Shelf Monkey

by Corey Redekop

  There were worse places to work, I was sure. I’d always wanted to work in a bookstore, free reading material at my disposal. And I couldn’t afford to be particular; my savings had now dried up into government-issued dust, and bill collectors were threatening to make themselves known on a face-to-face basis with me. While I don’t as a rule use my thumbs every day, I have grown rather fond of the opposable little guys.

  There was no way I was going to mess up this interview. In the bag. Slam-dunk. This is what I told myself as I stood in the cold outside READ’s front doors, fighting to subdue a rising tide of panic. I had a shelf of pills organized by dosage and side-effect lined up in my medicine cabinet for just such occasions, medical marvels designed to relieve anxiety and stress at the moment of conception. One is enough for an average-sized man, two would give a raging bull elephant pause, and three pills could remodel King Kong’s New York rampage into a scholarly debate between man and giant ape on the dietary merits of a banana-rich diet.

  I took three, figuring Kong had nothing on me. Dry- swallowing the pills, relishing the chalky aftertaste, I took a deep breath, then another, and walked confidently through the doors.

  An enormous head attacked me the moment I entered.

  I wish that were a metaphor for something.

  Massive teeth pinned me to the doorframe, wedging me between a trash can and an incisor the size of a four-slice toaster. Pale bloodless lips pressed up against my chest in an obscene parody of a kiss. Moustache bristles the width of pencils scraped against my neck, exfoliating me against my will. I screamed, lashing out wildly, my fists connecting with flesh, one entering a nostril, the other plunging into a fleshy cheekbone, feeling for all the world like I had thrust my arms into a barrel of slugs. Sucking sounds joined the chorus as I extricated one hand, hollering with revulsion. The head shifted, slid down, giving me a glimpse of enormous eyes, dead yet sparkling with maliciousness. I began to hyperventilate, my breath shallow with panic. The world darkened. My knees buckled, the head pushing me down with its weight, my arms hugging it to my face, clutching as if it was a life preserver. Fireworks suffused my vision, the behemoth smothering me into unconsciousness, no doubt as a prelude to devouring me, a no-longer-squirming tidbit, a noontime snack.

  At least I didn’t bathe this morning, I thought as a pitch-black hollowness beckoned.

  Choke on me, motherfucker.

  “You okay, friend?” The head was trying to converse with me

  “Man that looks weird.” These are the last words I’ll ever hear?

  Then, blinding light, as the face was pulled off mine with a loud schtlup! My pupils constricted in fear, and I staggered about blindly, feeling hands grab my shoulders as I walked into a wall.

  “Head,” I said, looking about, colours and shapes congealing before me. “Big head. Big.”

  Voice to the left of me. “Yeah, that’s one big head, my brother, I’ll give you that.” The speaker turned me around to face him, filling my vision with a broad blur. “Sorry ’bout that, friend, it got away from us.”

  “Wha?” That’s all I could say. I thought I’d made my point. My hands began frantically shaking, trying to rid themselves of what I was positive were boogers the size of biscuits. “Away? Head?”

  “Shit, he’s really out of it. Warren, help me get him into the back.” Fuzzy angels took hold of my arms, leading me through a maze of corridors and swinging doors, finally plopping me down on a leather sofa.

  I moaned in terror as fingers rudely snapped themselves before my eyes. “C’mon, friend, focus. Back to reality.” The blur gradually began to coalesce itself into a solid mass of definable shape. What that shape was, was still a mystery.

  “Do you have an angry octopus on your head?” I asked it.Laughter from behind it. “He’s fine, Aubrey. And an acute observer.”

  The Aubrey-blur grunted, shifted, came into focus. “Christ!” I blurted.

  “That’s a new one, he thinks you’re Jesus.”

  The blur was a thin young man, darkly intense, sporting what I at first took to be a member of the mollusc family but was in fact a prodigious amount of dirty blood-red dreadlocks. “Jesus never had hair like this, I reckon,” he said, grinning down at me. “Try again, dude.”

  I hazarded a guess. “Great Cthulhu?”

  A look of pleased astonishment arose on his face. “A Lovecraft reference?” he asked. “And here we just met. You and me, we’re going to be good friends, brother.”

  “Wow,” I said, held in thrall by the hairy squid atop his head.It must have taken him decades to achieve such an ungainly mass.“Damn, that’s some hair.”

  “You know, I get that a lot,” he said, helping me to my feet.“You’ve got quite a bump there, you remember anything?”

  I replied the only way I could. “Big head.”

  He laughed, echoed by the large man I could now see standing behind him. “Yes, big head. Very, very big head.”

  “I didn’t imagine it?”

  “Nope, no sir.” he said. The dreads shook with his laughter. He walked past me, absently brushing his shoulders. “C’mon, let’s go see what almost killed you, if you’re up to it.” I followed him toward the front doors, meekly rubbing my scalp.

  “What the hell is that thing?” I exclaimed. It lay where it had fallen, a lopsided leviathan with a deranged rictus grin. The hollows where I had pummelled it had magically filled themselves in.

  “What, you don’t recognize him? Warren, give me a hand here, willya?” Aubrey and the large man I surmised to be Warren lifted the head off the ground, balancing it on its chin. I fearfully took a few steps back, disguising my trepidation as the need to gain perspective. From a distance, and without the elements of surprise and horror, it was easily identifiable.

  “Munroe Purvis, right?”

  “On the nose, very good,” said Aubrey. “We’re putting him up on the wall to the left there. He’s just a little slippery.” Warren grabbed the face by its nose, lifting it easily over his head, and set it flush against the wall above a set of display shelves. It rebounded slightly with a meaty thump.

  I took a closer assessment while Aubrey and Warren finished with the hanging. The visage was composed of a polymer of some kind, squishy yet firm, layered in disturbingly lifelike hair. I experimentally poked the cheek, watching my finger sink effortlessly into the flesh. The feeling of rampant slugs on my skin returned and I withdrew the finger hastily, quivering. The schlepping! noise of boots stuck in mud arose as the hole slowly filled itself in.

  “It’s grotesque,” I said finally. “It’s like something out of The Wizard of Oz.”

  Aubrey chuckled. “Yeah, it’s pretty repugnant. But realistic. More real than the real thing, you ask me.” He hugged himself. “Gives me the willies just thinking ’bout it.”

  “You’re just letting your personal feelings get in the way,” said the big man. “Ignore who it is, and admire what it is. Myself, I’m in thrall to it. I feel its spirit about us. Aubrey, can you feel it? He’s here, right now. Munroe is watching us through his plasticine representative. He’ll show us what to do.” Warren prostrated in front of it, salaaming shamelessly. “Oh, great Purv, you are so wise! Show us what to read! Tell us how to think!” He rolled over onto his back, convulsing and dribbling spit onto the floor. “I feel the spirit, it’s in me! I am the Purv, and he is I!” He then began babbling in tongues, shivering violently.

  It may have been a delayed reaction to the attack, or perhaps it was the near-lethal amounts of anti-depressants coursing their way throughout my anatomy, but either way, I couldn’t control myself. I laughed helplessly.

  Aubrey made a show of solemnity, placing his palms carefully on Warren’s head. “I feel it within you, my son. It is an evil presence, foul and black.”

  “Save me, father! Save me!” Warren yelled.

  “Unclean demon, I cast thee out!” Aubrey’s hands flew upward, pushing Munroe’s spirit to the skies. “BEGONE! THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU!�
� he wailed, before collapsing into giggles beside Warren. I tried valiantly to get my laughter under control, before giving in completely, leaning against a bookshelf for support. The three of us stayed there, clutching our stomachs and cackling for no reason we could understand other than we had hit a nerve with each other. Customers wandered by, unperturbed by both the gibbering idiots and the great head of the beast.

  Gradually, we managed to sober up and silence ourselves, except the occasional exhausted giggle. Aubrey rose unsteadily to his feet. “Dude, get up,” he said, offering Warren a hand. “C’mon, seriously, before Page sees us.”

  “Ah, whatever,” said Warren, remaining prone on the floor and breaking into a fresh spasm of giggles. “You own her, dude.”

  “Now, you know that’s not true. And even if it was, you certainly do not own her, so get up before you get yourself fired.”

  “All right, all right. Buzzkiller.”

  “So, what’s it for?” I asked. “The head.”

  “Promotion,” said Aubrey. “The Purv here’s got the world’s most powerful book club. This graven image is going to sit above a display of the books.”

  I’d heard of the book club, of course. Ever since Oprah had lent superstar status to the book industry, clubs were big news. Just mentioning her name in the same breath as a novel shot it up the charts. I took a take-it-or-leave-it approach to most of her selections, but I admit she picked some winners. Ann-Marie MacDonald, of course, and Franzen, even though he eschewed the honour. Toni Morrison, for everything she ever wrote or thought of writing. Anyone who convinced people to read Rohinton Mistry was okay by me, even if a lot of them couldn’t understand it.

  Then Oprah stopped, and the world stopped with her. Sales sank. Publishers panicked. Audiences mourned the loss of someone to tell him or her what to read. She eventually started up again, but the damage was done. Attempts were made to fill the void with little success. No one cared what Joan Lunden thought of a book. Ditto the ladies of The View. One book club even succeeded in raising the illiteracy level of America; an author, despondent that Kelly Ripa recommended his novel, tore out his own eyes rather than face the shame.

  Munroe Purvis, though, he operated on an entirely new plane of televised existence. Curly headed, overly plump, and oozing sincerity from his pores like so much sweat, he made Dr. Phil look like a paedophile, and Maury Povich look like . . . well, like an even greasier Maury Povich, if such a thing is possible. Women loved him, in a completely asexual “want to take him home to meet mom and dad but would never sleep with him it just wouldn’t be right” sort of way. Donahue meets the Beaver, but softer. An oversized couch-cushion of a man. He was the biggest thing to hit the publishing industry in years.

  The thing that rankled, the thing that prodded your open sores with a vinegar-dipped poker, the thing was, his book club publications were, to a one, vile. Literary merit held no meaning for him. Style, originality, composition, character, these were terms anathema to his authors. Purvis was the ultimate in indiscriminating consumerism, happy if he could read a book in less than a day, and ecstatic if the binder’s glue held the pages together. His choices were obscene in their banality. Nora Roberts was too edgy. Movie novelizations were too long. Reader’s Digest Condensed editions? Too dense by half. God help him if a novel’s content challenged his sense of self beyond the rigours demanded by the weekly edition of TV Guide. In a Munroe novel, B followed A, C followed B, the end. B would never take a detour to R to catch a flick or engage in a little stimulating subtext.

  Munroe’s personal appraisals of his choices were nonsensical, devoid of any hint of valid criticism beyond liked it, loved it, or a combination of the two. His print reviews, carried by all major newspapers, were almost poetic haikus of hot air, faultless examples of how to distil any topic into seven words or less, preferably never more than two syllables each.

  Munroe Purvis was ghastly. Abominable. Atrocious. His book club choices sold in the millions, and his audience clamoured for more.

  “But why the head?”

  “Simple,” replied Aubrey. “It’s the next generation of the life-sized cardboard cut-out, a synthesis of modern technology and old-fashioned hucksterism. Purvis sells books. Therefore, duh, a giant head in the likeness of Purvis will point people toward what he commands they buy. Therefore, whatever is placed underneath the head will also sell.”

  “His choices, you mean.”

  “Well, yes. Amongst others.” Aubrey pointed to Warren, busily stacking the display shelves from a set of boxes along the wall. “Most of those boxes contain his latest picks. But one box, you will note, contains several copies of Chip Kidd’s Cheese Monkeys.” He removed a copy of Kidd’s novel from a box, and slapped a gold sticker embossed with the words munroe recommends this! on its cover.

  “Purvis recommends Cheese Monkeys?” I was impressed.

  A vicious grin lit up Aubrey’s face. “Yeah, that’ll happen.” He happily put the novel on a shelf, obscuring several copies of Munroe’s latest release, Laureen Hoper’s Lightbulbs and Dreams. “I’m just tryin’ to help a brother out, y’know? Boost the sales of someone who deserves the recognition. By placing Kidd’s novel in with the dreck, it guarantees that someone will buy them, maybe even read them.”

  “And this works?”

  “You tell me. Last month, we sold twelve copies of Will Self’s Great Apes before anyone complained. Hey, caveat emptor, right?”

  “Yeah, fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke,” Warren chimed in, cheerfully putting munroe stickers on copies of William S. Burroughs’ The Soft Machineand chuckling all the while. “This oughta send a few customers into therapy.”

  “You want to try?” Aubrey asked me.

  “What, you serious?”

  “Almost never.” He held a page of stickers out to me. “Go grab something you like, I’ll put it out here.”

  The notion that I should not do such a thing — that it would be tantamount to quitting the job before I had a chance to honestly screw it up — made a brief appearance in my thoughts, but the ten RECOMMENDS stickers, reflecting fluorescent light on my face, taunted me into action. I looked about eagerly. What would tick a Munroe-ite off? Something sacrilegious, yet seemingly inoffensive. Nersian’s The Fuck-Up popped itself into my head, but the title was too off-putting for anyone to believe Munroe had ever even cracked its spine. Ditto Burrough’s Queer. The lightbulb clicked on and I took off, hoping against hope until I laid my eyes upon it. Seizing my pick, I hightailed it back, chuckling giddily as I proudly held out my choice to the two shelvers: George Bush, Dark Prince of Love, by Lydia Millet. Warren applauded as I stuck a gold star proudly on the cover.

  “Very nice choice,” Aubrey said.

  “I figured the title might fool some into thinking it’s a biography,” I said, flushed. Aubrey placed the novel dead centre on the display. Man, it was such a rush.

  “I know, it’s strange,” said Warren as if I’d just spoken this aloud. “I’ve had almost every narcotic known to man, but I never feel as good as when I perform this little act of sabotage. Well, almost never.”

  “Wait, how did you know I’m not like a secret shopper?” I asked. “I could get you guys fired for this.” Aubrey brought his hands to shoulder-height, palms up to indicate what’s life without risk? It’s fair to say, I admired Aubrey from the moment I met him. “I’m Thomas,” I said, extending a hand.

  He shook it cordially. “Aubrey. And the immense man there is Warren.” The giant arched an eyebrow in acknowledgment. “You here for a job, Thomas?”

  “How’d you know?”

  “You’ve got the glazed, nervous aura of the hoping-to-be-hired about you,” he said. “I also know that we’re looking for people at the moment.” Aubrey pointed down one of the endless aisles. “You want Page’s office, the end of Aisle 9, right next to Food, Vegetarian.”

  “Thanks.” I walked toward the mouth of the aisle.

  “Oh, and Thomas?” Aubrey called after me. I
turned around.

  “You remember Great Cthulhu?” I nodded. “Well, Page isn’t that bad, all things considered, but it’s a close thing.”

  “Thanks for the warning.”

  “Just watch out for the shoggoths, and you’ll do fine. Oh, and don’t make eye contact, she might think you’re flirting.”

  “And that’s a bad thing?”

  “Very bad.” Aubrey said. Behind him, Warren shuddered.

  Click, click.

  “So, why would you like to work for READ?” She pronounced it red, which I supposed ended the argument. Her pen clicked in her fingers. Open and closed. In and out. Click, click.

  “Well,” I began, bracing myself for the onslaught. Click, click.“I’ve always been a big reader. I mean, huge. Ten, eleven books a month, easy.”

  “Really.” She uncrossed and recrossed her legs. Idly, remembering Aubrey’s flirtation warning, I imagined myself having sex with Page and immediately regretted it, the image of my penis flattened in a laundry mangle imprinting itself onto my soul. I covered up my wince with a cough. Page Adler is not the sort of woman men dream about. There is something unsettlingly severe and Dickensian about her pinched features; Miss Havisham without the whimsy. You could say she just missed being pretty, but that would be a level of benevolence on par with Gandhi. There is a disquieting incompleteness to her features. Perhaps it was due to her hair, done back in a severe bun and stretching her skin so tightly the plates of her skull were rearranging themselves to accommodate the stress, her facial pores now tiny mouths yelping for mercy. The parts all worked separately (two eyes, one nose, various other cavities and fissures), but taken as a whole, she looked like a child’s jigsaw puzzle. Several puzzles, thrown into a box, then randomly put back together by children with severe visual impairments.