Yesterday we were visited by a sprite fairly accurately characterized by one of the clerks at the record store as "the homeless Tim Burton". Greasy, teased black hair in the style of prime Robert Smith, thick gobs of blue eyeshadow seemingly applied with a palette brush, metallic green lacquered fingernails starting to look a little worse for wear, and a complexion that was equal parts ratty thrift store leather jacket & Iggy Pop.
One of the laws of retail thermodynamics is the lunatic who just walked always marches up to give you their spiel. They instinctively know that clerks, bound by the rules of commerce, are the only ones who will give them even a cursory listen.
Those who know me will vouch that I'm about as far from those large-hearted folk actively seeking opportunities to lather the balm of sympathy on the gangrenous wounds of society's unfortunates as you're going to get.
But I've been working on my bedside manner, so to speak, and this seemed like a prime opportunity to measure my progress.
The fellow was drunk as a lord, but not without a certain drag queen dignity. And he didn't stink, a quality I appreciate in my crazy homeless people.
Unfortunately, his speech was muffled and swift, like someone dumping a bucket of rocks wrapped in velvet down a staircase.
I plucked a few words out of the stream- "nazi", "history", and "reincarnation".
Not much to go on.
"Pardon me?" I replied, cocking a hand behind my ear.
I fared a bit better on the second go round, detecting a pattern. He was wondering about a certain unit of SS troops, which he felt he had served with in a past life.
Figuring he'd be better served by our well-stocked military history section than by our measly single shelf of reincarnation & past life regression I steered him to the history loft. Or tried to.
"Anything on the German military will be upstairs," pausing to point, "with our military history section. Straight back and up the stairs before the doorway," pointing again.
"ohuhheythanksman...didyouknowyouareimmortal?" Staring at me, his sunken black eyes raccoon-rimmed with clumpy blue powder.
"Well, I'm selling books, I know that."
"butyourmortaltoo....hehheh."
"Hmmmm. So, military history. In the loft, up the stairs."
Off he went, veering past the new arrivals table and bee-lining through the archway to the other side of the store, the side without the loft.
Ah well.
The store was empty, I figured he'd fiddle around in the fiction stacks for a while, get bored and wander out of the store.
Not the case.
He returned ten minutes later, with the same story. I repeated my directions in turn, with more helpful finger-pointing & gesticulation in case he was having as much trouble with my diction as I was with his.
He ambled off, in the right direction this time, but he overshot the stairs and landed in the Natural History room.
Another ten minutes and he's back at the counter.
This time I got up and guided him to the stairs.
He made it into the loft this time, but I got the feeling he wished I was one of those cartoon St Bernards with the oak cask marked XXX around their necks.
I figure I'm finally done with him. He's found his section, but used books on the SS in general are uncommon, used books on specific SS units are genuinely rare, so he'll fiddle a bit, not find it, and wander off.
Wrong again!
30 minutes pass, and he comes tottering up to the counter with a book on a specific SS unit. I was having trouble figuring out his English, his German was just a sonic blur, but he seemed happy, so it's safe to assume he found what he was after.
I rang him up & he peeled a handfull of bills off a dishevelled ball of cash he pulled out of a tan plastic grocery bag...it looked like one of those huge rubber band balls kids make, only composted from damp, musty cash. I made change gingerly.
While enjoying a post transaction antibacterial hand-washing, I took a moment to bask in the afterglow of my successful bridge-building with our mentally ill alcoholic homeless population.
A bit later a gal came up to the counter with a black plastic bag she found on the floor in the drama section. Inside were 7 tallboy cans of Natural Ice, an empty coffee cup and a buck twenty-five in loose change.
I held it until the end of the shift, but he didn't come back.
No comments:
Post a Comment