The Misogynist

After years of ignoring my bookstore, Clark, the cafe philosopher from next door, took a sudden interest in my operation.  That, or he realized he'd been passing up on an opportunity to bend someone else's ear.  I didn't know much about him, aside from the fact that he claimed to suffer from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, owned an expensive touring bike which he used in -35c weather (complete with studded tires for driving on ice), and smoked a pipe.  He often leaned his bike up against the outside window of the bookstore, which drove me crazy, as it prevented customers from viewing books in the display case.  On many occasions I would see him outside in the dead of winter performing warm-up stretches before riding off.

During his cafe rantings I would overhear on occasion, he made it clear that he did not like women, yet it never ceased to amaze me that he held a certain celebrity with female university students, and they would gather to argue with him in the cafe.  I'd never exchanged a meaningful word with him.

"The only woman I ever loved was my mother...", he declared for all to hear in the store, as he sidled up and sat down at the counter.  There were only two other people in the store aside from me, a woman in her mid-forties with her teenage daughter.  As though he'd rehearsed the whole scene, he continued, "...north american women are 'bush bitches'... give me a good asian or eastern european woman any day!"

He'd almost finished absentmindedly stuffing the most repellent smelling tobacco into his pipe, and scanned the room as though gauging the response of his audience.  "Not in here", I said, adding, "There are only a few things I will not tolerate in my store, and misogyny is one of them - you can check that bullshit at the door... anyway, you can't smoke your pipe in here!"

The mother was now approaching the counter from the opposite side, unleashing a barrage of insults including the suggestion that maybe he "would have better luck with women if you didn't smell like an ashtray," concluding her remarks with, "How do you think anyone is going to let you talk like that in front of a young impressionable woman, you misogynistic asshole!"  She then returned to perusing the books in the literature section, leaving Clark stunned and speechless.  "I'm going to have to ask you to leave," I said.  He gave me one last look before he gathered up his bag of tobacco, put his pipe in his mouth and lit it as he went out the door.

The next day I was bagging a purchase for a regular customer when I saw him scooting through the front entrance.  Raising my hand like a crossing guard, I shouted, "NOT TODAY!"

The Stalker - Part Two

There is a link to part one here:

Several months later I had moved in with Amanda.  As our car is once again in the shop for something Rick-related, my dad swings by the bookstore to give me a ride home from work.  It's after midnight when he turns into my street and we see, parked in front of the main door of my apartment building, Rick's idling vehicle, shadowy profile inside.  I had my dad pull over, and talked about what to do for several minutes; all the while Rick is just sitting, ominously, in his vehicle.  I was angry that this older man wanted control of Amanda, and had a predilection to menace to me.  The police, though having paid Rick several visits to his home, had their hands tied, and I'd had enough.  I waited a few more minutes before I made my decision.  

Asking Dad to stay put, I got out of the car and started walking towards the apartment from the opposite side of the street, well within Rick's field of view.  I saw him cock his head in my direction as he peered through the darkness.  He clearly did not know it was me, and once I was 90 degrees to his door, I suddenly turned and ran toward him.  I was only steps away from him when he got his car into reverse and peeled away.  I kept running toward him as he backed down the street, holding the steering-wheel in one hand, looking over his shoulder to see where he was going.  I resisted the urge to stomp on the hood of his car, though I was close enough at one point to do it.  Glancing back at me to assess my distance from him, our eyes met as his car shuddered over gravel kicking up dust at the intersection when he threw it into first gear; he screeched away with me still in pursuit.  I ran down the middle of the next street, devoid of traffic, chasing him until I could no longer see his car.

Dad pulled up alongside me and rolled down his window.  "Jesus, are you nuts?", he asked. I'd given the boots to a car once before, as a teenager walking down the street with a girlfriend.  I'd reacted badly to a racial slur hurled in our direction through the window of a station-wagon.  I have never been one to swallow intolerance of any kind, and I simply refused to be intimidated by a stalker.  I thought chasing him down could serve to send him that message.  I wanted him to think I was crazy, too, and that I would do just about anything.

Another eight months passed.  With the assistance of my folks we were able to secure a meeting with a lawyer who reviewed our notes, along with copies of the half-dozen police complaints we had filed against Rick so far.  He listened to a recent phone message left on Amanda's answering machine we'd taken to the gens d'armes, where they determined that it was "threatening" and, in fact, charged Rick with "criminal harassment".  The lawyer agreed with the police, and had us sign documents so that he could go before a judge to ask for a motion restricting Rick's communication with us - a restraining order which, at the time, cost around a thousand dollars.

Fiercely independent, Amanda had been resistant to the notion of telling her parents, who lived in another city, of our problems with Rick.  Yet, within days of requesting the restraining order and the day of the grand opening of the bookstore, I was on the street with Amanda's dad, whom I had gotten to know on a few other occasions.  He stood next to the door of his car, posturing, and asked me rhetorically, "What the hell are we going to do with this guy, anyway?" adding, "You know, I have a hunting rifle and I could bag him at 300 yards... he wouldn't even know what hit him!"

It's important to remember that these were the days before anti-stalking legislation in Canada.  It was like we were living in a war zone, and Amanda's dad was only expressing what every father would feel in the same situation, protective.  There was an overwhelming sensation of powerlessness, though we did eventually procure the restraining order against Rick.  He could not come within 250 meters of our homes and work.  A curious thing, however, happened in the final processing of the order.  We had acknowledged to our lawyer that one of the ways we were being harassed by Rick was by telephone.  The final document from the presiding judge first recognized this, but then was scratched out with a ball-point pen, siting in the same ink that it represented too much of an infringement on Rick's rights.  Weird.

Rick received a copy of the document, and continued to call Amanda's house and our newly opened bookstore at all hours.  We thought we finally had him when a stamp-less letter from him was left on Amanda's doorstep.  We called the police, and they paid him a visit.  They could do not do a thing: he claimed he had had a friend deliver it on his behalf.  Even a restraining order meant nothing to him.

Three months later we found ourselves in a courtroom filled mostly with Amanda's friends and family on one side, and Rick on the other, sitting alone to face the charge of uttering threats.  His lawyer, notably a woman, stood up to address the proceedings, requesting "a dismissal, on the grounds that this was a personal issue between my client and the witness for the Crown", who happened to be Amanda.  The judge agreed and, bafflingly, dismissed the case!  This all happened in a matter of minutes and when Rick walked out of the courtroom, I saw the look of relief on his face.  Speechless, as I remember the ten or so of us were, I held out on the hope that this would be the motivation he needed to get on with his life and leave us alone.

But that was not to be.  The calls continued daily; damage to our car, more inventive and serious.  It seemed for a time that there were longer periods between occurrences.  Then, out of the blue, he parked his car across the street from the store one day.  Thinking this to be a brazen daylight attempt to harass us, I noticed there was a woman in the passenger seat.  They got out of the car, holding hands casually as they crossed the street, looking much like a happy couple heading to the cafe next door.

This simply would not do, and so I asked Amanda if she needed a coffee.  She said, "I could use one", throwing in, "let me join you", and we stepped out and headed for the cafe.  Once in line, we were right behind Rick and his new female friend.  Amanda and I both discussed loudly that we should make it clear to Rick's acquaintance that she would be better off not hanging around with him.  Surprised, Rick caught sight of us when he turned around.  With Amanda and I suddenly on the offensive, we began describing in detail what Rick had been doing to Amanda, her apartment, and my car.  Visibly uncomfortable, they left the line and walked out of the cafe. I could tell that the woman had no idea what was going on; her eyes darted quickly between Rick and these two strangers.  We matched their stride just steps behind them and continued to delve into Rick's history.  Rushing now, they jumped into the car, Rick put the key in the ignition and threw it into reverse almost simultaneously.  As the car backed away my eyes aligned with the shaken woman's.  I said "Leave him", loud enough to be heard over the roar of the engine.

You may be asking yourselves why I did not take the officer's advice to "beat him to within an inch of his life...".  I've asked myself that a number of times over the course of events.  When things were darkest, I'd seriously considered acquiring a handgun for personal protection, but I'm not a violent person, and did not consider this to be the usual thoughts and actions of the average bookseller.  The closest I came to a physical altercation with Rick was a year earlier when I had gone to Amanda's apartment to pick her up for a movie.  

I had parked right at the front door to her building; when we came off the elevator and made our way out the door, we spied movement at the passenger door to my car, not 15 feet away.  Rick was using a screwdriver to scratch the glass.  I burst into a run, he spun around on his toes and started running away.  Taking a short-cut, I jumped through the hedge of a neighbouring yard to cut him off, and when I was about to grab him by the scruff of his jacket, stopped and just let him run off in to the darkness, in the hope that I had sufficiently scared him off.  It didn't.  We were living under siege.

In fact it took six years of continual harassment, and six years of filing police reports before I received a phone call from a very restrained Rick while the store was being renovated according to the principles of feng shui, asking for a "cessation of hostilities" to which I most heartily agreed.  It sounded as though he had turned over a new leaf in his life; scratching my head, I wished him well.  We never heard from him again.  The whole feng shui thing may have paid off!

Epilogue:

Less than a year before the store closed, and about two years after I had broken up amiably with Amanda, a former mutual acquaintance of ours, Maggie, stepped cautiously over the threshold of the shop.  Still in her early twenties when we first got to know her, she had suddenly and mysteriously dropped out of sight.  I hadn't seen her in years and ran next door to buy a couple of lattes to drink at the bookstore counter while we caught up.  She told me she had a story to tell.  

She had been at a lounge with friends at about the same time Rick called me asking for a truce, and met a very nice, intelligent man whom she started dating.  Only when Maggie got to know him better did she realize the people he was referring to in a story he told her were, in fact, Amanda and I.  He mentioned how awful we were to him, wrongly accusing him of heinous deeds.  That we had ruined his life.  It was, of course, Rick.

She believed him, and stopped coming to the store to visit.  They became very close and moved in together.

Two years passed, they drifted apart, their relationship became strained.  She decided it was time to part ways.  When she moved out he started stalking her.  At this point it had been uneasily quiet for Amanda and I.  It was anything but for Maggie.  The phone calls, the showing-up-at-places unannounced.  She started filing reports to police.  He terrified her, and it was more than she could take so she left the city to start a new life elsewhere, several hours away.

One night he came looking for her after he'd managed to track her down over the phone.  He pleaded with her to come back to him, swearing that he'd harm himself if she didn't.  In a drunken stupor he arrived at her residence; it was close to dawn.  An open bottle of wine fell on the road when he got out of his car, emptying its remaining contents.   Her sleepless night ended with an early morning call to police, and Rick sobering up in the drunk tank.

All in all, Maggie spent about two hours in my store that day, describing what had been her life.  She also needed to express her regret to Amanda and I over the decision she made to believe Rick and stop spending time with us, and to talk about what she called her "poor choices".  

Shortly before she left, I asked Maggie how things were for her now.  Happily, she told me that she ended up marrying a police officer.

The Stalker - Part One

I had been seeing Amanda for nearly a month, after she and I had met as co-workers about three months earlier working opposite shifts at the same bookstore, where the idea of opening my own shop began.  I found her attractive and engaging and decided to pursue her romantically.  I liked spending time with her, arguing about god-knows-what now, and found it refreshing to talk with someone who, at times, had an opposing viewpoint.  We got along well, and shared the same political standpoints.  Still in university, she was well on her way to a BA in philosophy, and working on the side to pay for tuition.

Out of the blue her ex-boyfriend Rick, whom she'd broken up with two months earlier, was imposing himself back in her picture, trying to get Amanda to come back to him.  He was very insistent and, for a time, I think Amanda did seriously consider it, but found little in common with a man 20 years her senior.  It could have been the reason their relationship only lasted 5 months in the first place.  When I'd first laid eyes on him, I assumed he was in his early twenties, like Amanda.  I was stunned to learn he was actually in his forties.

He seemed to take great exception to my presence in her life, and I heard from Amanda that he would, in conversation with her, go so far as to blame me for the end of their relationship.  Odd things started happening to my car, beginning with the evening I went out to the parking lot at my apartment and found one of my headlights had been smashed, glass all over the ground in front of the car.  I did not immediately attribute this occurrence to anything in particular, dismissing it rather as a random act of vandalism, and installed a new light. 

Several weeks later, and many more attempts from Rick to regain Amanda's affections, finds me working late one night.  I had parked my car in a dark lane not far from work.  When my shift ended, I closed the store and cashed out.  Walking back to my car, the hair stood up on the back of my neck before I noticed the plastic taillight had been broken.  It felt like I was being watched.  Alarmed and frustrated by this new development, the next day I went to a wrecking yard and managed to find another taillight.  Though I now had my suspicions, I could not prove directly that it was Rick who was to blame.  I started noticing further damage to the car;  in one instance the brake line was severed - it appeared someone had pulled on it until it snapped.  It was very worrisome, and I changed my habits, parking further away from work, and leaving the car several blocks away from home on a side street.

Rick continued contacting Amanda by phone, pleading with her to reconsider their relationship.  He also started phoning my apartment, even at 4 a.m. asking to talk to Amanda.   Around this time, Amanda had returned home after being out for the evening to find a rock thrown through her bedroom window.  That was when we decided to go to police to file individual reports, outlining the harassment and vehicle issues.

I was starting to figure out, by piecing together events, locations and times, that Rick and I had a mutual friend, a man named Moe, an ex-pat American living in Canada I had met through work months earlier.  He and I had been going out for brews on Friday afternoons after work for longer than I'd been dating Amanda.  I had been unloading my frustrations on him and our relationship grew to going over intimate details of what was going on in my life, including about Amanda and I and, of course, Rick.  I saw Moe as a comfortable shoulder to lean on, someone I could trust, and he was more than willing to let me bend his sympathetic ear.  I didn't know at the time he was also a good friend of Rick's, and that he had had a fling with Amanda in the past year.  

Moe, I now started to believe, was responsible for relaying stories about me directly to Rick, as Rick always seemed to know where Amanda and I would be.  It would explain the rock through Amanda's bedroom window when she wasn't home, and the damage that was occurring to my car no matter where it was located.  Once I had figured that out, I stopped sharing personal information with Moe.  It's clear to me now that he knew all along the details of what Rick was up to, as I have since heard from others in our wider circle of acquaintances that Rick had been bragging to Moe about the things he was doing to us.  The way I see it, Moe may have felt embittered over the fact that I was able to have a relationship with Amanda, where he had failed, and was secretly enjoying our troubles with Rick.

We filed our sixth police report after I took my car to the gas station to fill up and couldn't get the nozzle in because the tube leading to the tank was packed with sugar. I ended up having to get the tank steam cleaned by a specialty auto repair company.  Luckily, I had not driven the car far enough to damage the engine, and took the sensible step of buying a locking gas-cap.

Rick was now harassing us both by telephone at all hours of the day and night, and it felt like we were constantly being watched.  Not knowing what Rick was capable of, and fearing for our safety, I contacted the police seeking the advice of a constable, who reassured me we were following proper procedure, and told us to mark any calls from Rick on a calendar.  While looking over our complaints he asked in a hushed tone if he could speak, "off the record" and then explained what he thought I should do.  

"What you have to do with this guy, is get him in an alley, and beat him to within an inch of his life...", continuing with "Oh, and he can't know that it's you, so wear something over your head so he can't identify you."

Being mindful of the fact that I was talking on the phone to a policeman, at a police station, I took a moment to compose a response to his suggestion.  I said, " I appreciate the sentiment, but also, I realize it is interesting and ironic that I am being counselled by an officer of the law to assault another human being, albeit 'off the record', and that it would be entirely possible you would be the officer to arrest me after such an assault".  I felt like I was being tested by the constable, and his reply was a passive, "well... yes that's true, I'm just telling you how I feel".

The call was not entirely wasted though and through it and the subsequent over-the-counter conversations with officers at the station, we could tell that Rick had a history with them.  It was time to examine other, legitimate, solutions to the problem.

to be continued...

There is a link to part two here:

Five Minutes - Part Two

Part One can be found here.

When I got back home, I ran upstairs and screamed into my pillow until my throat was raw.   When I came to my senses I looked up to see the cat staring at me, inquisitively.  Of course, cats don't have expressions on their faces, but I would've sworn he looked worried... it only served to make me feel worse, and I spent the better part of the morning in bed in despair. 

Later, I drove over to my folk's house to download my frustrations on sympathetic ears.  They'd called to invite me over for cups of tea and plates of cheese and crackers, in an attempt to assuage my shock and depression.  I soon excused myself as I realized my mood was taking a dive.  My entire lifestyle, including work, had evaporated with a few strokes of a pen.

I spent most of the next week in bed with a continuous migraine which I nursed by a home-made concoction of single-malt whiskey from my liquor cabinet with various types of pain medication.  Unable to sleep, I drank, watching sad bastard romantic comedies, hoping that Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan would finally sort things out.  Sometimes my sister would come over to take me out, but I felt disconnected and distant.  

It was like I had fallen off the face of the earth. The store, where people would usually find me, was, in essence, boarded up, and in my haste I had not left a note on the door thanking people for their years of patronage.  Grace stopped in for a visit.  I think she may have been concerned after not hearing from me in some time.  During our conversation over coffee on the back porch, she mentioned that she would soon be on her way to make soup at her aunt's house, and promised to bring some for me on her way back home, if I liked. Having had romantic notions about her, I simply wanted to spend time with her, but as I looked into her eyes I felt  I had nothing to offer her, or to anyone else for that matter.  The very idea filled me with grief and self loathing.  I don't know what she was thinking, I've never been able to ask.  She came back about 3 hours later.  I had set the table for the two of us, but she wasn't staying; instead she invited me out to her "Soup-Kitchen in a Chevy", where she carefully ladled soup into my bowl; and left.  I went back in.  The soup, chicken noodle vegetable by the way, was very good.  

   

Sometime later in the week I overheard my housemate Ross discussing my circumstances with our mutual friend Malcolm on the telephone one evening.  Ross told him I was "doing fine", which surprised me, because I was far from it.  On the other hand, it also pleased me in a way; I was able to fool him with the brave face I put on.  In reality, I had crumbled inside.  I felt like an actor playing my former role in everyone's life… including my own.  

Another ally in this, my friend Dylan, who had worked at the store, was able to fix me up with a position I knew absolutely nothing about nor one that would ever have occurred to me.  I hand-delivered my updated resume to Sol Mechanical, a shop he had started working at to make money so he could go back to school.  After a brief interview with the owner, and against my better judgment, I was hired as an apprentice plumber.

I was thrown into work almost immediately despite still reeling from a sense of loss.  I ended up under the tutelage of Dylan's friend Trey and worked with fellow apprentice Klayton, whose main claims to fame, aside from having arms like tree-trunks and thinking he was some kind of super-hero, were his sexual exploits with women.  He explained to Trey and I one day how he'd managed to get a black eye; about how, in the middle of a threesome with his competitive twin brother and a woman they'd picked up at the bar where Klayton moonlighted as a bouncer, they started arguing over who would get to do what to her and when.  Frustrated with the bickering, she left while they remained, punching and kicking at each other.  

I once asked him baitingly, "What does the giant stylized letter S sticker on the back window of your car stand for?"  With no sense of irony, and with his very pronounced lisp, his response was what I'd been fishing for, "Superman, you fockin' idiot."

One Friday afternoon, after hooking up waterlines to fixtures in a nearly finished home, the three of us got together with another trio of plumbers over beer and pizza at a nearby restaurant. Trey regaled us with a story about the new home and acreage he and his girlfriend had purchased outside the city, about how in the early morning hours they could look out their bedroom window to witness deer licking salt off their driveway, and how the animals would come right up into the garage to do this.  One of the other plumbers, an apprentice in his early twenties asked Trey if he could come on to the property to hunt.  Trey, astonished, replied in a shocked tone a very firm "NO", followed by a reasonable explanation that he believed firearms were not allowed in the county.  "It's okay", the apprentice said, "I've got a bow".

I didn't last very long in that environment, though I appreciated Dylan immensely for getting me the job.  One of my final days happened in the middle of December, while I was alone in the attic of an unfinished, unheated house in sub-zero weather struggling with a bit of 4 inch ABS pipe I was running as a vent from a 4-piece bathroom suite.  There are just some things that you have to do in life with your bare hands, and while muttering to myself about everything that was going wrong in my life - I found I could not feel my fingers.  

I eventually wrestled the pipe into its final resting place, and came to the rather hasty decision to leave that line of work for someone better suited to it. 

Some time later I was thumbing through the classifieds of the local paper in my kitchen, and spied an advertisement for a national delivery company needing owner/operators.  Not knowing what that was about, but believing it to mean something having to do with owning a car (which I did), I ventured down to the head office to hand them my CV.

The next day, quite surprisingly, I received a call back, inviting me to come in for an interview.  Turned out the manager's wife was a reader, and in fact had been a loyal patron of the bookstore.  That was that, and he asked, "How soon can you start?"  

I asked for a few days, thinking I would need some time to tune up the car and get other affairs in order regarding my bankruptcy - including the first of three rather ominously titled "counselling sessions".  In the negotiations with the delivery company, they offered me an hourly wage, a one-tonne panel van, and what would eventually prove to be the most lucrative route they had in the city for delivering office supplies: the downtown core.  Of course, all this was contingent on my agreeing to work towards buying the 4-year old van for $30,000, after my 3 month probationary period. 

I enjoyed the work almost immediately, except for the hours.  Work started at 4:45 a.m. and finished 12 or 13 hours later.  The first 2 or 3 hours were spent putting my stack of delivery forms, sometimes upwards of 120, into a drivable order, then loading the cargo into the van.  Sometimes I had what they called a "swamper", a person who would help me deliver especially large loads.  On more than one occasion, this turned out to be a 16 year-old girl who had dropped out of high school who actually started work at 3 a.m.

When the company found out I was reliable, they offered me the additional task of delivering beer at the end of my shift.  Their regular fellow was about to be let go as he all too often intimidated clients, mainly restaurant managers.  This increased the length of my workday by 4 hours, so now I was getting home between 9 and 9:30 at night, catatonic.  Often Ross would have leftovers from his supper ready for me when I arrived.  At that time of day, I couldn't imagine making a complete meal for myself; I did the dishes in return for the favour.  After days of lifting 3000 lbs of paper and pens followed by a dozen or so 160 lb kegs of beer and flats, running up and down the stairs, I was in the best shape of my life.  I was crossfit, before there was CrossFit!

Then one day, I made an office supplies delivery to one of the biggest breweries in the city.  It was an old turn-of-the-century red brick building I had never been to before, on the edge of downtown.  I backed into the loading dock and hopped out of the van.  Ringing the bell on the double door summoned the cheerful Receiver who was all too happy to show me and my dolly-load of three boxes of photocopy paper and a box of other goodies to the elevator. 

This was an enormous classic Otis traction freight elevator I was unfamiliar with.  It looked to be about 100 years old, and you could've fit a grand piano in it.  The light was bad, with only one swinging bare bulb far from being up to the task it was given.  The Receiver had vanished into an unlit passageway, and once I got myself inside, I looked around for the controls.  I pushed the number 2 and waited... nothing happened.  Quick to realize that I had to close the door manually, I let go of the dolly, looked around and reached up to grab a thick loop of nylon cable.  It was as about as high as I could reach, so I was on my toes when I began pulling it down.  It took all my weight to get it moving, which gave me an idea of just how heavy the door was.  What I did not account for in that moment was the bottom half of the door coming up to meet the top half.  Normally I'm quite aware of where my body is in space - but not that day.  The top half of the door was now coming down with the necessary momentum to close it, as my left hand was picked up by the bottom half, and before I realized what was happening, the doors met with my hand sandwiched between.

I don't remember making a sound, but after working my hand out, I closed the security gate and finally got to the second floor. There I was greeted by a very concerned secretary brandishing a first-aid kit.  Obviously this was a regular occurrence for her.  Thanking her for her concern, I refused her assistance, even as blood percolated through the fabric of my work glove, insisting that if I took it off my fingers may come off with it.  She unloaded the dolly for me.

I never bought the van.  I got into house renovations instead, for a spell.

The Poetry Reading

In the throes of working out the final details and last minute changes to some advertising for an event I had been working on with two employees, Claire and Matthew, I was paid an unexpected visit by local performance-poet Drew Ward.  He was a neo-throwback to the beat generation, and had a penchant for trying to shock people.  He had a reputation for taking his clothes off as part of his routine at adult-oriented programs.  In his early forties at the time, he was diminutive in stature, with thin skin over a boney frame.  He could prove to be unsettling to others in conversations that were most often both animated and contrived.  He was, in short, a little odd.  

He was delighted when I asked him to be a last minute addition to the open stage line-up at the poetry/music slam, but his face darkened when he asked if I knew of his poetic stylings.  I replied that I had heard of his dramatic disrobing during performances, and said that if he exercised common sense, we all could enjoy some of his "less revealing" works at what was going to be an all-ages event.  I was leaving it for him to decide, based on the turn-out, just how risque his material should be. 

Months earlier he had complained bitterly about having a sick parent living in Montreal whom he had not seen in quite some time, and conveyed his desperation in trying to find someone reliable who would temporarily take over his paper-route while he was away for two weeks.  My girlfriend jumped at the chance, pointing out we needed the money anyway, and we ended up freezing our asses off in minus 30 degree weather, picking up the papers at 3 in the morning, with a 3 hour window to have them delivered.  All while working 12 hour days.  Coffee, and lots of it...

Weeks later we find ourselves with about 40 people enjoying Matthew on guitar as the opening act.  He'd been practicing for weeks with a tremendous classical guitar solo.  Up until the last minute he was uncertain if he really wanted to perform it in public.  I'm glad he did, but wished he had invited family - this was his first public appearance after all.  Immediately after Matthew followed the headliner: a local rising star in the folk genre, a singer-songwriter named Grace who captivated listeners with acoustic renditions of her most popular works.

After a field of notable contemporary and local poets, it was on to the open-stage, and Drew was up first.  I steeled myself for his performance, having had second and third thoughts over the days leading up to the evening.  Silent, he placed his jacket down on a chair and took a deep first breath, turning to assess the audience as he searched for his focus.  The crowd (including members of my extended family) looked on expectantly, having enjoyed so much of the evening thus far.  Holding his papers with both hands, he began.  I became instantly aware that this would be a most memorable evening, as a crescendo of violent sexual imagery rose, directed from the protagonist in his poem.  With every breath he took, the air became more rarified, and the store seemed to shrink.  Drew appeared to get larger and larger.  It felt like he was reliving the moment in the words of his poem, angrily gesticulating about what he was doing with his genitalia.  His beady eyes, made artificially larger by the strength of his prescription glasses, sent a chill through the store as he glared about the room and delivered his version of the cold, stark reality in the dying lines of his first poem.  

I could feel from my position behind the counter, that there was now a palpable unease within the guests, and I glanced around the room to see people murmuring to themselves inaudibly between the first and second pieces.  What he would do for his next poem was anyone's guess.  I thought about pulling the plug, and moving on to the next poet; I looked to Matthew and Claire for some hand signal, some advice or wisdom on what to do.  They both shrugged, acknowledging the awkwardness of the moment, after all, there were young people with their parents in the shop.  As the owner of the store, I was the one with the ultimate responsibility to the audience, and it was only my own inexperience that left me unsure of what to do at that time.  I'd never had reason or justification to approve of anyone's material before a show.  It had never occurred to me.

Through clenched teeth, he launched into his next soliloquy, his ire also present in this new work, and he now found a focal point to direct his venom, locking his gaze onto Grace who, after having completed her performance, was leaning her chair against a back wall to enjoy the rest of the evening.  It is an understatement to say that she didn't look very happy and was trying to look away.  It didn't help that Brandon (a high-school student work-experience employee of the bookstore), here with his kid sister and very religious parents, started laughing aloud, which was unnerving but also served to punctuate the absurdity of what was transpiring on stage.  Drew's curled lips, now wet with saliva, unburdened himself of the predicament in his sexually charged rhyme.  He now gripped his papers with one fist, as he spat out the next lines of snarling poetics.  Shifting in her chair, Grace looked like a trapped animal about to spring as Drew leaned forward, almost over the first few rows of people, seeming to get closer to her.  Just as I thought "TIME'S UP", 35 people (including Grace) rose to their feet in unison, marching out of the store until only Brandon and a few others remained.  "Well...I guess I'm finished", Drew said, to which I replied "Yes, yes you are".  He collected his jacket off the chair, and returned to his seat, looking despondent.

As luck would have it, the audience gathered up their courage to return to their seats, having spent a few minutes outside on the sidewalk to catch their collective breaths.  My sister offered to read some stories submitted by her 13 year-old son; trying in earnest to salvage the rest of the evening, while cutting her eyes at Drew.  At the end of the night my brother confided in me that he was calculating his distance and the amount of strength it would take to subdue Drew, should he turn homicidal.

A week later I was enjoying a warm, sunny afternoon coffee with Grace at a cafe kitty corner from the bookstore, when Drew rolled up the sidewalk towards us on his bicycle.  He  said "hello" to Grace, acknowledging her as though they were two artist comrades.  Squaring himself off, he then addressed me, as though continuing a conversation, by reminding me that he "had warned me of" the racy material for which he was known.  He went on to indicate he was disappointed and pissed off with me over how badly things turned out for him that night.  I listened thoughtfully to his complaints, before recalling for him my request that he use "common sense" when deciding what material to include at the show.   I also pointed out that it had not been me that put an end to his program, but the audience who decided they did not want to listen to him.  "Yeah, well...that's true..." he said, mumbling something inaudible before saying, "see you later..." and pedalled off.

The Russian Weather Wars

A most unusual man with a most unusual preoccupation, aside from selling books, frequented the store for much of its existence.  He had a rather unique manner of dressing himself.  What set him apart from the other book dealers were the three pairs of eyeglasses he wore at once, including a pair of those yellow shooting glasses that hunters wear to increase contrast.  One pair had no lenses.  The third helped him see better.  He also had a cast-iron frying pan attached to his back, and one affixed to his chest.  Topping it all off was a blue construction hard hat, lined with aluminum foil.

His name was Raymond, and was a self-described veteran of the Russian Weather Wars of the 1980s.  Daily he donned his battlefield outfit to keep the aliens, who were allied with the Soviets, from reading his thoughts and controlling his heart through radio transmissions.  He told me that he spent sleepless nights on reconnaissance duties at nearby lakes outside the city, monitoring the UFOs which sucked up water to generate inclement weather elsewhere on the planet.

Perhaps he was on to something.  Let's have a listen to what prominent Russian politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky has to say about the weather in 2011...

It was obvious to me, and to the staff, that Raymond was suffering from undiagnosed psychological issues.  The one thing that remained a constant with him, was his friendly demeanour.  Soft-spoken and earnest, he would have poignant moments of lucidity, and he revealed to me that he had an estranged son, who was a popular national television personality.  He made it clear that he was proud of his son's accomplishments and spoke of him often, yet I detected some pain related to the distance between them.  They hadn't seen each other in years.

Inevitably, the clarity in his conversations would quickly evaporate and he would be back to talking about space aliens and Area 51.  According to him, he'd been there, observing the Americans and their experimental aircraft.  Undoubtedly a big fan of those late-night call-in radio programs, I used to wonder if Raymond had Art Bell [the former voice of "Coast-to-Coast" - the overnight show on the paranormal], on speed-dial.

Late one evening, I was walking over to the local supermarket a block away from my apartment to grab a few groceries.  As I walked past a dark lane with the neighbours' cars safely tucked away in their driveways and parking stalls, I noticed one very peculiar vehicle. It was a mid-sized 1970s Chevy Nova filled to the brim, save for the driver's seat, with old copies of Time magazine, clothing, and other odds and ends.  It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the light, and I finally realized there was a person sprawled over the top of the whole mess in the back seat, sleeping.  Quickly recognizing that it was, in fact, Raymond, I beat a hasty retreat, not wanting to violate what little privacy the vehicle afforded.  As I walked away, I turned for one final look, and saw a beautiful polished chrome sphere, about the size of a basketball, attached to the top of the car's radio antenna.  No doubt, I thought to myself, installed to ward off those testy Russians.

I had to remind him repeatedly over the years that we did not buy Big Juggs, Mayfair, or any other pornographic magazines.  Nevertheless, every week he showed up with a new batch, each smelling of a musty garage floor.  He always acted surprised when I put them back in his box but, luckily for both of us, he also brought in good paperbacks and the odd desirable hardcover.

Years after he'd become a regular supplier, Raymond uncharacteristically failed to make an appearance for several weeks.  A man stopped by the store instead; a friend of his.  Raymond had passed away from an asthma attack during the unprecedented heat-wave that had struck the city. He died in his car.

The Takeover Bid

Bora was a book supplier, trusted employee, and a welcome coffee companion.  He was outgoing and intelligent, pitching interesting intellectual battles with my co-founding business partner, Ethan, and I over political issues of the time.  He was compensated handsomely for the books he provided us.  It was because of the trust we had developed in him that we came to an arrangement whereby Bora, while on duty in the shop, would make a list of books he had in storage, but that we were lacking on the shelves.  He would then bring those books in on his next shift, putting them out on consignment labeled in red pen - essentially filling holes in our inventory.  It was expressed firmly that he could not put one of his books out on the floor if one of ours was there.  For this service he received 50 percent of the selling price of the book.  We programmed the cash register to create a specific category for Bora's books, to make accounting for them simpler.

My first inkling of a wheel falling off the wagon came when a long-time customer dropped by, mentioning he had driven past the store a few nights before, noting that it was 1:15 a.m. and saw that the recently acquired neon OPEN sign was still on, and the door open, with Bora busy putting books on the shelves.  This news came to me as a bit of a surprise, as we were only officially open until midnight.  I decided to have a look around the shelves.

To my surprise, I found many titles in duplicate in the Science-Fiction section, with one belonging to the store, and the other, priced lower in red, belonging to Bora.  I moved on to the Literature and Philosophy sections, where I made similar findings.  In fact, there was not a genre that had been left untouched.  If I asked you which copy of Hans Kung's Does God Exist you would buy if you had 2 identical copies, you'd probably say the one that costs less, if they were in similar condition.  Maddeningly, Bora had priced all of the books he put out to favour his copy.  Bastard!

I spent the rest of the day combing through the collections, removing every red-marked book.  I contacted Ethan, explained our predicament, expecting some insight or wisdom, but found only bafflement and frustration.  Ethan seemed upset with my discovery, but grew angry with me for having taken all Bora's books off the shelves.  "Can't we just continue until January, so that we can get through the Christmas season?" he asked.  "We'll owe him so much money, Bora will own the bookstore by then," I said, reminding him of the perilous condition of our cash flow of late.

The next morning, Ethan was working and I called him from home.  I pointed out to him that it was important for me to confront Bora myself if he came by, and asked Ethan to call me should he arrive.  He called me about an hour later, and when I walked through the door, Ethan gestured to the back room.

I could see from the way Bora looked at me that he wished me dead.  He looked down his long romanesque nose, head held high, trying to maintain his dignity, his black eyes squinting to register his disgust with my presence.   He made slow, methodical movements to check the stacks of his books I had neatly and carefully arranged on the table in the back room for him to remove from the premises.  About 3700 books in all, amounting to about 1/3 of our inventory.  I hadn't missed any - they were all there.  He began the slow retrieval of his books, loading his car to the ceiling.  By mid-afternoon they were all gone, and that was the last we saw of Bora.