King

Barnes and Noble was a very boring place, really. There was nothing exciting about books on shelves, very often taken out of its proper place by a curious customer and set down in the Children’s Section where it really shouldn’t be. It was also not very exciting (although admittedly amusing) to watch an exasperated employee with a very bad case of obsessive-compulsive disorder panic over a self-help book (“Why Your Husband Left You for a Bitch”) found among Bob the Builder storybooks. (It’s true; Bob Bryar saw it all.) There was just… nothing exciting that happened in Barnes and Noble. Ever.

So it is completely understandable why Bob Bryar felt like his life suddenly meant something when Gustav, the manager, assigned him to work in the Fiction Section instead. He was to stack books, arrange the books in alphabetical order (by author, by last name), ask customers if they needed help finding anything, and act like working at Barnes and Noble “was like going to a party – every night!” (Bob’s face contorted in disbelief and horror when Gustav had said this.) However, Bob was very determined to “exceed your best!” for Gustav had brought up the topic of a possible raise by two whole dollars.

So, once again, it is completely and utterly understandable why Bob Bryar anxiously stood at the A-aisle of the Fiction Section, eagerly awaiting customers that – his inner Bob told him – was likely to never come.

So you’ve got to understand why Bob almost burst out in a song-and-dance number when a rather short teenager around Bob’s age range, was walking in the direction of the Fiction Section.

Bob had opened his mouth to greet him and welcome him (quite overdramatically) to the Fiction Section and ask him what he was looking for but –

The costumer disappeared right into the K-aisle, muttering something under his breath that sounded a lot like letters of the alphabet to Bob.

Bob stood there for a whole ten seconds staring at where the customer used to be. His mouth had hung open, his eyebrows had furrowed, and, to anybody who couldn’t hear his thoughts, he would look very much like he was going through some sort of intense internal struggle.

Finally, he had come to a satisfying conclusion: He himself would be the one to walk up to the customer and ask him if he needed help.

And so he found himself next walking past the J-aisle where he could hear, “King, King, King, Stephen King… K-I-N – JESUS!” The customer crashed into Bob’s chest. Bob hadn’t even noticed he was already walking down the K-aisle.

“Pretty close, but no,” Bob said. “I’m Bob.” He extended his arm. He knew employees normally didn’t shake hands with customers, but he had felt sort of intimate with this one. He had called him Jesus, after all.

However, the customer didn’t seem to share the same thoughts. He stared at the outstretched hand with a look of disgust on his face as though there were three extra fingers that grew out of the space between Bob’s thumb and his forefinger. After finally deciding that those three extra fingers didn’t really exist, he looked at Bob’s face strangely. “Were you… Were you following me?” he asked slowly.

Bob looked mortally offended for a second and then composed himself. He leaned on the shelf and shoved both his hands into his pockets. “I work here,” he grumbled.

The customer raised his eyebrows at him.

“All right, all right, bookstores are boring, okay?” Bob glared at the customer.

The customer’s face surprisingly lit up. He smirked. “I turn you on.” It wasn’t a question.

Bob blinked blankly. “E-excuse me?”

“Do you know where the Stephen King novels are?” he asked, turning to the bookshelf and scanning the titles as if he hadn’t just accused Bob of being gay.

“U-uh…”

“What about Brimstone? Have you got that here?”

“Um…”

“Speak coherently, Bob.”

“‘Um’ is an accepted word in the English language, therefore it is coherent.”

“I beg to differ. It may be a real English word, but it is in no way logical, therefore,” he said, giving Bob an all-knowing look for one fleeting moment, “it is not coherent.” Frank looked back at Bob and smirked in an “oh-I-am-so-smart” way.

Bob stared at the customer in disbelief. Staring at people in a disbelieving way seemed to be an everyday thing now.

“Plus, ‘um’ doesn’t answer my question,” the customer added, looking back at the bookshelf.

“But that’s the beauty of the word!” Bob defended, seeming to have found his voice again. “You can use it to answer any question, but it doesn’t really answer it, y’know?”

The customer crouched down to look at the bottom shelf. “What about ‘yellow’?” he asked, without looking up from the book spines.

“That works, too.”

“It’s like, ‘What’s your name?’ – ‘Yellow.’ – ‘Your phone number?’ – ‘Yellow.’ – ‘What’s the color of your dick?’ – ‘Yellow.’”

“Unless you were asking for their favorite color and it really was yellow. Your favorite color can never be ‘um’.”

“Point taken. What if your name was Um though?”

“What kind of sad parent names his kid Um?”

The customer didn’t answer; didn’t even look up at Bob, but he had a little smile on as he searched the books for one written by Stephen King.

Bob broke the silence that seemed to go on for a great amount of time. “Is your name Um?”

“Nah, it’s Frank.”

“Frank,” Bob repeated.

“And yours is Bob.”

Bob couldn’t think of anything to say, but his inner Bob told him that he had to say something. “We have very common names,” he blurted without thinking.

“That we do,” Frank said, rising from his crouching position and looking at Bob. “So where are your Stephen King books?” he asked.

“Right this way, sir,” Bob said, happy to be actually helping a customer. Bob walked a little further down the aisle, his eyes glued to the books, looking for any flash of bright orange. Lisey’s Story was written by Stephen King and the color of its book jacket was very eye-catching to Bob. He turned around, about to tell Frank that the Stephen King novels were right there but –

Frank abruptly pulled Bob by the collar of his shirt and crushed his lips to Bob’s un-expecting mouth.

Bob was utterly, utterly bewildered.

Frank ran his tongue over Bob’s lower lip rather sloppily. Disappointed by Bob’s lack of enthusiasm, he tugged on Bob’s lip ring as if tugging it would somehow pull a response out of him.

Bob was still completely lost in shock – so much that he hadn’t even noticed that he was just standing there awkwardly with his eyes wide open. Only when he felt that his mouth was unusually wet had his brain registered that Frank had already pulled away.

Frank, having a damned habit of pretending he hadn’t done anything that would have gotten a very well-earned “what the fuck” exclamation from any functioning human being, turned his head sideways to look at the books and scanned the fourth-to-the-lowest shelf. (It was the shelf he had a very good and direct view of.) He looked at Bob questioningly.

Frank found himself staring at blue-eyed bewilderment. Surprise was still etched on the creases between Bob’s eyebrows and he looked very disoriented. Bob, once again, could not find his voice, nor could he find words, because “what the fuck” could not suffice and his mouth refused to let “get out” rip from his lips. So, he just limply pointed to the second-to-the-top shelf.

Frank craned his neck and scanned the titles, mumbling the titles soundlessly. He pulled the one entitled Salem’s Lot out of the shelf and turned it to look at its back cover. Bob still hadn’t moved.

“You think this is good?” Frank asked, his eyes still on the synopsis.

Bob gulped. He wasn’t sure his voice worked anymore. “Um…”

“I thought you’d say that,” Frank said, looking up from the book. Bob saw a smile playing on the lips that had very recently just been pressed onto his. “I’m getting it. Thanks, Bob.” Giving Bob a very bright smile, he turned on his heel and strode away in the direction of the cashier.

Bob still hadn’t moved in the next eight minutes. His blue eyes were fixed straight ahead, staring at nothing in particular. In all honesty, he just couldn’t believe that something exciting actually happened in the Fiction Section.

Working at Barnes and Noble suddenly wasn’t so boring anymore.