Shelf Monkey (5 page)

Face

• Lumpy. Unshaved. Slovenly. Nice eyes, and a captivatingly off-kilter smile when I could manage it. Not without promise, but a definite fixer-upper.

Body

• Oh good Christ that’s horrible. Move on.

Beard

• Jesus. Where did
that
come from? Kind of scraggly and patchy, yet modestly decorative in a brooding bohemian poet sort of way. Perhaps a beret would be in order?

Belongings

• One laptop computer, old but serviceable.

• Various legal textbooks and treatises, soon to be put in the recycling bin, a final fuck you to the law and all who practise its arcane rites.

• Clothes, unwashed but not beyond repair.

• One television, thirteen inches, an enviable size for a man to have, but not in his choice of entertainment centre.

• One DVD player.

• Several DVDS, all widescreen format. Have you ever watched
Lawrence of Arabia
in widescreen format on a thirteen-inch television screen? It loses its grandeur somehow.

• Shelves and shelves, and shelves, and shelves, and under the bed, and above the fridge, and behind the couch, and on the couch, and next to the table, and correcting the wobble in the kitchen table, of books.

Clearly, something had to change. Not wanting to modify my lifestyle so much that I’d have to physically leave the apartment, I began to look into more innovative approaches to fill my life.
Aromatherapy filled three days of Internet research into the healing power of smells. I began to
feng shui
my furniture to improve my chi, or some such bullshit. Boy, I really feel like slitting my wrists. Perhaps if I move the couch thusly . . . ah, now life is worth living again!

Obviously, I wasn’t in a tremendously clear mindset. “What should I do now?” I asked Newhire.

“Get a job.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. Do you have my cheque?”

“Here.”

“Thanks.”

So easy, the concept: find employment. People do it all the time, you hear about such cases on the streets. “Why, my uncle had a job once!” Problem was, law school had taken its toll. I had three years of arcane legal memoranda and legislative trivia brainwashed into me, effectively tearing down the soft-shelled ordinary citizen and replacing it with the Armani-armoured warrior. The “real” world was alien, obscure, something to be discussed with similarly attired workmates and adversaries over triple espressos, only referred to in obscure Latin phraseology so as to emphasize the vast difference between our world and ‘the other.’ I couldn’t function in a society where people actually talked to each other. Where words spoken mirrored emotions felt.

In other words, I was feral. And broke.

So my options were now open to other employment endeavours. A little fudging on the ol’ résumé, some patchwork and glue on the CV, and I’m all set. No need to mention the breakdown, just say the law was not for me. Happens all the time, career changes. No shame to want something else. Just need to choose. Medicine? Education?
Physical
Education? Theatre?

Job one.

Java Central. Polo Park Mall. Coffee jerk at minimum wage plus meagre tips. Thought I’d aim low, get my feet wet. Not as bad as I’d feared.

“Excuse me?” I caught up to him just as he was leaving. “Excuse me, Sir? Sir?”

“Yeah?”

“You just came out of the washroom there.”

“Yeah?”

“Well, I was just in there before you, cleaning up, and I went in again just after you, so . . .”

“So?”

“So.” So? So
SO SO SO SO
. So. “I couldn’t help but notice that, after I had cleaned the washroom thoroughly, you know, top to bottom, not a stain left, that sort of thing, I couldn’t help but observe that you made a little bit of a mess in there.”

“Yeah, so?” Christ, this guy only knows two words!

“So, well, the thing is . . . the thing, you see, uh, well . . .” Aw, fuck it all anyway. “So, did you not see the toilet? You don’t have a white cane and a black lab retriever, or even glasses, so I surmise that your vision is near 20–20. So what’s the deal? That python between your legs too much for you to handle, is that it? You lack the wrist strength to control it, so you just let it go where it pleases? I can see where that’d be bothersome, but I’d expect you to still take some responsibility for its actions. Because that isn’t simply a mess you left back there, it’s the mother of all messes. You have splashed urine everywhere except, it seems, the actual porcelain receptacle designed to receive your piss. What, you think that the bowl is only a suggested target for urination? What the Christ is wrong with you? Maybe if you took off your goddamn sunglasses when indoors, maybe then you’d get a fucking clue!”

“
THOMAS
!”

End of job one.

Not my finest moment, but instructive. Anyway, the thrill of the job ended the moment I had mastered the ancient art of latte preparation, about two days in. Pop some pills, move on, scratch the job from the CV. Red flag the service industry for future employment.

Job two.

Temporary gig, but money is money. “All right, people, listen up, attention! My name is Nick, and I am your handler today. If you have any questions, please direct them to me and me alone. Do not talk to the actors. Do not talk to the director. You are extras, which means you are furniture, as far as everyone else is concerned. If you talk to the actors or director you will be fired. Do as you are told. Stand and move when directed to. Understand? Good. Now, the first shot, we need only one. Um, you.”

“Me?”

“Yes, I need you to stand here, thank you. Put your arm here, lean against the wall. The actors will be having a conversation. You listen, but don’t say anything. You are background. Got it?

“Yes. Stand here, listen, look interested.” “Perfect. All right, we ready? Good. Actors on set, please!”

Okay, focus. Look interested. Pay attention. Don’t look at the camera, pay attention to the actors, be attentive, be . . . “Hey, aren’t you J Lo? Cool, I’m in a scene with J Lo! Could I get an autograph, quick, before they start filming? Oh, hey, Richard Gere! Plea— hey that hurts! My arm!”

Job two finito.

Job three.

Depression starts to sink in.

“What do you want out of life? Do you want to be rich, or work at McDonald’s? Do you want to golf on public courses, or own your own? Do you lease your car? How many kilometres are on the odometer? Does this make you happy? Would you rather own your own Lexus? Can you do anything to dig yourself out of debt, or are you going to just waste away, barely earning enough to stave off homelessness? Are you really going to live like this? Are you going to let yourself down? Are you? Are you?”

Never! Oh, God, help me!

“Are you going to live up to your potential?”

Yes!

“Do you want more?”

Oh, yes!

“
DO YOU DESERVE MORE
?”
OH, YES
!

“Then welcome to the wonderful world of Primerica Financial Planning! After our intensive one-week program, you will be fully licensed and qualified to assist and advise people just like yourself in mapping out their financial futures. And of course, in addition to the fees you will charge for this advice, you will also earn large cash bonuses based on the number of members you personally recruit to the Primerica family.”

Aw, shit. I’m depressed, but not
this
depressed.

End of job three.

*

I love books. The shape of them, the smell of them, their weight, their ideas. The possibilities and secrets that are inked into their pages. Their appearance on a shelf, unread, undefiled. Open on a coffee table, spine cracked and shedding. Stuffed in a backpack. A copy of
Henderson the Rain King
as you trek through Africa.
The Shining
on the bus.
The Beach
on the beach.
The Satanic Verses
in the back pews. Reading is more than mental exercise or entertainment for the others and me. It is our escape from our tormentors. It is our vacation. It is our religion. The act of reading can be as sacred as a visit to the confessional.
And Farley Mowat did look down from on high, and saw that it was good.

I once read that less than two percent of people read more than one book a year. Don’t you find that depressing? Whose slack am I taking up? Sure,
Desperate Housewives
is entertaining, even informative in a “gee I wish I looked that good why can’t we all be that funny” sort of way. And an hour later, you’ve experienced a week of someone else’s life, and then you can return to your own existence, if you can stand how shabby, how utterly ordinary it all is. Christ.

But a book, now, that’s a
life
. So much more than the sum of its parts. Paper and ink, symbols and patterns, the alchemical foundation of existence itself. There’s a crumb of Mary Shelley in every author, a particle of God, raising the dead from equal parts wood, pulp, and Times New Roman font, shaping Adam and Eve from clay and bones.

There is no better feeling in the world than entering a space filled with books. It doesn’t matter how the space is defined, how it’s decorated, what flagrantly rotten Top 40 lite-pop aural slush spills out from ceiling speakers. It’s the books, eagerly awaiting your perusal, lined up like prostitutes on the street, c’mon honey, whatchoo want, I’ll make you happy, you lookin’ for a good time? Virginal spines on newly dusted shelves, the aroma of fresh ink and glue in the air, coquettishly tempting you to open me, read me, run your fingers along my lines, trace my upraised title, take off my jacket,
READ ME, DO IT, YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO
! Or libraries, brothels of literature, old hags showing their stretch marks and cigarette burns, promising you a good time, sailor, I’ve got some tricks left, don’t let the appearance fool you, just because some yahoo scribbled in my margins doesn’t mean I can’t pretend it’s the first time with you, baby, just don’t treat me too rough, or there’ll be trouble, I’ve got friends, see, friends with
power, they cut up your card like
that
, baby. Old age homes, pet shops, and orphanages (read: second-hand bookstores) promise new friends for a reasonable price and a good home, you’ll just have to dig through the pile, oops, not that one, he’s balancing my table leg, here, I’ve got a Craig Nova, light on the mileage, who’s looking for someone just like you. Not your type? That’s all right, he is an acquired taste. How about a Richard Ford, only one previous owner, practically a steal, only read once by a little old lady who fell for the John Irving blurb.

READ
, on the other side of the equation,
READ
is a space designed by de Sade and Dante, the first circle of Hell, literary limbo, a publisher’s wet dream, the author’s nightmare. A vacuous, arid, vile product of bottom-line economics. Sales are everything, creativity is nothing. Art never enters the equation. At
READ
, the book is pure product; whatever sells in great quantities is kept, whatever does not is bargain binned into oblivion. Formerly a Depression-era warehouse for police-seized booty, it has been redesigned and packaged as a vast fluorescent shadowless void, a bleak terrain of Kubrickian emptiness. Three floors of monolithic black shelving that would give Cicero pause. At the end of each aisle stands a mirror, polished and angled to allow for the maximum illusion of endless space. In the right spot looking into the mirror, infinite yous are trapped by infinite metal shelving, a nightmare of spatial ambiguity so endless, so unfathomable, Burgess Meredith would have ground his glasses underfoot himself in that old
Twilight Zone
episode rather than be cursed with perfect eyesight. Customers wander the aisles like Romero’s living dead, dragging baskets of books, occasionally latching onto the hapless employee unlucky enough to stroll into their eye-line. “M. Scott Peck! Robert Warren! Deepak Chopra!” they moan, seeking the Self Help/Divinity/ Philosophy/Christianity/Other Religions acres of the store. The walls are tattooed with semi-humorous quotations of the famous:

“Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.”

— Groucho Marx

“Every book is the wreck of a perfect idea.”

— Iris Murdoch

A laboured attempt at feigned cheerfulness in the dreary vacuity of the
dead zone. Even the name of the store adds to the authoritarian overtones.
READ
. It’s not a name, it’s a bold font command from Big Brother, bellowed out through oversized megaphones at the hapless Winston Smith.
READ
! Enter the bookstore, and
READ
! And inside this nightmare are stacks of books, each with an identical snow-white cover stamped with the title in bold black font —
BOOK
. The pages in this brave new world offer no stories anymore, no ideas, no themes. In the ultimate example of the loss of individualism, there is just one word, repeated over and over —
CONTENTS
. Add to this the confusion over the actual pronunciation of the store’s name — Is it reed? Red? Read, or read? — and you have the perfect example of Orwellian doublespeak. Why have one name, when two will do, each correct yet imprecise? Is it present tense when you enter, past tense as you leave? The effect as a whole is a pervasive yet unconscious malevolence that keeps the customer eternally off-balance, perhaps not on the level of Stephen King’s Overlook Hotel, but certainly akin to his story “1408.” To move through the automatic doors, feeling the sudden shove of sterilized air against your face is to feel your soul escaping, screaming upward as it flees to Heaven, where it is berated and stomped on by Hemingway for being such a fucking pussy.

READ
is pure evil. No doubt about it.

However, it does offer its employees a fine dental and health benefits package, as well as Christmas and Easter bonuses, and who was I to argue with financial stability? So, pride in one hand and ego squished like a used tissue in my back pocket, I entered
READ
, and destroyed my life.