The Classics

I liked smart girls. When I saw a girl with thick glasses, twirling her hair and staring into a book, it made me drool. The problem was that the smart girls wouldn't want anything to do with me, because I was practically illiterate. So I went to a small bookstore and asked the clerk for something that would impress women. He showed me a twelve-volume leather-bound set of books: The Classics of Western Civilization. The spines bore impressive-sounding names, like Sophocles, Herodotus, and Aristotle.
“Women can't resist a guy who's read the classics,” the clerk told me.
“I'll take 'em,” I said.
I placed the leather-bound books on the bookshelf in my living room. I didn't actually have to read them in order to impress women—just make it look as though I had read them.
I moved my couch directly in front of the bookshelf. The books would draw the girls toward the couch. Then they would swoon from my intelligence and they would need to sit down. I would sit next to them and make my move, leaning in close as if to point out something interesting in the book.
I was finally able to ask out Jessica, a girl I had been ogling at the library. She had thick bottle-cap, horn-rimmed glasses that were smudged with fingerprints. She wore no make-up, and her thick brown hair was tangled in knots. I took her out for coffee, and she talked about her research in nano-bio-engineering-something-or-other. It sounded as if she was creating monsters, but they were only microscopic bacteria, so I figured it was okay. I was silent, pretending I understood what she was talking about, and she seemed to buy my act.
When I brought her up to my apartment, she wasn't drawn to the classics as I had hoped. She didn't seem to notice them at all. She just stared at the lamp on the ceiling.
“Oh, look,” I said. “It's the classics.”
She walked over to the bookshelf.
“Have you read these?” she asked.
“Sure,” I lied. “All of them. I love the classics. That's just the kind of guy I am.”
She pulled out Cicero and sat on the couch. I sat down next to her as she flipped through the pages.
“This book's never been opened before,” she said. “The pages are too crisp.”
“I turn the pages delicately because I have such respect for the classics,” I said.
She closed the book and examined the cover.
“The spine hasn't been cracked at all,” she said, and then looked up at the bookshelf. “You haven't read any of these.”
“I don't open the books all the way,” I said. “I just open them a bit and peer inside. That's why the spines don't look cracked.”
“Pop quiz,” Jessica said. “How did Socrates die?”
I took an educated guess. “The Trojan Horse.”
“Wrong! He drank hemlock, which is what you should do.” She stuffed Cicero back in his place on the shelf and started for the door. “What kind of sicko lies about reading the classics?”
“I meant to say that I read them at the library,” I said. “I liked them so much that I wanted to own my own copies.”
Too late. She was gone.
The books hadn't worked. My idea of pretending I had read the classics failed. At least the books were still in mint condition, so I could return them to the bookstore.
But then I had a brilliant idea.
I took down Cicero, sat on the couch, and turned on the TV. While watching The Simpsons, I turned the pages, one-by-one, roughly, making sure they looked as if someone had read them. I wasn't looking at the book as I turned the pages, though, so I kept getting paper cuts. That was why I hated reading: you had to concentrate on what you were doing; whereas with TV you could let your mind relax.
At the commercial break, I dug out my winter coat from the closet. My wool mittens were in the coat pocket, and I pulled them onto my hands. Now as I turned the pages my hands sweat profusely, but I didn't get any paper cuts.
Over the next few days, sitting in front of the TV and wearing wool mittens, I turned every page of the 12 thick volumes. The spines now had creases in all the right places and the pages looked wrinkled and worn. It was time to give the classics another shot.
At the planetarium, I met Mandy, a beautiful girl with unbrushed hair and thick glasses. She told me that she was studying for a PhD in criminology. This worried me. What if fake-reading the classics was illegal?
“Are you allowed to arrest people?” I asked.
“I'm not a police officer. I'm a student.”
“So can you arrest people?”
She assured me that she couldn't.
After taking her to the symphony (where I fortunately wasn't expected to speak), I brought her up to my apartment. She glanced around as though casing the joint.
“You like the classics?” I asked.
“What?”
“The classics.”
Mandy took a volume from the bookshelf, plopped down on the couch, and opened the book—Aristophanes.
“Have you read this?” she asked.
“Sure did,” I said, smoothly sitting down next to her. “All twelve volumes. There's not a page there that I haven't turned.”
She flipped through the pages, noticing they were worn. Then she closed the book and stared at its spine.
“That's funny,” she said.
“What.”
“Well, the leather doesn't look handled at all. Usually with leather-bound books, sweat from the hands will sort of marinate it.”
“My hands don't sweat.”
“Yes they do. You're wiping your hands on your trousers every five seconds. You have the sweatiest palms of anyone I ever met.”
“I wore mittens when I read it,” I said. “I didn't want to get papercuts.”
“Do you also wear a helmet when you go outside?”
“I speed-read so fast that I often cut my fingers. I don't like to brag about how fast I read, though.”
“You're a liar,” she said, and slammed Aristophanes back in his place on the bookshelf. “Goodbye.”
She stormed out the door.
Alone in my apartment, I realized I would have to break the leather covers in. This would require spending several days stroking the books bare-handed. But then I remembered some advice my father gave me when I was a child. He bought me a new baseball mitt and told me to cover it with shaving cream and let it soak in for a few days. This would soften the leather, making it flexible and looking like I had used it for years. I did as he suggested, and it worked. Maybe it would work for leather-bound books as well.
I laid the books on tables and chairs, open pages facing down, covers facing up. With my can of shaving cream, I lathered white foam onto the leather covers, spreading with my finger, like frosting a cake.
After the first couple books, the shaving cream can sputtered and stopped. Empty. It was late at night and everything was closed except for the 24-hour convenience store on the corner, so I went there.
The clerk's name tag said Patel. He had a thick accent and reminded me of Apu from the Simpsons. I brought a new can of shaving cream up to the counter, paid for it, and almost burst out laughing when Patel said, “Thank you, come again.”
In my apartment, I continued to frost the leather-bound classics. When there were only a couple books left, the shaving cream again sputtered and stopped. I returned to the convenience store.
This time, when I set a fresh can of shaving cream on the counter, the clerk, Patel, squinted at me suspiciously with his thick eyebrows.
“You just bought shaving cream,” he said. “It was not more than twenty minutes ago.”
I considered telling him to mind his own business, but he was new to America and probably didn't realize it was rude to comment on a customer's purchase.
“I didn't finish shaving,” I said. “I need more.”
Patel squinted at my chin, which I realized was covered with stubble.
“Didn't finish?” Patel said. “You didn't even start.”
I considered telling him the truth, that I was trying to fake-read the classics, but that was too humiliating to admit. I racked my brain for an explanation of what I had used the shaving cream for.
“I'm shaving my dog,” I said.
Patel frowned.
“In the middle of the night?” he asked.
“Of course,” I said. “When else would I shave him?”
Patel's eyebrows narrowed and he squinted at my shirt.
“If you are shaving your dog, why is there no dog hair on your clothes?”
“It's a hairless breed. He likes it when I cover him with shaving cream and run the razor over him.”
“Why can't you pet your dog like a normal person?”
“This is America. If I want to shave my hairless dog in the middle of the night, I can, and you have a constitutional obligation to sell me that shaving cream.”
Patel sighed and rang up the shaving cream.
“America,” he muttered.
Back upstairs in my apartment, I finished lathering up the books. Then I left them alone to let the shaving cream do its work.
A couple days later, I wiped the shaving cream off with a rag. The leather looked dark and worn, as if well-marinated by hand sweat. Everything was ready.
I spotted a beautiful girl in the museum lobby, staring up at the T. rex skeleton, her mouth hanging agape. She had the spaced-out look of the super-brilliant. She didn't have glasses, but she probably needed them: her eyes wandered, each in its own direction.
“Hi,” I said. “If you like bones, I've got one in my apartment I can show you.”
“Oh no you don't,” she said. “I'm not going home with you till you buys me dinner.”
Her name was Cathy. I took her to a fancy restaurant with cloth napkins and real silverware that came folded in the cloth napkins.
“You go to the museum often?” I asked.
“I had to use the bathroom,” she said. “So I went inside. Then I was leaving and saw them dragon bones. I never seen dragon bones before.”
“It's not a dragon,” I said. “It's a T. rex.”
“Whatever. Same thing.”
“No. It's not the same thing.”
She wasn't smart. I no longer found her attractive. But after dinner, she followed me to my apartment.
“Well, aren't you going to invite me up to your place?”
At least this one wouldn't discover anything wrong with my books.
“Sure,” I said. “Come on up.”
As soon as we stepped inside, Cathy's eyes spotted my set of classics. Her mouth opened wide and round.
“What are those?” she gasped.
“Oh, those?” I said casually. “Those are the classics of western civilization.”
She approached the bookshelf and pulled down the volume on Euclid.
“You bought them used?” she asked, plopping down on the couch, almost breaking its springs.
“No. I bought them new.”
“They look used.”
“Because I used them,” I said. “By the way, that's real leather.” I sat down next to her.
“I love the smell of leather,” Cathy said.
She lifted the book to her nose, closed her eyes, and sniffed, making a snorting noise. Then she furrowed her brow and frowned.
“It smells like shaving cream,” she said.
My heart pounded and I thought I was caught. But then I had an idea.
“They have to shave the hair off the cow before they make it into leather,” I said. “Otherwise, the book would have a beard.”
Cathy's eyes narrowed, but still wandered in different directions.
“Hunh?” she said.
“They use shaving cream so the cow doesn't get razor burn,” I said. “That's why you smell shaving cream.”
Cathy stared blankly at the book in her hand.
“A cow?” she asked.
“Sure,” I said.
Her jaw dropped and her eyes burned with horror.
“Oh my God!” she said. “You mean this is made from a poor, defenseless animal?”
Her sudden concern for animals confused me.
“I just bought you a steak dinner,” I said.
“I see how it is,” she said. “You think you'll buy me a fancy dinner and show me your fancy books, and I'll be so impressed that I'll just throw myself at you?!”
“No,” I said. “I mean steak comes from cows.”
She scoffed. “Steak from cows? How gullible do you think I am?”
She pulled a lighter from her purse.
“Please don't smoke in here,” I said. “You can use the balcony.”
She lit the book on fire. Euclid's pages went up in a blaze that took Cathy by surprise; she dropped Euclid on my rug.
“Yaagh!” I screamed, and stomped at the fire, sending bits of charred paper all around. My shoelace caught on fire, and I had to kick my shoe off. I ran into the kitchen to get my fire extinguisher. When I returned, Cathy was staring transfixed at the flames. The burning paper hissed. The leather cover smoldered. Thick smoke plumed upward. Cathy sniffed the air, another snort escaping from her nostrils.
“It smells like beef,” she said.
“I told you—steak comes from cows!”
I sprayed the fire extinguisher, putting out the fire. There was a burnt hole in the rug.
“You think you're so smart,” Cathy said as the fire extinguisher sputtered down. “Well, let me tell you something—no one likes someone who's so full of himself and reads the classics.”
She turned and stormed toward the door.
I realized she was right. Why was I trying to be someone else? I should be myself and try to get girls to like me for who I was.
“Wait!” I screamed. “I'm not smart! I'm stupid, just like you!”
She slammed the door behind her.
I stared at the books on my shelf and the charred book on my carpet. Instead of helping me to get girls, the books ruined my chances three consecutive times. I was better off without the books. I should just be myself, find a girl who liked me for who I really was.
So in the morning, I brought the set of classics back to the bookstore.
“I'd like to return these,” I said, placing the heavy books on the counter.
The clerk took off his glasses and squinted his beady eyes at the classics.
“You can't return those,” he said.
“I have the receipt right here.”
“These have been used,” he said, picking up a volume and flipping the pages.
“I haven't read a word of them,” I said.
“The covers are all worn. So are the pages.”
“I'll prove I never read them. Ask me a question. Ask me who killed Socrates.”
He sniffed. “What's that smell?”
“Shaving cream,” I said. “They had to shave the cows.”
He sniffed again.
“It smells like smoke,” he said.
He opened the Euclid volume. Charred bits of paper fluttered onto the counter.
“It was like that when I bought it,” I said.
“Get out,” the clerk said. “And take your classics with you.”
I left the store with my books. I figured that since I was stuck with them, I might as well try to read them. I sat in the gutter and opened up volume one, Homer's Iliad, and started to read.
Halfway through the first chapter, I stopped. I hadn't understood a word. It might as well have been in the original Greek. And now I had a splitting headache. I dropped the books in a garbage can and walked away. I wouldn't be reading the classics in this lifetime.