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 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:

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.

Five Minutes - part one

It was a dreadful ride up in the elevator, and my heart sank when I opened the large wooden door to the office.  Making my way over to the counter, I greeted the executive assistant, giving her my name.  After checking the itinerary, she offered me a seat where I was afforded plenty of time to review the polished granite flooring, black leather over-stuffed chairs, and cherry-wood panelling on the walls.  This was where serious business transactions took place and I, truth be told, was out of my element.  My eyes grazed across the titles of the magazine selection on the table beside me: Report On Business, Forbes, Canadian Business, MoneySense.  Perhaps the other side of the lobby had a magazine more suitable for me: Roam on $5/day, or Homesteading Magazine.

Contacting the regional credit counselling service had been a first step on what I'd hoped could be the road to recovery, with an accountant whose keen skills could help dig me out of the hole I now rested at the bottom of.  Not that I was entirely convinced the shop could be pulled out of its nose-dive after the nearly 30 percent lease increase.  They had matched me with the firm whose lobby I now solely occupied.  About ten minutes after my arrival I was directed by the assistant to proceed to the office, and was assured I would not be waiting much longer.  The door closed and I was left sitting in silence.

It had been an exhausting 10 months since the renewal of my lease agreement. Sales were down simply because I could no longer afford to buy books in the same quantity.  The rent increase virtually eliminated my salary, and collection agencies were calling me 2 or 3 times a day.  My ex-girlfriend Amanda, who had also been my business partner was being telephoned overseas in the middle of the night with the same frequency.

Bill, as he introduced himself, came into the office, shook my hand vigorously and apologized for being tardy.  He wore a conservative pin-striped suit and was middle-aged, sporting a pinky ring and a Tom Selleck moustache.  He didn't waste any time getting down to business - he seemed to be rushing through the meeting as though he had a dogfight to attend.  Worriedly, I watched as he tapped a few digits out on his calculator.  He then looked over other documents I had been requested to provide him with - business statements, remunerations and income tax information from the previous year.  More tapping on the calculator.  Looking up over his reading glasses he said, "Yep, you're bankrupt," and then arranged my documents in a file folder. I started to feel sick, things were happening too fast.

The room felt suddenly cold.  What hope I'd mustered of resurrecting the store drained away, like the last bit of water in the sink.  I had convinced myself I would be introduced to a person who could help me set the store straight. Having been in business for 10 years gives one a certain sense of leverage, I thought to myself.  I had heard that you could make a consumer proposal to your creditors, fixing your interest rates at a workable 5%.  Instead, I sat across from a man who offered no other solution than the dissolution of my business.

Bill advised me that I should keep the store open to the end of the month, a mere 3 days away, and to remove any personal effects and files from the premises.  He made a date for a follow-up meeting, a week after this "initial consultation".  Bewildered, I shook his hand as I rose to my feet.  I was being shown the door, and I thanked him for his help, the way you do when you thank a police officer for giving you a speeding ticket.

My mind was blank and filled with mixed emotions as I made my way to the elevator, back down to the ground floor.  I unlocked the door of my VW van and for several minutes sat staring at the dash, feeling like a man without a country.

4 days later, at 3:38 a.m., alone and sitting on a milk-crate at at the back of the store, I broke down.

More days later I was back in that same office, being attended to by Bill, for our second and what would be our final meeting.  In the meantime, he had made some initial inquiries and had started the bankruptcy process on my behalf.  He had dozens of documents for me to sign in triplicate; my hand got sore from signing my name over my new title: "signature of bankrupt".  Bill went on to warn me there may be an inquiry as to how I let my liabilities get so far out of whack from my assets.  He also suggested that  I, "should have come sooner...".

I went home with a black hole in my stomach.  There I was, 35, at an age when I should have been at the top of my game, with nothing.

Post-script:

Through the media we learn that bankruptcy is a fate worse than death for business people.  Banks treat people who have gone bankrupt like criminals and simply refuse to open accounts for a person who is going through or has passed through the process.  I was told by my trustee that I would have no problem obtaining a chequing account, and that it was just a question of asking for one.  Not so, as I actually had several account managers from different banks actually turn their back on me, when I needed an account for a job I had.  Only with my parents intervention did I manage procure one, as it was required for automatic deposit.  I was fortunate, yet many are not afforded the same opportunity.

You'll find a link to part two here.

Mom and Dad

I can't make the claim to have single-handedly found the location for the store, negotiated the lease, constructed the fixtures for the grand opening two weeks later.  There were a few key players, namely my soon-to-be business partner, my girlfriend at the time, and most importantly, my folks.

To be certain, my girlfriend and partner collected materials, including books, lamps and chairs, but the majority of the purchasing for the grand opening came from the diligence and hard work of my Mom and Dad slogging through garage sales.  Ever toiling in the background, while I continued to hold down my job at a store that would some day be our competition, they accumulated books.  For 3 to 4 days a week they would map out a route of garage sales listed in the newspaper, careful not to backtrack and end up at the same sale twice.  They made shopping for books as efficient as possible in both time management and fuel consumption.

They also secured my first loan.  A relatively modest sum of money yet, for me, at the time, a king's ransom. This would end up being my primary investment in the enterprise, with my business partner matching the contribution.  It was only 3 weeks later when we realized we didn't have enough funds to cover operational costs, most of which required cash.  Back to the bank, to raise the ceiling on my loan.

It took more than a year to amass 4000 books, enough to get us off the ground, eventually organizing them into categories on the floor of my parents' basement - the foundation of the eventual sections in the store.  As more and more books were collected, they became more knowledgeable and selective, and by incorporating trips to estate sales, thrift shops and fundraisers, were able to get their hands on some real gems.  I would accompany them on these forays whenever possible, and we would end up in discussions over which books should be purchased, and what materials should be included in a bookshop.

Dad's painting, store name blurred

Mom has been a lifelong reader, and, throughout my childhood I can't recall a time where she did not have a book on the go.  I guess that has always left an impression on me, feeding my insatiable curiosity.  She was a stay-at-home Mom to 4 children, and it is worth mentioning, a font of knowledge, and a culinary inspiration.  My Dad had worked for a large national corporation before taking early retirement in the late 1980's.  I think his heart may be in his art though.  He works in acrylics and oils, and one year presented me with a painting of the store, having whimsically added a character peering through the window.  It turned out to be the uncanny resemblance to a young man who became a regular in the shop.

Though neither of them had small business experience themselves, they really took the time, helping me methodically and logically plan the necessary chain of events to get the doors open.  It felt like they cared, and they really did.  Later, they became my sounding board when issues arose regarding my business partnership and lease negotiations.

Five years into operations, following an audit of our electrical system, we discovered we had been paying for the power use of 3 other businesses in the building, including a video game developer, an environmental organization, as well as a large, well-lit outdoor billboard attached to the building.  Dad helped me draft a letter to the landowner for compensation, and we got most of our money back.

They were always there, part of the store from it's inception to it's demise.  When attending musical and poetry events, they would almost always bring food, drinks and other treats to assure I had "bums in seats".  I don't think I'll ever get over the notion that I let them down somehow.

The Psychology Section

There was a woman who lived only steps away from the store in a Victorian home that had all the hallmarks of an orderly existence.  She was a mother of three very successful daughters, about whose achievements she would boast constantly.  Nearly 5 feet tall and around 60 years old, with an English accent, she resembled a character from Shakespeare.  She was a piano teacher who taught from home and, as most of her students were late afternoon drop-ins, her mornings were free to spend as she wished, and she would come to visit.

One morning, a little after 10, I looked up from my newspaper and cafe au lait to see the door closing.  I stood up to have a look, but couldn't see anybody.  A scuffling noise from in front of the recent acquisitions shelf told me that someone was in the store.  Up popped her head shouting in the queen's vernacular, "Right... SHIT!  What are you doing?"

"Good morning, Liz," I said.  "How are you?"  Refusing to answer, she instead decided to focus on the over-sized steps she was taking to walk to the counter.  Reeking of some type of alcohol, or combination of distilled beverages, she now stood before me with something cupped in her hands.

"Close your eyes!", she said, with her usual slow, baritone, regal authority.  I did as I was told, as I was always up for a new experience, and waited. "Hold out your hand..." she demanded.  "Why," I said, starting to get more than a little suspicious.  "Have you been a good boy?" she asked.  "Why?" I said, now thinking seriously of retracting my arm.  She said, "Don't get smart!"

So there I was, holding out my palm, and in it she deposited some kind of food.  I opened my eyes to reveal that it was Black Forest Cake, and she was using her hand as a spatula to scrape the icing from her hand, on to my fingers.

As quickly as she arrived she left me, standing there with cake in my hand.  I ate it.

During similar visits, I would open my hand to find a raw egg.  On good days, the egg would be boiled and, if I was lucky, it would even be shelled!  Sometimes I received a can of unopened tuna.

Liz also possessed the uncanny ability to terrify customers with congenial drunken outbursts.  She could be a little more than intimidating, especially to recently arrived foreign students.  She would come up behind a customer, cock her head around their shoulder, and loudly whisper one of her favourite inquiries: "And who are you busy being?"  This unfailingly led to moments of astonishment, followed by confusion, as the victim tried desperately to determine the relationship Liz had with the store.  Almost always, I found it necessary to step in to deliver the person from potential embarrassment, and hopefully, rescue a sale.