The Keepers (2 page)

But
,
t
hought Lysei
,
b
ut, one must care about what others
think, even if it is not to be please anyone, but to be
consci
ous
of the influence that one
gives. Surely if everyone did as they pleased, then the
children-

The
clown
in front of him
withdrew his money and left. Lysei, as he walked toward the atm,
the two women at the weave stand noticed him.

“
I spread em
for that, anytime,” said the woman being weaved.

“
I’d
swallow
him full,” replied the weaver.

Lysei heard.
He heard what they were talking about, not that they were talking
about him. The machine asked him to input the amount to be
withdrawn, he typed
100
and hoped he had
enough. He had never actually been poor.

I’ve never
been actually rich either
,
h
e
thought.
Someone must be watching over
me.

The sound of
the auto teller machine counting the money relieved him and after a
moment he took his bank card and his money and left for work. The
book-store was three blocks up from the atm. It seemed out of
place, not only in the neighbourhood, but the thought of it
itself.

It is out of
place. Look at this place, look at these people. I want to die, I
want do too have sex but not with them, it wouldn’t be the same. I
don’t want to do what they do in porn. I want to do something, why
am I the only one in prison. I’m horny right now. There is no God,
God left the world sometime after
my
parents went too. But dammit there should be one
anyway
,
h
e thought as he made his
way up to the book-store.

It was a sunny
morning with a clear blue sky. There were no trees nor any plants
in the street as he walked up towards the book-store, just weeds
growing through dull sunburned pavem
ents, just typical grey
and white and blue
.

Nobody has
time to plant. Everyone
is just trying to laid,
h
e thought.

Small
buildings, the greatest being three stories high, lined the street
on either side. It was already busy with people making their ways
to work, to the salons or saloons
, to the brothels. Some
came to town to idle on the streets and some to sell whatever it
was they sold
. Almost all businesses advertised
using sexual innuendo or sexual facts and almost everyone wore
sexually provocatively. High heels and short skirts, bum shorts,
some of the more daring went to stores to buy breakfast in their
see through lingerie even children as young as twelve. Men wore
tight jeans with
a
clipping inside that
exposed the shape of their manhood. Sex meant business, sex was the
drug. No kids here, a virgin was an oddity. The high billboards on
the corners and intersections were worse, exposing women nakedly,
the limit being not showing the vaginas and penises directly. The
entertainment and fashion industr
ies
were
making a lot of money.

He looked at his wristwatch and
quickened his pace.

“
Dammit,
Monica’s going to have a fit. Late three times in a
week
,” he said angrily to
himself.

The book-store was just one
block away now. A car was parked on the pavement and was playing
loud music with the typical obscenities. Women who walked by danced
to the song being played, swaying their hips and shaking their
butts. Lysei knew the lyrics to the song and rapped:

“
Turn around,
put your head on the pillow

Let me have at that pussy

I
ain't
stopping till you faint, aint stopping then
either

Gonna give you this coke you
see

Then I’ll f**k you forever”

He stopped and
considered how easy it
was
to make money
from music th
o
se days.

The book store
came into view and he saw Monica standing at the door. She was one
of those boring girls who were about to become extinct in a few
years. Those girls who believed that there was more to life than
meets the eye, girls who did not find pleasure in arousing as many
men as they could but only one special one, one of those
‘
crazy girls
’
who
believe that sex should not be the motivation but something more
important – a somewhat connection to their spiritual
sel
ves
. She was an angel, innocent and
wise with those perfect green and
upturned
eyes at the corners. Her make-up was not at all slutty but
was meant to give her an appearance of youth and glory complimented
by her white flowery sun-dress and the sparkling tiara she always
wore.

She won’t
become extinct, I’ll give her children and raise them
how
I wanted to be raised
. If only I could tell
her how I want her
,
h
e
thought.

But he could
not. He was ashamed. He had met her four weeks back on his
nineteenth birthday in a not so pleasing way. An only child
,
h
e had lost his parents in a motor vehicle
accident when he was five years old, the details of which he had
never known and never wanted to know. Luckily, or unfortunately
when the accident occurred he was at day-care. He remembers his
teacher asking him out of the class to see the police officers
waiting for him and his fellow
classmates
staring at him and whispering to each other. He remembers how
he thought he had done something wrong, that maybe because he had
told a lie the previous day, the police had found out in some
unfathomable way: he thought he was in trouble – he was. Attempts
were made to locate relatives and a distant grandfather who he had
always thought non-existent was found. He was old and semi-senile
and always talked about the war. He would wake up sometimes and
shout at the ‘friggin reds’ and how the foreigners were taking
their women. He died seven months later and his separated wife took
his money and left. No other suitable relative was found and Lysei
was placed under the system. The orphan. He never missed his
parents or his grandfather, they all died when he was young, before
his life began.

I’d rather not
think about my childhood
,
h
e
thought.

Anyway, four weeks back, on his
birthday, the warden at his orphanage decided to surprise him by
finding a job for him, if not for anything but to get him to start
earning something as quickly as possible. He was a gaunt, tall and
lean man who believed wholeheartedly in discipline and order and
even though corporal punishment was illegal, some of the orphans
would testify that the threat rattled him not a bit but rather
increased the depths of his lashes. He was never married but spoke
of the importance of loving only one person, most often in tones of
regret and despair. He was old and would probably die alone. He
would go on and on about how trying to sleep with everyone was an
infinite loop that would end only in stress; depression, suicide,
hatred, jealousy, murder and so on. He would always tell the boys
(he was in charge of them) that the value and integrity of love is
in finding it in just one person, thereby, closing the loop. He did
not go to church but he read the bible and taught the orphans their
prayers and when people asked him to prove that there is a god, he
would reply “To prove that there is something like a god, you first
have to prove that you cannot live without one” and would go on to
show that the prove of a god is a personal one.

The warden
had done him a favour. At nineteen, the state does not consider you
an orphan anymore and if you want to stay, you have to pay with
money or work. Ever since, his embarrassment for the way he had met
his boss had salted him bitterly more and incessantly.
This

“
Three times
in one week, you don’t like working here do you?” Monica asked with
a forced bossy voice which rather came out cute.

“
Sorry
miss
,” He apologised
truthfully
. “I uh…woke up late and I had to get
the
money,
”
h
e
said
sincerely
and tipped his hat
in
as if to avoid the rays of the sun but really it was to
hide his shame
. The money was for some favour
Monica
had done for one the nurses at the orphanage.

“
When will you
marry me and stop calling me miss?”
she
said jokingly
, smiling and
revealing her perfect straight teeth in the process, causing her
dimples to sink into her peach coloured cheeks, making her small
and high cheek bones protrude
highly
,
making her eye-tips more curved and making her green eyes
brighter…

Stop it, not
now
,
h
e
said in his
mind
.

The two of
them and the book store stood out. In a society crazed about sex
and all its implications they were rebels. Him in his black suit,
polished shoes and perfectly straight and shiny combed black hair.
The book-store in its vintage and classic look, built with brick
walls giving a terra-
cotta
tone in its
colour. The two large windows of the book-store centred a large
mahogany door. What with the usual cacophony, the door was always
closed, giving an already acquired exclusiveness to the book-store.
Next door to the right was a small electronics store which
attracted its customers by having the female workers work in their
bathing suits, winter or summer, thanks to air conditioning. One
was out by the electronics store’s door trying to lure in
passers-by. To the left was a vacant store which used to be rented
as a church on Sundays and some days during the week and used to
fill the vicinity with spiritual and uplifting music but the
previous year, because of dwindling members and high rental costs
it had closed. The idea and the words worship, church etc. had
degenerated to being presently, mostly, used in frolic terms in
most of the world.

Like that
song, ‘church in the wild’.
He
thought.

What he really wanted was to
get down on one knee, magically retrieve a four carat diamond ring
and propose to Monica. But instead;

“
I think I’ll
stick with the miss, miss,”
he
said
charmingly with a
hidden smile.

“
For now, I
hope
,”
s
he
replied
teasingly, hiding
the
hopefulness
of
her words.

He sighed and walked up to and
opened the large door. He held it open with his right hand, tilted
down his head and motion for Monica to enter as if she were a
customer. She went in and he followed closing the door behind
him.

As he entered, a wash of fresh
air scented with mint hit him in the face. The book-store was
rectangular and plain with a forty by sixty metre floor area and
around five metres in height. The walls were painted cream white
and adorned with portraits and paintings of landscapes and writers
the likes of Hemingway, C. Clarke, Shakespeare and some of the
other more notables. On the far left stood the desk and chair of
the cashier which was where Monica was stationed. Six rows of
shelves ran parallel to the longest wall of the book-store. Each
shelve had a row of six divisions with eight columns and since
rarely anyone came and borrowed books, the shelves were virtually
full. The number of books recorded in the store’s records numbered
at over twenty five hundred.

Monica took off her flat shoes
and place them on the carpet floor behind the counter. She enjoyed
the feeling of her feet on the grassy carpet, and most often would
not walk but rather drag her feet when she moved around the
book-store. She always wore nail polish and this week was green,
matching her eyes.

“
Anything
important you want me to do
?” Lysei
said
.

“
Same as
yesterday, just look busy darling,”
she
replied
joking, then
“
b
ut, there is one thing…
b
e a
dear
, I need you to go buy some plastic covering
papers…Some of these books need covering.” As she spoke, she opened
the petty-cash drawer and took out a roll of money tied with an
elastic band. She counted thirty pounds.

“
First try the
gift shop across the street…If you don’t get em there, look around.
Buy enough for about 70, 80 books, okay.”

“Alright
.” He
reached out to take the money, and purposefully, touched her hand
longer than was required. They both blushed, him at his bravery,
and her at not removing her hand. These subtle advances were
gaining momentum and soon would be strong enough for bolder
gestures.

I love
you
,
h
e said to her in his mind as
he walked towards the door.

I love
you
,
s
he said to him in her mind,
looking down at her hand and feeling the redness on her
cheeks.

He opened the door and left,
leaving it to close by itself. Monica leaned over the desk and
looked through the window at Lysei. To her he was the ideal man.
She started thinking;