The OH&S officer’s name is Lucy, though she looks like a Karyn to me. This is the sort of epiphany I have after an hour of listening to her tell us, over and again, that knowing your fire exits will save your life. We’re all sitting in Sunshine bookstore’s staffroom, where Clare, the sometimes-manager, has set up a whiteboard and a bunch of chairs; she’s in her mid-twenties, just a few years older than me, and I have this funny feeling she wants to ask Lucy, where are the fire exits, exactly? One of those age-old mysteries. But this question would just prolong things, force Johnathan to stutter through a bumbling explanation as to why the absent owner ordered him to pile those boxes of books floor to ceiling over there. Or how I should know, right, because apparently I’m the store’s fire marshal, despite the fact I chucked a sicky on training day. Questions: they’re dangerous things. The beginning and the end of us all: another halfer we won’t be paid for.

*

Everyone calls him Scruff, but if you ask him directly, he’ll tell you he doesn’t have a name. I’m nobody, he says, but that ain’t my name either. The problem is, everyone loves telling stories about Scruff, and without a name it’s near impossible. When he first started coming into the store, probably six months ago, we used to call him the homeless dude — but that could mean anyone in a city of three million. The CBD’s got its pick. So of course Scruff had to be Scruff. Scruff without Scruff isn’t a story.

It was Clare who first called him Scruff — like the shit on his chin, she said, as she rolled another cigarette in the staffroom. This was how she liked it, her moment to shine: she’d corral the newbies around her, pedalling off some folklore where Scruff shat in the dressing room at the Kmart up the road. Or the time Scruff collected a thousand cockroaches in take-away containers, releasing them into an apartment block, just so he could get the place vacated and claim squatters rights. All of these stories, they’re as big as the haircut Clare reckons cost her $400 but was clearly done with a bowl by her housemate. Course, everyone laughs at Clare’s jokes: the perks of controlling the roster. Ha ha ha I go with the best of them. Ha ha ha — because what is life but one of those jokes that’s gotten out of control? Clare’s hacking laughter reminds me of the industrial revolution, smoke stacks everywhere.

*

When Lucy points at me, I’m staring absent-mindedly at a lump of bird shit sliding down the window outside. It takes me a few clicks to realise that she wants me up — to be, as she puts it, involved.

Come on, she says, you might have to use this technique. I lug myself up and lunge across the room. Fresh faces litter the rows — Christmas casuals Clare’s brought in. All of them staring straight ahead; they exhibit a calculated boredom that both stakes their claim to coolness while also trying to wank off middle management. See, their faces say, I can take this — but I also don’t give two fucks. I wonder if they know that when Lucy says technique what she actually means is on Scruff. Of course they do. They’re children of late-stage capitalism — a walking-talking BuzzFeed meme that’s later converted into an undergraduate degree. This is why there’s an entire industry built around “empathy training”. This is endpoint.

Across the aisle, Johnathan is staring at the lump of bird shit I was just looking at. Slowly, slowly, he seems to mouth. Meanwhile, Clare, sitting in the last row, twitches with morbid anticipation. It’s obvious that this is Clare’s brainwave — that Lucy’s her lackey. That morning, Clare had cornered me, telling me about operation airhorn. We’re gonna blast that fucker away, she’d said, Home Alone style. I feel like a snail being courted as Lucy launches back into her spiel.

*

The truth is, I don’t know if Scruff knows his name is Scruff or not, and sometimes I think that’s odd and other times I don’t. Like when you think about it, a name is just a way for someone else to define you. Babies don’t know their names. Dogs just hear sounds. Scruff, for all intents and purposes, is for us. Which is my biggest problem: the name implies that we’re united.

Unpopular opinion, but I reckon Scruff’s alright. Yeah, his bedside manner leaves a lot to be desired: he’s wily, unhinged like Holden Caulfield yelling get off my damn lawn. And sure, he looks kinda like Santa Claus if every child in the world stopped believing — and if Santa occasionally accosted strangers for “intruding” on his home, aka the nook in the back of the store where he sometimes hangs up his clothes. But besides that, Scruff, in my humble opinion, is a Truthsayer, so untethered from polite politics that he can say whatever needs to be said. Ten bucks for Mills and Boon? You dodgy cunts! If we didn’t have Scruff around, we’d forget that this store exists to shaft unhappy housewives with discount books about six-packed POC men romancing white women on exotic islands. The truth is, what everyone calls a “travel read” is really a Jesus Derek, the bottle’s in the fridge — can’t you tell I’m on the toilet!

*

With her long acrylic nails, Lucy’s trying, in vain, to tear the plastic square open, those yellow grubs wriggling around inside. No luck, so she shreds the plastic with her veneers, the ones white as house paint, and holds the earplugs out to me. Everyone watches. Put out your hand, she says, spit flecks flying. My mouth parts in protest but snaps closed immediately — Clare’s eyes are glued on me. Fuck. Evidently, I’m the guinea pig. I put my hand out as Lucy plops the plugs into my palm. Go on. She chatters her nails together, wants me to be a good boy. Do this = extra shifts over the holidays. Don’t do this = nup, not a fucking option.

*

A few weeks back, Scruff tried to buy a book from us — kinda rare, admittedly. Scruff is more the browsing type. But that day, he scoured the shelves for hours, before he lobbed up to the counter with a copy of The Brothers Karamazov.

Wow, I exclaimed. I couldn’t quite believe it; we don’t sell these books. Sunshine bookstore is in the discontinued market. The closest we’ve come to selling a classic is a mass shipment of Eat, Pray, Love.

I turned the book over in my hands, had to open the pages to confirm: yes, there was Alyosha questioning his faith. Yes, the pages smelt like paper. Mate, I said to Scruff, you’ve got yourself a beauty. Scruff fidgeted. What would you know about beauty? he said.

Of course, Scruff was right; the closest I’ve come to transcendence is winning an award for poetry in Year 7. The writers I admire talk about the ethereal, about the divine, but here I am wasting away my mid-twenties selling shit I don’t believe in because not selling shit means I’m shit. God, there was even a moment where I thought that book was something. Like Foucault’s body, a transformation taking place. If Sunshine books had those pages in store, just imagine what we could become. Imagine. What a joke. I rang the book up, waiting for Scruff to pay.

But Scruff just hovered, staring at the digital price stamp on the tiny screen above the till: $11. He snatched the book off the desk, flipped it over, ran his finger down its back. You cunts tryna rob me? He flipped the book back over, pointing at the price tag. Again, Scruff was right: $10. But the problem was beyond me. Sunday surcharge. A crock if ever I’ve heard one — Eddy hasn’t paid us weekend loading in a year. But still, Clare triple checks everything …

I’m sorry mate, I murmured, staring at the service desk between us. It was wide as a continent. Near the gel pens, a stack of Liane Moriarty’s recent release — a book that came out so quickly you’d think she was being done for tax evasion. What a laugh. When I looked up, Scruff was staring all Dostoevskian-don’t-fuck-with-me. He didn’t move.

Was he scared or was it me?

I scanned the store: Clare and Alan were up the back — no-one else around. Look at me, I thought, disgusted, I’m searching for backup. I’m the enemy — the bourgeois. I only know about the oppression matrix or games of truth because I stumbled through a social sciences degree. Thanks Dad.

You Machiavellian dog, Scruff screamed, launching the book at my head like a frisbee. I ducked last minute — a bang as it hit the corkboard on the wall behind me. The corkboard slammed into the floor, scattering the ugly trinkets that Clare has been trying to pawn forever, everywhere. Just then, Clare appeared with a broom raised above his head. She was shaking like a paint-shaker. But Johnathan, he was still at the back of the store, watching on blurry-eyed. My guess: he’d just come back from smoking a joint in the alley. I’m calling the cops! Clare shouted.

*

I say nothing, shoving the tiny sponges into my ear as Lucy takes the airhorn out of her gym bag. It’s more clownish than I’d anticipated, so garish red I can’t help but think of Pingu’s mouth when he makes that hoot hoot.

Everyone, I want you to listen carefully. Lucy is talking loudly now, making sure that I can hear. The way she enunciates each word, she isn’t just teaching us the value of an airhorn, she’s also educating us on the Queen’s English. This airhorn can disorientate any assailant, so it must only be used under emergency circumstances. We’ll run through all of those potential circumstances after the demonstration, but for now, can you please block your ears. This will be quite loud.

Everyone turns themselves into human windvanes — fingers in ears. Lucy herself slips on a set of industrial earmuffs. Do it already! Clare roars. She looks around to see if anyone else finds this funny. A few casuals cluck with laughter. Satisfied, Clare grins ear to ear.

My eyes flick to Johnathan. He’s still watching the bird shit. Slowly, his head turns towards the front and he looks at me sad — a way I’m not used to. His eyes glint like Lucy’s turquoise acrylics. I look back at Lucy, who mutters right right. She peels off the paper tab that covers the airhorn’s button, pointing the red nozzle at me. The room, a vague hum — I steel myself. I’ve got to stop thinking: this is the start of a worker’s compensation claim.

*

But the thing is, Scruff knew the cops weren’t gonna do shit. This wasn’t Scruff’s first rodeo — the police had bigger fish to fry. So Scruff stormed around the store that day, ripping books off the shelf and throwing them into the air. You Bolshevik, capitalist swine, he yelled at Alan, which might have been an oxymoron if it weren’t deep insight: Alan’s father was in Rio Tinto’s acquisitions team before, as Johnathan puts it, Dad grew a conscience, opening a legal firm that largely works Native Title. Then Scruff was onto Clare: You look like a trust fund baby without a trust fund he screamed, at which point she punched triple zero. And of course, I was last. Lobbing another book at me, Scruff yelled, you’re the worst — you’re a fuckin’ phoney — a pimple in the pus deposit.

Twenty minutes before the police rocked up. Twenty minutes before Scruff was escorted away. Twenty minutes of pure truth, but I could tell by Clare’s crinkled forehead that none of it had stuck. The truth: Clare’s tried every sugar daddy app there is, even though the men she dates can barely afford dinner let alone the overdraft on her masters in librarian studies. Scruff could see right through her.

*

The rest of the day, my ears are ringing — but of course I can’t say anything. It’s the start of the Christmas rush. We’re already understaffed.

Around lunch, Lucy puts the airhorn in the cupboard below the service desk, the spot I’m stationed at. On the airhorn’s neck is a note: for emergency use only. Even so, just before 2pm, Clare slams me out of the way. She ransacks the cupboard, waving the airhorn above her head like a dildo at a hen’s night. At one point she holds it to her crotch. Look at me, she declares, I’ve got the loudest cock in the world. Alan snickers. The world won’t end with a bang but a whimper, Alan says. What does that mean? Clare asks, quizzically. Fuck, says Alan, you don’t even know Eliot?

I try not to be involved — am exiting this place mentally. Kind of hard considering the store’s open plan, the service desk is near the big front-facing roller doors and it’s elevated — the perfect spot to see everything. The walls, too, they’re like an echo chamber, and stacks of customers, who flow in and out, seem genuinely concerned by the goings on. But Eddy, the absent owner, doesn’t give a stuff. Eddy’s edging towards retirement. Eddy’s just happy if the store feeds his day-drinking habit. Eddy’s never even here, he’s wandering across the junction towards his local, The Sailor’s Arms. Funny, cause Eddy’s got a case of sailor’s legs.

It’s near closing when Scruff stomps up the promenade. I go to tell Clare — think better of it, of course. Bit of harmless fun. Why not? Besides, Scruff is smiling smiling smiling. So I chuck him a little grin. He stares straight at me as if I’m a ghost, and darts into the store.

You! Clare yells, as she locks eyes with him. You know you’re banned! Scruff huffs, standing on the precipice. Yeah, he says, and you’re ugly — but what are we gonna do about it? There’s at least twenty people in store — everyone hungry for a Christmas special — and Clare’s voice makes them turn and gasp. All I want for Christmas booms, while Johnathan is a shadow of himself; if I poke him, he’ll turn to smoke.

I want a book called the world’s saddest motherfuckin’ bookstore! Scruff declares. What happens next isn’t really surprising to me; I’ve seen this trick. Scruff closes his eyes and starts to jig. All around him, rows of bunting and glinting tinsel. Boy he can dance. I’m so fixated on him I barely notice Clare headed towards the counter. Operation airhorn. She shoves me out of the way, as my eyes whip over the promenade. Streams of people wander past, their arms stacked with presents.

I warned you, Scruff, Clare says. I go to yell, for emergencies only, Clare! But nothing comes out. Besides, Clare is hell-bent — she’s private-school dedicated. When she’s a metre away from Scruff, she rips the note off the airhorn and points the nozzle at him. Scruff stops. His eyes, disco balls. But he isn’t moving. Nup. Poised like a karate instructor, Clare slams her thumb down on the button. The ringing in my ears get louder and louder. In one whip of Scruff’s head, he shakes the noise off, screaming fire sale! Eighty per cent off everything! Just then, Clare lets off another blast. Scruff screams again — this time even louder.

Throughout the store and all along the promenade, people turn towards the store. Is this for real? they seem to ask, eyeing me. I look at Johnathan; he nods in slow motion, self-satisfied. My eyes swing around the joint. God, it’s crowded, overrun. A rat hive. Mountains of these awful books everywhere — and that awful song. Stacks falling over as if the music is making love to these diarrhoea novels. And that ringing — it won’t stop in my ears. If only I could sweep it all up — take it to the bin with the broom that Clare wields like a weapon. End point.

Fire sale! Eighty per cent off everything! A voice from the back — Johnathan! No way! People on the promenade go white and I can feel the itch in my throat. Eighty per cent off everything! I scream. Chatter. Then feet. Then arms. People racing into the store, flailing, fighting over copies of anything, everything.

And Scruff? He just casually strolls over to me, I’m taking this as payment for the mascot work, he says, clutching that copy of The Brothers Karamazov. How hadn’t it sold? I knew … I turned to Clare — so stupefied she looks just like she’s been blasted by a foghorn.