A New Career In Newtown

Bonus Free Substack For All: A wee story about the time a guy told me David Bowie wasn’t dead, he was opening a bookstore in Newtown…

“Bowie’s not dead!”

That’s what he said. So I decided to listen. I mean I had no real say in the matter, getting up and walking off would have seemed a bit rude, eh.

“Not dead at all though. Not dead!”

This is the news today. (Oh boy!) I was pretty sure David Bowie was dead. I was walking a DVD down the road to  return to the store back in 2016 when the editor of the newspaper rang me at night and told me his news: David Bowie just died. Write us a eulogy about his enduring influence. We’ll pay you  absolutely nothing. And make it quick! Hanging up wouldn’t have actually seemed that rude, now I think about it again.

It’s been more than five years…

And I’m on a bench waiting for a bus and some guy whose brain hurts a lot is telling me that David Bowie has moved to town to start something new.

“He’s not dead at all. That was just  the smokescreen – he needed a distraction.  He’s just changed once again, that’s what he does.  He keeps on ch-ch-changing. Right now he’s started a new job, selling books. Moved here in fact. He’s opened a shop.  New and second-hand…books about everything! Books about art and poetry and dystopian novels, biographies, and stories about the war…”

He was telling me all of this, or maybe just saying it, and I happened to be near. I knew  of course that it wasn’t true. And figured he’d maybe recently read a book about Bowie. Or just the old facts had bubbled to the top. A bit of a shake-up, and now a new truth.

I couldn’t tell him he was wrong. What would that achieve? How would that change anything? I got the  feeling this guy had been told he was wrong before.  Maybe he’d heard that a lot.

Sometimes listening is the right choice.  

Whether new or second-hand.

POSTSCRIPT: This was around in an earlier life as a poem. I delivered it at Book Haven as part of a poetry reading, and ended up working in that shop less than year later. I’d have many more ‘conversations’ along similar lines to the one described above — even though I didn’t stay working in that shop for too long (I’d have loved to by the way, but it was only one day a week, and a full-time job arrived shortly after I finally got the part-time one. Jobs like buses…)

I think I prefer this as a short-story. I’ve changed very little. Just reworded a couple of moments — it’s now more than five years, for a start. Also, I originally suggested it would have been rude to hang up on the editor after he asked me to step on the gas and pump him out a eulogy quick-smart (or at least one of those things) for no money whatsoever. Really, I was silly not to be rude. I should have told him to stick it. Should have told him to stick that shit a lot time ago. There were people out there convinced I was making a huge amount of money for the ‘privilege’ of getting published. Lol. Anyway, the title remains unchanged — because as soon as I’d stepped on the bus and thought I had to write this down it could only be called one thing. My ‘career’ in Newtown never really took off, one day a week for a few months. But walking out there every time I had Bowie’s instrumental in my ears…