Shelf Monkey (10 page)

“Well, I could mention it to . . .”

“Every goddamn week. No one does anything. Every goddamn week! That’s all I want, why don’t you guys ever listen?”

“Sir . . .”

“You got your science fiction section, you got your horror all over there, you got your westerns, why no legal thrillers, huh? You think I like having to go through all this crap?”

Barbara Streisand? Who the freaking hell listens to Streisand anymore?

“Can I help you find anything, Miss?”

“Yes, where’s the newest book, I heard it on the radio?”

“Uh . . .”

“They were talking about it this morning, did you hear it?”

“No, I’m afraid I didn’t listen to the radio this morning.”

“Huh. It’s about this guy who’s afraid? Of something? I think it was in Africa, or Italy. No, Kansas. It sounded really good, it just came out, I’m sure you must have it.”

You gotta be kidding me. “I’m afraid I need more information, miss.”

“Oh, what good are you? Why don’t they ever hire people who understand books?”

Céline Dion screams the theme from
Titanic.
Should have seen this one coming.

“Hi, how are you today?”

“I don’t know, where do you keep the John Grisham?”

“Under G, just over there.”

“Oh, you file books alphabetically. That’s handy.”

“Isn’t it?”

“Do all stores do it this way?”

“No, we’re the first.”

REO Speedwagon? Oh, come on, who the hell even remembers them anymore?

“Hi, can I . . .”

“Where’s the latest Munroe book?”

“Under the giant head, next to the cash registers.”

Peter Cetera. Wow, I was honestly just in the mood for the theme from
The Karate Kid II.

“Excuse me, where’s the head?”

“By the front door, can’t miss it.”

More Streisand, now with Kris Kristofferson for added emotional impact. Even Streisand doesn’t listen to this much Streisand.

“Yes?”

“Yeah, where’s the head, I couldn’t find it?”

“By the front doors, right to the . . . wait, you mean the Big Head? Or the washroom?”

“The can.”

“Sorry, uh, I have no idea. First day.”

Wow. Anne Murray. Is she even still alive?

“Hello.”

“Yes, hi, have you ever read this?”

Oh, thank God. “Yes, that’s
Slaughterhouse-Five
, it’s a classic.”

“Looks interesting, do you think my son might like it? He’s just starting college.”

“He’ll love it, guaranteed. It blew my mind when I read it in high school. It’s about a man flipping through time, going from
World War II to a future where he’s caged by aliens.”

“What?”

“I know, it sounds strange, it is strange, but trust me, Vonnegut is a genius.”

“Well, maybe I’ll get him something else. I don’t like that title anyway. Where’s the latest Munroe . . .”

“Giant head, cash register.” Fuck.

Chris DeBurgh. Now I know I’m being punished for something.

“Hello.”

“Yes, I want to return this book.”

“OK, you just go down that . . .
A Confederacy of Dunces?
Why?”

“It’s stupid, it’s too long, it’s boring.”

“But . . . it won the Pulitzer. It’s a classic.”

“Who cares, it’s dumb, I don’t want it.”

Who are you people?

Elton John, you Hakuna Matata–singing motherfucker, get out of my head!

Clan of the Cave Bear?
Follow me. The
Prodigal Project
series? Right this way, under Religious Fiction.
Slow Waltz in Cedar Bend?
Over here.
The Celestine Prophecy?
Around the corner.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer?
In Children’s Books.
The Bear and the Dragon?
Under C for Clancy. Sean Hannity? You seriously want to buy a book by Sean Hannity? What the hell is wrong with you? Why don’t you just stamp “ignorant dumbfuck” on your forehead and get it over with! Stop. Breathe, breathe. Happy place, find your happy place.

Cher, sans Sonny. Don’t hum it, don’t hum it. Damn.

Lunch.

Aubrey sat at the table as I walked into the employee lounge, his head buried in a copy of David Foster Wallace’s
Infinite Jest
while absent-mindedly consuming a suspicious concoction of eggplant, tomato, and some spice undoubtedly never meant for human
consumption. After a solid minute of being ignored, unconsciously whistling some Beyoncé tune, I
ahemed
for attention. Aubrey slowly lifted his head from the Wallace, his head seemingly weighed down with thick prose, and smiled in acknowledgement as he took me in. “Hey, brotherman, how goes the good fight?”

“Ignorance is winning, Vegas odds seven to two against common sense and good taste.”

He chortled, sprinkling his food with hair dust. “There are some horrible books out there, no question.”

“It’s not the fact that bad books exist,” I said. “That I can deal with. But there’s so much good out there, it breaks your heart when they just sit there on the shelf, all lonely and unwanted.”

Aubrey nodded as he scooped another suspicious morsel into his mouth. “Yeah, and meanwhile, you manage to sell three
Star Wars
novels and two Karen Robards. It’d be funny if it weren’t so goddamn tragic.”

“You think you got it bad, you have no idea,” said Warren, walking in behind me. He sat next to Aubrey, hoisting his size fifteens to rest on the tabletop. “Take a look at this.” He tossed a glossy paperback onto the table.
The Love Market
, written by Edward Miller, published under the imprint of Munroe Purvis himself. Aubrey gave a cry and shielded his Wallace from the unholy taint this book was sure to imbue on any literature within its strike zone. “I know, I’ve already finished the first fifty pages on my washroom break. Better than Pepto, two pages in and the shit just flowed out of me.” I daintily picked the book up by a corner and read the back cover, taking care to to touch as little of it as possible.

Once again, Munroe Purvis brings you a story guaranteed to tug at the heartstrings, a gut-wrenching tale of love gone awry, of beliefs displaced, and of the unbreakable bonds of family.

Freddy Conrad thought he married the woman of his dreams, when he one day awakes to the ugly truth of who his wife really is. Despite being pregnant with twin boys, Edith has turned away from Freddy and taken up a volunteer position with an abortion clinic. Torn between the woman he loves and the
need to shield his unborn children from her insanity, Freddy takes a step that may lose him his wife, but may save his soul.

“Edward Miller’s
The Love Market
made me realize who I truly am, and I hope his extraordinary novel affects you as strongly as it has me.” — Munroe Purvis

I laid the object back down. “Wow, it just screams quality, doesn’t it?”

“Yes indeed, and it reads even worse, and now
I
,” announced Warren as he brusquely slid the book off the table, “
I
have to lead an evening seminar on the merits of this bestseller. I mean, what could I possibly say? What does Freddy represent? Does the novel function as both a story and as propaganda? Aubrey, you’ve done this before, got any pointers?”

“Cram their gullets with cake, and they’ll be satisfied. Believe me, they have no desire to talk of themes or subtext, they all just want to gush over how wonderful Munroe is for opening this world to them. Keep the coffee flowing, try to keep your nausea down, and you’ll be fine.”

“Is it always like this?” I asked the pair. My first day, and the despair over my choice of lifepath was already building.

“Well, you’ve kind of entered the store in a transition phase,” Aubrey said. “Page recently let someone go, and we’re all a bit upset over it. I think you’ll feel resentment from some around here, but it’ll pass. It’s not your fault, after all.” I nodded, remembering the blast of frosted air I received from others during the morning meeting when Emily’s name was mentioned. “You getting on all right, otherwise?” asked Aubrey.

I walked to the vending machine, opting for the least unhealthy chocolate bar and bag of chips available. “Otherwise, I’ve been lost all morning. This place is gargantuan. I don’t think I’ve seen one other employee since we’ve opened.”

“Oh, we exist, you just have to know where to look,” Warren said. “God, am I hot.” He began to take off his vest, which sat atop a sizable bulky black sweater.

“I’m not surprised,” I remarked as he pulled the sweater over his
head. “Why are you wearing
DEAR JESUS GOD WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO YOUR ARMS?
”

I should say at this point, Eric
et al,
that I am not normally the sort of person who points out another person’s deformities in a deafening and ignorant fashion. Like most people, I downplay the physical limitations of others, taking pains to treat a person as an individual, composed of the same emotions and needs as the rest of humanity.

However, what Warren suffered from was so clearly not natural, not typical, not in any way a standard deviation from the norm that I blurted out my exclamation before realizing the possible offensiveness of its content. Nevertheless, I stand by my startled little-girlish scream. Warren was a freak. His sizable arms, now bare to the fluorescent lights, revealed an array of colours and ridges never conceived by the human body. The hands and wrists were pink and healthy, untouched; beyond the wrists, gangrenous green meshed with sickly black, while veins of red pulsed around scaly patches of scarlet. It all melded into a shade I shall charitably describe as ochre, until disappearing beneath his undershirt.

Aubrey looked stumped, but composed. “Jeez, dude, what was it this time?”

“A mixture of natural and artificial ingredients, including the distilled venom of the queen bee,” Warren said. He pirouetted his right arm in the air admiringly. How he kept from shrieking in pain is beyond me.

“You’re allergic to bees, aren’t you?” Aubrey asked. Warren drooped his head timidly, letting his arm dangle loosely beside him. “Jesus, bro. You could have been killed, idiot. Didn’t you think to ask beforehand?”

“Rent was due,” he said. “Besides, it’s not as bad as it looks.”

Aubrey’s eyes bulged. “Should it be so . . . bluish?”

“You should have seen it two days ago; it looked like an over-stuffed kielbasa. Black, too. But the hallucinations have subsided, that’s something.”

Aubrey turned to the corner of the room where I had busied myself with cowering in terror. “Mr. Krall here, you see, earns extra money offering up his body for science. I have offered counsel to him in this regard, even offered him a place to stay should eviction
become imminent, but as you can plainly see . . .” He motioned toward Warren, who was now gaily waving his arms in my direction, visibly enjoying my discomfort.

I swallowed down my gorge. “I don’t mean to pass judgement, Warren, live and let live and all that, but good Christ that can’t be healthy.”

A mild shriek rose from the lounge doorway. “God, put those away before Page sees them!” said Danae as she entered, tut-tutting disapprovingly. Warren acquiesced, donning his sweater while muttering about the heat. “Well, you should have thought of that before you came to work, numb-nuts,” she scolded, retrieving a bag lunch from the fridge and plopping down next to Aubrey.

“Well, I’m sorry, Danae, but these things show through anything lighter than a parka,” Warren said, a wide grin on his mug. “They glow in the dark, too. But, good news, the company paid out to keep it quiet, so I’m set for a while.” His sweater on, he appeared more or less normal, for a seven-foot-tall giant.

Danae pulled a yogurt carton from her lunchbag. “What does this make, now, eight?”

“Nine,” Warren bragged. “I have been injected, swabbed, lathered, scrubbed, boiled, rubbed, and rolled in nine yet-to-be-released beauty and medicinal products.”

Aubrey rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “I thought you had sworn off your crusade after your testicles retreated.”

“They dropped back out a few weeks later,” he groused. Warren’s gaze latched onto my potato chips, which I had all but ignored in the excitement. “You gonna eat all those, Thomas?”

I tossed the bag aloft. “Enjoy. I’m not as hungry as I thought.” Warren snagged it with one lengthy arm, shovelling its contents into his mouth with alarming speed and precision.

“Nice manners, buddy,” said Danae. “Oh, hey, let me ask you guys something. Is it more depressing that Britney Spears can get a book published, or that people actually want to read the damn thing?”

“Uch, don’t get me started,” said Aubrey. “Thomas, you have an opinion?”

“Well, much as I hate the fact that a person who has never read a book thinks she can write one, there’s no way she wrote it by
herself, so I’m not so much depressed as annoyed by that. But someone wanting to shell out thirty-five bucks plus tax for such drivel, well,
that
makes me weep for our species.”

“Fuckin’ A, dude,” said Warren.

“Nail on the head,” agreed Aubrey. “Oh, I got one. Who’s got it worse, Jane Austen for being shelved next to Jean Auel, or Steinbeck for having to share shelf space with Danielle Steel?”

“Steinbeck,” Danae said. “Not because Steel’s any worse than Auel, although that’s arguable, but because Steel’s fan base is so much larger. Both are popular, but Steel’s more prolific, so on average more people visit Steel’s area, and so there are that many more opportunities to see and ignore Steinbeck than Austen.”

“Steinbeck was selling pretty about a year ago,” Aubrey reminded us. “Oprah.”

“Well yeah, but until that, you couldn’t force people to read it. If Steinbeck were water, they would have died of thirst rather than take a sip, at least until Oprah came down from on high and ordered the acolytes to drink.”

“See, this is what I think,” I ventured, wanting to get in on the conversation and impress them with my insights. “You ever been inoculated?” All three nodded. “Okay, so what is an inoculation anyway? It’s a tiny virus. You’re intentionally making your body sick in order so that you can fight sickness later.”