Bookseller

the rugs, the lettering of the ___ font, the dust, the people, the hordes, the flies in the cafe, the young teen lovers, the sefora salesgirls (always ordering a venti iced green tea chai and a soup), the managers, overweight despite walking that store five miles a day, the gel in the manager's hair, the straws (the people are always sucking on their drinks as you work), the filth and dirt in the rugs, only vacuumed once a week, the greasy easy chairs, the music, the interminable music, the Armik (a new age guitarist), MGMT (indie rockers with college educations), the both overeducated and undereducated staff (managers undereducated (no college), booksellers overeducated (college plus advanced degrees)), the small children who haunt my sleep, and the dead authors who get no rest on our bookshelves (Gombrowicz, Joyce, Deleuze).

the dirt and grime go down the wash sinks at the end of the night, the stragglers file out with their laptops, the sound system goes mute. we clean the shelves, put the store back in order, file the magazines, and dust the sections. a last-minute piss and off to home and back again tomorrow.

but that is putting it in a bad light. there is the halluncination of shelving books for three hours, straight, hustling to get you carts done. it is a hallucination that starts 20 minutes into your shift and ends the next day. there are no clocks in ____, it is like a vegas casino. there is no time, yet you will find yourself counting down the minutes like a schoolchild. there is nothing good or holy there. staff begin and exit their often-short careers like transients, only handing over copies of "the autobiography of malcolm x" in between. "always put the book in the customer's hand." this is one of our directives from corporate. if you lead a patron to the desired book, then literally hand it over, this act that seems to imply warmth, lovingkindness, and impeccable service actually improves our sales numbers.