ask me how he lived out in the woods like that. I don’t know
how he even thought on that side of the wall, can’t tell who I am over there, all them
snakes and weeds. I get all confused about where I am going when I try to walk over
there. He never had no problem until he drowned of course.”
A truck with out a muffler rumbled by the funeral home like a whale with a huge
cough. The sheriff squinted out the window to see if he could tell who was driving. “It’s
that damn Johnson boy again!” he exclaimed. “He’s not gonna drive around wakin’
everybody up like that. Anyway we took Cyrus up to Louisville to see the funeral; Grace
had to go get him a new suit out at the Bacon’s in Owensboro. He was so dirty. Filthy! I
think it took three baths just to get all of the mud off of him.”
“Well, we were just so surprised to see him,” chimed Ruby, “I walked right up to
him and said, ‘now there’s the handsome Cyrus Hensley I remember.’ He had shaved
and combed his hair; looked just like he did when I taught him in high school. He was
always such a handsome boy. I remember how all the girls used to swoon over him. Ran
track - set a state record when he was just a freshman. It always seemed like he was
going to have such a good life. He had such a wonderful mind back then; wrote so well,
and was so good in math and science. I’ve never seen a boy with such an imagination; he
would write about love and life, not in a sissy way, mind you, but in a gentle way. Said
that the river helped him think. Always told me about what he planned to do with his
life. Head was so full of dreams; seems like he was chasing after the moon. We thought
he was going to college, but the next year he stopped doing his homework. Then his
momma got real sick, and he stopped coming to school. He always seemed so sad after
that. At any rate, where was I; oh yes, I saw him at the funeral and told him how
handsome he looked, but he didn’t pay much attention to me.”
“When Cyrus came over the wall this whole town fell into shock,” Stacey said.
“My oldest grandson, Willy, came running home all excited, and said that he had seen the
Hermit. Mrs. Beebee then told me that her daughter had actually touched him. Can you
imagine? I would have scrubbed that little girl with lye soap until she was blue.”
Homer was almost beginning to get excited. “I remember that day! I was on my
front porch when Grace brought Cyrus over the floodwall. Couldn’t believe my own
eyes, Cyrus himself! I hollered, ‘Why good Lord! If Cyrus Hensley is a comin’ over the
flood wall, then the world must be a endin’!’ Scared my wife somethin’ fierce. All of
the kids on the street ran up to meet him; they must’a never seen a real hermit before. I
think some of them thought he was a gonna give toys away or somethin’. Pretty soon, it
was like a parade. The little ones made a long line behind him just a laughin’ and
shoutin’. People started lookin’ out their windows at the sight. I hollered at him, ‘Cyrus,
you is lookin’ mighty good for a mud man,’ and we all had a laugh. But them children
didn’t mind a bit that he was so dirty lookin’; they flocked around him all fascinated like.
The whole time he didn’t even crack a smile, looked sorta lost. Had a blank look in his
eyes like he wasn’t even there. Seemed dazed or somethin’. Grace took him into the
house and then the commotion kinda died out. I never thought I’d live to see the day
Cyrus Hensley would come out from behind the flood wall.”
“Yeah, he was really upset when Celene died,” said the Sheriff shaking his head.
“I remember when Martin went to war, Cyrus used to mow Celene’s grass. Always took
real good care of that yard. He was only about thirteen then, just a little fella. Sure
helped out when her husband went to go fight.”
Ruby started crying again. “It was so sad for her when her Martin took off to that
terrible war. I mean its awful when you aren’t married for a year and the country calls up
your husband; the poor girl! They got married as soon as she graduated from high
school. She was such a pretty bride! I remember their service was in the Baptist church;
course she was Catholic, but Martin’s daddy would never hear of a wedding in a Catholic
church for his only boy No, they were married in the Baptist church, and it was such a
beautiful ceremony. You were there Stacey, you remember how gorgeous it was? Her
momma was so happy that she married Martin. Martin was certainly lucky that she stuck
with him because nobody else could have put up with his temper. He can get so nasty;
hot as that red hair of his. Oh, she was such a pretty bride. It was a shame that she had
hit her head on the door a few days before, but we covered that up with a little makeup;
thank God it didn’t show up in their photographs. That wedding photographer was so
good; I wondered what happened to him?”
“I think he died a year or two ago,” started Tom. “Seems like he had some bad
car wreck on U. S. sixty, or maybe that was the old druggist from Cloverport. Anyways,
I remember when Celene was livin’ by herself. The wife would check on her. We’d
send her some apples every once in a while. Cyrus would take them to her; he went over
there almost every day. Seems like such a long time ago. I was none too happy when
Martin came back. Now I’m sorry Ruby, but that boy gives me the shivers. Always
yellin’ and cussin’ like a damn fool, he was. One day I seen him screamin’ at Celene for
lettin’ the dog stay in the house, and that was before he left. When he came back all shot
up, he was even worse. Can’t say that I wasn’t glad to see him move up to Louisville, but
he dragged his poor wife up there, her being all pregnant and all, and wouldn’t even let
her be with her mamma when she had that little boy.”
“Yes,” Ruby started sobbing again. “They should have never left Hawesville.
That city air will kill you.”
“You know I went driving up there a couple times,” Homer reported. “They have
these one-way streets. If you wanna go to a hospital you gotta keep a goin’ around the
block to find a parkin’ space. Once you find one, you can’t back up cause there’s some
fool behind you. So you gotta go around again, but then some one else took the spot.
Now that’s just chaos. I don’t never drive in Louisville unless I have to.”
“Oh Homer,” lectured the Sheriff, “they got one-way streets over in Owensboro
too You just can’t drive; that’s why we suspended your license last year. You’re a
mistake waitin’ to happen, can’t see a foot in front of you without those glasses, and
they’re getting thicker every time I see you.”
“It’s true,” interjected Stacey. “He ran over my dog four years ago. Didn’t even
stop, just kept on goin’.”
“Well I didn’t see your damn dog, Stacey!” Homer said defensively. “How am I
supposed to see every animal in the world?”
Stacey shook. “It was a German Shepherd, you old ass! How can you miss a
German Shepherd?”
“A German Shepherd!” Homer exclaimed. “I got three of them myself. They
make the best watchdogs, they do. I use them for huntin’; found that they are a whole lot
better than beagle hounds. If I recall, Cyrus had an ol’ beagle out there with him in that
boat, didn’t he?”
The sheriff laughed. “He had about every stray dog in town along with all of the
birds and snakes and God knows what else livin’ with him.”
“Oh, how could anyone live like that?” asked Ruby. “You know I won’t let a dog
come into my house. We kept one tied up in the backyard for years, but it never laid a
paw on my carpet. My furniture is not going to smell like wet dogs; you can never get
that scent out of the cushions once it’s in there.”
“Christ, that old place of his stank,” said the Sheriff. “Filthy! He had a table and
one chair in it so you couldn’t sit down and have any kind of conversation with him.
Grace would wash his sheets once a week, but he never made up his bed. The place was
so cramped, just a tiny stove and sink, always had a pile of plates when I went over there,
and a couple book shelves, of course, but that was it.”
Homer shook his head. “What would make anybody wanna stay out there
anyway? Now it just ain’t natural for somebody to go and do that. He had himself
enough money to buy him a real nice place. Could’a got him a job at the aluminum plant,
they always have jobs over there. I never figured that boy out.”
“I tell you, it was his mama dyin’ that did it to him, it was,” started Tom. “He
was just a mamma’s boy. I remember askin’ him when he first started livin’ over there
why he wanted to go and do such a thing and he told me, ‘Because she left me.’ Now
ain’t that sad? Boy missed his mamma so much, he wanted to live away from everybody.
When my mamma died, I had a terrible hurt, I did. I wanted to be left alone myself, but I
had the farm and all. My daddy didn’t leave me no lots of money where’s I could go off
and buy me a trailer and live on the river. Hell, I probably would have done what ol’
Cyrus did, but I was married to my wife. I couldn’t just get up and move like he did.”
Stacey, never satisfied with anyone’s answer, said, “Now I don’t care what you
say, Tom, you’d have to be crazy to try to leave all of civilization. Why wouldn’t he
want to stay in this pretty little town? No one ever does any wrong here, except when the
old blind men run over the dogs. Nothing bad has ever happened here; why, we wouldn’t
let it.”
“You’re definitely right there, Stacey,” Ruby agreed. She had taken a handful of
butterscotch out of her purse and began to offer them around. “That’s why I couldn’t
understand why Martin would have dragged poor Celene away. He had not been back for
three months when they found out she was pregnant with little Lucas. What a darling
child he turned out to be. A ray of pure sunshine. He’s going to get his master’s degree
in education next year; takes after me, you know. He says he will try for a doctorate
next! Celene was always so proud of him. Extremely smart young man, and so good
looking. Oh, he is going to move mountains!”
“Yeah, I met him up at the funeral, seems like a fine boy,” said Sheriff Blaser
popping one of the butterscotch in his mouth. “Who was that tall girl with him?”
“That was Cindy Aikman, his fiancee,” said Ruby. “They are getting married
next year. She caught a good one in Lucas; such a nice boy. I’ve never known him to get
mad about anything. Must take that after his momma’s side. He didn’t get that red hair
like his daddy. It’s too bad that Martin and Celene never had another child. You know,
the doctor told him he was lucky to have fathered the boy; that damned war, it stole so
much from him! No wonder he was always mad. Poor Celene. But she was so pretty in
her casket, the funeral home did such a good job. Looked so young, didn’t she, Sheriff?”
“Looked awful pretty. It really tore Cyrus up to see her in that coffin and all. He
had thought the world of her. I remember back when we all thought that he took those
roses from ol’ lady Pickrell’s garden. Two kids in the school was saying that they saw
that Cyrus had done it, and my Daddy took me with him to question the boy. Daddy was
a little rough with him and yelled a lot. Along come Celene and took up for him. Said
that her dog had gotten loose and chewed up the flowers. Me and Daddy laughed so
hard, we almost bust. He told her to make sure that dog got tied up better and not to let it
happen again.”
Stacey lowered her eyebrows. “I remember that too, but those roses were cut off,
not chewed. Mrs. Pickrell showed me them. How do you explain that sheriff?”
“Hell, Stacey, that was a long enough time ago. I don’t know, maybe Lady
Pickrell cut them off herself. You know she was half out of her mind at the time with
Alzheimer’s and all. Anyway, Cyrus was tore up at that funeral. Wouldn’t even talk to
Martin or even shake his hand, just stared at things with tears wellin’ up in his eyes.
Miserable! Now he would talk to Lucas, Cyrus seemed to like the boy. The two of them
chattered up a storm. I couldn’t understand what either one of them was sayin’ so I took
off to the courthouse up there to see some buddies I have there, and came back to get
Grace and Cyrus later that night.”
“You know Sheriff, you’re right,” said Ruby. “Those two did talk for a long
while. I didn’t even know that Cyrus could still talk. But he did seem awfully sad. I
think that he felt that Celene was a sort of big sister to him. They spent so much time
together when Martin was gone away. Even while talkin’ to Lucas you could see that he
was upset, and he kept gettin’ worse and worse, but I couldn’t pay much attention to that.
I had a ton of things to do helping Martin out with all of our relatives. Our uncle Andrew
was mad because there wasn’t any food. I had to explain to him that you don’t serve
food at visitation.”
“Well they should,” quipped Tom. “I mean if you go to see somebody after they
are dead you should at least get a little somethin’ to eat. Right now I’m starvin’! I’m
thinkin’ I’ll have a big meal at my funeral. At least that will make my friends happy, it
will.”
“You not going to have any friends if you keep talking like that, you old fool,”
chastised Stacey. “I hate these funerals. We all have just hit a spot of the worse luck.
First we lose Celene, and now Cyrus is dead. Daddy always told me that Death takes
three lives when he comes to visit. I wonder which one of us is going to be next?”
Homer appeared as if he was nodding off, but at this question he raised himself up
in his chair. “Probably Tom there, cause I ain’t a goin’ yet. Doctor says my heart got a
thousand more miles left to go. Ever since I quit work I had it easy. Not as easy as ol’
Cyrus had it, mind you, ain’t no one take life that easy. I thought that once he came back
over on this side he was a goin’ to stay, but he went back as soon as he got home with the
sheriff and Grace. Looked mighty different this time. Had a nice suit on and seemed like
someone did a scrubbin’ on his ears. Passed right in front of my house agin’. I hollered,
‘Hey Cyrus, you want to come up here and take a sip? Tell me about the funeral and all.’
Wife was about to kill me for askin’, but he didn’t hear me. The same blank look. When
he got up to the top of the wall he stopped and stared up at the moon. I wondered what
he was doin’ until I looked up myself; it was a big ol’ moon straight up in the sky. Had a
big halo around it, just like in the winter. Big and white and shiny; prettiest moon I’ve
ever seen. I yelled out, ‘That sure is a pretty moon up there ain’t it Cyrus?’ and he
looked at me and shook his head. I was proud of myself that I finally got him to pay
attention to me, and the wife was afraid he was gonna come over to the porch, but he just
walked down over the other side. I didn’t see him agin’.”
“Yeah, I knew he wasn’t gonna stay,” sighed the Sheriff. “I’ll tell you, on the
way back home from Louisville Grace asked him if he would stay for dinner, and he said,
‘I have to finish a book.’ Damn books! I will never understand why he read so much,
put all those silly ideas in his head, didn’t do him a bit of good. Apparently those books
never taught him how to swim.”
“You know,” began Stacey, “there are a couple people in town that have the nerve
to say that he drowned on purpose. There’s a boy next door to me that swears he saw
him walking into the water and not coming back out.”
“There ain’t no need for those kind of ideas round here. That boy had ought to be
whipped for tellin’ lies like that, he should.”
“Imagine, someone a killin’ themselves in Hawesville. That would be the day
now wouldn’t it? Then we all would really have somethin’ to talk about!”
“Yes sir that kind of talk will only upset people. Damn fools! If I catch anyone
lyin’ like that I’ll lock them up. Now I don’t want to hear another word about it; Grace is
in the next room, and she’ll start up her wailin’ if she hears us.”
“My goodness, I forgot all about Grace! Oh, she’s probably grieving away in
there while we’re out here yapping away. Poor thing. It’s hard to lose a brother. And
Cyrus was much too young to die.”
Grace had heard everything that was said in the other room. She sat in a lone
chair beside her brother’s casket. In her hands was a journal she had found beside his
bed. The scattered flowers cast double shadows on the walls from the light of a pair of
faint floor lamps. At her request, the funeral home had pulled the light blue curtains and
turned down the lights. This drove the others out so she could be alone with Cyrus. The
residents of this town always seemed afraid of the dark.
Cyrus was much too young. . .
The words hung in the air over the closed coffin. She could see them clearly and
almost reach out and touch their sharpened edges. The gray-heads had no idea just what
that statement meant. They were so terribly blind.
. . .too young. . .
“In every way,” she finally said.
It was time to say farewell.
“I’ll keep your book, and like I told you before, I won’t let anyone read it. I’m
sorry I couldn’t help you more, but you would never let me. I suppose that seeing the
boy was too much for you. Maybe I shouldn’t have told you that she died, but you would
have been mad at me if I didn’t. You’re going to be buried right next to Momma and
Daddy, and one day I’ll join you all there.”
Grace thumbed through the book one last time. Her amazement had never ceased
for her bother’s writing. The book was filled with his observations of the river:
descriptions of the shapes of driftwood, the swirl of the currents, people who had passed
by in boats, and how the stars and the heavens reflected in the murky, bloody water. In
the margins, he had written a few poems of nature and lost love. She stopped at the final
entry. It was the most penetrating:
July 11,
And tonight we both shall finally rest.
In all of the years Grace had cared for her brother, she had shared his unhappiness
in her own way. Now she could share in his freedom.
“Good-bye Cyrus. I hope you caught your moon.”
She closed the book.