Seven Stories About Working
in a Bookstore:
Pablo D’Stair
Copyright © 2011 by Pablo D’Stair
no. one: how I got the job
When I was eighteen-years-old and had a job at Baskin Robbins, I worked a really amateurish register grift and on my breaks I would walk to the bookshop at the other end of the strip mall to steal copies of Crime and Punishment. I stole a total of three copies over the course of a few weeks, just because I liked doing it.
***
The Bravado Bookmark was the epitome of strip mall bookshops—it was something that had no reason to exist, but it did. Throughout my life I had built up a kind of unconscious affinity for such places—from the odd Crown Books (that eventually became a Pet Shop) near the comic book store I frequented until I was about fifteen to the Super Crown that took up space next to the Party Mart (and eventually became the Party Mart) in the shopping center where the new grocery store was built when I was kid, even to the J.B. Dalton on the lower level of Mall I used to go to—the places held a wonderful allure. I mean, I had no reason to think of a bookshop as anything different, and in these shops I had come across all of the wonderful and formative literature of my life.
Bravado, it was just a storefront I would see, I’d never once gone into it until it was to steal books.
***
I mentioned that at Baskin Robbins I was working a register grift—that is giving me too much credit. A register grift (even now with my adult respect for law and order) is something to admire, to pridefully smile at, though it is certainly not very praiseworthy—a good register grift is something designed to trickle a decent amount of money out, each day, that perhaps parallels one’s legitimately paid income, at best. There is a method and thought and particulars that go in to each grift, a way to make it work, unique to each storefront and position held.
What I did at Baskin Robbins, as it turns out, was unintelligent, amounted to nothing more than straight up taking money from the till—it was a learning experience, no doubt, and I got better at subsequent jobs, but by way of full disclosure I want to unromanticize my skill level when at Baskin Robbins.
I would memorize prices and the amount to give out as change from the usual bills given to pay (fives, tens, twenties) I would type at the register, appropriately entering in the transaction (the till screen facing me, not the customer) and when time came to tender the monies, I would hit the No Sale button to pop the register, handing over the change—in the event the customer insisted on a receipt (very seldom at an ice cream shop) I would just hit the Total button and legitimately close out the sale.
But, here was my beginner’s mistake: to get the money out of the register I would have to pop it again, but there were cameras. In the back room, the monitors showed the various angles that were being filmed, the image displayed switching every few seconds. I would wait until the area being filmed did not show the register, hit what I thought was a button to keep only that angle recording, quickly dash to the register, pop it, take the accumulated gains, dash back and start the images cycling, again.
Perfect, seamless—maybe the image did linger a bit longer, but what were the odds of that particular moment being scrutinized?
What I did not understand was that what showed on the monitor was irrelevant—all of the angles were recorded all of the time, so I was actually doing nothing except filming myself showing how I thought I was pausing the camera when I was in fact not.
What I also didn’t know was that every time the No Sale button was pressed this was recorded and the nightly report showed the results. Now, there were many legitimate enough reasons to hit No Sale—I for example, just did it compulsively to pop the drawer for fun, to convert my pocket change into bills, to convert my large bills to small bills, my small bills to large—but after enough oddness about how many times it was being hit per shift, the boss talked to one of the supervisors (I think the kid was a year younger than me) and the fear was put in me good, though it seems no suspicion fell on me, directly (luckily I worked enough shifts with enough other people I could not be pinpointed as culprit).
So, I soldiered on, trying to keep things controlled, even purposefully hitting No Sale a lot during some shifts (when I cleverly wouldn’t steal) and only a few choice times during others (when I would make off with my ill-gots).
Trouble was, with trying to be careful about how many times I hit No Sale, the opportunities to empty the register were harder to come by, action had to be taken when opportunity—even shoddy opportunity—presented itself. I actually think that a co-worker spied me taking money out of the register through the store window, once, and a kind of investigation started—this co-worker’s claims, combined with my generally odd behavior (like spending most of my shift eating four to five brownie sundaes while sitting on the counter reading Crime and Punishment) combined with my seemingly magically inefficient mopping technique that caused me to constantly be taken aside for pointers and I could read the writing on the wall.
***
So, on one of my break time trips to the bookshop I asked a guy there—the manager, as it turned out—if the place might be hiring, thumbed in the direction of Baskin Robbins and then at my pink, filthy shirt to indicate I had local experience.
“You don’t like the ice cream store?”
“I like books more.”
He nodded and handed me an application, but said really I should just come by, mid-afternoon on Wednesday, we could just talk, that’s how he took care of things. He made a slick, gun shot at me with his fingers. “Bring the application, though,” he said.
“I will.”
Then I browsed, stole some book (Dean Koontz’s Mr. Murder, I think), said See you Wednesday and went back to work.
***
I cooled out for the next few days with the grift—as I felt all but guaranteed the Bravado position I figured I would end things out on a good note with my boss (who looked a bit like Hunter S. Thompson did at middle age, especially when wearing a ball cap).
But no, it was not to be.
He asked me to come to the back to discuss the amount of times I’d been hitting No Sale. I hem hawed my way out of it, sweating bullets, though thinking myself superiorly clever—if this was all the evidence they had, I’d weather the storm, no trick.
“Alright,” the boss finally said, “let’s just remember that it’s a lot of responsibility and try to keep on top of things like this, we don’t people to get the wrong idea, right?”
“Sure.”
In my idiocy, I figured this was me, off the hook.
Tuesday night, I made up my mind screw it with the bookshop, I’d keep the Baskin Robbins job, re-tweak my grift—now that I knew what the trouble was, I could refine it to Swiss perfection. So I skipped out on the Wednesday meeting with the Bravado manager and when I got to work (taking the long was around to avoid being spotted from the bookshop windows) I had Baskin Robbins to myself and started coming up with my new plan.
I studied the monitor and the VCR, idly. Pressing buttons, I hit one that made the screen display all four security angles, simultaneously—my gut tightened, I swallowed my throat underfoot.
Okay, though, okay okay—just cut out the grift, just cut it out, work the job, just work the job.
***
But Jesus, why do that? How long do those tapes stay around? Maybe the investigation is ongoing, maybe it’s just a matter of time before it occurs to the boss or the cake manager (an enormous woman who used the tanning salon next door after work then came in and sat in the walk-in freezer to cool off, afterward) that the tapes sho
uld be consulted.
Why should I just keep myself right under their noses, every sight of me another tap in the direction of the eventual “Hmnn…”?
***
Especially when Bravado Bookmark was right there.
***
I lingered by the grocery store, clear view to the front of the bookshop, waiting to confirm the manager was on duty and once this was verified trying to work up the nerve to talk to him. He stepped out, walking short circles and getting a cigarette going, squinting out at the parking lot and taking what seemed like lots of really deep breaths, going on tip-toes with each before deflating down into a slouch.
I walked up, spring to my step, waved from about twenty paces off, smiling wide and started talking even as I was still approaching.
“What are you doing here, man?”
I stared, blank, squinted. “For an interview. You said come by Thursday.”
He sort of half grinned, cigarette up in the twist of his lip. “Wednesday, man. Come on.”
“Wednesday?” I swallowed, did my best playact of devastation—not hard because I was getting genuinely concerned, why was this guy so cocksure of himself, what did he care? “You said,” I drawled, “Thursday, to be sure to bring the application.” I held up the application, all neatly filled in. He was slowly shaking his head, not even looking at me while I stammered on. “I had it written down, I wrote it as soon as I got home, on the notepad I keep on my desk—Thursday. Bookshop.”
He stepped out his cigarette. “Come on, man. I said Wednesday—I was waiting for you yesterday.” He got another cigarette going, waved out to the parking lot, though when I turned I couldn’t tell who the gesture had been made to. “I was looking forward to talking to you man, don’t know why you flaked.”
“I didn’t flake,” I said. “Look—I was at work last night, I had it on my notepad that the interview was today. Really. Look, maybe I just wrote it wrong—misremembered it—wrote Thursday because it’s my day off.”
“No, come on man, don’t con me.”
“What con? I’m here—this is the time we said to meet, I have the application—I really thought you said Thursday. Why would I be here, now if not?”
“I don’t know man. You flaked and now you changed your mind.”
I was beat, I didn’t see how I could get past this—it was irritating that he was both correct and so perversely insistent—he was an odd looking twist of a person, a little tab of flesh protruding just in the dip of his collar bone.
Then he said, stepping out the cigarette, “Look, it’s alright, you do seem like a good guy, I just want you to be honest, that’s all. I don’t want to work with you with you thinking you have to con me, you know?”
I made some shrugging gesture of Sure.
“So you know, just tell me how it actually was and we’ll go from there.”
And so obviously I could have swallowed my pride or whatever my hold up was, just outed myself, but instead, not even missing a beat long enough to seem I’d decided against the truth, I said “I appreciate it—look, I must have written it wrong. I’m not scamming you.”
He looked at me.
“I wrote Thursday, thought it was Thursday, I’ve been excited all week.”
***
He gestured that I was to follow him into the store and even while I passed in through the door—from heat and bright to just somewhat air conditioned, somewhat shade—he said “Why do you want to work in a book store?”
And right off I went in with “I know it probably sounds dumb, but I just really, really like books and I’ve sort of always wanted to work in a bookstore. I just have, since I was little.”
“Why’s that dumb, man? That’s not dumb. I like that a lot, that’s the sort of person I want to work with.”
I nodded.
“Alright, man, we’ll start you off and see how it goes. You’ll train with Shalvo and Pamela. Can you come in, tonight?”
I actually still had a shift at Baskin Robbins, but I said “Tonight would be perfect, I want to just dive in.”
“You need to work out notice with the ice cream place?”
So I teeter tottered that I did, but I had loose hours, could just get coverage.
“Naw, work your hours, work your hours, we’re good.”
“Alright.”
“Yeah, we’re good.”
We shook hands and I kind of peered around the place, we arranged I should be there at six—I had my shift at Baskin Robbins starting at four, still unmentioned, still something I needed to figure a way to worm out of—and he asked if I got free ice cream and could I maybe get him something.
“Sure, what are you in the mood for?”
He thought, then shook his head, asked could I just get him a fountain Coke.
“Absolutely, I’ll be right back.”
no. two: the job, itself
If there was training involved to work at Bravado Bookmark, I don’t readily recall what it was—other than using the till (which was fairly standard model) and learning to use the special order computer (which took about ten minutes to get the hang of) it was pretty much a milling around sort of place. To be fair, I should point out that (though at the time I would’ve said otherwise) I was not much of an employee, so perhaps I was just missing something—but none of my co-workers ever did much else, either, except the “shift manager” would have to deal with shipments every few days. It was mostly endlessly rearranging the shelves.
***
This was a strip mall bookshop—a large wall of magazines and periodicals; two large shelf-rows and two large tables of bargained books, remainders, anthologies of works in the public domain; a few stands of greeting cards and bric-a-brac. Then there was the book-section-proper, this being the surrounding store walls (which were primarily General Hardcover Non-Fiction, Self Help, Children’s, and Cook Books) and two shelf-rows (one shared halfway with remainders) of Fiction, Literature, Theatre/Essays, Science, Biography, True Crime, History and miscellaneous.
I seldom set foot anywhere but the non-remaindered row-shelf section, taking the assignment of keeping this straight—eagerly taking the assignment on day two of the job, the last time I can recall anything remotely like specific assignments being talked about.
***
I took it dreadfully serious at first, found the Fiction section, for example, in extreme disrepair, decided I would completely rework it, balance it as close to mathematical, alphabetical perfection as could be done—I spent a shift doing this (only facing out books I thought were worth facing out, silly stuff like that) and I was so very proud of myself, I wanted a bloody trophy. Of course, a customer (kind of a rarity at Bravado) would come in and surely they would wreck the set-up and do so somehow in such a fashion that it caused major rebalancing to be needed at least every day if I wanted the pristine nature kept up. This broke my heart, each time it happened, it just broke my heart.
My favorite was the tiny Literature section—clearly distinguishing itself from the Fiction section. It was the top three rows of one of the skinnier shelf units, the Theatre/Essay section right beneath it (this having two rows designated but only enough books to, sensibly balanced, cover one-and-a-half—no way to condense to one, no way to expand to two without running Literature into it, which for whatever reason was strictly against the rules). This is the section I’d stolen all the Dostoyevsky from and looking at it every day from the point-of-view of Employee it’s what started the germ festering that this bookstore was actually my personal collection, the books mine for the taking.
But, the first thing I stole while on payroll was from the Science section. It took me a lot of passes, a lot of times looking at it to finally make the move—likely I also had residual worry from what had happened at Baskin Robbins, I wanted to know how things were kept track of, if the store actually had cameras, how something would be noticed if it went missing before I sta
rted helping myself.
The object of my affection was a set of book-and-cassettes, Richard Feynman’s Six Easy Pieces (wonderful, heavy yellow packaging) and then right next to it Six Not-So-Easy Pieces (red packaging). I always and still do have a soft spot fascination for physics—I have a very dubious layman’s grasp of all things physics related, but Christ if I don’t love physics. I was ten times interested in these pieces because of the cassettes, actual recordings of the lectures as Feynman gave them—it was the perfect fetish for me, my adoration of live, scratchy audio recordings of anything thrown into the mix.
Feynman’s memoir (Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman) was there, as well and it just wooed me, I walked past it twenty, thirty times a shift just to tap the spine. I wasn’t sure how to pronounce the guy’s name, and I’d stare at the spelling, just hold the book staring at the spelling (Fen-Eh-Man? Fayn-Man?) the actual pronunciation (Fine-Men) never occurring to me.
I don’t even remember how it is I finally made off with the thing—it was a bulky piece and I was far too nervous to secret it—there were very sporadic bag checks, always just this residue-semblance of professionalism and as I was clearly a criminal sort I was jaggedly paranoid, never really warming up to my co-workers, even when I was arbitrarily promoted to be a “shift manager” myself.
However it happened, I looted the Science section of the Feynman—all of it, I found QUE there as well—and then nabbed The Beak of the Finch, loved everything about that book from the feel of the edition to the cover to the content.
***
I always eyeballed the pornography, saw it from the cashier-station there all along two top rows, but never made a swing at it—it was weird when people I recognized as workers from other of the strip mall shops would pop in and just stand there flipping through a Cheri or a Club International.
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