Feeling Very Strange - Site de Thomas - Free

the little Magic shop | 21
“Hey, it’s all I possess,” James said mildly. “I could have bought Xerox
at fifteen, back in the ’50s. But last time I talked to you, you didn’t seem
interested. I figured it was like, you know, not the bread that counts,
but the spirit of the thing.”
Mr. O’Beronne clutched his heart with a liver-spotted hand. “Is this
never going to end? Why did I ever leave Europe? They know how to
respect a tradition there. . . .” He paused, gathering bile. “Look at this
place! It’s an insult! Call this a magic shop?” He snatched up a fat mushroom-shaped
candle and flung it to the floor.
“You’re overwrought,” James said. “Look, you’re the one who said a
bargain’s a bargain. There’s no need for us to go on with this any longer.
I can see your heart’s not in it. Why not put me in touch with your
wholesaler?”
“Never!” O’Beronne swore. “I won’t be beaten by some cold-blooded. . .
bookkeeper.”
“I never thought of this as a contest,” James said with dignity. “Sorry
to see you take it that way, man.” He picked up his bottle and left.
The allotted time elapsed, and James repeated his pilgrimage to the
magic shop. The neighborhood had declined. Women in spandex and
net hose lurked on the pavement, watched from the corner by men in
broad-brimmed hats and slick polished shoes. James carefully locked
the doors of his bMW.
The magic shop’s once-curtained windows had been painted over in
black. A neon sign above the door read adult peep 25¢.
Inside, the shop’s cluttered floor space had been cleared. Shrinkwrapped
magazines lined the walls, their fleshy covers glaring under
the bluish corpse-light of overhead fluorescents. The old counter had
been replaced by a long glass-fronted cabinet displaying knotted whips
and flavored lubricants. The bare floor clung stickily to the soles of
James’s Gucci shoes.
A young man emerged from behind a curtain. He was tall and
bony, with a small, neatly trimmed mustache. His smooth skin had
a waxy subterranean look. He gestured fluidly. “Peeps in the back,” he
said in a high voice, not meeting James’s eyes. “You gotta buy tokens.
Three bucks.”
“I beg your pardon?” James said.
“Three bucks, man!”