-or-

Born 11 x 17 in an 8-1/2 x 11 World

by Greg Hischak
03.12.01

THE COPYSHOP WHERE I WORK the graveyard shift is a favorite of alchemists. It's a copyshop of alchemists and I wouldn't mind so much if they didn't keep running the 11 x 17 paper through when the 8-1/2 x 11 would work just as well. I charge them the 8-1/2 x 11 price for the 11 x l7—I mean, I get paid by the hour regardless, but still. If they didn't always slip me a six-pack after Tony the Manager goes home—I'd probably charge them the 11 x 17 rate.

It's generally considered that my neighborhood is an alchemist neighborhood and that the Moonstruck Bar & Grill, just across the street, two doors down, is an alchemist bar. It's where they hang out waiting for the copyshop to clear out. Around midnight they start showing up, five or six alchemists at a time, and they're here till about five in the morning.

Because this place has a reputation as being an alchemist's copyshop, I'm shrugging off people's sly queries all the time. "Are you an alchemist too?" Girls ask me while I'm fixing a paper jam and I start to squirm. I get uncomfortable getting mistaken for an alchemist. When people eye how I load a tray of 8-1/2 x 11, or observe how long I stir the cream into my coffee—I get uncomfortable.

Still, I like my job enough and I don't mind alchemists being here—I'm really not paid enough to mind—and for the most part they don't cause much trouble. Occasionally, one of them gets all excited over a copy and, starts whooping in Latin. At that point I have to kick them out, but I'll let them back in the following night.

People have absurd notions about what alchemists do together—spare me the jokes, I've heard them all—but if you really want to know what alchemists do in my copyshop, I'll tell you:

They photocopy.

They make copies all night. From the paper tray, they take the copy just made and place it on the copier glass—replacing the sheet that the copy just got made from. A copy of that sheet is then made and the process repeated. Working the copiers with the graceful self-assured movements of master coachmen or professional fly fishermen, this is what actually goes on all night and as far as those stories about swinging copyshops of alchemists back in the seventies—thousands of copies dashed off with the lid up, the copy glass empty—total abandon stuff. Maybe that still happens on the West Coast, but here—those days are gone.

Tony the Manager jingles the keys in his pocket and asks me what all the guys in the dirty beige raincoats are up to.

"I think they're students or something," I lie. It's not my job to tell Tony his copyshop is a hangout for alchemists.

"Students?" Tony re-positions the Ford Mustang beltbuckle under his protruding stomach and jingles his keys again.

"What kind of students, you suppose?"

"Probably chemistry, or film history. Maybe library sciences."

Having momentarily calmed Tony's suspicions, I launch into a commentary about Starwhite Vicksburg 241b bond until he gets bored and says good night.

"Alright then. Keep an eye on them then."

"I'm all eyes, boss," I say.

Two dozen alchemists show up at about one that morning to start photocopying Nicolas Flamel's 16th century treatise on Amorphic Transmutation. Like most of their source material, it's probably lifted from the rare books sections of university libraries and in honor of the event they've slipped me a case of Pabst early.

Like I told Tony the Manager, I'm all eyes. I mean, sure, I'm a little curious and it used to make me uncomfortable, but if you watch alchemists photocopy enough it loses its shock value. I guess I've always been a little curious about alchemy, but that doesn't mean I'll start discussing the revivification of mercury as soon as I'm alone with a guy. No way.

I watch as the crumbling yellow pages of Flamel's treatise are torn from their bindings and photocopied. Using as many as seven machines simultaneously, the pages are copied and from those copies new copies are made—and on and on. As the night passes, printed text is reduced to blurs and glyphs, recopied and reconfigured until the hidden texts emerge. Around the 27,323rd copy, an alchemist starts squealing:

"A commentary on the calcification of sulphur!"

The alchemists are all jumping around—thank God there's no one else in the shop—as I roll my eyes. The Flamel piece is interesting, but to be honest you can photocopy a grocery list and get a calcification of sulphur. I've calcified sulphur a dozen times just by photocopying my driver's license—I mean, I don't do it a lot. But once in a while when no one is around I'll calcify sulphur, or sublimate an orb of manganese using a couple reams of Hammermill 281b offset. It doesn't mean anything—I bet a lot of people do it and just don't talk about it.

Shortly before sunrise, the last alchemist packs up the lose pages of the Flamel treatise and comes to the counter. His key-counter indicates 24 copies. He smiles and hands over 96 cents in change. I know how they do it. That aspect of alchemy is certainly not magic. Every morning before leaving I'll retrieve a dozen key counters—never with less than 25,000 copies—from the garbage bin just outside. I let it go—like I said, I don't get paid enough to stop them.

I think there's probably a lot of misconception about alchemy. People think it's about gold. I don't think it's about gold at all. I think it's about regeneration and the regenerative powers that copiers possess. Operating on principles of heat and light and pressure and static, a photocopier is basically an instrument designed for Photocopaedic Morphisization. You get a roomful of these instruments and keep it available twenty-four hours, you're going to attract alchemists.

I think it should be accepted that some people enjoy the purgation, sublimation, calcination and exuberation of androgyne manganine. That sometimes something happens between a guy and a Cannon NP2300—some people are born that way, or get that way from not playing enough sports. Me, I'm not fascinated so much as just interested. Sure there are some days when I lie in bed thinking I was born 11 x 17 in an 8-1/2 x 11 world. Everybody gets thinking that once in a while, I think it's probably normal, isn't it?

Sometimes on a slow night I'll photocopy my face or some part of my anatomy, depending on the crowd, and just start making copies—just for kicks. Twice I've morphisized my face into the 1974 Buick LaSabre that my father drove—usually at the 27,000 mark. That seems to be the point where Photocopaedic Morphisization really kicks in. Once at 31,002 copies, only a paper jam stood between me and a reduction of erbium—a purified reduction true, not a fixed reduction—but still that was the closest I ever came to producing a real Philosopher's Toner—I'm not really allowed to say anything else about these things. I mean nobody's stopping me but. . . it just gets boring . . . actually.

"They're just making copies of copies," I explain again to Tony the Manager whose cabbage-like head would explode if I attempted to explain Photocopaedic Morphisization and its transformative properties propelling one toward the Golden Real, the 8-1/2 x 11 of Rapture—I just keep quiet.

Tony is staring across the shop at the hunched backs of four Alchemists at work. Their toner-stained raincoats bulge noticeably with extra key-counters as he turns to me slowly, mumbling under his breath:

"You don't suppose those guys there are a bunch of. . . ?"

"Tony, I've been meaning to ask you."

"Those guys at Number Seven. . ."

"Tony, is vanilla a nut or a bean?"

Tony falls deep into thought and is oblivious as one of the alchemists removes the key counter from Number Seven with his right hand and slides it into his pocket while simultaneously plugging a fresh counter into the machine with his left hand. One of the alchemists looks back at me and winks.

Great, just great.

An alchemist is winking at me and Tony is getting suspicious and suddenly, rather than try to explain my actions—because sometimes you just can't explain actions, you can only act on truth—I wink back. I didn't mean anything by it—it's just a wink, right?

The alchemists place their document against the glass, selecting:

8-1/2 x 11.

Copy.