Shelf Monkey (12 page)

As the weeks passed, I subtly tried to penetrate the shady triumvirate. We’d go to movies, sometimes just Warren and I, sometimes Aubrey, sometimes both plus Danae. Those were my favourites. Coffee dates were planned and executed, nothing fancy, just friends talking; trying to show the world how trustworthy I am. No go. It was grade 3 dodgeball again, last picked to play. Aubrey became completely closed off and unresponsive when I refused to take the hint and flat out ask what a tag was, why is it secret, can I play along? Warren was continuing medical testing that rabbits were not only unsuited to, but violently refused to participate in because there’re just some things even a rabbit won’t agree to. His arms had returned to their former pallor, but now
he’d lost most of the feeling in his legs because of an unfortunate reaction to an as-yet-unreleased antiperspirant, lending him a Herman Munster–type lurch to his walk. When I asked him about the tags, he would grab me in an affectionate headlock and noogie me until I passed out. Danae, more generous than the others, sat and talked with me during breaks, ever-so-gently rebuffing all my attempts to solicit information. And dates. “It’s nothing,” she would say, “And stop asking me out.” She’d oftentimes touch my arm sympathetically when I appeared frustrated. I tried to appear frustrated a lot.

I slowly gathered the less-than-significant importance of my position. I became attuned to the unconscious cringe of the consumer as I or another of my ilk approached with one of our over-friendly Hi Can I Help Yous at the ready. No thank you, I’m just looking, please, if I need help, I’ll ask for it, hey, back off! They didn’t want my help, didn’t yearn for the pleasure of my company, and even worse, had no interest in anything I might recommend as book counsel. Embittered, I began to experiment, urging customers to purchase all things Munroe. I took kind of a performance-artist pleasure in my sadly successful attempts to lay bare the ignorance of the shopper, simultaneously destroying any credibility they may have once possessed while separating them from their money. But part of any good performance art piece is an appreciative audience, and the more it became apparent that my audience just didn’t get it, the more depressed I became, and the more pills I ingested. Win or lose, I was only feeding the Purvis empire, so rebelling against it, even with no chance of winning, became my only option.

To pass the time, I occupied myself with my Employee Recommends shelf, trying to find the right balance between established classics and deserving yet unsung newcomers. The outside world really cannot understand how stressful the shelf is. The shelf, while ostensibly an unobtrusive sales method, holds a far greater meaning to those who organize it. To those lucky few, the shelf is an extension of the self. (You can’t spell shelf without self. Coincidence? Also, you can’t spell fugitive without F U.) Sure, you can gussy it up, disguise it in places, let the world believe that you like nothing more on a rainy day than to curl up with Aristotle’s
Poetics
;
maybe you’ll even grow to believe it yourself. But lying alone in the dark after the last late-night comic has called it quits, when the covers are pulled up and the inhibitions are lowered, you can’t deny that Clive Cussler rocks your world. The shelf is your Rorschach test, your subconscious, your id, and what sits upon it determines not only what people think of you, but also what you ultimately think of yourself. It’s quite the balancing act, one that I’m positive has sent more than one philosophy major up and down the poorly carpeted aisles of their mind in dismay.

I was determined to be as truthful as I could, baring my soul and allowing the world (and Danae) to get a glimpse of the tortured, brooding, yet sensitive poet who lay beneath the skin.
The World According to Garp
was high on my list, as was
Cryptonomicon
and James Ellroy’s latest, but what else? There was only room for five, maybe six choices, depending on size. Should I opt for Jim Dodge and his
Stone Junction
, or promote something newer yet equally ignored, say, Stephen Fry’s
The Stars’ Tennis Balls?
Push newer authors, or old reliables? Or go the other direction, go old, classical, try to intimidate the customer with my vast reservoir of accumulated knowledge. Seamus Heaney’s translation of
Beowulf
, or Pinsky’s
Inferno
?

Other employee shelves were no good as inspiration. Most were a mixture of recent bestsellers and highly promoted/suspect new releases. Page’s space, predictably, was a scientifically determined sampling of guaranteed bestsellers, comprised solely of Munroe Purvis paraphernalia, the omnipresent
MUNROE RECOMMENDS THIS!
sticker on each cover. The latest Clancys, Grishams, Turows, Kings, and Rices were all well represented, along with arguably lesser yet popular fantasy luminaries such as Terry Brooks, Robert Jordan, David Eddings, and Ed Greenwood. Some finer choices hid between the garbage, and on rare occasions a genuinely wondrous surprise presented itself. (A tiny woebegone wallflower named Maxine had nestled amidst the disappointingly standard set of Nora Roberts and Barbara Taylor Bradford a copy of Carson McCullers’s
The Ballad of the Sad Café
. When I questioned her on it in the lounge, she mumbled incoherently, fled the room, and quit the next day.) On balance, however, the dreck and dross outnumbered the exemplary by a wide margin.

Danae’s shelf was far more interesting in content. Ayn Rand was present, leaning on Plato’s
Republic
for support. Close by were Orwell, Graham Greene, and Joseph Heller. Warren’s shelf was centred on the fantastic, tendering selections by China Mieville and William Gibson, alongside
Dhalgren
,
Looking Backward, The Steampunk Trilogy,
and
The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse
.

Aubrey’s shelf was in constant flux, perpetually altering in form and substance. On any given day, Austen mingled with Zelazny, Tolstoy traipsed with Tolkien. Aldous Huxley battled for space with Roch Carrier. Martin Amis wielded supreme executive power one day, only to be usurped by the combined forces of Iain M. Banks and Theodore Sturgeon the next.

I ultimately settled on all-Canadian content. First, Findley,
Not Wanted on the Voyage
. Then, a dollop of Atwood,
The Handmaid’s Tale
let’s say. No, too obvious.
Cat’s Eye.
Throw in a local hero,
Republic of Love
by Shields, and top it off with a few newer talents, a Vanderhaeghe, a Kenneth J. Harvey, Winter’s
This All Happened
, and, of course, an Eric McCormack, your very own
Inspecting the Vaults
. It felt good to put those books on the shelf, good to see the thomas’s picks sign hanging over the front edge, great when I saw someone intently peering at the display, and ecstatic when I caught a glimpse of Aubrey himself poring over the titles at the close of the day. If only someone had actually used my advice, but by day’s end, not one copy had even been nudged out of place.

Sorry, Eric. I tried.

That evening, Aubrey stopped me in the parking lot as I began to make my way home. “Need a lift, Thomas?”

I did, actually. The temperature was nearing twenty above, hinting at the intensely uncomfortable mix of heat and humidity that Winnipeg routinely offers up as alternative to the nad-numbing cold of its winters. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction, however. Earlier, he had flat-out refused to talk to me when I asked him once again what the big mystery was, and deep down in the root cellar of my soul, I am just that petty. “Actually, I think I prefer to walk today,” I said with a touch of smugness. “Could use the exercise.” I inhaled deeply, indicating that I found the moist night air a refreshing change of pace.

He called my bluff. “Good, I don’t have a car, I’ll walk too.” He grinned. I snorted back a retort and set off, sure that my sudden rage would raise my body temperature, leading to heat stroke in less than twenty minutes.

We trod in silence toward downtown. I kept my head down, eyes on the ground, walking determinedly forward, not turning to see if Aubrey was keeping up. After some time had elapsed, having trudged blindly into a forest of coniferous fir trees, I was forced to shift my eyes front and admit that I was completely off course.

“You feel like a coffee?” I asked.

“Why not?” We shuffled off toward Old Market Square.

It was open poetry night at the Mondragon, a cozy hippie-commune-vegan-anti-everything-that-was-bad-in-the-world-andit-was-all-the-Conservative-Party’s-fault sort of place. Nice. Nestled in the corner by the fireplace, a trio of what appeared to be Cuban lesbian revolutionaries were ooh-ahh-oohing into a microphone while a fourth admirer of Eddie Bauer flannel worked on keeping a beat with her bongo.

We sat down at the table farthest from the floor show and read the blackboard above the espresso machine for the day’s specials. The caffeine flavour of the week was “unfair trade” coffee. “Savour the Guilt” was its slogan. The message, I gather, was that they couldn’t afford fair trade coffee, only the coffee of oppressed workers who didn’t make a living wage, so while economics were forcing them to sell the hideous brew, they were going to make damn sure you didn’t enjoy it.

A man with magenta hair and more metal than skin cells in his face approached us. “Geb yug anydin?” he mumbled over countless tongue studs.

“Two coffees, black,” said Aubrey. “You’re looking good, Teddy.”

“Tangks, Augrey.”

“Is that a new piercing?”

“Widge one?”

“Left ear, third from the top.”

The waiter absently fingered the earring, the skin underneath still raw and crusty. “Yeh, Allison dib it. Thot I shoub eben oud both sides. You lieg it?”

“Very striking. Do you like it, Thomas?”

I nodded. “Very much. Metal is definitely your thing.”

Aubrey snapped his fingers. “Oh, Teddy, I got you something.” He dug into his bag for a moment, retrieving the latest edition of Edward Abbey’s
The Monkey Wrench Gang
. “Here, you’ll like this.”

Teddy took the book and read the back. “Thangs, Augrey,” he sputtered, obviously pleased.

“No sweat.”

Teddy left to get our coffees. I looked at Aubrey. “Did you know we were coming here?”

“I wanted to talk, and I think you do too.”

“So talk.”

“Coffee first.”

Teddy eventually returned with two enormous mugs in one hand, his nose already in the Abbey. I sipped the coffee hesitantly and let the liquid warm my stomach, trying not to taste the sweat of the browbeaten migrant farmers that undoubtedly coated every bean.

I finally broached the subject as calmly as I was able. “What the hell is going on? You’ve been giving me the runaround for weeks.”

Aubrey regarded me mutely, stirring his coffee for a good length of time. “Sorry ’bout that, brother. Precautions have to be taken.”

“Bush bites the bag!” flannel sister number two yelped.

“Precautions?” What the fuck was this? “What the fuck is this?”

“Well, friend . . .”

“And stop calling me friend, I hate that.
Nothing
you’ve done lately constitutes friendship.”

Aubrey stopped stirring. He stopped everything. His hair stood still. “I know, I’ve been an asshole. I’m sorry.”

“Calling yourself an asshole and then apologizing does not redeem yourself for your assholishness.”

“My uterus, my freedom!” shouted flannel number three.

“Thomas,” he began again, “what do you read?”

“You know what I read. You’ve seen my shelf, I know.”

He rocked back in his chair, balancing himself on the back legs. I felt like an exotic species of insect he was testing the reactions of. “What makes a good writer, in your opinion?” he said finally.

“Style. Characters. Plot. And the ability to abandon all three when necessary.”

“And what makes a bad writer?”

“Same thing.” He nodded, as if what I said made sense. I was getting too pissed off to care. “Look, I don’t know what makes bad writing, I just know what I like. Maybe it’s like pornography, hard to define, but you know it when you see it.”

“Interesting,” he mused.

“Fuck you, it’s not interesting, it’s boring.” I stood up. “You know what?
You’re
boring. Why I should care about whatever the hell we’re talking about is beyond me, but I’m done. You can have your little clique, makes you feel important. See ya.” I grabbed my bag and headed for the exit.

“I’m having a get-together tomorrow at my place, sort of a personal book club,” he called after me. “You should come.”

“Fuck your get-together, and fuck you,” I loudly replied across the several tables. No one so much as looked up at me. It seemed outbursts and spats were a common occurrence on the property. “Life’s too short for these elliptical questions and Yoda answers. What is going on that’s so important? Tell me, or I walk.”

He laughed, a short bark. “It’s not important, not at all. But I can’t tell you what it is, it won’t make sense unless you’re there.”

“What’s the book?”

“Well, it all depends.”

“On?”

“A variety of factors.”

“Example.”

“It’s hard to explain, easier if you just show up.”

“You’re planning to hunt me for sport, aren’t you?”

“Come and find out.”

“Screw you.”

“Danae is coming.”

“I’ll bring chips.” Hey, I’m only human.

The next night, I arrived an hour early. I figured if this was some sort of ambush, an hour should be enough time to scope the place out and alert the authorities. Just who those authorities might be, I couldn’t tell you. I’d been reading a lot of Spillane at the time, using Vachss as a chaser, which had bolstered my courage, if not my common sense.

Aubrey’s house was a slightly dilapidated split-level directly alongside the Winnipeg western perimeter. He maintained that his parents had willed it to him, and I saw no reason to question him on it at the time. It lurked innocently at the end of its street, a full two or three housing plots away from its nearest neighbour. It was one of those branches on a map that appears to simply vanish into the ether rather than come to an end, as if the city planner had begun sketching out his plans for the latest suburb, had gotten sidetracked when he was attacked by the munchies and fled the office for a satisfying cruller/coffee combo, and in the temporary javasucrose high had subsequently forgotten about the whole thing, leaving the construction crews to scratch their heads, wonder when the rest will be built, and write it off as no-man’s land. Here there be tygers.