When I’d been working at A&R for a year or so, the managers decided to move a group of the casuals to the Friday night shift.
“There’s no extra money in it, mind,” warned Kimberley with a frown. “And if you don’t want the shift, tough – find another job. There’s plenty of people out there who’d take it.”
“Just think of being able to go out clubbing with your friends after work!” grinned Katherine when I asked her about it. “Ladies love a man in uniform.”
“I don’t think this is the uniform the ladies would have in mind,” I sighed.
The Friday night shift was relatively new at this point – Perth barely had any shops open on a Sunday, and most stores shut their doors at 5 pm in a Friday so employees could get to the pub. A&R had plenty of “lifers” who could work the shift, but permanent staff required extra pay, so they turned to casuals instead. Denise and I were the eldest, and thus had the aura of authority over the younger casuals (even if that only ever existed in our heads). Elaine was eager to join up; out of all of us she was looking forward to be able to finish work and hit the clubs, and after a long week of physics and engineering she was generally pretty eager to blow off some steam. Lana, the youngest, didn’t work every Friday night but joined us more often than not. We were also joined by our newest casual, Anton.
Anton was a short, slight round music student with black curly hair and the air of a tragic Victorian-era poet. He was pretty damn impressive with the clarinet, while the best I’d ever managed with the instrument was a few strangled squeaks. I remember how he would bring his instrument in to work to practice before beginning his shift, setting himself up in the large open storage room of the upper floor where various casuals and staff members would perch on the cardboard boxes full of books to listen to him. Not just the staff, actually. Customers passing by the A&R store would often stop in the street and gaze up at the ornate Gold-Boom era building to figure out where the beautiful music was coming from.
Anton’s skill as a musician went beyond simply being good at memorizing songs and mastering technique. He got along with some of the most difficult customers the store had to offer, because he could see through the words of a conversation to understand what a person was really trying to say. His talent for communicating through music was no different.
“I don’t know,” grumbled a middle-aged woman as she leaned up against the counter with a book in each hand. “I’ve just can’t decide between these two.”
“Well, we do have other new releases on special,” replied Dan from behind the till, eyeing the growing line of people waiting for the bottle-blonde woman to make up her mind. “I’m sure one of our staff members can take you over to the new release section to help you choose.”
“Oh, I’ve already had a look,” the woman replied dismally.
“Well, both of those books are pretty similar,” suggested Anton, nodding at Dan as he emerged from the waiting crowd. “Perhaps what you’re really after is a new type of story – have you heard of The House of Leaves?”
“I heard something about it on the radio,” the customer replied thoughtfully. “It’s the one with lots of different points of view?”
“Non-linear storytelling, I think it’s just what you’re after,” said Anton calmly as he led the woman away from the shuffling line as Dan mouthed a silent “Thank Christ.”
Dan was also included on the new Friday night team, as he knew how to handle unruly customers if there was an incident. Friday nights in the city brought out a different set of people than the Saturday morning shift. I could stand at the front of the store at about 6 pm and watch as Murray Street switched over from the day shift to the night shift; the harried mothers, pensioners and business men would all slowly disappear, to be replaced by the night owls, the drug addicts and the club bunnies in skimpy clothing off for another night on the town.
Ok, I didn’t actually mind that last part.
Nonetheless, the store did get a very different clientele after dark. Some were just drunk or high, and would stumble into the store to give loud speeches about whatever topic caught their eye (because, of course, it’s important when you’re drunk to speak really loudly to make sure everyone can hear you). There were a couple of junkies whose bodies had deteriorated to the point where their skin and eyeballs were grey. A harmless returning customer had a split personality, and would keep coming in to place book orders in a male persona, then come back the following week in a female persona to lodge a complaint that someone had been ordering in books under their name without permission. More worrying were the mothers who dropped off their kids in the children’s book section and then just vanished into the night, coming back hours later to collect their progeny from A&R’s free babysitting service.
And then there was “the Doctor.” I don’t think any of us knew his real name. I never saw him pick up a book, although he wanted us to think he was very well-read. The Doctor was in his mid 50s, morbidly obese and hadn’t seen a bath or razor for God knows how long. He would wander in out of the night around 20 minutes from closing and start monologing to customers and staff, talking non-stop about conspiracy theories while furiously scratching a scraggly beard.
“They stopped me, you know,” he hissed furtively at a bemused young business woman who was lining up for the till. “They took my medical degree. Did you know I used to be Perth’s top thoracic surgeon?”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” murmured the young woman neutrally, staring straight ahead and trying not to make eye contact.
“It was all their fault,” replied the Doctor, leaning in and picking out fragments of old food caked in his beard. “They were all in it against me.”
“Ok mate, that’ll do,” replied Dan, walking up to stand politely but meaningfully between the Doctor and the young woman.
“You don’t understand,” growled the Doctor, continuing his strange commentary as he stumbled off to harass another customer. “You don’t have a medical degree. Don’t you know I used to be a doctor?”
The Doctor never laid a hand on anyone, but he had a creepy vibe and no sense of personal space, and a really awful tendency to target women as the audience for his rambling soliloquies. We all had our own way of dealing with him. Dan simply had to cross his arms, and the sight of the muscles shifting beneath his white shirt was enough of a hint for even the Doctor’s addled mind. I took the kamikaze approach to the situation, listening to the Doctor’s litanies of why the world was against him. I didn’t understand half of what he was saying, but I was very good at looking concerned, nodding and saying “Uh-huh.” Unfortunately, the bloated, rancid figure would just keep going, the angry words spewing from him until it was closing time and Dan and I had to physically force the front doors closed while he was still standing in the shop entrance trying to get a few more words in. Denise was, as always, the very definition of warmth and pleasantry, but after she’d had enough the Doctor’s antics even she began to crack.
“God I can’t stand men like that,” she growled, slouching over the counter after distracting the Doctor long enough for a pair of elderly women to make their getaway. “Revolting prick.”
Dan and I looked at each other in amazement – the sight of Denise frowning was a rarity in itself, but to hear her swearing in anger was like listening to Mr Rogers tell his neighbors to go to hell.
“That’s, uh, pretty strong language for you,” I ventured, eyebrows raised in surprise.
“You don’t know what it’s like,” said Denise plainly. “You’re both really lovely guys, but it’s true. Stalkers like that don’t go after other men – and if he did, and one of you told him to piss off, nobody would mind.”
“It’s true,” chimed in Elaine, smiling at her customer and leaning over to join in the conservation. “We have to deal with guys like that every day. And we have to be polite to them.”
“I’m sorry,” I offered. “I didn’t know.” Both Denise and Elaine had striking looks, and I was willing to believe both of them had had more than their fair share of unwelcome encounters.
I asked Lana about it later on that evening, but the diminutive art student just shrugged.
“It happens to all of us,” she replied. “Although I just saw an exhibition exploring how different cultures punished sexual transgression. Did you know the Aztecs practiced disembowelment for rape?”
“I’m aware they had some pretty gruesome punishments, yeah,” I replied hesitantly.
“And the Ancient Chinese carried out castrations against rapists.”
“Well, I mean they’re rapists, so…”
“And there was also being boiled alive in a vat of wine – the alcohol numbed the pain so that the victim stayed conscious and aware of what was happening.”
“Ok, please stop.”
I couldn’t fault the female casuals for being upset about the situation. The Doctor had taken to hanging around the front of the store after closing, which meant that Denise, Elaine and Lana all had to run the gauntlet after their shifts, and had even asked for Dan and I to walk them to the train station when they didn’t feel safe. Katherine and Kimberly were both aware of the situation, but as the Doctor had never laid a hand on anyone or directly threatened any of the women there was little the police could do.
A few weeks later we were all getting ready to close the store; it was a warm night and the store had been buzzing with the imminent release of the next Harry Potter novel. Dan and I had been dragging a small step ladder around the store as we strung up card board phoenixes from the roof and watched glumly as lines of tired parents waited for their chance to order the next story of the boy wizard. As we finished the downstairs area and lugged the ladder upstairs, we spotted the Doctor.
“You know, all the other surgeons had it out for me,” he whispered urgently, while the old woman tried to lean away from the ragged figure’s stench.
“I was the best they had – I was! That’s why they didn’t want me,” the Doctor continued, his eyes starting around the store as if expecting a band of assassins sent by the surgical fraternity of Perth.
“Oh God,” I sighed, leaning the step ladder up against a shelf. “Whose turn is it this time?”
“Seems unfair to make the others do it,” shrugged Dan, staring coldly at the Doctor as he crossed his arms. “I’ll just – hang on…”
As Dan spoke, Anton strode out if the crowd, placing himself next to the elderly woman and smiling calmly at the chattering Doctor.
“Good evening, I don’t believe we’ve met!” said Anton, brushing back his tousled hair and smiling as if he’d just found a long-lost friend. “I understand you used to be a doctor.”
The Doctor blinked in astonishment, scratching the crud out if his beard for a full minute while mustering a response.
“Yes!” he muttered. “Yes, I was! I used to be one of the top surgeons at Charlie Gardiner Hospital. But they took it away from me, you know. They wouldn’t listen.”
“I’m listening,” replied Anton. “That’s important to you, isn’t it?”
“Yes! It is! No-one ever listens,” the Doctor gibbered, scratching his beard and face as she started, wild-eyed at the young man before him.
“Because you want then to see you, to really pay attention to you,” finished the music student. “That’s why you keep saying you’re a doctor. Everyone pays attention to doctors.”
For the first time, the Doctor was completely silent, his mouth opening and closing as he stared down at the casual employee.
“But you’re not really a doctor, are you?” whispered Anton; softly, sadly, as if building up his performance. Around him the customers and female casuals halted their business to stare at the strange confrontation being played out on the shop floor.
“Well, I mean, I-” started the Doctor.
“For instance,” continued Anton, his eyes never leaving the Doctor’s bloated face, “I’ve often thought that the surgeons were just playing word games when they named the outermost and innermost layers of the brain’s protective tissue. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“I- I, uh, what?” gibbered the Doctor.
“Oh? You don’t know?” asked Anton, radiating polite surprise. “Well, since you are a thoracic surgeon you’d be able to tell me how many vertebrae are in the Thoracic section of the spine – wouldn’t you?”
At this point the Doctor’s face was completely white, and his mouth simply opened and closed like a hooked fish.
“You can’t tell me, can you?” asked Anton, the volume and tempo of his voice beginning to rise. The Doctor, still unable to speak, managed only a small nod.
“Because you’re not really a Doctor, are you?” pressed Anton, stepping forward to look up at the twitching figure.
The Doctor, eyes downcast, responded with a tiny shake of his head.
Anton nodded carefully, as the pair of them had just finished an exhaustive discourse on the philosophy of humanity.
“You should go,” the music student said – slowly, but deliberately.
The Doctor was already backing away as the young man spoke, stumbling backwards out of the store and disappearing into Perth’s night time crowd.
If this had been a movie, there probably would have been some sort of cheer, but in reality, there was just some awkward silences and then staff and customers went back about their businesses. However, I do understand that some of the other casuals thanked Anton later for setting the Doctor straight. To this day, it remains one of the most empathetic, insightful, and calmly brutal take downs of a bully I’ve ever seen. And while we were all proud of Anton for dealing with the situation, the casuals, lifers and managers all had a more pressing event to focus on.
After a year of waiting it was finally time.
It’d finally arrived, and we knew what madness was coming with it.
Harry Goddamn Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
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