Books and Guns

Every morning when I get off my subway car security officers in battle regalia and carrying automatic rifles greet me. They stand on the platform in pairs, fingers ready and eyes panning the mobs of commuters. I have no idea what their purpose is. If a train car explodes, surely they would die along with the rest of us, their trigger fingers still in position.

The New York subway system is penetrable. As in any city, anyone can enter the system with the required ticket or token. There are no metal detectors to go through, no bomb sniffing dogs walking the train cars, and no attendants asking if anyone else packed your bags. Instead we have riot-geared police officers, standing at the ready. Ready to mow us all down if something should happen.

When I get off work every day at five I visit a bookstore instead of rushing home. It's one of those behemoth chains that serve a great cappuccino and are open late. One of those stores that helped turn publishing into an entertainment factory of imitation and profit.

I missed these superstores while I was in France. Bright and cheery, open late, music and books, coffee and biscuits – the way a library could be. The French being sticklers for a moderate work schedule will never embrace them. But large bookstores are my guilty pleasure. When I lived in Cleveland at least once a week I'd find myself flying down route 90 towards a suburban strip mall to visit one. The line of cash register bells were the death knell of the private bookseller, a staple of the early gay rights movement. What was once argued philosophically was now being fought economically. Corporations making profit from gay shoppers and small feminist bookstores closing for good.

One of my friends in Boston used to work for one. Hers was located in the Boston center, near the former "combat zone". Twice in one week she witnessed homeless people using the children's section as a public urinal. The first discovery was shocking, the second enraging. It made me wary of dark corners in any type of store.

My new conglomerate bookstore is located two blocks away from the world trade center site. After work I walk to the store, browse through the comic book and magazine section, check what's new on the bestseller lists, wander over to the travel books. Basically spend an hour just looking. At 6pm I walk past the new construction site and enter the subway. The crowd has thinned and the soldiers have gone home.

© 2005