When I was younger I had a job at Barnes & Noble. It was my first real job, after having worked briefly in an Italian restaurant, and also the Carpenter's union. At the time I'd thought it perfect; I liked reading, I liked the kind of intellect that bookshelves of literature would attract, I liked the calm and relaxed atmosphere. After I was hired I realized how wrong my preconceptions were.
The entire store was mismanaged by an eclectic assemblage of overseers, some of them well meaning, some of them neither well nor meaning. The store manager was mad - mentally and emotionally unstable - mildly impaired with some sort of back problem. Always flushed and lightly sweating, she worked with a crooked spine in a store full of flat-backed books. How taunted she must have felt.
Then there were our customers. They were predominately elderly, and almost always uncooperative, as though looking with a magnifying glass for imperfections: searching for something, anything, to be dissatisfied about. Now, I don't have an issue with the elderly, but my quotidian surprise at their behavior still boggles my mind. The other portion of our customer base were teenagers, who were an equivalent source of frustration. They would leave entire aisles in disarray, books thrown haphazardly across the floor or jammed into the shelves all out of place. Their favorite was the sex section, from which their giggles, oohs and ahhs could be heard from neighboring rows in all directions. We'd routinely have to chase them away - but as soon as we'd leave they'd reaggregate like horny gnats.
The wages were worse than paltry, they were insulting. Something like $6.25 an hour. But this, and everything else I've mentioned, wasn't even the worst part. The worst part were the nightmares. To this day it's the only job I've ever had that induced stress dreams - and I have had much much more stressful jobs than working in a bookstore in high school. I'd dream that I'd be working the customer service desk and someone would approach me and ask about a book. When I'd arrive at the place I knew the book to be, I'd suddenly realize that I didn't know how to read. The cost of being found out at this point would be great and grave; I'd be fired; an illiterate bookseller? The overwhelming helplessness and confusion crescendoing with the customer's impatience nearly inspired palpitations. Other nights I'd have dreams where whole sections would be organized to some abstruse schema completely impenetrable to me, and I'd be tasked with getting it in order before closing, while everyone stood waiting for me to finish.
The only saving grace were my coworkers. We had a rotating cast of consistently cool characters. Some were friends, others became friends, one would eventually become a girlfriend. One person in particular though, had been especially shunned. He was an older guy, the store's custodian. Everything about him looked weathered and worn; his clothes, his skin, his sagging eyes, his unkempt hair, his overall I don't give a fuck demeanor. He subsisted off of coffee, cigarettes, bagels and pretzels; I never saw him holding anything else, except for maybe a mop. His teeth seemed to jut out of his mouth life a cliff edge, from which all his words suicided. He seemed to always have a dark cloud of smoke about him. Others thought him strange and perhaps a bit creepy. Perhaps he was. But I found friendship in him. He was an old rocker, a maven on the guitar; master shredder. He'd lived the life of a rock star and worked a string of odd jobs that had led him there. His exterior was only a partial truth. He was intelligent, sensitive, quick witted, wise, sharply sarcastic and shamelessly sardonic.
We had a friendly epithet for one another: scunt, or, scumbag cunt.
We were a source of unabashed candor. We hung out outside of work and shot the shit, shot pool, had drinks. He always gave good advice, always had some nugget of obscure knowledge he'd found hiding under a dark rock. I often think of him.
He was a friend.
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