The winter streets of Birmingham tantalize me.
Why? Because each person I meet on these streets
lives a unique life, each person I meet carries
baggage that I can’t see through, since I’m busy
carrying my own.
There are hundreds of individual stories presented
to me each week at the Museum of Fond Memories and
Reed Books. Each is special in its own way, sometimes
joyful, sometimes sad, always mysterious.
Pick a day--for instance, Wednesday:
I arrive at the bookstore two hours before opening time,
to catch up on newly acquisitioned books, do a little
straightening up, get the heating system going, becalm
and brace myself for the day, jumpstart the monthly
bill-paying. A shaggy street person is waiting at the
door, staring at the posted shop hours but not seeing
them. “We open at 10:30,” I say, before realizing he’s
a regular customer. He says, “I don’t have my watch, so
I don’t know what time it is…can I pick up that book you
got for me?” Of course. I usher him into the darkened cave
and shuffle through the Hold Shelves to find his special
order, trying to ignore the strong fragrance of newly-smoked
marijuana emanating from his clothing. I assist him, accept
his payment, and am now alone in the store. I am happy for
his patronage but happy, too, that he is gone.
Now, I can get some things done.
As the marijuana smell dissipates, I become aware of
cigarette smoke billowing into the shop around the edges
of the door. I stopped smoking forty years ago, but each
day I’m inhaling the secondary smoke of the 3rd Avenue
North Smoking Society—the employees of adjacent offices and
stores who stand in the alcove of Reed Books, lustily
inhaling as much as they can on their frequent breaks. I seem
to be their smoking court, and no amount of pleasant hints
can get through to them the fact that their smoke chokes me
and aggravates my allergies. I don’t want to become the old
guy who tells everybody to get off his lawn,so I never
blatantly ask them to go elsewhere. I try to justify my
wimpishness by reminding myself that these are pleasant
folks who at least make the entrance to the store look busy,
and who might come in handy as observers and diffident
securityguards, should anything go wrong on the street.
I guess what quietly bugs me is the fact that, no matter how
many times I invite them to enter the store and look around at
the merchandise and the special monthly exhibits, not one of
them does. This leads me to believe that smokers are not
readers or collectors. They are just…smokers.
Later in the morning, when the doors are unlocked, the $2 sales
racks are on the street, and I am ready for the day, customers
and browsers enter, talk, enjoy, search, walk out smiling—and
leave me smiling, too.
Late in the day, a very large, loud-baritoned man enters with a
short, obese boy in tow. The baritone laughs broadly, saying,
“I want a big doll with big t---s…that’s what I want for
Christmas!” He laughs at his own remark and becomes bigger than
the store as he comments on each and every item he sees. He
reeks of whiskey and is enjoying his high, while the boy
wanders silently about, trying to avoid him. At one point, the
baritone starts dancing to the Taj Mahal music that’s playing,
chuckling loudly and trying to engage the boy in a frisky
dance. The boy blushes deeply and averts his eyes. Eventually,
the baritone leaves, wishing me and the world a Merry
Christmas and promising to return someday with money in
his pockets. I quietly slip the boy a free Dum Dum and he seems
grateful.
I love my job, my independence, my lack of bosses. I love my
books and my artifacts and am glad each time someone makes a
purchase and goes away happy.
But at the same time, in a parallel portion of my mind, I’m a
little saddened at the unfulfilled lives I occasionally see
around me. I try to at least act better than I am by being
patient with these lone wanderers of the City streets.
And I hope that each of them finds a shard of happiness mid
the hundredfold opportunities for gloom in their daily lives
© Jim Reed 2010 A.D.
www.jimreedbooks.com
