16) Signs

Today I shelved mostly in the low shelves--Easies, DVD's, and magazines--because my legs were weak from trying to ride my bike. My legs are long enough but not strong enough yet, unless I am going down a slope, when I do not have to push the pedals. Neil said he will try to find a lower gear to put on it. Mostly, I like shelving the Easy books; I can carry more books and easily cross to the next aisle over the wooden cubicles and bins stacked only a few feet high. I like reading many of the books, too, except for Curious George, who is a stupid little monkey who makes a lot of trouble and still gets everyone to love him in the end. He understands human speech but acts like a baby, so he is always forgiven for not knowing better. There are not many monkeys in stories that I like. If they are not stupid, they might as well be human children. I like Caps for Sale, though. The monkeys say only "Tsz, tsz," but that was before any monkeys could speak, I am sure, and they are not bad but playful. They give the pedlar his caps back, after all.

A woman stood outside the aisles beside the cart from which I was gathering books, surveying an unfamiliar scene. Her hair was a different indeterminate color than May's, two colors that did not belong together, and though long, it appeared stiff as well, moving with the head that scanned back and forth, instead of trailing the movement. She could not see me, I was sure, though I stood only a few feet from her side. The profile of her breast sloped then bulged under her gray t-shirt.

With an armful of books, I straightened and said, "What are you needing?"

She turned, startled, but did not see me at first. When she did, I saw that look. I am not the first monkey to speak. Hunter even said there was a sign on the front door that "warned" patrons I was in here. As, like all employees there, I enter the building by the back door, I have never seen this sign, and most days it is hard to believe it is there.

"Um...."

Neil and I sat at the bottom of a grassy slope. The bike lay nearby where I was no longer able to pedal it. We passed a water bottle between us.

"Why do you not like Hunter?" I asked Neil. I thought his answer might help me understand my own feelings toward Hunter.

"Oh, it's not that I don't like him. It's that I hate him." But he laughed. "No, I don't hate anybody. I just thought that would be a cool dramatic effect. Worked for me, anyway." He looked past me up the slope, where the tires had depressed a line in the moist grass. "Maybe you weren't here then. And, obviously, you haven't read all of my blog." He held up a hand as I started to apologize. "That's okay. It's a lot of words--a lot of excruciating, self-important words." Then, like a car swooshing past, out came the words, "Hunter told May about my blog."

I asked the woman, "May I help you find a book?"

"Uh, no thank you. I don't know what I'm looking for." She turned, and I studied the shape of her moving buttocks as she walked quickly away.

Neil said there was no such sign.