The Bad Book Affair

‘Why not?’ said Ted.

‘I don’t know. They look like they’re in the Addams Family.’

‘That’s the idea, isn’t it?’ said Ted.

‘Yes, but it’s…weird.’

‘Weird!’ said Ted. ‘Weird?’

‘Yes, weird.’

‘Aye, and ye’d know weird, right enough.’

‘Yes. I would.’

‘Aye, ye see, that’s just like ye—you’re a terrible hypocrite, so you are.’

‘I am not.’

‘’Course you are. You’re all for this political correctness, and then ye’re after saying ye don’t like the Goths.’

‘Well, I don’t.’

‘Ach, ye’re a sickener, so you are.’

‘They come in wearing trench coats and…’

‘What’s wrong with trench coats?’ said Ted. ‘You don’t like people wearing trench coats?’

‘No. It’s just…People wearing long black coats and…’

‘Who are those people in Israel?’ said Ted.

‘Jews?’

‘Yes, them. The ones in the long black coats and the hats.’

‘That’s different. That’s religion.’

‘Well, it’s the same thing for the young ones here.’

‘It’s not a religion.’

‘It is to them.’

‘Anyway, Ted. I do not like the Goths coming on the library and smoking. And we’re not meant to be issuing them with X-rated DVDs and…’

‘It’ll do them no harm, sure. And at least if they’re on the van they’re not out cloddin’ stones.’

‘Clodding?’

‘Throwing stones, ye eejit.’

‘Right.’

‘Not a jot of harm in ’em.’

‘How do you know there’s not a jot of harm in them?’

‘I just know,’ said Ted. ‘When you’ve known people as long as I have, you just know.’

‘Well, when the Goths go on the rampage and…’

‘Ach, Israel, will ye lighten up for just one minute, will ye? It’s like listening to an auld man, so it is.’

Israel peered at the girl Goth over his book—Infinite Jest. She did look familiar, the Goth, but then all Goths looked the same to him: pale faces, dark clothes, like priests, or Pierrots, or members of Parisian mime troupes. The only discernible difference between all of Tumdrum’s Goths seemed to be in size: there were fat ones, and thin ones, but nothing in between. There didn’t seem to be any such thing as a medium-sized Goth: Gothicism seemed to be a minimal and a maximal kind of a teenage subculture.

‘There are no medium Goths,’ he remarked idly to Ted one day.

‘A medium Goth is called an emo,’ said Ted. ‘Keep up, ye eejit.’

Ted, of course, had no problem with Tumdrum’s Goths. Or the emos. Because, of course, Ted had no problem with anyone: Goths, emos, drunks, loonies, children, Mrs Onions, OAPs. As part-time driver of the mobile library, and proprietor-driver of Ted’s Cabs (‘If You Want To Get There, Call The Bear’), Ted knew everyone in town by name, and mostly from birth. He certainly knew all of Tumdrum’s Goths from when they were mewling and puking in the children’s book trough, and so was able to handle them with his usual aplomb, which mostly meant slagging, mocking and teasing them, but also allowing them to smoke on board the library when it was raining. Ted called the Goths the Whigmaleeries, or the Wee Yins.

‘And what are Whigmaleeries when they’re at home?’ asked Israel.

‘They’re Wee Yins,’ said Ted.

So that had cleared that up.

The young female Goth hovered nervously around the fiction shelves for a few moments, glancing over her black-jumpered shoulder.

‘Good morning, madam,’ said Israel, breaking the Gothic silence. ‘How can I possibly help you?’ He found sometimes that if he pretended to be positive and helpful it made him feel positive and helpful, for a brief moment at least. Were all positive and helpful people just pretending? ‘Edgar Allan Poe, perhaps?’

‘What?’

‘Edgar Allan Poe?’ he said. ‘Master of the macabre.’

The girl looked blankly at him.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I was just…You know. I like to guess sometimes which books people are going to borrow, just from the way they…You know…big…fat person, probably going to borrow a…diet book. Child, probably going to borrow…a children’s book…And a weird-looking person is probably going to…Anyway.’

Israel looked at the young woman’s unsmiling face. Either that was very heavy make-up and eyeliner she was wearing, or she had a very pale complexion and hadn’t slept for weeks.

‘I’m looking for something…’ said the young woman. She looked around again, over her shoulder and lowered her voice. ‘From the Unshelved.’

‘Ah,’ said Israel, lowering his voice conspiratorially also. ‘Of course. The Unshelved.’

‘Yes.’