In front of him sat a book with an audacious title. The
Creative Class
. He had tried reading it. But unlike that one customer who sat like a stone in that chair all night... Joey hadn't read more than two pages. The two pages he did read he didn't retain. The words slipped right through him.
A
millennial
guy he worked with had loaned him the book. Recommended it. Thought it might resonate with Joey. But Joey hadn't read a book since high school. Maybe had he gone to college he would've picked up a reading habit.
Words just didn't resonate with him. He needed images. He needed
stimulation
. Reading word by word. Interpreting another person's theory on something bored him. He'd rather watch
Casey Neistat
skateboard down a busy street in
New York
. Or a person shoot bullets through phonebooks.
After a yawn escaped him, he thought maybe that was in fact why his millennial coworker had suggested that book to him. He probably saw Joey as the creative type.
Joey didn't identify with that. Old people were always trying to project their own desires onto others. Just because Tony was a wannabe writer who never published a book, didn't mean Joey was like that. Just because Tony had failed in life and was now working as a barista fulltime, didn't mean Joey had the same fantasies of being a "creative" person.
He looked at the clock. He'd get to go home in ten minutes. In about five, Tony would come in. Probably ask him how he liked the book so far if he saw that the book was out on the counter. So Joey went to place the book in his bag.
"Hey!"
He heard a voice from behind him. The bell. How had he not heard the sound of the bell.