He was looking straight at me totally confused, as if I’d asked him for the square-root of something. Then suddenly, his face turned into disgust, like I was the guy who ordered a genocide against his people. Was this man’s family murdered, I wondered. Maybe I reminded him of the person who did it.
I will describe this man sitting behind the counter and looking straight at me simply as being, in one word, fat. In two, pretty massive. In three, bloody fucking huge. I can even say it in four, but I believe you already have a pretty clear picture.
He was wearing a tight, white short sleeve tee-shirt that was two sizes too small. His short hair looked awful, which was probably because he cut it himself the previous night with the same blunt scissors he trims his pubes with.
From where I was standing, I could see both his hands. In his left hand was a short smoking cigarette, slowly burning away. And in his right, the headset of an old land line telephone, which at that moment was stuck halfway between his ear and the counter desk he was sitting at.
He was still looking straight at me, as if trying to read my thoughts, or better yet, levitate or undress me with his mind; whichever came first.
He finally spoke, in the strangest, most revealing voice.
“You are crazy!”, he said. And I realized that “he” was actually a “she” all this while. “Why are you asking me why?”, she continued. “Are you stupid?”
But I was wearing my thick, dark rimmed spectacles on that day, and I had a messenger bag across my right shoulder; I most certainly did not look stupid. So why was this woman being so hurtful, I thought. But then, I’d probably be mean to total a stranger too if I were a woman and looked like that. On a second thought, even a man. Maybe, just this one time, I thought, I should let this poor creature feel good about itself. So I totally ignored her hurtful comments, and walked to the next stall, where I bought the prepaid mobile recharge card I very much needed that very minute.
From where I was standing, that is, facing the cute, smiling counter girl who had just given me my recharge card, I heard the impatient cab driver honk several times consecutively.
As I walked away, I wondered if this more feminine counter girl I just left was going to die for being cheerful and friendly to me. Maybe on this street, people die for being nice, I thought. Or maybe not. Maybe they just turn into mean, fat, ugly creatures.
But I couldn’t think for long, because The Bookstore…
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