Audition - Part 1

“But Maam,” I said for the fourth time, “A Son of a Circus is not on the bestseller list”. 

The woman looked at me as if I had creamed peas for brains, and cocked her head a bit to the side.  Her long brown hair looked as if it hadn’t been brushed in two days.  She tossed it back over the bright velvet patches of her multicolored jacket.  For the third time, she said, “But you know it WILL be, so why can’t you just give me the 10% off now?”  

She was looking at me as if it was impossible to reason with someone so vapid.  “Because,” I said, “if I did that, then it would cause books to become bestsellers when they might not have become one.”  It was impossible to reason with someone so vapid. 

“Every John Irving book is a bestseller,” she argued.  There was a line forming behind her.  I noticed two of the four of them were holding Son of a Circus.   As usual, I was the only one at the register at Bookstop.  All books on the New York bestseller list were automatically 10% off.  The much awaited Son of a Circus had arrived this morning.  

“It’s not my decision,” I finally caved, just to get this crazy hippie loon off my back so I could go back to ringing up self-help books and helping ring up enough John Irving books to shoot his new book up to bestseller status where I would actually be required to give a 10% discount.  “It’s just the rules.”  

“Fine,” she huffed, exasperated.  She slammed her credit card down on counter, and I rang up $24.99.  What a rip off.  In just a day or two, it would be $20.00.  I glanced over at her multicolored felt coat disappearing out the glass doors as I rang up the next Son of a Circus.  I wondered what she did for work.  She was probably a social worker.  Or a non-profit organizer.  Or she did “freelance” work.  In something undefined.  She thought she was better than me.  She probably made more money than me, that was for sure.  I would never have bought a hardback book at retail price, even John Irving, and even though A Prayer for Owen Meany was my all time favorite book in the whole world.  But she wasn’t smarter than me.  She just thought she was because I was working behind a cash register.  The people who pay the money always think they’re better than the ones who take the money.  So ironic, really.

John suddenly appeared at my side, startling me with his bright red tie.  “Hey,” he said, “brought you your check”.  

“Thanks,” I said, folding the envelope and sticking it into my jacket pocket.  “I was looking forward to my down payment on my house out in downtown.”.  

“Funny”, he said dryly.  “You’ve got 10 minutes and then Mary will break you”

“I thought Michael was coming up”.   

“You know I can’t have Michael interacting with the public” he said and gave me a quick couple pats on the back and headed to the back office.  On the way, he did a quick step up on a display of Texas recipe books, and wiggled his hips wildy, then jumped down and headed on back.  It was just out of sight of any customers.  This was why I loved John.  That and the fact that he lied on my verification of income statement I needed to rent my apartment, saying I made twice as much as did.  It was the only reason I could rent my apartment.  Of course, since I only made $150.00 more a month than my rent, I was having a bit of a hard time.

In fact, I was having a lot of hard time. It was slow at the front, so after I cleaned up all the stray paperclips, and straightened up the special order shelf where people’s special order books were held, I pulled out the want ads that we all kept under the counter for slow times.  I saw that my co-workers had circled a couple ads.  “Front of the house server wanted.  Ready to handle happy customers.  Ready for loud music.”  I figured the circler there was my best friend, Mary.  Of course “happy” meant “drunk”.  She could handle drunk customers.  Unless she was one of them.  “Front desk at busy hotel.  Graveyard shift.  Must be self motivated.”  I figured Michael had circled this one.  John had sequestered him to the back of the store ripping off the covers of crappy paperback novels no one wanted to buy, just so that he and his simmering rage at the injustice of the world could be kept away from the customers.  So, a graveyard shift was probably a good fit.  

Here was one no one had circled.  “Are you ready to show your talent? Dancers needed.  Popular nightclub.  Make serious money.”  I skipped past it and read a few others.  I had one more hour on shift, and then I’d head back to the apartment where I’d sit and drink Mickey’s wide mouth beers with Blake and Cat and Brad and Mary, when she was off her shift.  Since it was Mary’s and my payday, we’d be in charge of buying beers.  

“Excuse me,” I heard a voice.  I looked up to see a woman with round John Lennon glasses and a long flowing peasant skirt.  “Why isn’t Son of a Circus 10% off yet?  You know it’s going to be a bestseller.”

As I drove home later, I thought about a book I’d seen at the store.  It was a memoir of a woman who put herself through medical school stripping.  Apparently, she was a doctor or something now, and had suffered no emotional scars as a result of her stripping.  I stopped by convenience store on my way home.

“Hi Sabib,” I said, as I walked in, setting off a loud beep from the glass doors which were weighed down with metal bars.

“Ah, Naomi!” said Sabib.  “And how was your day with books?”  

“It was edifying, as usual,“ I replied, headed for the beer cooler.

“And did you learn something new?” asked Sabib.  Sabib was really quite a good looking guy.  I didn’t know how old he was, maybe 30 or so, tops.  I took my case of Mickey’s and my bottle of Crown Royal to the counter.  I loved that convenience stores in Texas sold liquor.

“I was enlightened.”  I replied.  “Sabib, have you ever known any dancers?”  

“Dancers?  Oh yes!  I love the Bollywood dancers.  They are so lovely and fun, and so dead sexy.  They celebrate life.”

I didn’t know what he was talking about, so I smiled at him.  He had sweet deep brown eyes like chocolates I could drink up.  

Later, I sat in the entryway of Brad’s apartment with Blake, Mary and the others.  We popped the caps off the Mickey’s wide mouth beers so that they spread around us in the dirt on the ground.  Brad’s cats sulked in the darkness, rubbing in the night against our legs.  We passed the bottle of Crown Royal around and the deep liquor burned down my throat.  Mary passed me a cigarette, then lit it for me, her flaming red hair falling into her face.  Blake stood suddenly and screamed into the dark sky, the sound of cars on Kearney Avenue coursing along.  “Shut the fuck up!” screamed Cat, although between her Philippino accent and her drunker slur, it was a little hard to understand what she said.

“Mary,” I said, as I took another swallow of the rapidly dwindling Crown Royal.  Mary was watching Blake.  

“Sit the fuck down, you dumbass!” she said, laughing, to him.  

“Mary,” I said again.  My feet slipped in the dirt as I leaned over to her.

“What” she said leaning into me, her bright, dark eyes on mine.

“Do you think I could be a dancer?”

“Why the fuck would you want to do that?”

“Well,” I said, trying to muster up something that sounded intelligent, but my feet slipped in the dirt again, kicking one of the Mickey’s wide mouth caps. “I could make some good money, and it might be, you know, an interesting experience.”  As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I knew it.  I wanted an interesting experience.  And this would be it.

“Aw fuck,” said Mary and she leaned over with her red hair falling on my face and kissed my cheek.  “You could do anything you want.  If you want to dance, you’d be fucking amazing.  Anything you want to do, you’re going to be fucking amazing.”