Joseph Gallo

And as long as my mother's alive, the book is alive.

And if the book is alive, then in some abstract way, AJ is alive.

And I want them to be alive.

I want them alive.

And so one day I'm driving to the bookstore, excuse me, to the nursing home.

I see the bookstore and I can't take it anymore.

I pull into the bookstore.

Angela Merkel recognizes me right away.

And I say, listen, you know, I gave you a book and I need it back.

And she says, well, if we still have it.

And so we searched the bookstore and we can't find it.

And so she brings me into the basement.

And the basement looks like a mini version of the warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

It's just...

aisles and aisles and aisles of books stacked from floor to ceiling and Angela Merkel is checking the shelves for the book and I tell her everything that I've just told you here tonight and finally she finds the book and she takes it off the shelf and she looks down at the cover oh holy cow and she smiles and she opens it up and she reads the inscription inside aloud and

To Joseph, instant stories from the field of dreams.

I thought you would enjoy this.

Love, AJ.

And she closes the book, and she hands it to me, and she says, you should tell that story.

And so I just did.