Free Practical Demonkeeping by Christopher Moore Page A

here.” Robert thought of the thick-thighed women who walked the wire and flew on the trapeze. Their heavy makeup was grotesque up close but beautiful at a distance when they were flying through the air above the crowd.
    That day was an adventure and a dream. It was one of the finest in Robert’s life. But what had impressed him was that it had come right when things seemed the most bleak, when everything had gone, literally, to shit.
    The next time Robert’s life took a nosedive he was in Santa Barbara, and his salvation arrived in the form of a woman.
    He had come to California with everything he owned packed into a Volkswagen Beetle, determined to pursue a dream that he thought would begin at the California border with music by the Beach Boys and a long, white beach full of shapely blondes dying for the company of a young photographer from Ohio. What he found was alienation and poverty.
    Robert had chosen the prestigious photography school in SantaBarbara because it was reputed to be the best. As photographer for the high school yearbook he had gained a reputation as one of the best photographers in town, but in Santa Barbara he was just another teenager among hundreds of students who were, if anything, more skilled than he.
    He took a job in a grocery store, stocking shelves from midnight to eight in the morning. He had to work full-time to pay his exorbitant tuition and rent, and soon he fell behind in his assignments. After two months he had to leave school to avoid flunking out.
    He found himself in a strange town with no friends and barely enough money to survive. He started drinking beer every morning with the night crew in the parking lot. He drove home in a stupor and slept through the day until his next shift. With the added expense of alcohol, Robert had to hock his cameras to pay rent, and with them went his last hope for a future beyond stocking shelves.
    One morning after his shift the manager called him into the office.
    â€œDo you know anything about this?” The manager pointed to four jars of peanut butter that lay open on his desk. “These were returned by customers yesterday.” On the smooth surface of the peanut butter in each jar was etched, “Help, I’m trapped in Supermarket Hell!”
    Robert stocked the glass aisle. There was no denying it. He had written the messages one night during his shift after drinking several bottles of cough medicine he had stolen from the shelves.
    â€œPick up your check on Friday,” the manager said.
    He shuffled away, broke, unemployed, two thousand miles from home, a failure at nineteen. As he left the store, one of the cashiers, a pretty redhead about his age, who was coming in to open the store, stopped him.
    â€œYour name is Robert, isn’t it?”
    â€œYes,” he said.
    â€œYou’re the photographer, aren’t you?”
    â€œI was.” Robert was in no mood to chat.
    â€œWell, I hope you don’t mind,” she said, “but I saw your portfoliositting in the break room one morning and I looked at it. You’re very good.”
    â€œI don’t do it anymore.”
    â€œOh, that’s too bad. I have a friend who’s getting married on Saturday, and she needs a photographer.”
    â€œLook,” Robert said, “I appreciate the thought, but I just got fired and I’m going home to get hammered. Besides, I hocked my cameras.”
    The girl smiled, she had incredible blue eyes. “You were wasting your talent here. How much would it cost to get your cameras out of hock?”
    Her name was Jennifer. She paid to get his cameras out of hock and showered him with praise and encouragement. Robert began to make money picking up weddings and Bar Mitzvahs, but it wasn’t enough to make rent. There were too many good photographers competing in Santa Barbara.
    He moved into her tiny studio apartment.
    After a few months of living together they were married and they moved north