In the beginning I was thrilled that he talked to me.
He seemed to take me seriously. He seemed interested in who I was.
I would go to his shop often, and I would wait until his other customers left and then we would talk about poetry. I ordered some of Jim Carroll's books of poetry from him, and we would talk about the subject matter that Jim so often wrote about.
After a little while he offered me a job. I was in high school, and having a job in a book store was exciting. Plus, it meant that he liked me. I couldn't believe that anyone might like me back then, especially not an adult.
I worked the cash register. It was easy, at first.
And then I began to see what was really going on. I think on some level he DID like me. He certainly did understand me. He knew that I was an easy mark. He knew that I was vulnerable. He thought that I was more damaged than I was. And he hoped, oh how he hoped to take advantage of my broken-ness.
When you have been broken, certain people can see the chips and cracks in you, and they know instinctively that a well placed tap can make you fall apart all over again.
How do they know?
They have been broken too.
So I worked the cash register. I helped the few customers that came into the store. And I began to learn.
I learned that what he wanted from me was the same as what my mother wanted. I was there to make him feel better. I was there to take the blame. I was there to bear witness to his greatness. I was there so that he could score his cocaine and still keep the store open. But above and beyond all that, I was there for his amusement.
It was fun for awhile. But then he would close the store for "inventory" and we would go downstairs and smoke pot and do nitrous hits and he would invite his friends and they would laugh when I fell over. And through it all that feeling in the pit of my stomach kept telling me to be careful. I wasn't sure what might happen, but at that point I knew that something could.
It was that feeling in my gut that snapped me out of my smoky haze when I finally realized why he was so adamant that I keep smoking more and more.
And that's when things started to get bad.
Because at fifteen, I didn't consider twenty-five-year-olds pushing drugs on me bad. I didn't even think it was that bad that he was getting me high just to try to get into my pants.
Bad was throwing things.
My attempt at self-preservation was clearly a rejection in his eyes. So he became more and more hostile as time went by. I would sit by the cash register and he would throw ash trays and books and glassware at me.
Early into the game I gathered that the point of it was to make me cry.
So I didn't.
I was young, and my reflexes were good, and since he was not so quick to share his pot after he learned I wasn't going to put out, he would usually be high on coke. Which thankfully, while it does make you louder, and angrier and more obnoxious than usual, does not make your aim better.
He would pick something up off the shelf and walk around the store with it in his hand. Pacing slowly, singing softly, then louder. Something would happen, or not happen, and he would throw his projectile at my head. And then he would laugh. Sometimes he would only do it once. But on slow days I could be dodging bric a brac for hours.
I didn't want to go to work anymore. But I couldn't say anything to my parents. How do you explain that you feel you are in danger? Where do you start?
"My boss tried to have sex with me after he got me wasted on this amazing pot and well, now he's mad, plus he's high on cocaine, and he keeps throwing heavy objects at my head and laughing, so I don't think I want to work there anymore, ok? Oh, and what's for dinner? I'm starving."
There were so many parts of the story that implicated me. I was stuck.
When he wasn't high we would talk and sometimes he would take me for rides on his motorcycle. And sometimes he would sit on the floor of the store and weep.
I don't remember how or why I stopped working at the store. I think I found another job. One without screaming and drugs and flinging glassware.
