The Outlaw and the Princess

Discovering Tom Robbins

“I’m an outlaw not a philosopher, but I know this much: there’s meaning in everything, all things are connected, and a good champagne is a drink.”-Tom Robbins

I worked with Dan when I was in college. My job, as the receptionist of a company that sold refurbished restaurant equipment, required that I come in on Saturday mornings to answer phones. It was an easy gig, perfect for a spoiled, upper middle class, college girl, trying to earn a little extra cash to pay for books and incidentals.

Saturdays were slow and the sales team took turns giving up their weekends to work. I was allowed to bring in my college homework and study since I was only required to answer phones and welcome the few incoming customers. In between bouts of studying and working, the salesperson of the week would usually float into the wood-paneled reception area to kill time with me.

Dan was the top salesman. He was “older” to my twenty-something self, but likely in his late thirties. He had sandy blond hair, feathered in way that told anyone who saw him that his glory days were the 1970s. Although he wore a short shirt sleeve, button-down shirt and tie, I knew, deep down, he was concert t-shirt type of guy. Maybe because he always wore jeans. Business on the top, party on the bottom. He was a chain smoker and, though at the time I usually only smoked in dance clubs, I would smoke with him on those Saturdays. He would lean against the doorjamb of his office, and I would spin my desk chair around, and we would talk and smoke to pass the time.

I never felt like he was hitting on me, which was surprising because I was used to being flirted with. I was young and cute, and sexually harassing the receptionist was a sport back then, but he never gave me that vibe and I liked that. It made me feel like he thought I had half a brain.

He loved that I was taking literature in college and that’s what we talked about for hours, one long game of “Have you read…?” At some point, he would send me out to get lunch, pulling enough money out of his wallet to pay for both our lunches, knowing I was a starving college student.

Dan always had a paperback book tucked into the back pocket of jeans and anytime there wasn’t a customer, he would pull it out and start reading. And on one particular Saturday, the book he pulled from his pocket was Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins.

I had never heard of Tom Robbins and Dan was eager to introduce him to me. He told me he felt a deep affinity for the outlaw in the book, Bernard Mickey Wrangle, and, once I read it, I had to agree.

Bernard was an outlaw with a deep sense of justice and so was Dan. One day, when one of the women in the office came in with a black eye, which we all knew was courtesy of her husband, Dan pulled her into his office and slammed the door.

Later, after she emerged tear-stained and hiccuping, she told us Dan tried his best to get her to leave her abusive husband and even threatened to go beat the man up. Dan, the outlaw, ready to fight for what was right.

When Dan told me that Still Life with Woodpecker was a love story that takes place inside a Camel cigarettes box, I knew I had to read it. My literary proclivities always ran towards magical realism and Tom Robbins drove that literary vehicle to realms I couldn’t begin to imagine. His books were a college student’s dream, delving into the depths of the counter-culture philosophy, with plenty of sex and drugs. They opened up a world of thinking that I had never been exposed to before.

I would tear through the books and eagerly await the Saturdays when it was Dan’s turn to work, and we would spend the day, in the hazy, smoke filled reception area, talking about philosophy. I probably learned more on those Saturdays than I did in most of my college classes.

Once I graduated, I left the receptionist job and the cast of characters who worked there, the people who-as I think back on it now-had a profound effect on my young adult life. I didn’t stay in touch with Dan and can only hope he’s still out there with a paperback in his back pocket, being an outlaw, fighting for what’s right. I wish he knew how he touched my life.

I still have my collection of Tom Robbins books and I often consider pulling one off the shelf and seeing if it is still as profound as I remember his books being. I think the only thing keeping me from doing it is that I am afraid I will discover I’m too old and jaded to appreciate the philosophy, or will be horrified by his oversexualization of women. Some things are probably best left to our memories, a faded snapshot of a certain time and place.

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Have you read Tom Robbins? He’s not for everyone, but if you haven’t read him, and are interested in dipping a toe in, my favorites of his novels were, Skinny Legs and All and Jitterbug Perfume.

What book(s) changed the way you saw the world? Who introduced you to them?