4th Avenue has thrift stores everywhere, all of them with wristcutter names like Thrifting Gears and Threadly Force, and all of them dog shit. The name of Jamie’s was Good, Bad, Snuggly. It was a house under a tree with furniture and clothes in the yard. Waterbrains were in evidence, trying on hats and drooling. I’ll never be mistaken for a waterbrain, not so long as I’m living, breathing, and on the scent of maximized fiscal utility, but for the moment they covered me. I slipped through the yard, inspecting old boots and vintage milk cans. Jamie was inside, I assumed. I’d have to go in there. But then she appeared on the porch with a hippie in flowing skirts. They admired an armoire. I slipped behind another armoire, in the yard, and watched them through the cupboard hinges. You’re thinking I felt something, some love or nostalgia, because the college you attended emphasized easy conclusions. But let me educate you. To the cultivated, there’s an interest in lives not lived. Understand? An interest. We’re not talking puppy dog shit. I have an aquarium at home with heterochromus cichlids, Neptune groupers, and yes, a peppermint angelfish. It’s in the wall in my condominium because I can afford it, and because marine life fascinates me. Sentiment’s not an issue. If someone, using the Masai spear on my wall, stabbed the tank so the fish poured out and died I wouldn’t care except for the angelfish, which cost $35,000, though nor would I care about the angelfish because 35k is insignificant. Understand? Jamie LePond was entertainment. The hippie couldn’t afford the armoire. Anyone could see that. They went inside, and after a while I followed. It was like a gypsy wagon in there. Silky things and beads drooped from the ceiling. It was musty and dark, and what couldn’t have been yet certainly was Cat Stevens’ “Moonshadow” played through speakers which themselves were vintage items, fat and wooden with dog shit sound. Jamie’s responsibilities, from what I could see from my rack of polyester trench coats, were primarily clerical. Behind the counter was a room with a computer. She stayed
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