Between Places- by G D Ward
Sunday, January 18th, 2009
In his bookshop, a small store stuck in the side of a bluff, he catalogued and ordered books as he thought they should be ordered. Loras received his books with solicitation slips titled “Non-Fiction” or “Fiction” or “Biography” or “Children’s Books” or “Pornography” or “History” or “History of Sports” or “Sports” or some other such nonsense; he’d then throw the slip away and read the book himself. He decided that a bookstore’s owner should be the final arbitrator of how a book, in fact, should be listed. If it was solicited as Non-Fiction and wasn’t really Non-Fiction, he would decide what it’s intent really seemed to be and then catalog it correctly. If it attempted to be Non-Fiction, he would put it under “Attempted Non-Fiction.” If it masqueraded as Non-Fiction and was really the bullocks of the beltway, he would put it under “Marginally Correct Works of Argumentation.” This section, in particular, had recently grown pretty full. And, ultimately, things were fine, until one day they weren’t.
Sometime in the last few weeks or so, his books began to be shifted about. He’d started to find things out of order, like bound editions of Playboy had gotten mixed in with the pornography and such. He’d fix it and then fix another one the next day. The shop seemed to be having steady convulsions.
As he put the books back, he couldn’t help but think about his father. His dad was a man of integrity. His dad, at least from what he remembered, was a jerk. While shoving the books into their appropriately awkward places, one memory in particular made him smile. He was visiting his father’s candy shop just off of Main Street, around the corner of the more respectable businesses in Galena, when his father, he recalled, got into an argument with a customer over where the taffy apples were sitting. The annoyed man started the argument because he thought they were sitting in a strange place and couldn’t find them when he’d first walked into the store.
His dad told the customer to fuck off. It was the first time he’d heard his father cuss, and the memory made Loras’s chest tingle. Cursing, no matter the situation, no matter who was doing it, was never allowed at home. After the customer left, Loras’s father came around the register and sat down beside his son.
“Look,” his dad said, as he stared upwards at the plastic-coated register, “I know we’re not supposed to use those words, not at home anyways, but sometimes you have to use ‘em. You can’t let people bully you around. This is my shop, and I’ll do things the way they should be done … fuck ‘em. Candy apples go beside the chocolate bars, in the back, because they both have wax in them. They’re both waxy, so let ‘em sit together.”
“Okay, Dad.” Loras replied, pleased with his father.
“I could probably sell more of ‘em if I set them in the front window, easier to see and everything, but you know what, our store window points southeast. The friggin’ sun would be beating down on them all day and would probably spoil ‘em. I’d have to replace more apples than I’d sell, so where would the store be after that? People don’t think, Loras. Don’t be those people, okay?”
“Okay, Dad.”
The older man stood up and grabbed a purple-coated apple from the back and gave it to his son. As Loras grabbed for it, he saw the dark creamy coating, shiny as his mother’s crystal glasses at home, start to slide off of its sides. Loras noticed, as he looked behind his dad, that the apples were sitting beside the fudge oven.
***
“Kim, have you noticed any books out of order lately?” Loras asked. “Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been finding books in the strangest places … I know that I haven’t been putting them there so …” The thought dangled with inferred blame.
Kim, a short oafish girl, was hired to work the register about a year ago. He liked her and thought she was sweet, if not bright. Lately, he began to worry that she’d been taking some initiative with the books. Occasionally, customers came in and read a few paragraphs at a time and then sat the books down on a chair or something; he’d told her not to put the books back, but to pick them up and put them near the back end of the store. Every few hours, he’d go and clean up the books and place them into their proper spots. Of all things, Loras was concerned that she was trying to be thoughtful. He didn’t want her to be thoughtful; he wanted her to work the register.
“Really, I hadn’t noticed, certainly a possibility.” She answered with a blank look on her face, a look that Loras thought endemic to her part of the population. “Don’t you think that, maybe, customers have been putting them, well, in the wrong place after they’re done?”
“No, no, I don’t think it’s that … at least I don’t think it is. How hard is it for a person to put the book, the book they pulled out, back into the empty slot they originally found it in?”
“You put a lot of faith into our customers, don’t you?” A small grin crossed her face. “You know, what with all of these books out of order or, at least, in your order and everything. You know? I’m just saying.”
“Actually, I don’t put hardly any faith into them. I’m pretty sure you’ve noticed that every book is logged into the computer … they can search our system like they could at the library. It’s just our books are listed under slightly more accurate headings …”
He paused, hearing the doorbell ring a customer into the shop, “just keep your brain open to what’s going on. I can’t have books out of order; the place would fall apart.”
As he walked away to greet the customer, a few words fell out under her breath in response. It was sad, he felt, that she just couldn’t seem to get it. He just asks people to think a little bit when they come into the shop. It is, after all, a bookstore.
Kim came from Chicago, maybe that’s why she didn’t get it. She’s too in a rush to get everything. In Galena, the pace of the place lent itself toward reflection and tourists-turned-townies didn’t seem to grasp that aspect of it.
He walked to the front, sliding his fingers along the bookshelf that hid the register, thinking about her lack of adjustment. She fell out of his view, though, and was forgotten as soon as he turned the corner.
“How are the slopes today?” He asked the small man wearing a ski jacket.
“What? Oh, this? This is just my jacket. I don’t ski.” The man said as he stared around the front of the shop. “I just like the jacket.”
“You know we have a ski resort just outside of town; it’s on a slope hanging over the Mississippi.” Loras said, while trying to be friendly. “I hear it’s very nice, and they even set up fake snow for the fall.”
“Yeah, I heard it’s nice. But, you know what, snow skiing in Illinois just sorta sits funny with me. I’d rather go someplace west for that … you know?”
“But you don’t ski.”
“No, I don’t … but if it did, I wouldn’t do it in Illinois.”
“But you don’t ski, so what does it matter?” Loras, perhaps stuck in a bit of stunted thought, kept saying. “You’re from Chicago, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, so, everyone outside your storefront’s probably from Chicago. It’s kinda what this place does, doesn’t it?”
“Not this place … maybe the town, but not necessarily, at least, this place.” Loras replied, while moving forward, sliding into the man’s personal space. He could smell cigarette caked over the guy’s ski jacket.
The Chicagoan paused and with an inverted Southside accent said, “…you’re a strange duck, aren’t you?” Loras had learned the mouths of these people a few years ago; the Northsiders were buyers, and the Southsiders were complainers. The man’s mouth fell somewhere in the middle. “How about I buy this place off of you, so you can go be strange off of the main strip? I’d make a nice offer, but only if I get you outta here.”
He grinned. Loras asked him to leave and told him to fuck himself as he left.
“Loras, I’m not sure if you’re supposed to treat and/or talk to customers that way.” Kim yelled through the bookshelf. “Of course, it’s not my store.” He could hear her still grinning on the other side, as if her mouth and jaw muscles were contracting with delight.
“Kim, you have to stop putting books back yourself.” Loras said a few days later. “I know you’re trying to be helpful, and I appreciate that, but it’s not helpful if you can’t get them in the right place.”
“I don’t put them back … I do put them in the back though.” She giggled at using the word back in two different ways; Loras thought she was a strange girl. “… I don’t even do that very often, not many people come in here on a regular basis … you know with that whole not being able to find the book they want thing goin’ on in the store. It kind of keeps people from coming in here very often, you know?” Her shoulders went up for a shrug, but stopped halfway through the movement.
“Thank you for that …” Loras responded, standing beside the counter he’d sat behind when he was a child. Kim was oafish, but he noticed that she managed to be accidentally pretty once and awhile. He grabbed a lollipop out of a jar on the counter and gave it to her. “Maybe you’re right, but maybe it’s the new store in town. Did that cross your mind? It’s a huge bookstore; I’m sure it’s hitting our business. Why wouldn’t it? If you think about it, it makes sense.”
He smiled at his answer. She mumbled something about the two stores being in different markets, but he ignored the mumble and began cleaning the shop. The store, for some reason, collected dust on the bookshelves and countertops like cotton candy on a paper stick. He cleaned and he thought; he thought that the new store in town should be seen by its main competition in town; he thought the two should meet and stop waiting to meet, and he decided that he’d be the one to abridge the wait.
“I’m going to go to their store.” He said, while still dusting a bookshelf near the front. “Start closing up the shop for the night, okay?”
“You probably should do that …” Kim yelled over the bookshelf. He heard her, but ignored the call.
***
It was late autumn when Loras decided to have the meeting. The streets were packed with different sorts of luxury cars, cars that this season seemed give birth to, and people that the seasonal winds seemed to blow into town; it was strange, he thought, the winds were always blowing eastward, but these people always came from the east. It was somewhat of a conflicted stance for autumn to take, but it was, nevertheless, the stance that the season took.
He found his car jammed between some black German thing and another silver Japanese thing. Until about fifteen years ago, he hadn’t been a very good parallel parker. Once the onslaught of tourists started to flood the town, he mastered it pretty quickly. He was adjustable in that way. Once he wedged out, he drove down the main strip and, for once, glanced at all of its foliage, clustered buildings and people as he went. He realized, for a moment anyway, why the Chicagoans visited the town; it was quaint looking; it seemed nice; it looked to be everything that everyone thought the turn of the 19th century should be.
It looked that way, pretty much, until you caught the hook at the end of Main Street. The hook threw you up over the bluff and into the strip malls of the less talked about part of Galena; the place where people actually lived. Kim lived out there too. After she moved here, believing that all things beautiful resided and collected in the downtown of this town, she found out that the storefronts were just stylized hollowed-out old buildings; people worked out of them, but nobody lived out of them. She checked the realty papers for Georgian homes, but found out most weren’t homes anymore. They were little colloquial motels, little B&Bs, little places to sleep for a night, but not for a life. The Chicagoans that moved here, ironically, often found themselves completely lost in Loras’ little town.
The twisting bits of the place pushed her into a track house behind a line of track businesses, which were squished in between a WalMart and the new bookstore. Her dream of Galena, like most tourists turned townies, was smashed once she settled into it. Kim, perhaps, wasn’t representative of every Chicago native, she thought a little less than most, but her story was similar enough.
Loras made it out to the West End an hour or two before the new store closed for the night. It actually had a pleasant look to it, he thought, as he gazed around its cream coated plastic pillars. It had this beautiful blue hue, and the front doors, he swore, looked like real oak. It was almost the perfect imitation of the generic homey style coffee-bookshop, only it was five times the normal size.
He pushed through the doors and immediately walked to one of the eight registers. “Would it be too much to ask,” he paused, as he stared at the young boy, “for me to speak to the owner of the store?”
“The store owner isn’t here … I don’t think he even lives here.” The boy, with pepper behind his eyes, quickly put one finger up to Loras. “Hold on, just one sec’, let me ask the manager.” He ran off.
“Of course he doesn’t live here,” Loras said to another clerk, one register down, “that would be silly.”
“Yes, it would.” She said, while refocusing back on her own customer. He noticed her eyes roll a bit, reminding him of Kim, which made him feel somewhat empathetic to this bookstore and all bookstores’ hiring deficiencies.
Loras waited at the register for the young boy to come back with an answer. He could see him petitioning an older woman for it, but none seemed to be forthcoming; the boy, nonetheless, continued to ask. A line started to form behind Loras, so he walked away from the counter. He didn’t want to be blamed for the hold up, especially since it wasn’t his fault. The boy was the one who’d left; Loras didn’t ask him to leave.
He lingered further into the store, and almost immediately he ran into a rack of comic books stored completely out of place. He didn’t see where they kept the bound editions of these books, so he picked up the circular rack and carried it around looking for the Graphic Novels section. Putting the rack beside the shelf wouldn’t totally fix the problem, but it would get things somewhat closer to how they should be setup. In reality, Marvel comics should be subdivided away from DC comics, and then, after this is done, everything should be further subdivided by genre, character, and, possibly, character’s powers. The sub-genre stories, like all underground comics, should be condensed into one section and be ordered by the year of its publication. These comics, in particular, are very much affected by the growth of the art form through the years and their section should underscore it.
“What are you doing?” Someone asked him.
“Huh?” He peered around the side of the rack to see who it was, but his arms were unable to keep the rack steady. A few comics fell off of it as the rack plummeted to the floor. “Look what you made me do. Do you realized I could have damaged the merchandise? These comic book people, who, of course, and you may not realize this, are very careful about how a book is handled, may not buy a damaged book. You could’ve cost this store quite a bit of money for frightening me like that … I hope you realize.”
“Do you work here or something?”
“No. I’m just fixing this rack; it was up beside the periodicals.” He leaned over and started picking the issues up off the floor. “I’m just trying to put it where it’s supposed to be.”
“Friggin’ comic book guys,” The person said, as he walked away, “… Jesus.”
Loras found the proper area and placed the rack down beside it. It made him feel better about the store, even if it was trying to put him out of business. There was no sense, he felt, in having them do things so poorly. After setting down the rack, he started to notice all sorts of problems with the place. Fiction was mixed up with Literature. Memoirs were mixed up with Biographies. History books were not subdivided by their theories of historical analysis. The store, the shelves, everything was beautiful, but he knew this much… it was all a mess.
“I got your answer.” The young clerk said, as he found Loras. The boy’s checkout line, Loras saw, had spilled over like a six-headed snake into the other lines. Kim and this boy were long lost siblings who only needed to be properly reintroduced in order to restore their fidelity of siblinghood. Loras sighed.
“Good, let’s have it then.”
“Was that comic book rack always there?” The boy asked, “Never mind, probably … anyway, so I got the answer. I found out the owner lives in California and has never been to our store. The manager said that it isn’t likely that the owner will ever visit our store either. In fact,” the boy proudly paused, “my manager didn’t even know the name of the store’s owner. I only found out because I went over to the internet café and found it online.”
“You did this, while you were supposed to be checking people out?”
“Yes.”
Loras sighed again, “Well, that answer doesn’t help me very much does it?”
“No, I suppose it doesn’t. Has that rack always been there, I thought for sure it was beside the magazine shelf? Anyway, I got to get back to the front of the store. My boss is gonna get annoyed with me if I stay here too long talking to you.”
“Yes, I imagine she will.”
“My father used to own this store. Well, not this store exactly, but he used to run a candy store out of this building.” Loras, lately, had gotten into the habit of talking to Kim during the slow hours of the day. She was behind the register, of course, and he was sitting on a stool beside the front bookshelf. “Were you aware of that?”
“Um, yeah … you told me last week about it.” She answered in a familiar airy tone. “You make the lollipops out of one of the old machines in the back, right?”
“Exactly.” He paused. “You know, Dad wanted me to keep running it as candy shop because of the big influx of tourists … he thought it’d be a good business decision and all that. Fuck Dad though, it’s my store and I like books.” He grinned at the memory, but not at the conversation; they’d become too regular lately, which somewhat frustrated him. The chats were almost always, almost uncontrollably, started by Loras. And In the dead space of the bookstore any sound was welcomed, even a nonsensical one. “I think that I’m going to go back to their store, I have some ideas for it. Were you aware, I’m sure you weren’t, but nonetheless, were you aware that they put the Playboy magazine beside the other pornography? This shouldn’t be done; it’s a literate magazine. It’s not like the store is some gas station; I can forgive a gas station for not knowing any better, but a bookstore demeaning Playboy. At the very least, even if they can’t put it beside The New Yorker, please put it in a spot alienated from the rest of the trash.”
“So you’re going to fix their place?” Kim tiredly responded, as she got up to pick up some books. “I’m going to go set these in the back, but just think about whether that’s a good idea or not. Okay?”
“Why not do something? Someone thinks they have the right to do it here, obviously. Why don’t I have the right to do it somewhere else?” Loras reasoned.
“You know, Dad was strict about how a shop should be run. He demanded things to be correct.” Loras smiled, remembering his father’s dirty mouth. “And I’m betting he’d be fully on board with fixing up someone else’s store who’s messing up your own.”
“Well, I’m not sure …”
He put his hand up. “You’re going to say that you’re not sure about whether they’re the ones destroying our business, putting books out of place and such …” He walked over to her, as she was picking up a book, to touch her on arm. He then whispered, “Who knows, maybe they aren’t doing it, probably not doing it, but let’s pretend that they are and pretend that we didn’t know that they weren’t … have a lollipop.”
He winked and walked out of the store again.
He was fortunate that it was such a cold day. He knew he was going to need to wear his largest winter coat to the store, but he worried that he’d look sort of strange if the weather was nice. The wind was biting and the leaves had finally hit the ground. Fall, for the most part, had left, which meant he would be able to wear a big enough jacket to hide his signs in.
And as he entered the store, pushing those seemingly astute oak doors to the side, he pulled out a list of probable book sections and correctable book sections. He didn’t know how much time he’d have till the manager came and stopped him, so he knew he’d have to prioritize. He put his hand on his chest to make sure the cardboard signs were still inside; he’d already written up a few of the probable section headings.
“What’re you doing here?” An old woman yelled across the room; she immediately pounded over toward him.
“What.” Surprised by the immediacy of her assault, Loras backed up to the doors.
“What’s in your hands?” She grabbed the list. “Give me that, you’re the one who dropped all of those comics on the floor and put the rack out of place.”
“In place, might be more apt.” He trembled out in pseudo-response.
“What? Did you realize, while you were going about fixing things the other night, we had some twenty customers walk out the door without buying something.”
While she was scolding him, she started reading through the list. “You cost us quite a bit of money the other night, you know, and it looks like you’ve decided to cost us some more. What’s wrong with you? Jesus.”
The vast the store, somehow, suddenly, became quite dense to Loras. The front counter seemed to wrap around him from behind, while the bookshelves and woman closed and pushed in on him from the front. The large jacket and signs didn’t help either; he was sweating underneath them. “The boy was the one who took the initiative to leave the counter. I didn’t ask him to leave; I just asked him to speak with the proprietor of the store.”
“Get out of the store. You’re not buying, so leave … just leave.”
“Are you from Chicago?” He could hear the whiff of her old accent coming through her voice.
“Originally, yes.”
“Southside, right?”
“That’s really not the issue here, you know.” Many of them ended their sentences with you know, but it never really seemed like a question. He wondered, while she was pushing him out, whether she came to Galena for a quaint retirement or to run a bookstore.
“I’m going back.”
“Of course you are, why wouldn’t you?” Kim responded, now seemingly enjoying the game. “By the way, someone must’ve recognized you while you were there last time. You got a restraining order in the mail. It’s with the other nonsense in your office.”
“Wonderful, but I’m still going back.”
“Wouldn’t expect anything different, you know …”
“Are you still finding books out of place?” He asked her; he’d given her the job of reviewing things lately. The new store had become a bit of a distraction, and he couldn’t focus right then on the mess in his own shop. “You’re using the ordering printoff I gave you, right?”
“Absolutely …”
“Great, have a lollipop …”
“Wonderful.” She responded, while drawing out a few vowels of the word.
He was able to get to the rear of the new store without being noticed by the manager. The back, like much of the store, was a huge maze of books and shelves; the area, he thought, would be able to give him enough cover to start cleaning the wretched place up. It even sat one level above the front. It was hard enough just to get to the store as it was, he didn’t want to get kicked out as soon as he got there. An ice storm had just hit, and he’d barely made up it up the bluff to make it to this side of town; the beginnings of winter tended to make the hilly life of Galena a bit more eccentric. Even the Chicagoans, the one’s not skiing at least, tended to leave the area.
The store was almost empty. Hardly anyone, except Loras, thought it was a good idea to go out and drive on the newly iced over roads. He glanced around and then sat out the signs he’d made and the new list he’d thrown together; it wasn’t a simple list, no book listing ever is, but his list, in particular, was precise in it’s complexities. He predicated the list on the assumption that the back of the store would be the first to be reordered and corrected. Some sections would be condensed, others would be expanded, and then, in one final go around, the new signage would be put up to make sure everyone knew where to find they’re books.
He began pulling them out, setting each one of the sofas near the shelving. The store was unusually quiet, so he could hear the dustcovers of the books slide away from each other, sounding as if they were unzipping rather than peeling away, as he pulled them out. One by one, he grabbed them and partitioned them off on the sofa.
Time nervously passed. He pressed forward.
“Hey,” Her voice came from blank air, “What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m reordering things.” He answered to the voice behind him. He didn’t want to turn around because he knew it was going to be the manager. “I noticed quite a few book groupings needed a better fit, so I decided to put some time in to help the store out.”
He smiled a nervous smile. She couldn’t see it. Her dusky tone only held old hate and demands in it, so he kept staring at the lower shelf. As he sat there, trying his best to ignore the voice behind him, he realized how close he was to finishing this section. He just needed a few more books, just a couple off of the ground. His fingers crept over to a C.S. Lewis book, “The Screwtape Letters,” and grabbed it quickly, throwing it into the shelf before the woman could get at it.
“I suppose you didn’t get the restraining order in the mail?”
He grabbed at another book.
“No, I got it, but I thought it was a mistake. Aren’t the police supposed to personally hand those things to you?” Loras asked. “It seems to me that a mailing isn’t normal procedure …”
As he said this, she grabbed him by the hood of his jacket and pulled him back from the shelf. “Do not put that book away.” He turned too abruptly and they both fell down the stairs that lead up to the rear of the store. He’d never beaten up an old woman before, but she wasn’t very nice. “Are you attacking me?”
“I don’t know, I don’t think so.” Loras replied, while he stared down at the manager. He was spread over the top of her like taffy during its stretching cycle. “I’m going to leave now …”
“No, you’re not.” She started grabbing at him as he stood up. He placed a small kick into her stomach, and after that, he realized, he was actually beating up an old woman. She was clingy though. He couldn’t get her off of his leg, until the store went pitch black. “What the hell …” She said and Loras took the opportunity to place one more foot into her stomach.
“I’m sorry. I hoped that that didn’t hurt too much, but I do have to leave. I think it might be the ice storm, you might want to check your generators and your emergency lights.” After giving his last bit of help to the store, Loras ran out to his car.
As his car slid downtown, the excitement started to drip out of him. He honestly didn’t know what he was doing anymore and maybe, he felt, that that was good. The car had plowed into an open spot on the barren street, when he realized kicking an old woman might not’ve been the nicest thing to do. Dad, he realized, probably wouldn’t have even done it, but Loras bet he would’ve at least thought about it.
“I imagine the police will be visiting us later today Kim.”
“Why?” Kim asked from behind the stacks.
“Possibly for assault or, maybe, breaking a restraining order or even breaking and entering. I’m not sure to be honest. It could be a number of things, come to think of it.” He was trying to be earnest about the whole matter. “How are things here?”
“Fine, I suppose.” She paused for a moment, setting down her flashlight, as she spoke. “We do have a problem though. After the power went out, I’m thinking the ice must’ve thrown a couple power lines’ down, I haven’t been able to get the computer started. We have a generator, so I figured it wouldn’t be a problem … but here it is, the screen is as black as the night is long.”
“That is a problem … I’m not sure if I have a back up for our ordering system. Did you keep that printoff I gave you?”
“No, I threw it away after I was done with it.” In the dim glow of the safety lights, Loras could tell she was frustrated. “It shouldn’t matter though, should it? You know how each of these books should be placed, right, you know …”
“No, not really … I read them, make my decision, then I set them up in the computer. Set it and forget it.” He chuckled at the reference.
“Why aren’t you more upset about this? The whole store is going to be a mess in a matter of days.”
“Kim, once the police have finished up the mess of the storm, the power lines and the car wrecks and things, I figure I’ll be going away for awhile.” He moved away from the dingy bookshelf and sat behind the counter. As he did it, he started picking at the old register and said, “I’m figuring that the mess won’t really matter, if I’m not here worry about it at least. If you want, we can start reading some of the books that are already sitting out and refigure out where they’re suppose to go. Does that sound good?”
“Not really because the more time that passes the more the books are going to get out of place; it’s kind of a lost cause now, especially if the police are comin’.” Her dirty accent pounded the last consonant of the sentence. “… anyway, books should be the last thing we should be worried about.”
Loras looked away from the register and started to stare at the beguiling oaf in front of him; he asked her one final time, “Seriously, were you the one putting the books in the wrong place? It’s okay, just let me know?”
“How would you know anyway?”
END
