Raymond Carver's Liver

Raymond Carver’s Liver

You stand on the burgundy carpet. Your red eyes dance around the shop. In your opinion, there are two reasons why people steal books. Either; 1) to read or 2) to give to someone else to read.

There are pot plants on top of the shelves. In the outside world the rain just falls. Here though the temperature, the weather and the lights are always the same. Regulated – like some botanical garden with music. Too warm. Too dry. Too bright. Too classical. Your hair is lank and still damp and untidy. Shirt, sticky beneath your arms. You are not sure if you have a morning sweat, or if the drops of moisture that gather at your temple are simply rain from your walk. You take a deep breath. Smell the odour of the books. They are squeezed in and piled high upon the ash coloured shelves. A jumble of words. A jungle of words. Despite the plants, it is the smell of new paper and plastic. A corporate bookshop clinical smell. Like a hospital. Disinfected. Designed. Marketed. Scrubbed clean of the effort of writing. You know.

In front of the fiction shelves now, beneath a glaring light. A spotlight. Fell the heat as though you are the plant and the light is trying to make you grow. Clothes start to steam. The shelves are spinning the books into a blur of printed spines. Dizzy. Balance yourself with one hand and run the fingers of the other along the C’s. To help your eyes and to give the impression of browsing. It looks suspicious in a bookshop not to browse. You know the book you want but if it isn’t here, you’re not exactly going to order it. Some people do steal the books they order. There are ways to do this. Bur it seems like such an effort. Anyway, you need the book now. You are in the middle of the shop half hidden by a waist high podium stacked with teenage vampire stories. They do have there uses. If the Carver’s are on the bottom shelf it will be easy. There is a security camera screwed into the wall high up on the right, but it will not be recording and it is unlikely that anyone will be watching the monitor at this time. Midweek. Three O’clock in the afternoon. Most staff are at lunch and the customers back to work. The trouble with, or perhaps the advantage of corporations, are the patterns that they keep. And why should you mind taking books from them? Carver wouldn’t care. He’s dead. It’s not actually hurting anyone. Books were meant to be read not sold. Anyway there are rules. You’d never steal a book from a shop with dust. You reach Camus with your finger. The Outsider. The Stranger. Once you used to read it all the time.

Aged sixteen you were Jim Morrison. Eighteen Dylan. Twenty, Albert Camus. Existential. A writer. A smoker of cheap cigarettes. A footballing philosopher. You read poetry and told your friends that nothing really mattered. Remember your story? “The Art Of The Lonely Keeper”. Published in a cheap magazine. In a wine bar on the High Street, not so far from where you are now, you met your future wife. All long black hair and smiles. A student of economics, which you knew nothing about. But there were detailed conversations anyway. You showed her your story and told her you could write. With passion. You convinced her that she loved the idea of loving a writer. And so she did.

What happened to your Camus? You would take this one but you’ve moved on. Anyway you have a certain method and your way only gets you one books at a time. The Carver. Look at the counter. The bookseller’s straight out of college. She’s attractive. Smiling. Fresh faced. Heart set on a career in publishing. Look at the way she works. The way she moves. Imagining herself as an editor in some fiction house. Go on, tell her she has no chance. What hope can there be for people like her? What has she got to offer? You’ll show her. Beat her. Today. After all you don’t just take the books. That would be too obvious. Too dangerous. This is how you’ll do it. Take the carrier bag you found in a bin at the end of the road. Choose the book you want from the shelves. Keep the carrier bag scrunched in one hand, the book in the other. Walk up to the till, thus evading any store detectives. Unfurl the carrier bag as you approach.

You say, “I bought this book yesterday but I’ve changed my mind. Can I have a refund?”
She says, “Have you got a receipt?”
You search the bag. Turn it inside out for effect.
You say, “No, you can’t have given it to me,”
She either gives you the cash, in which case your laughing or more likely she says, “Sorry, we can’t refund without a receipt,” In which case you put the book in the bag and walk out. Simple. Even if there’s electronic security at the door, paperbacks won’t be tagged. It’s too expensive.

Your finger’s at the Carvers now. Take the book. Heart beats a little faster. A little louder. Can anyone else here it? Your lips are dry. Lick them with a furry tongue. Taste yesterdays wine. Yesterdays beer. Forgot to brush your teeth. It is sweat on your brow, you know that know. A vicious alcohol sweat. Could use it in a lighter. A drop starts to creep along the line of your cheek, tracing a path to your lips. Shaking. Shouldn’t have had that drink this morning. Wouldn’t have done if she hadn’t said the things she had. Did she mean them? Would she leave you? Throw you out? Just because you haven’t written much lately. She has to understand. Can’t just write when you feel like it. She stands in her purple trouser suit on the way to her fucking job at the fucking bank and has the nerve to call you an alcoholic. Says you need help. Can you believe that? Bitch. She can’t kick you out. It’s raining. It’s winter. Where would you go? Just because she works for the bank. Just because the mortgage is in her name. Just because she pays for it. You know you’ll pay her back when you’re published. What had she said?

She said, “It wouldn’t be so bad if you didn’t drink so much.”
You said, “I bet no-one ever told Raymond Carver to stop drinking.”
She said, “Who’s Raymond Carver when he’s at home.”
You said, “For Christ’s sake he’s a writer.”
She said, “Well then about the only thing you two have in common are your livers.”
Bitch. Can you believe she said that? You’ll show her.
She said, “For God’s sake it’s not like we have a sex life anymore.”
Well that’s her fault isn’t it. It’s not surprising you don’t want to sleep with her. The way she is at the moment. It’s easier to wait until she’s gone to work and then just do it for yourself.

Hold the book up close to your eyes, like a blind man trying to read. Smell the paper, try and focus. Looking for comfort. One day these will be your stories on the shelves. One day you’ll start writing again. But now you need to live. Eat. Everyone needs to eat. Take the book and find the shortest story and copy it in your own hand and then give t to her. Tell her you’ve sent it off. She’ll never know. She’ll show it to her friends, but they’ll never know. They don’t read. Carver wouldn’t mind. Not really. You wouldn’t mind either, if someone copied your work. You’re the same you and him. You know you are.