Lillelara

Behrendt has just met a salesman in store, who has only painted one eye with purple eye shadow:

"He didn´t like this," the salesman said, pointing to his left eye. "I don´t do drag or anything sick like that. I just do my eyes. I used to do my other eye the same way too. The boss told me to stop, and I was all set out to walk out the door and never come back. But then I figured, `Wait a minute. He never gets out of that chair, see, and my desk is over by his left side. If I only do the eye away from him, maybe he´ll never notice.´ That was two years ago and he ain´t said nothing since."

The next day Behrendt is talking to the boss himself:

"Jack´s a good man," he said, speaking of his salesman. "Best I´ve ever seen. He´s a strange one, though. He´s a loner. This shop and everything in it is his whole life. I call him `Jack the One-eyed Jill´ - not to his face, of course. He used to put that eye makeup on both eyes, you know. God, it looked awful. I told him `I can´t have this in my shop! No more or you´re out!´ So what did he do? Came in the next day not wearin´ any eye makeup at all as far as I could tell. But he was walkin´ sideways around the store like a damned crab, twistin´ this way and that. Then he went past a mirrored wardrobe, and I saw it plain as day: He´d put the makeup on the other eye."

All the people the author is meeting in this book are absolutely eccentric. Which makes this a fun read so far, as least most of the time. The creepy guy with the flies, who I have encountered a couple of pages later, isn´t that much fun.