Short Story about Books, Clerks and Living and Loving and Thinking in Oakland (and Beyond)

I met a man in a bookstore once who loved to know about books
And I would imagine he found joy in the
Tactful? Way he spoke down to me when I said I was looking for Finnegans Rainbow
Or Wake
Or something like that.
I had heard it was good
Actually my boyfriend at the time wanted to read it
And I wanted to get it and share it with him as a surprise
He was planning on taking a class on it
After the summer
(after he would no longer be my boyfriend, but this had nothing to do with the bookstore or the book or the class.
more to do with the nature of distance.
Him in Connecticut me in India.
It is just impossible to make these things work beautiful
and I had to agree with him.
I didn’t of course. Because I am a heart person before a head person and I think he was too but he had been Hurt before and I had patched my wounds sooner than he had.
Or just ignored them at least.
I always loved medicine really.
Really it was that he was very practical.
Long distance doesn’t work he had said
And just for the record his new girlfriend of years.
Guess she is not so new, but new after I was old, or rather,
became the former.
Yes, his current girlfriend she, she lives far away from him.
Sometimes counties, sometimes countries even sometimes continents
But this is just sidenote.
And my heart is happy for his heart.
That it held out finally.
Even when his head told him there was no such thing as faith and I
sort of had to agree because I was tired or arguing.
But I digress)
the man in the bookstore
next to the coffee shop where I worked
coming home everyday smelling of roasted beans and spoiled milk and
mayonnaise
and mustard
and bacon
(I despise bacon
And yes, I understand some, most, people love it with a passion that is almost unparalleled
(I have met vegetarians who eat bacon and still call themselves vegetarians)
but
in the same way that I can’t eat
cakes with frosting that come in small plastic wrappers
(oh aren't you special a former roommate of mine would say, popping nowandlaters into her mouth)
I can’t eat bacon
Oozing fatty greasy strips
Coming from gross animals that poison streams with their urine and will eat anything
ANYTHING
Including human flesh
And garbage
With their razor sharp teeth
Ok. Two important points and then the guy in Oakland I swear
Pigs one at a time are adorable.
Cute, smart clean and lovely.
Especially the baby ones.
I love pigs.
It is a whole lot of pigs in one place, the pig industry that I have a problem with
and
I obviously have never tasted bacon.
Otherwise I would not care how gross it was in theory
I know that)

Oakland guy
In the bookstore
I walked in and asked for help
And he almost refused to show me the book
Before he went to look for it
And it had just been purchased
Maybe by someone he had approved of
But this is hardly imaginable

I didn’t let it get to me
This man did not seem loved much
And anyone this overprotective of and emotionally attached to retail items
Retail items
Mind you
He is paid to sell
Must have some issues going on
That have nothing to do with me.

But something in me
Asked
Is it because I am a girl?
Or 19?
Or smile too much to be smart enough to read it?
(this is surprisingly, at least to me, a common misconception
I am too classy to drop names, that is SO sophomore year, but I have read some books
I mean, I would like to think I have read some books
At least
There were a lot of them
And I read them
Or some of them
Or some of most of them and all of some of them and none of one or two which is a better average than most of those kids who paid so much for an education they didn’t even take advantage of)

But this guy with his mommy didn’t love me or whatever issues
(Oh snap she takes off the gloves, she gets rude 4 years later, in a library in los feliz of all places)
at the time just said sorry can’t help you
and part of me thought
smart guy maybe he could recommend some other type of good reading
and part of me thought
maybe I am not smart enough
I don’t need that book. I don’t need him to order it for me
and honestly,
the broke part of me couldn’t afford a new book at the moment
(this was the summer where I was trying to prove
more as an experiment than anything else
that I could live on my own,
which was really a joke because my parents paid for my
phone my gas my car and yet
with my eight dollars an hour I hence had no money.)
left the store with just one title from the used book bin
(Last Exit to Brooklyn actually, which I brought home and ryan said was depressing and it kinda was so I didn’t finish it.
Is that how it went?
I think I read the first few pages and moved on to Camus which he bought for me. Defaulting to what he thought was important to read.
I let him guide me on that intellectual path that year.
I never felt good enough although I knew I was.
It just never felt that way.
I always felt like I was fighting to be heard and seen and related to as worth
conversing with.
Only later did I realize that he would not have dated a stupid girl and his issues of sparseness, detachment and sterility
had nothing and I mean nothing to do with me.
A theme here if you notice
however
It takes a smile and a kiss and a
talk on a rainy night in the spring
a year and a half later after
India and
Russia and
Vienna and
breakups and screaming and lots of crying on a street in noe valley
to get that)
but I bought the book proudly
even though bookstore meany guy didn’t seem too impressed.
He was a little impressed
Just not too impressed
I had found it through searching the bin and I was happy with it.
Thought it looked good
(I bet it is. I should try it again. But there are so many other books out there to try, I am looking at five of them I pulled off the shelves just today.
What a wonder are libraries.
All of them? For free? And I can sit here and read them, or write beside them?
And then take them home? Delightful)
so I bought it for a couple quarters, about an hour’s worth of tips on a slow day
and took it home

and now I am older in this library in los feliz and my table neighbor has asked to look at my books.
HE was interested in what I was reading
He was EXCITED by the titles on the tower
And asked if I had read Kerouac and I said not yet
(side note: also the appropriate answer I have read to reply in Bali when asked if you are married)
and he said to read On the Road
which I was embarrassed to admit that I had not read
but he just seemed
excited that I might
and this makes a balance for me
between sad man in the bookstore on one end of the teetertotter
and this one here in the library
the balance of how to love something
indeed to dedicate ones time and energy and sprit to the pursuit of knowing all there is to know
and
on the other side
to share that joy with others with no expectation
that is a hard thing
a deeply respectable thing

a note:

(thank you mitch for assuming that I am smart enough, for spending hours with me while I ground and polished a confidence about thinking. and then a confidence about ordering those thoughts and putting them on paper or in pictures or people moving about a room. but paper, really try that paper, you always suggested. Time and again even though I hated it the most. Which means I struggled with it the most. And you stuck it out when my confidence and my heart and my brain would wrestle and and hide behind one another in those drag out fights called a thesis, called Artaud, called Ballard and Benjamin (at least I can say it correctly if nothing else). Called frat house singer with the band and writing papers about important things late into the night with makeup still on because all day this wrestling fighting I’m not smart enough to write this paper and you saying just let the paper come to the screen don’t fight it. It is there your fear has it pinned to the ground- your intellect is waiting just let your death clamp go and impress yourself- I swear you will impress yourself. Laura Herrington for telling me I was good with philosophy which I later changed to calling theory and showing me that being funny actually meant being very smart, a little jaded and always asking. Thank you to Cliff or Ms. Mcbride or Mrs. Steinberg I write with a smile as you are now, for coming into class one day and demanding that I be a writer when that is what I had dreamed you might tell me one day. The reason I would ever want to be a teacher, which I see in my path but have not begun to entertain or nurture, is because I want to hand girls books and tell quiet boys to speak their minds as you all did. I want to be patient with them as you were with me I want to repay to honor to humble myself to your lineage of selflessness)

to hand girls who smile
books heavier than handbags
to expect
to trust
the well
within

miss wonder's birthday journies

1.
Miss Wonder and her friend Mr. Yearning the Frog left home last week for Switzerland. "It is my birthday," Miss Wonder had said, "and i would very much like to see Switzerland". After a breakfast of porridge and tea, always tea, they got on the train with hats in hand. At each stop they watched people get on and off. Miss Wonder thought to herself about the many lives all that of these people must lead. Her friend Mr. Yearning the Frog would only sigh as he thought of all the lovely girl frogs he had known and loved, for however short a time, who lived at each of the stops. "Oh Mr. Yearning the Frog," Miss wonder implored, "don't worry- all of these stops will be unfamiliar soon. We don't know anyone in Switzerland."

2.
Some days later and not a few adventures surly had, Miss Wonder, hat in hand again waved out the train window on her way to safari. I will miss Switzerland, she thought, and I am glad I thought come for my birthday. So many of my birthdays have been ordinary and I vow never to let that happen again.

Mr. Yearning the Frog had fallen in love with a painting in Switzerland and decided to dedicate his nights to sleeping beside her in the museum, and his days pretending to be a gazing statue as people walked here and there about the gallery. I will miss my friend Miss Wonder had thought as she waved goodbye to him at the station: her in the train, him on the platform. But it is my birthday and I have always wanted to go on safari so I am going. He can catch up, when he realizes that she is just a painting and one can only spend so long being in love with a painting. Paintings aren’t real and Mr. Yearning the Frog is quite real, she rationed, he will return to my company more sooner than later, and I will be as gracious as can be in taking him back. But I will jab him a little about the wonders of safari he missed while he spent his time sleeping in that cold museum. Maybe he will want to see my pictures. And with that Miss Wonder vowed to take the most beautiful pictures of her safari that have ever been taken on any safari in the history of either pictures safaris. I must start calling them photographs she thought to herself. I can make them more impressive immediately by calling them photographs. Photographs sound more impressive than pictures.

3.
The Man in the Funny Hat met Ms. Wonder at the train station in the faraway place three days after she had left Mr. Yearning the frog at the platform in Switzerland. What a marvel modern transportation is Miss Wonder mused, looking about her as she stepped down from the train. Yes, said The Man in the Funny Hat, as noticing was something he did. It is a rare and beautiful place we are in, truly a place unlike any other. Miss Wonder could not help but notice the look of peace in his eyes as he said this. This will be a friend for me Miss Wonder thought. Amazing how home can be found even in the most remote places of the universe, in a pair of eyes at peace with their surroundings.

travel fiction based on nonficition in la

The guide had black hair tied in a knot atop his head. His wife sat in the seat beside him holding the baby, singing it songs and letting it grab her finger. She could not have been more than seventeen. As I watched their faces against the backdrop of the endless moving greenery of the valley I remembered one time when I asked them about marriage. What is it like to be married? I had asked, a question I find myself asking everyone these days. Ah! Marriage is very important! He had said as if that answered the question. I looked to her and she had nodded vehemently. Well, what is like having children? Children are a gift he said. I couldn’t believe that the world ended there for them. That marriage was important and children were gifts and life was as simple as that. I pushed with more questions. It is important to get a good wife and I try to be a good husband. She hit him to translate for her better and when he did she laughed and nodded. She says I am a good husband he said. I was born under a special planet and that means she has been very lucky. I also do not drink and this makes her very happy.
The books had said so many things about them. About their rituals and traditions. I had spent months studying about them from journals in cafes on busy streets back home and here I was trying to get answers and only getting one line replies. I wanted confirmation, explanations. I wanted something I had read to be reflected in their comments. I wanted them to know as much about themselves as I did. I wanted to teach them if I had to about their heritage and history, culture and customs and cosmology. What if they can't read I actually thought, or hadn't read the latest cultural theory?
Ignoring the important part (as if this even needs to be said) that they were telling me what mattered. Nothing else needs time or explanation for them. Marriage is important, children are gifts, the rest, is the rest. The rest supports what is important. In the car he saw me in the rearview mirror. Where are you going without a passport? He said as he did when I looked lost in thought, she touched him to translate for her and then they both laughed. My wife says that she thinks you have much going on in your head he said warmly into the mirror. I laughed with them and for a moment, I saw them laughing and the baby holding her hair in his hands and I was there, watching what was important.

i drove past the hospital today

like i do everyday on my way to and from work

and like everyday i get a little shiver 

      thinking about the people inside

      how they’re treated, if they’re afraid 

and like everyday traffic stops dead because the lights are never timed right

but today unlike other days which are set in routine, 

the traffic stopped on green

because of 8 people walking and pacing quietly and determinately up and down the walk

holding signs and grudges and pictures of aborted fetuses 

and among this group of 8 were 3 children

all of them just as determined and quiet as their adult shadows

normally i can ignore it

but something snapped

i wanted to pull over and grab them by their biblically infected ears 

and ask them what in the hell could they be thinking by dragging children into this

maybe i’d ask how in the world they could pump hate into small ears 

but all i could do was watch as the 3 kids kept marching with dead eyes

and think how ironic it is that a group of people bent on saving proposed lives 

could ignore the death around them

ten things that are true today

1.The cathedral I am writing in has lost all of its crosses and holy water. I believe that this process is called desanctification. As in, the space has been desanctified. So lets party. Sex and drugs in the confessionals. Girls on poles.

2.The floor is covered in thousands of dollars worth of white and yellow flowers from the market. I overheard that some of them are as much as five dollars a stem.

3.This morning, as I opened the gates there was a pile of human shit on the pavement beside my foot.

4.The event planner has dreads that fall past his ass, from the front it looks like he is a manimal, his tail visible hanging behind his legs.

5. A woman asked if I was married, a man asked me to lunch and boy called trying to make me think otherwise about his integrity. I replied, not yet, sounds good and we’ll see.

6. My butt is sore from sitting on marble my throat is still sore from kissing an angel with a cold my feet are not used to my new shoes my new shoes are pissed that I dropped soup on them last week.

7.A good friend of mine will not be deployed to iraq for eleven months and this seems like a long time for him. When this does happen he will, at 23, be in charge of 45 people in an amphibious artillery unit. If I look up what this exactly means I swear to god I will start crying. Thinking of his beautiful eyes in war.

8. My best friend could have died yesterday when she didn’t. She said she saw her body from above and then next she saw the pavement.

9. My mom has called five times already and it is barely noon.

10. All over the world, hell 2 miles away, people are dying, fighting, unfed, unread, running from their homes and otherwise displaced, impoverished and underserved. Today in my world the biggest crisis is where to put the circus performers so they don’t affect the giant harp. Yes. I occasionally question my sense of worth in the world. I sneak to serve my art when no one is watching.

a little longer

Neither of us has work to do
So we busy ourselves
With construction paper and
The moving images of fantastically beautiful and imaginary people
Passing bright daylight hours in cave like rooms

Sometimes I scream
I was supposed to be a dancer
And you reminisce about your promise as a high school writer
Later I tell you that
I think you could be a writer if you wanted to be
And you tell me I have a dancer’s grace
We both dismiss the compliments but on the inside
Even if I don’t think you don’t know what it means
I appreciate the thought

Sometimes we walk
Or drive
This is LA
To this coffee shop down the street
Where impossibly skinny girls with bangs and boys on macbooks sit and spend time together alone.
We like to marvel at how being hip oddly does not necessitate being pretty
How it seems to be an active choice to be unpretty
And at the continuous choices people make to appear less appealing than they probably are
As if their clothes and hair and hats and glasses
Were an open dare to try and see the beauty behind
What fashion made them do.
And then we try and not be like our mothers
And appreciate everyone for their uniqueness.

There are cities I never want to visit
I list them sometimes
Saying their ugly names in romantic ways
You like to tell me that
Maybe life could be waiting there
Maybe love and art are floating in the air
And when I arrive things will happen
I snap back that this city is my city
That it makes miracles
Not like Tulsa or Savannah
Although I have heard that Savannah is a really cool town

You relate my needs to issues stemming from my childhood
Even though you are right
Because I explained it to you
It makes me feel a little more understood than I ever thought I would be
I want those to be my issues and keep them to myself
But the only way to be close is for you to know them too
Damn it.

You cried one time about how much you missed
Airplanes and passports and waking up early and long train rides and tea in different countries and then you went on
And cried about
Friends who don’t return calls, being ignored and unemployed and your fear of never measuring up
To, let me remind you
Standards you established in grade school
Before you knew how hard life was going to be
I laughed because you impress me more than anyone else
and let you keep crying about your imagined chubbiness and the mistakes you think you made last year when you slammed your head when you fell in love, helped pack the dynamite to blow it up and felt the sting of some real and more imagined I told you so’s when it was over.
Crying can be good.
Sometimes I cry too
Usually late at night and alone about how awful people have been to one another in the name of power, god, sex, fear, science and pride.
I cry about colonialism, violence and the beautiful, strong and open way people find to love one another
And over the history of the modern world
How some stories and some people touch my soul
And about god.
But I’ve seen you cry about god too
I think everyone does
Even if they don’t know that that is quite what it is
Perhaps it is better to say
Crying about love
Because love, more understandably, can be a heavy thing.
Especially love of self.

it seems funny

as we two cousins walk

side by side

feet click clack tapping in adult heels

saying nothing but feeling loudly

behind a line of our family, a horse drawn carriage with my grandfather inside

and i thought about when i was 4

and was walking behind my cousin, in the rain, trying to be silence and sacred

my 23 year old feet were following my 4 year old feet who were following my cousin’s who were following a horse’s that held my grandmother and now my grandfather who smelled like DC and baseball 

and after 19 years apart 

their feet are side by side again

oct 31, 2007

The things I thought were big deals are really no deals.
They are just spaces and places like any other. Rooms where people meet and talk and listen and play music. Halls like other halls except no one had ever seen a hall before. They knew their bedrooms and their classrooms dining rooms front rooms and now there was this new room- where things happened unlike what happened in those old rooms. This new room…this is where we cement our aloneness. Our grownup-ness. This is where we make fools of ourselves because we can. We have small magnetic strips that say we can. And I wore high heels.