Chain bookstore pornography

[Jeremy Osner]

Dear Penthouse Forum

Yesterday I was walking around the Upper West Side when out of the
corner of my eye I saw the Lincoln Center Barnes and Noble -- I was
going to keep on walking but I felt some force pulling me back, into her
arms. Glancing guiltily around me I went inside, "Just to use the
bathroom" I told myself -- of course I knew the bathroom is on the third
floor and I would have to walk past all her shiny, inviting bookshelves
just to get there... On my way upstairs I passed the sale counter and
noticed Gaddis' _A Folly of his Own_, marked down from $25 to $3 -- how
could I resist? I picked it up, and as I walked away from the table I
could feel the room shifting, there was a bookshelf in front of me where
I had thought the exit was, I felt a terror welling up in me -- I had to
move! I raced back, no longer sure where the staircase lay, determined
not to become a statistic. Oh, I had heard the stories about men who
went in to Barnes and Noble and never came out... But I wasn't going to
let that happen to me! I located the stairs and raced down, and I could
see the room behind me fading into blackness -- I found the cashier
downstairs, bought my book and left, dazed, and I made my way down
Broadway.

I spent some money at Coliseum Books on 57th Street to atone for my
straying from the path of independent bookstore patronage, and out of
gratitude for my narrow salvation.

Jeremy