The Regulars

It came to me, as I was shelving the kids' books at the store, that this isn't necessarily the place I would bring my children, if I had any, if I knew about the people who regularly frequent the bookstore. In the store at that moment was a rogues' gallery of people whose idiosyncrasies were not necessarily evident on the surface: Stephen* the Anarchist and his stripper girlfriend, Tom the washed-up philosopher and fan of 1960s bowling leagues, crazy Frances laughing uproariously at "something I was just thinking about," and bearded, backpack-toting, sometimes-drunk Isaac Newton.

It is normal to me to have these people around. There are plenty more people I could name and describe whose identifying characteristics sound like absurdist characters from a Beat poem or a Russian novella, yet they are the people I expect to see every day, whose coffee preferences I know--when they are well-off enough to buy coffee, which, for some of them, is not often.

Once we get too many of "the regulars" in the store we have to be wary. They are all ticking time bombs, each with their own issues that could require immediate individual attention, mostly so that we as a staff can preserve the illusion for our other customers that this is a normal, quiet, place of erudition, where the only noise might be the clacking of chess pieces or the occasional philosophical debate.

Isaac came up to the counter, rambling on about how everyone had missed me while I was away in England, but how Liz**, my co-worker, had been great, and I was practically obsolete. Liz gave me an "I'm a little creeped out with where all these compliments are going" look just as Isaac began comparing Liz to a powerful Amazon woman, gesturing to his chest to demonstrate that the Amazons cut off one breast to better wield their bows and arrows. Liz and I glanced at each other. Isaac's bus came, and he darted out the door.

"He is so close to being acceptable," I said, "but sometimes he just blows it big time."
I thought back to the time when Isaac had put me in the awkward position of having to throw him out for being rambunctiously drunk in the midst of a free, in-store concert. Not wanting to call the cops, knowing his past run-ins with them, I stationed myself near the shop door, and each of the five times he stumbled back, I turned him aside, reassuring him each time that he could come back when he was sober, but that there was no way I was letting him inside.
"I know, I know," said Liz. "They all are, and that's why it's so frustrating."

We thought of Isaac, reading and intelligently identifying with Don Quixote; of Frances, using her encyclopedic knowledge of 60s rock and folk artists to hold long discussions at the counter; of Stephen, reminding his anarchist friends (in the stacks, when he didn't know I was just around the corner) that "we can steal books from Barnes & Noble, 'cause they're corporate, but we don't steal from this place."


I don't really know what to do with all of this, except sneak people free coffees when I can and loan them bus money when I can and chastise them for panhandling when I can and listen to them when I can. Because I stand at the coffee counter for most of the day, it is the last one that I do most often. I don't really know how to make their lives better, or if they want their lives made better, or if I'm really just as crazy as any of "the regulars." Until I do know, I'm just going to keep an eye on them, to see if I can help them, but also to make sure that they don't cause a ruckus in the bookstore.


*I've changed all of the names, including Isaac Newton's, though Isaac does indeed go by the just-as-unbelievable name of another famous scientist. 

** Liz's name hasn't been changed