Back
in the day, after college and before the lost decade I spent at Cosmodemonic Communications, I had a
long career in the retail book industry. Beginning with a short stint at the
old Waldenbooks in the barely-there Hudson Valley Mall, to three years at
the dearly departed Ariel Booksellers
in New Paltz, to a couple of years at Norman
Levine’s Editions in Boiceville, books were my close companions, night
lights of the mind, portals to times and lives I wanted to dip into without
commitment, return to without hesitation.
I’m feeling lately like maybe I’ve
read too many books. I can’t tell you the last novel I finished, or even
collection of poetry. I used to spend hours in the stacks, happily pawing
through the shredded covers for one treasure, a new poet or an old one I hadn’t
read enough of, a magazine printed the year I was born, or even a few craft or
cookbooks I’d spend more time reading than emulating.
I can still straighten a shelf up
like nobody’s business. I remember dusting the fronts, the tops, filling the
carts with new arrivals to merge into an already bursting shelf, and figuring
out how to make them all fit. I knew the business. But who knew the business
would change so drastically in my lifetime. I’m sure the clues were there,
while I had my nose buried in Sylvia
Plath’s journal or Allen Ginsberg’s
collected works. The Internet. Before my current position, I had a final fling
at the book business, and failed at my post badly. Unsupported, with a staff of
just one (me), I spent my days alone washing windows, mopping the floor, making
coffee, and doing just about everything but working with books.
The store is still open, and the owner
is still breathing, both facts equally depressing. It was a used bookstore, but
I was often instructed to sift through piles of buy-backs for books in good
enough shape to pass as new. I spent too much money (really, money) on new
titles, a mistake I wasn’t aware of until after the fact. The books were an
afterthought, shoved onto shelves without thought or philosophy. Being fired
was a stroke of luck, since I’d resigned myself to the mess, but the books were
no comfort. They were helpless themselves in the murky wood and coffee grounds
of the joint.
A couple of weeks ago we stopped at
an outlet mall in Central New York, one where sneakers were the star. In the
far corner was a bookstore of sorts, remainders and lesser known titles deeply
discounted. Even with a decent salary, no longer having to rely on strips or bargain
books to fill my shelves, I found nothing I wanted to take home with me. I knew
the end of all the fiction, the rhyme schemes of the few poetry books on hand.
I have plenty of cookbooks I already don’t use, although I’ve read them all
several times. Even the books on CD didn’t interest me—what good is a book on
CD once you’ve listened. I’ve no interest in the ghostwritten pop autobiographies,
or the bodice-ripping romances, the simplistic craft manuals written for those
who need written instructions for tying their shoelaces every morning. There
was not one book in the whole store I was willing to take home.
I’m more interested now in clearing
my shelves, my walls, my closets. It’s almost as if I’ve moved the library
inside my head. I need the physical space these days to make some headway on
the few projects I intend to go forward with. I have my Handler’s companionship day and night, so perhaps the books resent
our drifting apart. But like old lovers, I’ll keep in touch with some, part
amicably with others. Some will be dropped off at the thrift shop where they’re
given away, because that’s the option I like best. Time grows a little short,
and I hate to think of the clean up after I’ve dropped the body if I don’t do
some of it myself ahead of time. It is time to pare down and focus. If only I
can put down this Harriet Carter
catalog… anybody need a wall phone with really, really big numbers?
