As he watched them go past, he had an idea that he'd better write his
story soon, or maybe never. Maybe never nothing: Maybe this was his last
season on earth. Felt like that, apocalyptic. Old debts, come to be
settled.
He shuffled upstairs and turned on the disused computer, which had sat
on his desk for months and was therefore no longer top-of-the-line, no
longer nearly so exciting, no longer so fraught with promise. Still, he
made himself sit in his seat for two full hours before he allowed
himself to get up, shower, dress, and head over to the anarchist
bookstore, taking a slow route that gave him the chance to eyeball the
lights on all the APs he'd installed.
The anarchist bookstore opened lackadaisically at 11 or eleven-thirty or
sometimes noon, so he'd brought along a nice old John D. MacDonald
paperback with a gun-toting bikini girl on the cover to read. He liked
MacDonald's books: You could always tell who the villainesses were
because the narrator made a point of noting that they had fat asses. It
was as good a way as any to shorthand the world, he thought.
The guy who came by to open the store was vaguely familiar to Alfred, a
Kensington stalwart of about forty, whose thrifted slacks and unraveling
sweater weren't hip so much as they were just plain old down and out. He
had a frizzed-out, no-cut haircut, and carried an enormous army-surplus
backpack that sagged with beat-up lefty books and bags of organic
vegetariania.
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