The Bookstore Clerk Read online

I retrieved the men’s magazine and showed it to Timmy, who shrugged. “You don’t need it; I’ll show you what to wear and how to dress.”

  I put the magazine back in the rack, watched him pay for the Sunday paper and we walked away from the newsstand.

  “You know I never wore a suit and tie. It’s kind of scary.”

  “Oh, bosh,” he shook his head. “Once the tailor gets through with you you’ll look elegant, the way you’re supposed to look. Mark my words.”

  In a moment we were back home and climbing the stairs.

  “I wonder how Henry made out?” he said as we passed his second-floor door and continued up.

  “I’m sure he made it to…to…where was he going?”

  “Chicago. He’s from Chicago, was going home for his mother’s funeral.”

  I nodded. “That’s right, Chicago,” I shook my head. “I’ve never been there.”

  “Me neither. New York is my home.

  I smiled. “Mine, too. I don’t want to be anywhere else.”

  He opened the door and let us in. Instantly, he grabbed my ass. I giggled.

  “Just like the ladies who come in the store,” he said, pawing me, “some in dresses, some in pants,” my arms were around him. “But I don’t like it when they do that,” he shook his head, “like they’re silly teenagers.”

  “Doing what?”

  He reddened, and shook his head.

  “Grabbing each other. We had a customer just a few days ago who was letting her boyfriend, or whoever he was, feel her up, as if it the most natural thing in the world, and in front of other customers, too; simply outrageous.”

  “They must have been in love,” I laughed, “very horny love, too.”

  “Connie and the other clerks saw it, too, but they didn’t say anything, they just blushed.”

  He’d pushed me into the bedroom and removed my shirt, was unzipping my pants.

  “Did you?”

  He turned red.

  “I was so embarrassed. It’s like they were characters in a dirty Times Square movie that we all were looking at.” He sadly shook his head. “Would’ve won an Oscar for their roles, I’m sure of that.”

  Again I giggled.

  “Starring roles, eh?” I smirked. “Did it get out of hand, besides his hands on her?”

  “Gratefully, no, they finally went down 5th Avenue, the young man pawing her, and she was acting as if they weren’t doing anything out of hand.”

  I was undressed, lying naked on the bed, watching him undress.

  “Hey, man, it’s the sixties,” I winked, “free love everywhere you turn, you know what they say: Turn on, tune out, drop dead, or something like that. Those are the new rules, man, you know.” I smirked at him.

  I looked at him as he undressed. I realized his age as he came over to join me on the bed. His skin was sagging. It was like ten or twenty years had been added to him. He fell on the bed, exhausted. I didn’t say anything, just letting myself swoon in his tender hold. Old age—oh, what a horror!

  The next day we rode the subway together, him reading Herzog by Saul Bellow, me holding the pole and looking around. I found it hard to read modern novels; I never really understood what was going on. I’d tried to read Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises but really couldn’t get into it. The characters’ actions always had me confused; were they making love or just pretending, coming or going? I’d read that the characters were as unsure of themselves as I was, but they certainly didn’t sound like me, seems they were too well-off or perhaps things were just different in those times, the twenties. I shook my head and smiled at Timmy as he went on reading his book for just a few stops. We got off on 7th Avenue and 50th Street and walked to Doubleday’s on 5th Avenue and 53rd Street. I liked the way he held the book, under his arm and up at his chest; he looked very much like an educated book person, which I’m sure he was.

  The streets were busy with people rushing on their way to work or speeding into or out of coffee shops, carrying bags of coffee with their buttered rolls or Danishes. Timmy stopped at one place on 6th Avenue and ordered his usual cup of tea, no sugar, and I had a regular cup of coffee with extra sugar. He frowned at my order but didn’t say anything. I guess extra sugar wasn’t to his liking. We walked to Doubleday’s.

  In the doorway, Danny was smoking and staring at people. I instantly hesitated and looked down; I knew we’d need to pass him. Mr. Jennings turned to look at me, then turned in Danny’s direction. Danny smirked but didn’t say anything as we went past him. As the door shut behind us I heard him quietly mutter “faggots.” I shook my head and went downstairs. A few moments later Danny came downstairs, too.

  “Hey, boys,” he said gleefully, putting his arm around me. “We got us a flaming faggot, ain’t that right?”

  “Fuck you!” I said, brushing his arm off.

  Mr. David, our supervisor, stepped out of his office.

  “Danny,” he said sternly, “you’ve been warned about calling people names. Do you want to go up to the head office and explain what you just said? Because that’s where you’re headed and they’ll get rid of you in a moment, take my word on that!”

  A silence fell on the room as each of us turned and went to his work area, me at packing packages and Danny at the filled loading dock. Morning passed with some of the crew standing around Danny, gossiping and smirking. I ignored them.

  “Never mind the assholes,” said Ramos, the Spanish stock boy. He didn’t hang out with the other stock boys, kept to himself. “The assholes are just jealous.”

  I eyed him.

  “Of what?”

  He shrugged.

  “Of you, you have the courage that they don’t have. You know what you are and what you want, and they can’t stand that.”

  He winked, smiled, and went back to his work area. I was amazed. In the year I’d been at Doubleday’s there’d never been more then just a word between us. “Hey,” I’d say, “Hey,” he’d say. Now we’d had a real discussion. I felt good and warm, continuing to pack up book after book after book.

  At about 11:30 I spotted Mr. Jennings coming into the basement. I felt awkward thinking about him as “Timmy.” That was his name, of course, but in the bookstore he was still “Mr. Jennings.” I blushed as he came to my work area.

  “They want to see you upstairs,” he said. I couldn’t make anything out from his face, positive or negative.

  He turned and went into Mr. David’s office. Without smiling, in case someone saw, I turned and got into the elevator which would take me to the corporate offices. I let myself beam broadly as the elevator door shut.

  Miss Terri, a short-haired, neck-tied woman in a masculine suit, stood next to the secretary’s desk in the outer office, reading some papers. She glanced at me as I stepped out of the elevator. In her manly clothes and appearance, she made it evident that she was a bitter, unfriendly lesbian. I always dreaded running into her. She was known facetiously and quietly as “Mrs. Doubleday,” though no one dared say it aloud. She looked at me, shaking her head and sneering.

  “Good,” she said to the secretary. “Just get rid of those commas.” The secretary made a disappointed face as Miss Terri turned to me and said, “Come this way.” I followed her into an office overlooking 5th Avenue.

  “You wear T-shirts to work,” she said sternly, “with dungarees?”

  I winced.

  “For downstairs I do, they all wear them. I hardly ever come upstairs unless I have to take something up.”

  “What makes you think you’ll fit in? Do you have dress clothes, like a suit and tie, so you can look presentable?”

  “Yes ma’am, they’ll be ready when I need them. I can be ready in a few days, just give the word,” and I smiled at her.

  Her face remained immobile, looking at the papers on her desk.

  “You worked for short times at Scribner’s and Brentano’s, is that right?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Stop with the ma’ams!” she flared, “J
ust say ‘yes’ or ‘no!’”

  I nodded, very uneasy.

  “Yes, but I’ve been here a year and a few months. I can do a very good job, I know I can. I just need a break.”

  She glanced again at the paper.

  “We don’t have anything right now. The economy is sluggish. But when it picks up we’ll call you. Oh, how much do you make, $1.25 an hour?” she looked at her paper. “You’re overdue for a raise, $1.30 an hour.” She wrote something down. “Thank you for stopping by. Good day.”

  I was stunned. Mr. Jennings’s confidence that I could do well meant nothing to her. I looked at her, stood up and staggered from her office. I saw Connie talking with the secretary. She looked at me, smirked, and went into Miss Terri’s office.

  “Stinkin’ bitch!” I muttered as I waited for the elevator doors to shut; the secretary looked up at me.

  As I got out of the elevator, I saw that Mr. Jennings was waiting for me in the basement. He saw my downcast appearance. I heard Danny laughing across the room.

  “Come with me,” said Timmy. He led me out of Doubleday’s and across the street to the outer waterfall lobby of 666 5th Avenue. It had the exclusive restaurant Top of the Sixes, with its panoramic views of New York. I stood downcast at the waterfall.

  “I didn’t get it,” I sulked, shrugging like it didn’t mean anything, “The bookseller’s job, I mean.”

  But Timmy shook his head, as if he knew differently.

  “For now you didn’t get it, but this afternoon I have a meeting with Mr. Simmons, one of Doubleday’s top people. We’ll be discussing just that, the operation and staffing of the bookstore. Don’t be upset, a good word from him will put it motion. Things are spinning right now, as we speak.”

  “But Miss Terri won’t let it happen. I just saw Connie going in her office. She’ll also tell her she’s against it.”

  “Oh, bosh, of course they’re against it. Those two lesbian creeps are always against what a man comes up with.”

  I looked at him.

  “Connie’s a lesbian? I didn’t know.”

  “Uh huh, and she’s Terri’s lover. They live together. Down in Greenwich Village.”

  “Wow, so why are they against us?” I lowered my voice, looking around at people walking by the waterfall. “Queers who like each other, just like they do?”

  He sighed and rubbed his face.

  “If I knew that, the world would be a better place, wouldn’t it? But that’s the way things stand between us; nothing’s any different than it ever was. You just have to stand up and fight, not let them get away with even the slightest bit, because they’ll only take and take until there’s nothing left.” He sighed again. “Let’s go back. Face the monsters, because we’re better than them.” He put his arm around my shoulder. “We’ll know for certain by this afternoon.”

  I looked up at him. God, I wished we weren’t with so many people on crowded 5th Avenue. I would have kissed him. I nodded and we started across the busy, traffic-filled avenue.

  The store was busy with a noontime crowd, people wandering the aisles, some carrying books that they had chosen to buy, others just lazily looking and biding their time. Mr. Jennings nodded at me and went to help a customer as I headed for the basement. I was nervous and tense but I steeled myself, ready to face anything that came up, just as Timmy had suggested.

  Most of the crew had left for lunch but I saw Ramos sitting in a corner, and eating a sandwich while reading a small paperback. I immediately recognized it as a Spanish comic book, one of those pocket booklets found in Spanish neighborhoods, the barrios, around New York City.

  “Hey,” I said, taking a chair beside him.

  “Hey,” he nodded at me, holding his comic book. “It’s lunch time, you already had?”

  I shrugged. “Not hungry. What you reading?”

  “What, this?” he turned the book to its cover, showing a drawing of a large-breasted woman running from a man. He smiled. “De amar a un hombre. To Love a Man, it means, just silly romantic nonsense, doesn’t mean anything.” He looked at me, still holding the comic. “You ever love anyone like that, so much that you run away from them, like a man?” I instantly blushed and sighed. What did he know or suspect? “Things happen, you know?” he winked.

  I looked at him.

  “Yes, things happen. I never thought I could love like that, but there it is. Love as I never knew it. And that’s the funny part. When you’re in love with someone, the world suddenly closes in, like it wants to break you apart for your happiness.”

  He agreed.

  “You can’t let that happen,” he said, shaking his head. “Man or woman, straight or queer, love is love. As bad as it may seem now, love will triumph in the end. Just remember that, love always wins.”

  He took me by the hand and gave it a squeeze. I looked at him and melted. I wanted to kiss him in gratitude. For so long we had worked together, just nodding and tolerating our coworkers and now, suddenly, we were close. He beamed at me as I returned the warm feeling I had for him.

  “Thanks,” I nodded, “that means a lot to me. I can’t run away from it, it’s my life we’re talking about, and there’s nothing more important than that.”

  I also squeezed his hand and heard someone descending the stairs. We quickly let our hands go and looked at the crew returning from lunch. Danny just sneered at me but didn’t say a word. We went back to work, but with the lovely but quiet Ramos nearby I felt much warmer than I had ever felt with someone before. My small world had gotten much larger and more certain.

  At around 4:30 there was a sudden silence in the back of the stockroom, where I was packing up boxes for mailing. The radio, constantly playing oldies but goodies, “Be my, be my baby…” had been switched off. I looked up and saw Mr. Jennings standing with Mr. Simmons, a Doubleday executive, and they were about to enter Mr. David’s office. There were the usual greetings between them and the crew, then the door closed. Mr. David rarely closed his door.

  I nervously continued working when Danny turned the radio back up, staring at me. I narrowed my eyes. What does the radio have to do with anything? I thought, packing up another book for shipping. Mr. David’s door opened. Timmy and Mr. Simmons came out, walking in my direction. I bit my bottom lip, looking down, and just continued with my work.

  “Billy,” I heard Timmy say, “this is Mr. Simmons. He has something to say to you.” he nodded his head.

  Mr. Simmons cleared his throat. He was probably the same age as Timmy but very formally dressed in a tuxedo and shined shoes. I’d heard him joke with Mr. David about going to a fundraiser that evening, just before they’d closed the office door.

  “Billy, you’ve been chosen as the new bookstore clerk, starting tomorrow,” he shook my hand and turned to Timmy. “With Fall approaching, it will be our busiest season. We have to prepare ahead of time before Christmas is upon us, our busiest time of year.” He again rapidly shook my hand. “Welcome aboard, Billy,” and he winked at me and turned to Timmy. The two were beaming at me. I heard footsteps; Connie and Miss Terri had come down to the stockroom, with Miss Terri around, Connie looked incredibly sheepish, trailing after her but looking like she expected nothing.

  “Sidney,” said a stern-voiced Miss Terri, “can I have a word with you about this situation?”

  Mr. Simmons’s face showed nothing.

  “There is no ‘situation.’ Billy will be our new bookstore clerk.” He was looking right at Miss Terri. “Starting tomorrow. It’s a corporate decision. Is that clear?”

  I saw Miss Terri’s face tighten, but she turned and headed back up the stairs, with Connie still trailing after her.

  “Well, good, she’s gone,” said Mr. Simmons, shaking his head and turning to Timmy. “The bookstore clerk’s position is your responsibility and, by the look of him, there won’t be any problem,” and he winked at me again.

  “Yes, sir, no problem at all. Can’t wait to get started tomorrow,” I said, as they left the basement. I shook
a few hands around me but I quickly noticed that Danny and a few others had already vanished; it was after five o’clock, anyway.

  I waited for Timmy outside. The evening crew had just heard the good news and were smiling at me, though a few of them just shrugged and went on with their duties.

  Timmy came out, happily smiling.

  “I told you that you had nothing to worry about. You just have to know the right person, that’s the only way you can get ahead in life,” he said as we descended to the subway.

  “It was a very emotional day,” Timmy said when the subway let us off on 86th Street. “I’m spent, as you must be, too.”

  “You’re right. I feel drained and exhausted, too.”

  But he led me into a men’s store. I needed a new suit for tomorrow.

  “But I thought you were going to give me yours,” I protested, “and that we were going to take them in?”

  “Can’t,” he shook his head. “This is a rush, and Philip is our man,” he continued as we reached the store. “He makes all my suits. It does take a while to have a suit made, but Philip always comes through with just what you need, like suits when you’re in a hurry and can’t wait.”

  We went into the large corner store—“Philip’s” read the sign in the front—and Philip instantly recognized Timmy and rushed over to him.

  “Mr. Jennings, what a pleasure! You were here just last week, is anything wrong with your purchase?”

  “Not at all, Philip, the sweater and neckties were ideal, but I have a special request for you.” He explained what he needed, a suit for me and in a hurry, too, because I had to wear it tomorrow morning.

  “But Mr. Jennings,” said Philip, looking at me, “you know that’s no problem.” By then he had removed the measuring tape from around his neck and was taking all kind of measurements. He immediately found a suit just for me! I was stunned; I didn’t expect such speedy service. A navy-colored John F. Kennedy imitation suit and, even though I’m short, it was an ideal fit. I even felt presidential in it.

  “Perfect!” said Philip. “Never before has there been a customer just made for this suit. This suit is you, that’s for sure,” he said, and he nodded repeatedly.