The Bookstore

The age of the corner bookshop is over. In the long-lost days of yore, when something still remained of the America depicted in the works of John Steinbeck and William Faulkner, and there were still people alive who remembered what the 1920s were like before the Great Depression, and a bomb that could blow up the planet was the farthest thing from people’s minds, there were such oddities as the corner market, the corner drug store, the corner barber, and the corner bookshop. One might call this the “Great Age of Mom and Pop,” a grand time for the American economy and the American spirit, a moment in our history when people could go to bed with their doors unlocked and never think twice about it. I weep for those days, though I was mostly too late to experience them. Today, when you want a book, you go online, likely to Amazon, and have it shipped to you. Or, if you’re especially despicable to crabby old-schoolers like me, you download a digital copy and read it on your fucking device, whatever that happens to be. It makes me sick.

Inexplicably, the giant, commercial bookstores like Barnes and Noble can still be found, but these are wraithy shadows of what they once were, a visible sign of the book industry’s slow decline. There was a time when a book was published because of its merit, but those days are as long gone as Mom and Pop. It’s all about marketing now. It doesn’t matter if the writing is good, the only question that counts is, “Will it sell?” If so, it is given a hot cover and placed on a shelf at Barnes and Noble, a hive of literary commercialism if ever there was one. I wonder if the age of the classic is over, too. Are the Kafkas and Sartres and Hemingways and Asimovs and Twains all gone? Is it just all about the damn vampires and werewolves and fifty fucking shades of gratuitous sex now? Where’s the substance?

Clearly, as I sit here at Barnes and Noble, I am feeling a bit grumpy. I always get this way when I come here, because to be here is to swim immersed in reminders that my writing career is nowhere near what it should or could be. When I see all this bullshit on the shelf and then remember how hard I’ve had to fight to get my stuff here, it just makes me feel exhausted and so small. The truth is that it is far easier to squeeze a fat camel through the eye of a fucking needle than it is be successful as a writer… and as I type this last sentence, I question again why, why, why I’ve chosen this thankless profession. (I don’t really question it. I know good and well why.)

But that is not what this essay is meant to be about, nor is that the reason I came to the bookstore today. I just needed to vent some of my frustration. Now I’m good.

There’s no end to the benefit, both in terms of amusement and the gathering of personal sagacity, that can be attained simply by stopping to observe other humans as they move to and fro through life. Lounge about in an airport or a busy city park for an hour, observe the people around you, and you will no doubt see the entire tapestry of human psychology unfolding in stark imagery, feeding your mind with fodder for entertainment or enlightenment. In short, people watching can be both fun and educative. That’s why we do it. No one walks into a restaurant thinking, “I’ll try to be as irritating as I can and stare at everyone around me.” No, we do it because other people are simply fascinating. And that is because the human species is, by far, the most endlessly bizarre and baffling form of life this side of Dagobah.

I came to Barnes and Noble for one reason only: to enjoy a slice of human nature, to watch people being themselves when they don’t know they’re being watched. Now, it is true, I could have picked any number of public places, many of them better suited to my intentions, but I specifically wanted to study that sector of the populace who spend their free time among books, the very items I spend my time creating.

But before I get into all that, I must first offer this caveat: I have to be medicated to be here at all. As a man who struggles with agoraphobia, I usually go to great lengths to avoid public places. I’m not an extreme case; I can leave my house (most of the time), but often I have to be loaded up with Xanax to do it, as I am right now, though certain situations are impossible for me no matter how many drugs I dump into my bloodstream. I feel this is a relevant admission to make, considering what I’ve come here for today. Far be it from me to comment on anyone else while concealing my own dysfunctions, of which there are many. And though I know this short admission produces more questions than it answers, I must defer to another day the uncomfortable task of writing an essay about these struggles, for again, that isn’t what I have come here for today.

There are several Barnes and Nobles in the St. Louis area, though not as many as there used to be (and I’ll never forgive Borders for closing their doors). I’m at the Ladue location, on Ladue Road, in Ladue, Missouri (a suburb of St. Louis). This is a smaller store, but experience has taught me that it’s possibly the most heavily visited location around. So here I sit, nestled in the cornermost table in the café area, surrounded by giant window pains to my left, the coffee bar to my immediate right, and millions of books in between, left of the bar. I think this is the perfect vantage point in the bookstore; from here one can pretty much watch all the action without having to get up and investigate between the bookshelves.

This ideal table wasn’t mine when I first arrived. I had my mind set on it when I was driving here (I’d previously noted it was the perfect spot to observe the goings-on at this location), but when I walked in I found that some unkempt piece of shit was already in my seat. So I set my backpack on the table next to him and resigned myself to waiting.

That was when I noticed the book he had with him: Mark Manson’s "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck," which I’ve read myself. It amused me to observe the mixed signals coming off this asshole in my seat, for he evidently did not give a fuck and there was nothing subtle about it. It was clear he’d just rolled out of bed before coming here, not bothering to comb his hair or address his noticeably unwashed state, which anyone could smell if they were as close as I was. His clothes were dirty and threadbare in many places, and nothing about him suggested he had the slightest concern for the commonly accepted rules of civilized society. So, to see Mark Manson’s book in his hand was, to me, quite a humorous sight. I felt this guy should write his own book to rival Manson’s: The Blatant and Unrepentant Art of Not Giving Even the Slightest F*ck.

Smirking at my own dry wit, I left my bag at the table and went to the counter to order a mocha latte, my preferred drink if it’s to be the coffee bean I’m using for a daily dose of caffeine (Mountain Dew is my first choice). As the girl made my drink, I heard someone’s mobile phone ringing… and I turned to see my squalid neighbor fishing his out of his pocket.

Oh, please let this be a call that takes him out of the store, I thought. And to my delight, he got up after a few moments of chitchat and walked away, leaving Manson’s book on the table behind him.

Checkmate, I thought, rushing over to my bag and moving it to the coveted table. Then I went back to the counter to grab my drink, and now, just a few moments later, I am sitting here sipping a hot latte, I’ve got my laptop out, and I’m writing.

And so it begins…

It doesn’t happen often, but every now and then, I experience a sensation that feels almost like destiny or fate, as though I’m exactly where I’m meant to be at the exact moment I’m meant to be there. This is a good feeling, mostly because it’s so rare. I enjoy the sense of alignment in these moments, the awareness that, for this brief increment of time, everything has fallen into place precisely as it should, that finally nothing is askew. As I look out the window to my left, I see snowflakes falling lightly, barely sticking to the grayish pavement of the parking lot. The sky is that perfect pitch of pre-snow white, and a subtle hint of Christmas is in the air. Inside, I am kept warm by my cardigan and my latte, and books, my favorite things in the world (aside from boobs), are shelved in their thousands merely a few feet from me. Yes, I’m right where I should be, and that wonderful sense of alignment is upon me. For this moment, at least, I am happy. For this moment, I am okay.

A mousy-looking girl sits down at the table in front of me, facing my direction. She is not the most attractive woman I’ve laid eyes on, but seeing her front is still better than seeing her back. I guess she’s in her early twenties or so, maybe a college student, and likely unaware of what the real world is going to be like when she graduates. She’s brought no book to the table with her; and I correctly deduce that she is here to stare at her phone for a while, for no sooner does she sit than the device is in her hands and her nose is buried in it. For the next hour, I’ll see nothing but the top of her red hair. Why she couldn’t have done this at home, I don’t know. Maybe she just wanted some coffee. Maybe she just didn’t want to be alone. Maybe there is comfort in being among people even if they’re strangers. I too have known that feeling.

I see a middle-aged woman browsing the magazine aisles, which are straight ahead of me. She looks like a typical mom; she’s clad in the kind of drab clothes a woman wears when she doesn’t have time to care. Despite her dull apparel, I note that she’s singularly beautiful. Her face is porcelain and perfect, as though some Renaissance master sculpted it with great care. I suspect, based on her body language, that she doesn’t know it. Or, perhaps more accurately, she knows it but isn’t completely comfortable with it. This is a peculiar feature I’ve encountered in the female before, the awkward position of possessing great beauty, knowing it, but not sure how to feel about it, as though embracing the beauty and owning it would be to commit a sin of unwarranted indulgence. Part of me wants to go over to her and say, “You’re quite beautiful, you know, and that’s perfectly okay.” But I refrain. It would probably come off as creepy, and in this #MeToo society, a man can’t be too careful. It behooves him to keep even his harmless impulses to himself.

There’s an elderly man sitting four tables away, ahead and just to my right. As far as I can tell, he’s the only person in this café who is actually reading (now that Mr. Unclean Unsubtle has vacated my table). My eyes aren’t great these days, and the print on the cover of his book isn’t clear to me, so I can’t make out the title. But now I feel I must know, so I get up and amble over to the magazines, passing by his table as I go. Ah! I say to myself, noting the title. It’s "Theodore Rex," a famous biography of Teddy Roosevelt by Pulitzer Prize winner Edmund Morris. I haven’t read it myself, but I will. (I don’t grab a magazine, but I do smile at the ill-clad but quite beautiful middle-aged mom still browsing them. She graciously smiles back. I return to my seat, pleased.)

The elderly man reading Theodore Rex reminds me of the quintessential college professor: gray hair, gray beard, glasses, a woolen turtleneck, and an owlish look to his face redolent of a stern mentor. I see he has brought his own mug to the café, which tells me he’s likely a regular. That and the clear signs of his age tell me he’s retired. Is he enjoying retirement? Judging by his demeanor, I’d say so. He looks right at home. I find myself wondering about his life up until now. Did he live it well? Was his time on Earth well spent? Is he satisfied with all he’s accomplished? Has his rest been earned?

He senses me watching him, and his hoary eyes dart from the book over to me. I nod at him, as if to say, “I acknowledge your dominance, old-timer.” He nods back, then returns to his book. I return to my laptop, and the great wheel of life spins.

Once people watching has grown somewhat tiresome, I decide that it’s time for me to grab a book from the shelves. But what should that be? I have no idea. So I decide to browse. I ask the mouse with the red hair to watch over my laptop; to which she agrees. I toss my empty latte cup in the trash and head for the aisles. After some wandering between the stacks, I come back to my table with a ludicrous self-help book about the mystical art of “being whole,” the title of which I shan’t reveal (due to legal issues, for I’m not going to be kind to its content).

When people speak of being whole in the personal health sense of the term, I sometimes have a hard time comprehending exactly what they mean. What does it mean to be “whole?” I don’t think being whole means you haven’t been broken. No one can go unbroken. It is not empirically possible. The reality of existence and the mathematics of humanity’s penchant for cruelty, and the Universe’s predilection for injustice, mean it is a foregone conclusion that at some point in your life you will get hurt and hurt bad. You will get broken. It’s just as much a fact of life as death is, or hunger. It’s going to happen, period. However, being whole, I think, is concerned less with brokenness and more with how brokenness is processed, dealt with, and conquered. Moreover, I think being whole has more to do with what a person believes about themselves and their world around them and less to do with how that world treats them.

According to the published excrement in my hands, being whole means retreating to some sort of imagined, embryonic womb within, a “safety cave” you can escape to when reality as it is becomes unpalatable to you. Enraged by this notion, I pull up Amazon on my laptop to locate this book’s sales page. I see it has over one thousand reviews, most of them positive. What the fuck, I think, tossing the book to the table with repulsion. I only chose it from the shelf because, at first, I thought the title sounded rather promising. But after reading five or six pages, I knew it was a fucking con, a bundle of lies dressed up in sexy skirts and worded just right to lure hurting people into spending eighteen dollars. And here again, we see the problems with the book industry. Any assemblage of idiocy can make it to the shelves if the powers that be think it will sell.

I close my laptop and look around me. The mouse’s nose is again buried in her phone. The owlish professor is still reading "Theodore Rex." The beautiful mom is gone. The girl behind the coffee counter is ringing up the order of another woman at the register. And a newcomer has quietly arrived; she’s sitting just a few tables from the owl, looking through a fashion magazine. She’s the sort of vixen every guy in the store is going to notice, and unlike the uneasily beautiful mom, I suspect this girl has a strong sense of her beauty and knows how to use it, probably to the detriment of men unlucky enough to be seduced by her. True, there is no way I could know that, and it never behooves a person to judge based on sight, but I didn’t get to be the kind of thinker I am without learning something about the fine art of trusting my instincts.

Here is my slice of humanity, a tiny sector of the populace: the mouse, the owl, the vixen… and the alert writer observing them from his table in the corner. This is what I came here for, to watch people being themselves.

And it occurs to me that none of these people are “whole,” just as I’m not. No one is whole, no one on the entire goddamn planet. Some people may seem more whole than others; some people appear as though they haven’t suffered, but this is just a very persuasive illusion. What the fuck does a human being know about being whole? Our entry into life begins with a slap on the ass, and why? So we’ll cry out. Life is measured first by our ability to shriek in response to pain. And does it get better from there? No, not really.

What good is a “safety cave” if the person is already hurt? I mean, if you’re not whole, how is retreating inside going to fix that? When you retreat inside, aren’t you walking through the debris of all the things that made you not whole to begin with? Personally, I am not sure humans can be whole in this life, but if we can, I know for certain that it must be a wholeness based on what is, not what isn’t. Retreating inside to some imaginary space of false comfort isn’t the way. Acknowledging your pain, staring it down, confronting it, and somehow moving past it—that is the only true recipe for wholeness, assuming wholeness is even possible. Whatever being whole means, it doesn’t mean you have not been shattered; it must involve the possibility of those shattered pieces being put back together in the proper order. Otherwise, no one has a chance. I’m still trying to figure out the mechanics of all that. Each day is a day closer…

As the afternoon wears on and the snow starts to stick, I pack up all my stuff and vacate my coveted seat in the corner of the Barnes and Noble café on Ladue Road, but not before I write a message on the inside flap of the pitiful self-help book, a quote from Leo Tolstoy’s "Anna Karenina": "Anything is better than lies and deceit!"

Beneath that I write: "Save yourself from this absolute load of fucking bullshit."

After that, I drive home in the snow, excited to be with my wife and two cats.