Fahrenheit

     "...so I went to Australia instead of New Zealand because I needed to be somewhere that they speak English, you know?"
      I'm standing, mouth agape, unaware of the stack of hardbacks that are becoming heavier the longer I stand here with my new employee.
       "I get it, you're well traveled," I manage after a moment. "Will you grab the ladder?"
       She turns her body around in a full circle two times, ostensibly trying to locate the ladder directly behind her.

        I never traveled. I made my choices early on and none of them involved being born into money. I have managed to move from bookstore to bookstore, closing each one and escaping as print becomes extinct. I found this niche a few years ago, on what was a dank corner of South Broadway, but since I bought the store my neighbors have been run out by trendy restaurants and brew pubs. It's just me and Joe, my friend across the street with the tattoo shop.  We outlasted the onslought. Lucky for him, Trendies like their tattoos. Lucky for me, Trendies like browsing used bookstores. Lucky for him and I, we like brew pubs. The one next door makes a killer amber. Although last month, a few of the pubs decided to all brew the same beer, some sort of solidarity thing. If there was another bookstore still alive, I'd love to partner with them and do something cool like that. Not brew, clearly, but something that would unite us and give us strength. Anyway, there were six pubs who all decided to brew this heinous banana beer that tasted like Laffy Taffy. Mike- the pub owner- talked me into trying it. All I had to say after making a face was "The hell...?" He laughed. "The kids love it,".
          "You're not supposed to be serving children," I smiled and pushed the beer back toward him. Joe,  who was sitting across from me,  took one sip, rose form his seat with the beer, walked behind the bar and poured it down the sink.
            I surveyed the pub. At capacity it holds-maybe- 50 people. There were about 20 of us that Saturday afternoon, and we're all within ten years of Mike's age, which I know to be 50 because we threw him a birthday party.

           I am still standing in my shop, staring at my new employee, wondering again how I managed to hire her.
           For all the millions of bodies cramming my native state over the last two years, the quality of my applicants has not increased. The number has not increased, either, which makes me wonder what all these people do for a living. They aren't working in used book stores, that's for sure. But they sure can stand to drive the property values and rents so sky high that the homeless population in the parking lot behind the shop has increased exponentially. They built a new apartment building three blocks away, and built a skate park next to it. There are three permanent homeless residents in the skate park, two of whom used to work in the Antique Mall that stood where the apartments now are.
             If you go north seven blocks, there is a theatre that lives in a renovated church. They have also managed to hang on through all of this, doing primarily regional premieres and no musicals. Occasionally they produce local playwrights, which is kind. How they are hanging on without doing musicals, which is what everybody wants to see,  is beyond me. The three of us are a weird Trifecta: Tattoos, Used Books and Theatre. We meet on Sunday afternoons at the pub. I find books for the Artistic Director, he buys me wine when I come to the shows. We have tattoos.
            I realize I'm just staring at my new employee as I wool gather.
            "What language do they speak in New Zealand?" I ask earnestly.
            "New Zealander I guess. I don't know I didn't go there."
            "Where did you say you went to college?"
             "CU Boulder," she says it like a valley girl, reminding me that she moved here from California.
               "That's right, " I say casually. "My alma mater."
               She looks at me silently. I smile. She continues the blank stare.
              "Which word is tripping you up?"
              "What?" Blink. Blink.
               Sigh. I can't, it's too easy.
              "The ladder? Behind you."
               She shakes her head as if she's trying to clear it after an all nighter at the Sorority house. She then turns in two full circles, again, and locates the ladder which has not moved on its own. It is still directly behind her.
                "These ladders are so cool. I saw them in this library in Italy."
                "You were in a library in Italy?"
                "Ugh, my grandmother insisted we keep going inside to all these buildings. There was nothing but books and paintings in most of them."
                  "Also, nobody speaks English," I volunteer helpfully.
                  "Exactly. How hard is it? It's the international language."
                  I can run this place on my own, really. I open at ten am -ish, and close around six pm, Most of my business these days is online, finding rare or out of print books for the chains who managed to survive, or book dealers or individuals who just love books. But it's nice to occasionally have someone else to talk to. Joe will come by if he's bored. He has better luck hiring than I do. He has a couple kids working for him who went to art school, and are very serious about this tattooing stuff. As the shop owner and Head Tattoo artist, he only does work if someone has the money to pay twice what his kids will charge. It's a prestige thing, to say your tattoo was done by "Uncle Joe". This girl won't last long, I'll run her off like I run them all off. God forbid anyone should be expected to Do Things for a paycheck. In the meantime, I can have a little fun.
                    "So, like, you're the only female shop owner down here, aren't you?"
                     I'm startled by her grasp of the obvious. "Yep."
                     "How come?"
                     "Sorry?" I heard her, I just can't believe she laid it out like that.
                     "How come you're the only female shop owner? Are you married? Do you have kids?"
                     "That's a little personal, we just met. At least buy me a beer before you ask such things."
                      The look she gives me makes it worth it.  I laugh out loud, reminded of an episode of Friends when Joey is teaching acting and demonstrates  the "Smell The Fart" technique. Her face is a duplicate of his in that moment. Hilarious.
                      "I love books. I love dealing with people who love books. I've been working in bookstores in some capacity since high school and all through college. I like the smell."
                      Mike comes in and heads straight for the stacks on the middle table. He nods at me and doesn't acknowledge my newest employee. He starts picking up books and looking at them, feeling their heft.
                    "Mike, this is Emily," I say.
                     Mike looks up briefly, makes eye contact with me, smiles. He looks at me as he speaks.
  "Hello Emily, welcome to the block." He chooses a book, winks at me, and leaves.
                     "Is that the guy from the pub?"
                      I nod.
                     "My boyfriend and I go there, we live down the street. He has this great banana beer. It is soooo good."
______________________________________________________________________________

                     I closed early today, so  Joe and I are sitting at the bar with our beers. It's Tuesday, and really slow. I like my ambers, he's a stout kind of guy. Stouts, ugh. Like drinking flat soda. Gross. He mocks my ambers saying they're too hoppy. I tell him beer is not a frog. We are not quite 50 yet, but we behave as if we are in our 70's, sitting at the bar grumbling about those damned Trendies ruining our neighborhood, and the potheads ruining our state. We say it loudly, as is our tradition, as Jason and Sharon are next to us at the bar. They own the pot shop two doors down from my bookstore. It was a nail salon, then it was a trendy second hand store, then it was medical marijuana until a few years ago. All they had to do was remove the green cross, and bam, business was booming. They are now rolling in it, but still maintain their same lifestyle. Both of their kids are in college, they own their house within walking distance.
                     Sharon smiles "Useless bookworms. Who even reads any more?"
                     "If you read maybe you'd have a better job description than "Pot Dealer".
                     All four of us do our standard Ed McMahon "Wo-ahhhhh", toast our glasses and drink. Some kids we've never seen before shuffle in and find a table.
                     "Mike, card them. Card them! They're twelve!"
                      Mike sends Brenda over to get their order. He doesn't like to leave the bar much, it's like he wears the bar as an apron.
                       Sharon turns to me "We're coming Friday night."
                       "You don't have to, you know."
                        Jason stops mid slurp. "We know."
                       "I saw it last week. You missed your true calling," Mike looks directly at me. This is an old conversation. One we've had for years: here at the pub, on vacation, in bed.
                       "I missed nothing. I'm doing it."
                        I turn to the table that the Trendies are at and tilt my head at the book under the leg, keeping the table even.
                     "You can't even buy tables that function properly. Run your own life."
                      He is silent and waits for me to continue. "It's a tiny local theatre, I'm not going anywhere. Playwriting is a dying art, like everything else written on paper with words."
                       Emily, my new employee, bounces in dragging a lanky, befuddled looking young man behind her. She makes a bee line for me at the bar. Great.
                      "Mark, this is my new boss at the bookstore! This is Mark." I shake his hand, he  doesn't make eye contact.
                       "We had to come in because we were watching the news and there was this thing on about an original play that is premiering here in Denver, and they said the name of the playwright and showed a picture and it was YOU! And I started screaming and Mark was like 'The hell is your deal?' and I said 'That's my new boss at the bookstore! I bet she's at the pub, let's go see, you can meet her because she's a playwright! I had no idea!'" Without even taking a breath she holds out her hand to Joe "Hi. I'm Emily. I live down the street, the apartments, the ones called "The AQ".
                        "That used to be a cool Antique Mall. They tore it down," Jason grumbles into his beer.
                         "Isn't there a show tonight? Don't you have to be there?" Emily's eyes are so wide I can see Death Valley.
                          "Nope and nope," I answer.
                           Mark has wandered over to the newly leveled table and joined the group there.
                           Emily looks at Mike  "Do you still have that banana beer?"
                           "No, sorry."
                          "That's OK, can we get two of those great Mile High Lagers then?"
                           I sigh and turn to what is now called, in my head, the Table of Trendies. If I squint, I can make out the title of the book Mike has shoved under the table in order to level it.
                           Four Plays by Sam Shepard.
                         
                       
                       

-------------14 May 2017 Kryssi Martin
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