"Circus Jerk."

Flushed with throwing a hundred bucks against the back wall for dollar bin comics at Burbank's excellent House of Secrets I indulged the awful bad thing within me –– I pushed it. I fed the maw of the oven of the belly of the beast. As Ezra Pound says, "I over-egged the cake-mix."

I had the dumb idea.

We were coming back from walking in Griffith Park at sundown, and I said to wife, I feel like some freshly squeezed orange juice and some Thai veggie burgers, shall we go to Silverlake Trader Joes? Fine, she says, and off we go over the Shakespeare Bridge & down St. George & Hyperion &c. &c.

Then when we're out I say, "Now since we're right by Circus of Books, can we just drop by & I'll pick up this one dollar book I hid there yesterday?"

I'd been in there yesterday, using up quite useless time. As God Is My Co-Pilot called it, "Getting Out of Boring Time Biting Into Boring Pie." I'd gone to see Deadpool the movie at the Vista cinema  at its first matinee showing, but it wasn't on at 1:30 because a film crew was there making some no doubt spangled production. Some helpful son of a bitch on the crew says to me, "Deadpool'll be on at three." I amazingly took him for an authority. An expert on the subject of things in reality.

I didn't realize then that he was a master of deception.

The Lords of Life, the Lords of Life

So I characteristically drifted off to the Goodwill on Hollywood Boulevard & vaporized time there among the crazies screaming in the aisles. I picked up a Jimmy Webb LP, that I obviously didn't need, a copy of Interview from the early Nineties with nude photos of Drew Barrymore, and a first edition of The Body Artist by Don DeLillo. What the fuck, right? I might even read it. Then I had the terrific idea to pop over to Circus of Books to look through the comics there.

I had the dumb idea.

I found nothing of particular interest except for a Legion of Superheroes annual I already have, but it's in storage in Oxford, England. I had no "cash money" on me and assumed I couldn't pay with the card, so I rather mindlessly put it at the back of one of the longboxes and walked away.

Next day, almost inevitably, the siren call of this VG/Good copy of an old Legion annual from the Nineties was so great I compelled my wife to drive through the intricate and tortuous roadways around Circus of Books, those bridges and tunnels and impossible triangles, compelled her to park opposite the hobo jungle across Sunset from Circus of Books.

I flew across Sunset to get the comic, and of course the shop was shut, with the familiar sign promising the shop staff would be back at 7. I crossed Sunset again and got into our car, causing my wife to jump in terror. "Fuck Circus of Books!" I remarked. Tried to mitigate my shame. "They're shutting down imminently," I said.
"Good," said my wife. "I'm going to phone them up and ask them to close down tomorrow."
"You should." I said. "You should! Fucking Circus!"

Then as we were backing away to drive home, I saw the place had opened up. Saw a punter push the door inward. Wife rolled her eyes. We re-parked in front of the hobo jungle and I ran across Sunset to Circus of Books again.

In there, I was rushing through the longboxes, instantly aware that the Legion annual was not where I'd left it yesterday. A fatuous panic took over me. Thoughts of wife fuming outside the hobo jungle  were combined with a very specific self-awareness/self-loathing that only comes over me when I am rooting through the dollar bins at Circus of Books, and it quite overwhelmed me. I had a nervous mental breakdown of sorts.

Circus of Books is actually a gay "bookshop." I have never stepped past the front of the shop, beyond where the comics dollar boxes are. I don't know what is back there. Pete Kline went back there once and came out quite wild-eyed and muted. But on this day, a gaggle of Latina schoolgirls were gathered, talking about school with each other. I was puzzled, abstractly, as I flailed and lashed about me, looking for the Legion annual.  After about five minutes, my Circus of Books self-hatred being too intense to endure, I fled the shop in disgust and ran across Sunset for the sixth time.

There must be a name for this. Getting into the car for the umpteenth time I  said to my wife, trying to pre-empt her harsh words, "Circus of Books is a circus of jerks –– and I'm the clown!"