The sales counter is propped up with cinder blocks and boards. The boards are weighed down by stacks of old books. The stacks stand so high you can hardly see Richard Van Nice sitting alone behind the counter of his namesake bookstore on Lyndale Avenue.

His coffee cup looks like an eight-ounce oil drum — white porcelain stained the color of light crude. The sign hanging above his desk, “Unattended children will be given an espresso and a free puppy.”

This is the life of an old-fashioned bookseller, a guy who lives alone, sleeps on a couch covered with Martha Stewart bedding, and prepares his frozen meals by microwave.

Classic writers might describe Van Nice as a friendly yet eccentric old chap, a man whose sense of humor is hard to pin down, whose knowledge is hard to top, and whose ambitions are dreamy if not impossible to achieve.

When he wins a major lottery, he says, he’ll waltz into Powell’s Bookstore in Portland, Ore., with its 1.7 million titles, or Strand Bookstore in New York, with its 2.5 million books, and politely request, “One of everything, please.”

“I did have the ambition to be kidnapped by a group of women forming a book commune in the hills and needing a book god,” says Van Nice, seated comfortably behind that rickety counter in an equally rickety chair. “I gave them 30 years and they haven’t come for me. I don’t think they’re going to do it.”

The women may not be looking for a book god just yet, but Van Nice is fueled by dreams and complex thoughts, his eccentricities making him more affable than puzzling.

In 23 years of business, the bookseller has earned his share of loyal customers. They are practical people who won’t go anywhere else when looking for a used title. Van Nice, they say, knows more about books than anyone else in town.

“He’s got a good selection — a selection I like,” said Larry Matteson, holding a Louis L’Amour title and other Western tales. “He’s got what I need and his prices are great.”

Dorene Menichino said, “I like him. He knows his books and the price is right. Of course, I just trade.”

Van Nice lives like Geppetto and works like Bartleby the Scrivener. Everyone, it seems, wants to know his story, or has a story about him to tell.

Van Nice moves from behind the counter and steps into the room. The floor creaks as he moves slowly down a lampless hall, the dirty light coming through dusty windows, casting a ghostly shadow across the floor.

“There are two advantages to having a used book store,” says Van Nice. “I get first dibs on anything swapped across the counter. The second advantage is I get a captive audience for my humor.”

The war he fought in Vietnam more than 38 years ago is in his past. His days as a commercial photographer are over, as are his duties pulling security for the Federal Reserve.

Now, it’s used books and the customers who happen in that bring him joy. Stories take him anywhere he wants to go, even if he can’t do the traveling himself due to a connective tissue disease and other health problems.

But literature is full of afflictions and Van Nice doesn’t linger on things he can’t control. He lets the characters he loves do the worrying for him.

“When I’m in the right mood, I like a mystery now and again,” he says. “John Dunning has a series where the fellow who does the detection is a used-book seller and an ex cop. Those are fun and I can kind of identify to the character.”

Van Nice identifies with a lot of things these days. He’s dabbled in romance “to see what they were like.” Author Mark Helprin, “who belongs to no literary school,” isn’t bad if the time is right.

Helprin’s novels “Memoirs from Antproof Case” and “Winter’s Tale” help Van Nice pass the hours in his room. So does puffing his old pipe stuffed with black cherry aromatic tobacco.

“I’ve smoked it for years, I’m afraid,” he says, almost remorsefully. “It’s the only bad habit I have left.”

Van Nice is a man of complex thoughts and well-rounded interests. One day he’s drawn by humor, the next it’s Biblical archaeology. History and science fascinate him as much as any mystery, or elaborate turn of fiction.

Before stepping to the closet of a bedroom where he sells psychology books (because the closet, he jokes, is a fitting place for psychology), he confesses a taste for works on volcanism and the Yellowstone hotspot; subjects he could study for hours.

“I recently read the biography of John Adams, and another one about Joshua Chamberlain,” he said, placing no expectations of knowledge on his morning guest. “He’s a Civil War personage who stopped the Confederates at Little Round Top and became the governor of Maine. That kind of thing just fascinates me.”

While he doesn’t claim to be a man of great wisdom, Van Nice spouts trivia and names and titles and scenes like a computer generating answers for a college party quiz.

One customer, while dropping off a sack of books, asks, “Say, who’s the author from Great Falls who wrote ‘Stay Away Joe’?”

Without hesitation, Van Nice answers, “Dan Cushman.”

It’s the kind of knowledge those who come to Van Nice expect, and it’s why they enter this cramped little store week after week, searching through books stacked three-deep in places, or reading titles rising from the floor to the ceiling.

As a joke, Van Nice keeps a “No Smoking” sign pinned to the wall. Yet behind his desk, there’s an ashtray peppered with cigarette butts. Contradictions abound, yet by and large, the store reveals itself at face value — what you see is what you get — and it’s rapidly running out of room.

Then again, Van Nice grins, he’s been running out of room for a long time. He’s taken books into this vintage home for more than 15 years, never mind the 10 years prior, back when he ran this bookstore next door.

“I have about 23,000 books right now,” he says, adding that he gives even more away to charity. “Customers come through the door, maybe 10 to 15 a day. A lot of it is swap. I take in very little cash.”

Reporter Martin Kidston: 447-4086 or mkidston@helenair.com