Seven Stories about working in a bookstore:

The author

By Pablo D'stair

I'd decided to rebalance the Literature section and the Theatre/Essay section-it was driving me crazy to have to spread out the eleven books in the latter in order to cover the two shelf-rows it had designated and really I doubted anyone would ever even notice. No, it wasn't even doubt-no one would notice no one would remember ever having told me that it was policy to not mix the sections, that for some inexplicable reason the shelf breakdown had to be maintained. Honestly, I felt I could just toss books around willy-nilly and no one would ever note it, it made no difference, was practically what had already happened, just through the onward creep of time.

"Disinterested Customers"

So I was doing this when Peter Crisp, the manager, popped out of the office and (from across the store) told me that he was really excited about tomorrow, that he had to see if he could find a little folding table someplace and a table cloth. I hurried to the front of the store, just to avoid being asked what I was doing, found Peter moving the greeting card stands.

"Can you clear this endcap off, make a little more room?"

"You just want me to put the books in their sections?"

"You can just put them behind the counter, this'll just be temporary."

He explained that a nice guy, a local, who was an author had come in a few days ago, asked about the possibility of setting up a signing or a reading or something-Peter had been vary for it but had told the guy he'd have to pass it by corporate (I have no idea why) and just now he'd gotten word that it would be fine and so he'd called the author back and it was set for the next afternoon.

"I think we should be doing things like this all the time, getting artists from the community involved, have things going on."

"Who's the author?"

He said some name I'd never heard of and asked me had I ever heard of him and I said No I hadn't.

"He's a really nice guy, gave me a copy of his book."

***

I don't know how long I'd been writing by this point-I'd been writing my whole life in one sense, but in the sense of I'd up and decided I was a Writer I'd only been at it for maybe two years leading up to that moment. I had all the big ideas in my head, had somehow convinced myself that my orbit was a little bit more pertinent than other people's, that I had some quirk to my perceptions was really something, but I'd not yet finished (or really attempted) writing a book. I'd filled the margins of every page of my school books with doodled Beat-esque poetry, I'd wriggled out a screenplay that wasn't exactly a screenplay (though even that, I had to admit to myself, was unfinished) and I'd dribbled out maybe ten thousand words once of some stuff I never even ran spell check on that I figured was an innovative, imperative masterpiece of contemporary progressive sublimity.

While Peter went to the office to grab his copy of this local's book, I felt low and ugly, really wanted to have written a book-not even to have published it, certainly not to have notoriety for it, just to have written one.

See, I knew the book Peter was about to hand to me was going to be an eyesore and was probably going to be drivel (or worse, it was going to bland passing tolerability) but I also knew it was going to be a book-a book like the books on these store shelves and the shelves of my house growing up and the little shelf in my apartment-and that as bad and unremarkable as it was going to be, it was still a book. I didn't even have a stack of papers stapled together, marked up with pen underlines and circles and scribbled, illegible changes up and down each margin-I had flat nothing and this guy had a real book.

***

The thing was called Tug of War: A Triumph of Faith, the author was Peter Daddone-thing ran two hundred pages just about, blue cover (sort of off blue) and I took it from Peter, held it, still reeling from my little existential flair up.

I didn't know what to make of it.

It was the first time I'd ever held a small press book (a self-published book?)-it was certainly not on par, superficially, with anything else I considered a book, was awkward to hold, to access.

I really didn't know what to make of it.

Even the blurbs on the back (I put no stock in blurbs, but knew what they tended to sound like) were not like most blurbs-they just seemed like sentences, particularized thoughts about the plot structure and technical points, more like feedback notes from a teacher.

It baffled me. I mean, I'd seen some brochures for book printing and it seemed quite cost prohibitive-this wasn't a zine or anything, it was perfect bound, ISBNed, all of those little ticks that at the time I thought were magic, impossible to obtain. Some place called Aeron House had put it out and I fixated on this because I'd never heard of it.

It was a moment, it was a moment to say the least-it at once horrified me, made me churn with unneeded mockery and opened up worlds to me, made me giddy with felt possibility.

I just didn't know what to make of it.

And I couldn't even begin to focus on reading it (another thing was the text inside had a font that looked like late 1980's computer printout and it jarred me).

"Is this good?" I asked, ready to believe anything that Peter Crisp, manager of Bravado Bookmark had to say.

"I don't know, I haven't read it yet. It looks good though, right?"

I pretended not to have heard the question.

***

I got to the store next morning, Peter already there setting up the table-balloons inflated and tied to each corner, cloth draped, and for some reason a little green pitcher of water and some Dixie cups.

"What time does he get here?"

He'd show up around noon. Peter really wanted to think of something to do to show that we were going that extra mile for the guy.

"The Bravado Bookmark"

"I thought one of these sign places could make a banner up really quick, it could just say Book Signing Today so we could reuse it for other signings-I would use some cash from petty-but the places all say it takes at least a day or two to do a banner. I should have thought of this before, but I was waiting for approval to even do the signing."

Eventually, I just handwrote about twenty "signs"-pieces of printer paper that said there was a book signing, when it was starting, author's name, book's name (red marker for X information, blue marker for Y information, black marker for Z information) and we pasted them to the front door of Bravado and then Peter went around asking every place in the strip mall if he could tape the things to entrance doors or countertops (I don't really know how that went over).

***

The author was a high school teacher and that is just exactly what he looked like. Oddly, this made it more difficult for me to think about approaching him, chatting, anything. In retrospect it amuses me to know I had such the mindset that a Writer was supposed to be a Writer-only, not a high school teacher that also had written a book.

I was straightening the True Crime section while Peter talked to him and they shook hands-the author had brought a big box of copies of the book he put under the table and had a little cardboard point-of-purchase stand that held six copies up on the table, five more copies spread out like a splayed deck of cards.

***

I'd met one other published author, a poet called Allan Britt (had a copy of his collection Bodies of Lightening) but this had been arranged through my high school-Britt had taught a bonus course that Nicolai and I had been part of it. This Daddone was different, because he was associated to nothing, was a free roaming entity that had found Bravado books, one day-if he were bludgeoned and put in a truck, I wondered would anyone even know this is where he'd been coming.

***

He was a real soldier, this author, positioned at his table, taking sips from his Dixie cup, must have sat two hours solid before the first time he got up to stretch, have a pace around the store-during these two hours not one single customer had come in, not one person had so much popped in to leaf through a Gallery or a Penthouse Forum.

Peter seemed really concerned for about the first hour, starting half-formed chats with the guy-obviously it was all the more awkward because Peter didn't even know what the book was about, hadn't even read the synopsis. Really, I don't think Peter read.

***

"It's beautiful weather, this morning" the author said to me at one point while I was poking around in front.

Cornered, I had to respond appropriately with "Yeah, it's a rough day for it-everyone's probably out to a Little League game or something."

"Business tend to pick up in the evening?"

I didn't want to lie so as to give false hope, but I also didn't want to exaggerate the truth, make him feel like the whole thing had been a waste of time from the start-such a deflation could be rough, like he might think that only crumby bookstores that don't have customers would ever invite him to sign, that he'd only been invited because (as he'd likely suspected) Peter was touched in the head. I pictured this guy wandering from book store to book store (there wasn't a huge variety in the area) and Bravado had been the only place to say Yes and Peter's misguided enthusiasm had stoked hope where there shouldn't be any. It would have been better had the author's day of asking for venues come up a wash, this must have been kind of embarrassing.

These thoughts were projection, though I didn't admit this at the time. As much as I wanted to deride this man (and did, with Nicolai and my girlfriend et al.) I knew he had accomplished something, vaulted at least one hurdle I would have to vault, myself-to see that this is where it'd landed him made me fear for myself, feel like a high school kid working in a bookstore rather than a swaggering auteur whose every idea and piece of phrase work would be lapped up by even those far more established than himself.

Poor Daddone, I thought because it was too hard to think Christ, poor me.

***

By the time the author left at five (I'd stayed past the end of my shift, working off the clock, had offered to straighten the Cook Books just to have an excuse to witness things through to the end) he had engaged in brief conversations with maybe three customers (seven people total had come in, two of those employees from other shops asking if we had extra quarters we might spare) and had not sold a single copy-the only way he'd even gotten the book into someone's hand (briefly) was to literally present it to them in a way it would have been rude for them not to take it, nod through a few pleasantries, glimpse the front and back cover, hand it back as they stepped away. Even when Peter had rung out a paying customer and said "This is an author, local guy, just got a great book published and is being nice enough to have a signing with us" the customer had said "Oh, I'll have to tell my niece, she likes to read" but hadn't even turned to look at the guy at the folding table with the balloons hanging from it and the books spread across.

***

Peter of course let the author leave six copies (autographed) on consignment, displayed them prominently right at the cash register.

"Author, Peter Daddone"

"I think I have some stickers in the back that say Autographed on them, I'll put those on these," Peter offered.

The author said "I really appreciate that-appreciate you all giving me the chance, today".

"I can't believe it was so slow. You know you can come back any time, we're really wanting to do this more often. Let me make sure you have our card."

I don't know why Peter said that, because we didn't have cards and it was just a final awkward pantomime of him looking around for one, then just writing his name and the store name and the store phone number and (for whatever reason) his personal phone number on a piece of receipt paper.

***

"It was nice meeting you," he said to me, lugging his box out the door I leaned into to keep open.

"Yeah. Nice meeting you."

***

I tried to read the book over the course of a few shifts, but I just didn't get into it. I have to admit that to this day I have burned into my memory certain passages and the images that the prose put in my head are permanent, but I know this is only because of my fascination with the object, what it was, what it represented to me-this was a formative encounter, nothing to do with literature, everything to do with the reality of books.

***

If it hadn't cost thirteen dollars, I would have bought a copy. I kind of wondered how the author would get the money, if one did sell, if he'd even want to come back, if maybe it was better to have left the six and to never check up on them again-the idea of him coming back and seeing the things still there in a week, two weeks, it made me feel kind of miserable, who would want to put themselves through that?

The first copy I stole, I did in stages-I moved it from the display stand into the Fiction section, then from the Fiction section to the endcap of bargained flower and bird books, then I just took it with me one night, had it there in my grocery bag with the Gatorade and two candy bars.

I stole two more-I think one to show my girlfriend, because she kept asking about it and I never remembered to bring the one from my apartment (I was meeting her after work so I just nabbed one from the counter) and I don't know why the other.

Pablo D'Stair welcomes reader contact/comments. He can be reached at [email protected]