Shelf Monkey (2 page)

TOOOOOMMMMMMYYYYYYYY
!

There’s no denying it, I was a nerd, full-bore and classic. Homework done on time, conscientious and hard-working to a fault, uncomprehending that being singled out for praise by Mr. Waldmo was tantamount to joyfully pissing on the heads of my classmates. “Attention, everyone, Thomas has just written the most remarkable essay on what he did last summer at band camp. Thomas, do come up to the front, will you? Come, recite your magnum opus for the class, and be sure to speak slowly, so that your fellow students will have ample time in which to plot your death. It helps build character!” Why do teachers do that? Do they take some PTA-approved mind-altering drug during their education degrees that effectively erases all memories of elementary school? Only a few remarkable children in this universe can take such praise from an adult without paying for it later.

Oh, the myriad ways it comes back at you, Doc.

Sniggering and name-calling. Nice essay, dickwad.

Thrown erasers at the back of the head.

An “accidental” shove into a wall of lockers.

A full-bore ass-thumping on the way home after class, caught in the back alleys where you hoped you wouldn’t be seen but knew that you would. My nose is still slightly bent from one of those encounters; not Vikram, Douglas Benderchuk that time. Cunt. It’s minor, really, a ding, a flaw among many, an irregularly shaped pebble in a sandbox, but every photograph magnifies the curve into something approaching the sharp 90-degree turn of a surprise off-ramp.

Fuck.

But that was grade 4. By grade 5, largely due to the steep learning curve of my proper place in the universe, I had almost perfected the art of being unseen. Muted colours were my forte; old jeans, brown sweaters, nothing new, nothing remotely threatening to others. I was invisible, the shadow of a student, absent in all but the merest hint of pale saggy flesh. A vague outline dressed in corduroy. A black-belt sensei of early teen-years camouflage. My shoulders and back had devolved, forming the omnipresent turtle-shell hump of the eternally picked-on. Eye contact was taboo. Silence was compulsory. Even my odour was practically nonexistent, a delicate musk of stale air and faint terror, easily eclipsed by the bathtubs of eau de toilette the girls washed themselves in. Jocks looked right through me. I was smoke, irritating their eyes until they could focus on a target for their mindless wrath, by which time I would be long gone and some poor luckless dupe had taken my place. If it weren’t for morning roll call, I would have eventually forgotten I had the power of speech.

Present!

Vikram, though, Vikram saw me. He
saw
me. In a life already devoid of everything but cool waters and smooth sailing, I was that one hidden reef he kept bumping up against. Vikram’s personal mote, that’s what I became — the eyelash lodged firmly in his iris, fine sand that scoured his lens and blurred his vision until he went lunatic with anguish. He couldn’t sleep until I had been excised from his life. My being allowed to exist was
offensive to his sense of self. Why? Who knows? Go look him up if you’re so interested. Maybe he was sexually abused or something. Is it wrong of me to hope that this was the case?

Yo, Tommy, you motherfucker, look up!

I can’t remember how we all ended up in the school library. Someone was sick maybe, or it was raining outside, so we all had to spend recess indoors. The library was always my sanctuary. No one of importance ever hung around there, or if they did, there were enough aisles and shelves to conceal myself behind until they had gone. It was home away from home. Better than home. Warmer. A home free of worry, of the incessant probing of parents, poking into every facet of my day, well-meaning but clueless as to the factual horror life had become. My house was where I slept, where society dictated I must consume evening meals, bathe, and make small talk. The library was my home. I was not judged by the stories I read; I judged them. I was the father, scolding the novels that let me down, contemptuous of my sons Joe and Frank for solving a mystery in one hundred pages when I had figured it out in thirty, admonishing them, “Go play with that Drew girl down the street, take Encyclopedia Brown while you’re at it, stop wasting my time, I’ve got a Roald Dahl I’m trying to get through here!” By the end of eighth grade, I had read the fiction section in its entirety. Miss White, the head librarian, would just hand new books directly to me as they arrived, a little gleam of recognition in her eyes.

mother figure?

I knew a kindred soul even then, and Miss White and I were on the same page. She had that look of uncertain fear when some of the older students wandered through, asking her stunningly obtuse research questions for their papers that seemed obvious to illiterates, so stupid these gorillas were. “Yeah, uh, where’s the, you know, cyclopedias? I need somethin on rocks.” Then they’d snort back a monstrous amount of snot, swallowing it with a loud glug.

classic inferiority complex

She could have destroyed these plankton. She wanted to; I could sense her desire to impart the wrong information, to give them bad grades, to fail them into early marriages and low-income housing and gas jockeydom. She never did, and I never summoned up the courage to ask why. We were both losers. She
had reconciled herself to this. I, however, would listen closely from behind the kindergarten section, grimacing as she spelled out the exact title and author and location in the library so these worms could find their books. Then, quickly and quietly, taking such pain to remain invisible, to keep myself vague, I crept to the shelves they were looking for, and took the books away. I like to think that there exist a few Fs and Incompletes on someone’s transcript as a result of my mock-heroics. Helps me believe school wasn’t a complete waste of my time. Some people may split atoms, cure cancer, or fight terrorism, but me? I got Gord Folbert to repeat the eighth grade. Good times.

You ever get lost in a book, Dr. Newhire? I mean, so into the pages, into the ink and the words and the metaphors and symbolism, just so into the story, that there is nothing else? You and the book, that’s all that exist anymore. People have commented that I’m too obsessed with books, a pack rat of literature. Of course, these are the same people who come in their pants when heavily armoured figure skaters manage to flick a lump of rubber into a goal with a piece of wood. Others get themselves addicted to live-feed Internet sites, watching someone else’s life unfold via digital camera and blog as they ignore the tragedy that is their own. So, who’s right, in the end?

The philosophers are absolutely correct, we create our own realities, and right at that moment, in those pages, your reality is
Vanity Fair
, or
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
, or
Less than Zero
, or
I Am the Cheese
, whatever floats your goat. These novels do not belong to the author anymore, they’ve been incorporated into the collective unconscious. They have become my realities, my experiences, my lives. I am T.S. Garp. I am? I was, rather. I’ve changed my mind, the philosophers are dead wrong, I do not create my reality. Didn’t even have a hand in it. Vikram is the creator. He is the Supreme Being, he is God, and no matter what Nietzsche would have us believe, the asshole still exists. And from the POV of an eleven-year-old book geek — acne already setting up base camp for a stay of upward of a decade until they decide to retreat, leaving only residual forces behind to keep the villagers in line — for that boy, Vikram was a tyrant, a God of wrath and maliciousness.

TOMMY! TOMMYTOMMYTOMMYTOMMYTOMMY
!

How could I ignore it? He sat there, two desks behind, with his coterie of greasy-haired flunkies and over-eyeshadowed prebimbos.

Hey, I’m talking to you.

I know you can hear me.

Flicking paperclips at my head. Lounging about like this was his world to rule. It was mine! My terrain! Where was Miss White? I should have fought him for it, should have stood up to him, taken the beating, done something! I watch the scene unfold now, this paper in front of me, and I scream at my younger self,
FIGHT! DON’T COWER
! you fucking wuss! But Thomas the loser just shrinks into his chair, his hair now barely visible over its moulded plastic back.
I Am the Cheese
, that wonderful novel, it is now the only refuge Thomas has, it’s too small to cower behind, it’s only a cheap Scholastic paperback edition, even a boy as slight as Thomas can’t hide behind it, but it doesn’t deter him, he won’t budge, won’t move, won’t acknowledge the taunting, now multiplied by many, a chorus of high-pitched voices, all yelling,

Tommy!

Tommy!

TOMMY
!

Thomas is beginning to crack. Thick globules of sweat slide down his back: the itch is maddening. He understands that this will never stop without action. Elementary physics, equal and opposite reaction, all that stuff. The playmates of Vikram now expect blood, and Vikram has never shied away from a challenge. Already, Thomas can hear the chair legs squeak as Vikram begins to rise.

Tommy.

Just the one word, one last time. Flat delivery. Lies dead on the floor. Scariest thing young Thomas has ever heard. He knows this is it. No acknowledgement equals pain.

He turns his head slightly, just enough to place Vikram in his peripheral vision. His eyes are already swamped with tears. He curses himself silently. “Yes?” he asks, swallowing down the vibrato that threatens to overwhelm the word.

“Hey, Tommy!” says Vikram, and his smile now beams at full-wattage, a loving smile. How could you not but melt at the sight of it? “Hey, hey, Tommy,” he says, nudging the nearest cohort. Here it comes. “Hey, Tommy-boy. I. Am. THE.
CHEESE.”
And the murder of children collapses in paroxysms of vicious glee.

Fuck.

What can you say to that? It’s perfect. The complete and final destruction of the last refuge poor Thomas ever had. And there’s no comeback, other than maybe “Good for you,” and even
that
took me fifteen years to think of. And all little Thomas could do was pack up his books and walk away, the laughter following him as he slinked past Miss White to the hallway, burning through his clothes, searing his skin with shame. Thomas would never forgive Miss White after that. The way she stood there, the adult with all the power, yet as meek and afraid of Vikram as Thomas.

I talked to Vikram last week. He walked into Java Central, every inch a vanity-spewing Tom Wolfe Master of the Universe. He’s in banking now, he tells me, which I presume means he
is
banking. Upper echelon in money lending, processing, withholding, and coveting. He’s rich, married, with two kids and likely a side-harem of moist and willing banklets. The definition of fulfilled promise. We talked, and joked, and reminisced about the old times he deluded himself into believing we both shared. He teased, we laughed, and I fantasized thrusting a coffee scoop deep into his eye socket, removing his frontal lobe through the gaping wound two tablespoons at a time. But I satisfied myself by inconspicuously spitting in his cappuccino. A big snot-laden horker. Actually, I felt bad about that, so I pretended to trip and spilled the drink on his Brooks Brothers coat. He was very good about it, and the store will pay for the dry cleaning, so no harm done.

Fuck, am I a wimp.

TRANSCRIPT

The Munroe Purvis Show — Episode 725 (excerpt)

Announcer: It’s three o’clock, and who is it time
for?

Audience: Munroe!

ROLL CREDITS

Announcer: That’s right, Munroe! Munroe’s guests this afternoon include the young girl from Alabama who fell down a well, twice! Felicity Kay! The host of the new reality series
Desperation
, Neil Wesberg! And the author of
My Baby, My Love
, Agnes Coleman! And now, put your hands together, it’s time for Munroe!

ENTER MUNROE PURVIS

Munroe: Good afternoon, everyone, how’s every little thing?

APPLAUSE

Munroe: We have a packed show today, I can’t wait to tell you all about it. This is a show that means a lot to me, today, we are . . . Audience mem: I love you, Munroe!

LAUGHTER

Munroe: Wow, thank you very much, that’s great.

What a wonderful, wonderful thing to say. Can we get a mike over to her? Jim, can we . . . Thank you, Jim. What’s your name, Miss? Audience mem: Janice. Janice Reid.

Munroe: Janice, what a lovely name, thank you, Janice. Janice, I’d like to ask you a question if I may. Janice, do you like to read? Audience mem: What? I’m sorry?

Munroe: That’s fine, dear, take your time.

LAUGHTER

Munroe: Do you like to read, Janice?

Audience mem: I guess so. I mean, I can read, if that’s what you mean.

Munroe: I am so sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that, my apologies, Janice. Forgive me?

Audience mem: Oh, I’d forgive you anything, Munroe! I love you!

Munroe: And I love you, too, Janice. I love everyone here, what a great audience you are, give yourselves a hand! Come on!

APPLAUSE

Munroe: My question for Janice is actually for everyone. Do we like to read? Well, duh! Of course we don’t! Reading is boring. I mean, who here has actually read anything by William Shakespeare? Hands up if you have. One? I applaud you, Miss, you have far more patience than I. Give her a big round of applause, everyone, she has suffered greatly.

LAUGHTER

Munroe: Let’s face it, folks, most of us here have better things to do than sitting around the house, trying to push our way through a book just because someone tells us it’s supposed to be good for us. Am I right?

APPLAUSE

Munroe: Well, I’ll take that as a big yes. Wow.

Well, sorry, folks, played a little trick on you there, but I am wrong, everyone, plain and simple. Reading doesn’t have to be boring. Reading can be, dare I say it, fun! And I’m going to prove it to you, right here, today, on this show! I am very excited about this. Today, I am beginning what will become a monthly staple on this program. I am pleased to announce that today is the first official meeting of the Munroe Purvis Book Club!