Shelf Monkey (37 page)

Danae was so proud of you, Thomas. She honestly believed you to have joined us. She cried for days afterward. Danae has her own demons, which I cannot pretend to understand. An abusive father? A child of divorce? There is something missing in Danae, something she fills with books, with the lives of others. As we all do. You got closer than anyone, and I don’t know if she’ll ever fully trust anyone again. She talks very little these days, while Warren, frankly, won’t shut up. We are not the close-knit trio I’d hoped we’d be, but we are all we have, and it holds us together.
That, and books. For now, anyway.

I could go on in this vein, but like poor Nick, I’m going to leave you with the mystery. What was the driving force behind my obsession? Perhaps you were never meant to know, but you never even thought to ask. Gatsby never wrote his own book, why should I? All I can say is, I never regretted for a moment what I did. My only regret is you, and you know what?

I’ll get over it.

Goodbye, Yossarian. I very much doubt you will hear from me again. But keep reading the newspapers, I might pop up somewhere. I’ll burn a ‘tag for you, when Dan Brown shits out another bestseller. Do the same for me, for old time’s sake?

Yours,

Don Quixote

Now is it just me, or is this just a tad hurtful? How could I win? If I follow Aubrey, then I’m not a follower. If I don’t follow him, I’m a follower. Yossarian never had this kind of conundrum to think out.

Maybe it’s not real. Maybe the note is a plant, a ploy to enrage me enough that I give up my friends. Possible, but unlikely. I choose to accept it as truth, if only for closure’s sake.

Is it all true? Am I simply a follower? I’ve had ample opportunity for self-reflection lately and I think Aubrey has a point. But are you a follower when you’ve done what you truly wanted to do anyway? So what if Aubrey was in charge; I chose to participate. No one forced me. Maybe part of it was to get close to Danae, but even if love is not a choice, my actions always were. I could have walked away. Could have quit anytime I wanted to. Just didn’t want to. Doesn’t mean I was addicted or anything. Who gets addicted to burning novels?

Still, I did get Danae if only for a moment. Give me that, at least.

I’m glad they’re still free, though, together or not. In my daydreams, the Americans got their way, and I’m strapped to a
metal cot with a needle brimming with death inserted into my arm. Aubrey, Danae, and Warren have somehow sneaked in, and watch from the bleachers as the poison is pumped into my system. Danae smiles, but I don’t know why. Does she miss me? Does she wish it were her finger on the plunger? But my last conscious image is of her smile, and whatever its intent, it is a glorious thing.

And there you have it. The summary of the rest of my life. There’s no point in writing any more about it. Every day is so similar to the last as to make no discernible difference. A pleasing routine is now the norm for the rest of my life. I don’t lack for companionship, I get regular exercise, and as for women, I can’t claim to miss them, as the drugs they’ve got me on are so powerful that sex would be an impossibility were it to ever cross my mind, which it rarely does, due in large part to the aforementioned drugs. Every day is waking up, getting dressed, having breakfast, working in the library, writing reviews, and reading for three or four hours before slumber claims me. Bliss.

When I do feel an itch for something beyond the routine, I answer fan mail. There were only a few at first, but every week the pile grows a little larger. People asking for advice on what to read, and more and more often, what to burn. I don’t want to frighten you, but there’s something happening out there. I can feel it in my bones. Mark my words, people are gathering. In basements and apartments and public parks. They finally feel an itch they didn’t know they had, so long have they ignored it. But it itches now, worse than ever. It’s in a place they cannot scratch. On the advice of co-workers, they buy the latest bestseller, and they are overcome with hives. There’s only one cure for this allergy. It’s tentative at first, a tearing of a corner. Many will laugh at themselves, and shrug at their silliness. It’s only a book. Not worth getting upset over. But some will do more than tear. They will rend. They will shred. They will mince. Grind. Crumple. Split.

And in the end, they will burn. They will remember us, and think we were on to something. They will seek out others of
their ilk, and congregate, and prepare lists of members, and start newsletters and blogs and zines. It will grow beyond the ability to control itself. It will spread. It’s the new flu. Monkey flu. People will be helpless once infected.

And I will stay here, in the pen, and read, because it is what I was born to do. On sunny days in the spring, I will choose a novel from my personal stash, and go for a walk in the yard. My neck will ache from looking down at the book in my hands, but it’s a pain I enjoy. The wind will pick up, and a familiar scent will take me back to happier times. Somewhere, out on the far side of the mortar and grout of walls now so familiar to me I cannot easily recall the world that exists beyond, someone is setting fire to a Barbara Cartland.

And I will envy them their freedom, and wish them well.

From The Associated Press

In what is becoming a disturbing trend for the big box bookstores, American large-chain bookstores have reported a huge surge in incidents of shoplifting for the third quarter in a row.

“Frankly, we’re stumped, and the higher-ups are very worried,” said a middle manager of a Washington Borders who spoke on assurance on anonymity. “Books are flying off the shelves lately. For every person we catch, we must lose at least twenty hardcover novels. They’re very brazen. One woman we caught had six paperbacks hidden in her pantyhose. It’s almost an epidemic.

“We know why it’s happening, but we are forbidden to talk about it. It’s almost a police state, it’s gotten so bad.If we so much as utter the words ‘Shelf Monkey,’ even as a joke, we are given a verbal reprimand.’

In one extreme instance, an Oakland Borders store was the scene of a bizarre flash mob as over fifty people swarmed the store and managed to make off with every copy of the works of authors Dan Brown and Robert James Waller in the space of four minutes. The books were then doused with lighter fluid and set ablaze in the store parking lot.

When reached for comment, Thomas Friesen, currently incarcerated as one of the ringleaders behind the now-infamous Shelf Monkey gang, was overcome with laughter and had to be sedated.