![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Service-John-Tottenham-cover-645x1024.jpg\")
<\/p>\nBy John Tottenham.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you need a bag?\u201d I asked, and received no response.<\/p>\n
\u201cD\u2019you need a bag?\u201d I asked again, and again received no response.<\/p>\n
I tried again, a third time.<\/p>\n
This time, the customer looked up from his texting. \u201cWhat?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cA bag,\u201d I said. \u201cDo you need one?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat kind of bag?\u201d asked the customer, a clean-cut young man with facial hair and neck tattoos.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo I have to describe the bag?\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs it a paper bag?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, it\u2019s a paper bag,\u201d I said, and handed him a brown paper bag.<\/p>\n
He walked off, looking put out. Perhaps he had wanted me to bag the book for him.<\/p>\n
\u201cHi Sean.\u201d From whom this greeting came, I had no idea. It is the fate of the terminal bookstore employee to frequently be addressed by people he doesn\u2019t know.<\/p>\n
A forlorn figure shuffled up to the counter with an expectant look on his face that suggested I should be pleased to see him. I returned an unconvincing imitation of his smile, anticipating the twenty minutes of my time that this energy-draining vampire was certain to consume. It was inconceivable that he would leave any sooner than that. He was fresh and ready to twist my ear off. This might be his first social interaction of the day, but it was my umpteenth, and I was trapped.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s going on?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat else is going on?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou mean apart from nothing?\u201d<\/p>\n
He just stood there, waiting for me to alleviate his boredom. Not content with killing his own time, he wanted to kill my time too.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou ever have this dream where you\u2019re in a dark room and can\u2019t see what you\u2019re doing?\u201d he said. \u201cYou turn on the light switch and it doesn\u2019t work, and you\u2019re just alone in the darkness. Then you wake up.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018Tell a dream, lose a reader,\u2019 as Henry James wrote,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018Lose your dreams and you may lose your mind,\u2019 as the Rolling Stones said. But they were talking about a different type of dream.\u201d<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t what he said that was so boring, it was the sound of his voice and the desperation palpably simmering just below the surface. The merciless drone was the sound of him charging his loneliness on my battery. I could feel my already slim reserves of energy being sapped, ounce by ounce. I need to think, I cannot think in your presence. But what was the alternative, to spend time with him outside the workplace? That would be even worse; better to endure him here.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t have those kind of dreams,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
The pest stepped aside to make way for a long-haired, denim-clad woman who prompted her young daughter to hand me a children\u2019s book. The straining child could barely reach to the top of the counter and I had to stretch down to grab the book. The kid smiled up at me, almost begrudgingly it seemed \u2014 fully aware of her own cuteness but somehow recognizing me as an undeserving recipient of it. I knew the routine: another fake smile was being extorted from me. I couldn\u2019t very well refuse a child: I forced out a weak and partially toothless grin.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you do gift wrapping?\u201d asked the adorable little girl\u2019s mother.<\/p>\n
I took a deep breath and responded in the affirmative. The phone started ringing.<\/p>\n
\u201cHi-i-i-i-i-i-iiiii \u2026\u201d A perky, high-pitched voice on the other end of the line almost punctured my eardrums. \u201cHow\u2019s your day going?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNever mind that,\u201d I said. \u201cWhat do you need?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCan I ask you if you have a particular book in stock?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is it?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Artist\u2019s Way<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n The wailing of a child tore through the air.<\/p>\n I put the caller on hold and began to crudely wrap the children\u2019s book.<\/p>\n Another stack of books and a soiled credit card were placed on the counter. I rang the books up, sickened by the continual swiping of cards and punching in of numbers, the dead time entailed by credit card transactions.<\/p>\n The denim-clad woman pressed up against the counter. \u201cDon\u2019t worry about it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s almost done.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy child is hurt,\u201d she announced in a shrill tone of maternal authority.<\/p>\n I handed the partially wrapped children\u2019s book over to her.<\/p>\n The phone rang again. The caller whose book I hadn\u2019t looked for was on the other end of the line: \u201cI called up five minutes ago \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes, I\u2019m sorry. We got cut off. We\u2019re out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n Without a word, she hung up.<\/p>\n I felt another unflattering Yelp review coming on.<\/p>\n The forlorn pest returned, the stale fumes of perennial bachelordom wafting into my face as he leaned across the counter to destroy what was left of me with meaningless conversation.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know what to do with myself,\u201d he said. He found his own company oppressive but didn\u2019t seem to mind inflicting it upon others.<\/p>\n \u201cThanks for the information,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m going to get a coffee,\u201d he said, and walked back to the caf\u00e9 at the other end of the store, only to be replaced by another pest.<\/p>\n \u201cYou know I knocked myself out writing a puff piece about you a few years ago,\u201d I said to Cyrus Fapper, since he insisted upon standing in front of me at the counter.<\/p>\n \u201cYou did? I never saw it. What for?\u201d said Cyrus, a dandiacal middle-aged culture vulture who flaunted his many artistic passions widely and loudly on social media.<\/p>\n \u201cYour publisher put me up to it. But it was never published and I was never paid for it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI have good news,\u201d announced Cyrus with unforgivable nonchalance. \u201cI have a memoir coming out. So maybe we could use it then.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCongratulations,\u201d I said with as much conviction as I could muster. \u201cA memoir concerning what?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy childhood.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cVery nice.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cProlix are publishing it,\u201d he casually added.<\/p>\n \u201cHow did you swing that?\u201d I asked, rendered almost speechless with envy and disgust.<\/p>\n \u201cI pitched it to them.\u201d<\/p>\n Why would anybody want to read Cyrus\u2019 memoirs? He\u2019d never published a book before; he wasn\u2019t famous. Then the light flared up over my head: His mother was famous \u2014 she had been part of the \u201960s Warhol circle, and Cyrus had been raised in the rarefied low-life environment of the fabled Factory scene that people never tire of reading about in these less decadently glamorous times. Brigid Polk had been one of his babysitters. So, naturally, his childhood memories would command great interest.<\/p>\n \u201cDid you get an advance?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA very small one.\u201d<\/p>\n But really, who cared about an advance when you were being published by Prolix? The distinctive logo on its tasteful white spine was a stamp of quality that automatically invited respect and curiosity from reader and reviewer alike. What more could a first-time author want than to be published by such a distinguished independent press? And it\u2019s not as if Cyrus even needed an advance: he was supported by some sort of trust set up by his mother, who, while documenting her years as a slumming artist in several memoirs of her own, had made a small fortune on the real estate market.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat are you buying that for?\u201d I asked Cyrus as he placed a copy of Glass of Anger<\/em>, a Brazilian novella, featuring strong sexual content, on the counter.<\/p>\n \u201cGil recommended it,\u201d he said, referring to the store\u2019s owner.<\/p>\n \u201cHe likes any slim translation with a whiff of perversity about it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt looks good.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s crap.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHave you read it?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI flipped through it. It\u2019s one of those translations in which the lady parts are referred to as \u2018her sex.\u2019 I can\u2019t read that. Nobody ever uses that euphemism in English, so why does it appear so frequently in translations?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf it\u2019s an old translation it might make sense,\u201d said Cyrus.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a recent one,\u201d I said. \u201cNo word has ever been found that I feel comfortable using to describe feminine genitalia; all the usual appellations trivialize, vulgarize or demonize it, but \u2018her sex\u2019 really takes the cake.\u201d<\/p>\n At sixty-three pages this recently published book was no more than a short story, but it was presented in the form of a novel; it was the sort of book that people who wanted to be thought of as \u201cwell-read\u201d felt they were supposed to like, and it was presented with a classic red-on-black design with bold lettering. I had given it a chance, reading a few passages between ringing up customers. The words lay dead on the page but it was flying off the shelves, and not only owing to Gilbert\u2019s recommendation. Its popularity suggested that the words must sing for somebody. Maybe it was another case of bad writers for bad readers, and vice versa. Can there really be a correlation between writers that write badly and readers that read badly? This dynamic clearly applied to music, art and film, so why wouldn\u2019t it also apply to literature?<\/p>\n \u201cDo yourself a favor, read this.\u201d I pointed Cyrus toward a copy of Barbara Pym\u2019s Some Tame Gazelle<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cSubtle \u2026 unpretentious \u2026 comforting \u2026 elegant \u2026 understated humor.\u201d Cyrus recited the copy on the back of the old paperback, and put it back down. \u201cI don\u2019t think so,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s only three dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe next time.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere won\u2019t be a next time. Her work is too accessible and enjoyable to be appreciated by the likes of you. I\u2019m not giving you a discount on that shit,\u201d I said, as Cyrus tentatively poked the credit card machine with the edge of his card.<\/p>\n \u201cGo on, man, stick it in,\u201d I said, aggressively.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s what she said,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI doubt it,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n \u201cNow it says \u2018Please Remove,\u2019\u201d he said, apparently mystified by this simple command.<\/p>\n \u201cShe probably did say that,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n \u201cSend me a copy of your piece,\u201d said Cyrus as I handed back his receipt.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sure you can get more prominent puffers than me,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know about that,\u201d he insincerely responded as he walked out.<\/p>\n This well-connected nonentity and literary fringe-player was getting published. Unfortunately, I didn\u2019t have a prestigious art-damaged lineage to trade on. My father had been an accountant. Intellectual was a dirty word in the household I grew up in. There was no hope. I liked Cyrus better, if at all, when he was a failure.<\/p>\n A smiling stranger walked in and wanted a smile in return. But smiling is hard work and I have to ration them out if only to conserve energy. I can\u2019t return the greeting of everybody that walks in: that would be painful, unnatural, and exhausting.<\/p>\n \u201cDo you have any like Borges?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n \u201cDo we have anything similar to Borges?\u201d<\/p>\n I pointed him to the fiction section a few yards away. Two minutes later, he returned with a copy of Labyrinths<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cD\u2019you want a bag?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat would be amazing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cHello, my friend, I\u2019m looking for The Trial<\/em> by Kafka,\u201d stated a potbellied middle-aged man attired in a horizontally striped T-shirt and tight pants.<\/p>\n \u201cFiction, under K.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI exclusively buy books from shops like this and have been doing so for five years,\u201d he said upon his return with the book.<\/p>\n \u201cCongratulations.\u201d<\/p>\n A skinny guy in a wifebeater and shorts, so as to better aerate his armpits and nether regions, wearing his sloppiness as a cloak of unhygienic arrogance, brashly munched on a slice of pizza as he browsed the metaphysics section.<\/p>\n He swaggered up to the counter and thrust a copy of The Artist\u2019s Way<\/em> at me: \u201cHave you read this?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat do you take me for?\u201d I said.<\/p>\n And then, the pinnacle of my evening, the most dreaded question of all. Here it comes again \u2026<\/p>\n A yellow-haired woman stands there, beaming hideously at me. \u201cHow\u2019s your night going?\u201d<\/p>\n I can\u2019t take it. But I take it.<\/p>\n I groan the words out: \u201cGreat \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n But it\u2019s not enough. I can tell that she needs more. I can also tell that I\u2019m entering an irony-free zone, a black hole of positivity.<\/p>\n The idiot, just humor her:<\/p>\n \u201cHow\u2019s yours?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cReally well. Thanks for asking.\u201d Her tone is as aggressively bright as her dyed hair, while her fake gratitude is a patronizing concession to my distaste for the exchange and signals her victory.<\/p>\n And as if that\u2019s not enough, she has to add insult to injury: \u201cHave an amazing week,\u201d she says, with her hostile smile still in place, as she walks off.<\/p>\n Wrapping children\u2019s books for Silver Lake MILFs; a target for the malodorous and the tedious: this isn\u2019t really the end of the literary business I had in mind. If I wasn\u2019t already a misanthrope, this job would have turned me into one.<\/p>\n How did it come to this?<\/p>\n It is what happens when somebody nearing the end of their prime, who is unfit for daily toil, and has a morbid horror of anything involving effort, is forced, through a harsh diminishing of circumstances, to earn an honest living.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a long story, too sad to be told, and I am not inclined to tell it. Life is plotless. Plots are for graveyards.<\/p>\n * * *<\/strong><\/p>\n I have decided to stop writing for a while.<\/p>\n * * *<\/strong><\/p>\n The most important thing is to stop writing, now: to stop prioritizing this so-called work that has generated no income and that nobody will ever read. This futile, masochistic, self-indulgent pretense has interfered with everything; it has been carried out at the expense of love and work: real work, that is, the kind that is a visible manifestation of mental effort, not this endless supposed honing of my craft compounded by the preposterous conceit that the torturous process of giving shape to my thoughts might actually serve some sort of purpose, when it is merely an excuse to immerse myself in a morbidly self-reflective haze, of which there is seldom any visible manifestation.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This extract is reproduced with permission from John Tottenham\u2019s debut novel Service<\/em>, published in the UK & Ireland by Tuskar Rock<\/a>, and in North America by Semiotext(e)<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/05012024_John-Tottenham-by-Robert-Ascroft-0399-768x1024.jpeg\")
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