There are three middle-aged men standing in the cold, waiting for the library to open for the Big Sale. Unfortunately, I am one of them. We are all strangers but the other two men engage in awkward and insipid small talk. I am made of brittle thorny bone and don’t draw small talk. Something unsavory about my face, maybe. Or my armored attitude. Fuck all you people.
The man next to me says, “My taste in books is pretty unusual, so I can usually find something interesting that most people wouldn’t notice.”
The other guy says, “Oh yeah?”
I consider barging in and grilling him about his “unusual” literary tastes but I keep my trap shut. Why struggle through a conversation? Why allow myself to get mired in dialogue? People are quicksand. Plus, when I have to talk to idiots, it makes me angry. I start giving the stupid sap the third degree until I strip away their flimsy social artifice and reveal the nervous little cretins they inevitably are.
This is how I move through life.
Now hurry up and open the fucking door before I start breaking windows. Or necks.
It starts to snow. Tight, tiny flakes like dust motes with hidden crystalline structures. My naked eyes can’t see the hexagonal prisms that float around me but I know they’re there. My awareness is like another eye.
It’s around seventeen degrees. Too cold for my thin blood. I should be in Florida.
The library has a sale every other month. People can fill a paper bag with used books for five bucks. I take advantage of the sale every time and arrive early for a place at the front of the line.
But these two morons got here before me. I want to kill them. But until I do, I have to listen to them.
“I found a book about lemon juice once. I looked it up online and turns out it’s a collector’s item. Worth fifty dollars.”
“Wow! Good score!”
“I know! When I seen how much it was selling for, I almost shit.”
“Did you sell it?”
“Nah, I want to wait and see if it appreciates in value more. You know, save it as an investment.”
“Did you read it?”
“Nah. I’m not that interested in lemon juice.”
“Me either.”
I want to beat both men to death with a crowbar.
The dope who bought the lemon juice book is wearing a puffy coat that makes him look like the Michelin Man. He wears a red beanie with an obnoxious pom pom on top and The North Face logo that makes me want to set his head on fire.
The other guy is even worse. Y’know how I mentioned today’s temperature? This fool is wearing fucking cargo shorts. I wish I were kidding. It’s snowing and this dickhead is wearing canvas, multi-pocketed, olive-drab cargo shorts. He’s also hatless. His black hair is pasted over his scalp with grease that I suspect was created by his sebaceous glands and not some store-bought, antiquated pomade. He’s just a fucking grub. With dandruff. I hate him.
Meanwhile, the line has grown behind me. It reaches across the cobblestone courtyard and almost into the street. I’ve seen bigger crowds. The winter weather acts as pest control. But not enough at my end of the line.
The guy in the shorts says, “Lately I’ve been getting into Harold Robbins a lot. He can be real steamy sometimes. Sometimes I’m like, Whoa. So, that’s what I’m hunting for. He was really popular and prolific, so I can usually find his stuff at these sales.”
“My grandmother liked him,” says the Michelin Man. “She read Sidney Sheldon too.”
“Did you know he created the I Dream of Jeannie show?”
“Larry Hagman.”
“Exactly, dude.”
I wish I had a machete. I would reduce these mugs to ugly pulp. I would try to liquefy them until the police pulled me off their mushy, red remains.
And then thank god one of the assistant librarians comes and unlocks the doors. She is a pale, thin woman in her forties wearing a pink pullover sweater with a picture of Snoopy and his doghouse emblazoned across the front. She says, “I was afraid you guys would be frozen fish sticks by now!”
Nobody laughs or responds. She holds the door open and we file inside.
I don’t find anything even remotely interesting and after twenty dreadful, claustrophobic minutes, I leave empty-handed. I have to suffer the indignity of handing back my bag and asking for the return of my five bucks.
I want to set the building on fire and listen to the screams of these people burning alive. That would put a positive spin on this grueling fucking waste of a day.
THE END!
Crumbling Asphalt 