Category Six Books was named for the term "a perfect Kinsey Six," meaning totally gay.
By the 90's, Jim the owner had hired a young, dark-haired employee named James Dovali to run the store. I had always dreamed of having my first book signing at the store on 11th Street; however, the landlord intended to raise the rent so much that Jim decided to move elsewhere. South Broadway appeared on the verge of becoming a mini-gay-mecca by the mid-90's, what with The Blue Note Cafe and Theater On Broadway, as well as Heaven Sent Me and a couple of other gay-owned restaurants anchoring the immediate area. Jim decided to move into a store front at 42 South Broadway to join this burgeoning group. Unfortunately, it never quite worked out as well in the new location, though it was not from lack of trying. I would, in fact, have my first book signings at Category Six Books, but at the South Broadway location instead of on Capitol Hill.
After a couple of years in the new location, James optimistically bought the store from Jim. James was always very generous with me and my books regarding promoting them and allowing me to have book signings there at least twice a year. We typically had signings on the Saturday of Denver's Gay Pride weekend in June and, even more significantly, the weekend before Christmas, a big time for last minute shoppers. I brought cookies and donuts, brought in a coffee urn and filled it with apple cider and spices. James always had the store decorated for the holidays.
Sadly, though, as the decade wound to a close, the store could not compete against the large brick and mortar outlets such as Barnes & Noble and Borders. Then, of course, by 2000, the Internet also was taking a huge chunk of business from all the small, independent book stores such as Category Six Books. Even more unfortunate, best selling gay authors such as Maupin and many others simply stopped being directed to Category Six Books by their publishers and handlers, opting to do their one local signing at a Barnes & Noble or Denver's Tattered Cover Bookstore in Cherry Creek.
The few local Denver gay writers such as myself were the only ones to remain loyal--Category Six Books' survival meant our survival. I used to show up at the store most Saturday mornings to chat with James and see how my books were doing. Too often I could see what James saw daily: most patrons were no longer interested in buying books, neither fiction nor non-fiction. They would enter the front door, nod in his direction, and head to the back where the porn magazines were kept on display. James loved books and discussing literature and music. Sadly, he more than anyone knew that it was the porn sales that kept his store barely afloat so that he could still sell books, his singular passion. He maintained a prominent shelf of his store's weekly Top Ten bestsellers. Periodically, one or more of my books would be on display there, helping sales a bit more. But, as those few years passed, we could each see that between the chain stores and Internet book sales, his store was inexorably dying. He gave it a couple more years and then he'd be forced to close, he would explain. Also, young people, whether gay or not, no longer seemed to be reading books. What patrons he did maintain became progressively older, not younger.
Before that happened, an older couple, two of his better patrons, continued to query him regarding how much he would ask if they were to consider buying Category Six Books from him. He tried repeatedly to warn them off, that they were wanting to buy a dying business that had no hope of recovery. They were not to be deterred. Finally, he named a price and they agreed to pay it. Before the sale was finalized, he gave them some valuable advice: don't sign a new lease with the landlord because the location was part of the problem. The area never did develop as the next Denver gay mecca. The Blue Note closed. Theater on Broadway also folded. He also advised them that they not rename the store either. Everyone knew about Category Six Books even if they didn't often shop there. To change the recognized name made little sense.
They didn't heed his sound advice on either of those two issues. In fact, they didn't listen to his advice on much at all. They bought new equipment like a cash register, an unnecessary expense; they changed the store's name; and, worst of all, they signed a new lease with the landlord who sold the property to another landlord not long after. The two also remodeled the interior in such a way that it looked like some old lady's living room, Norman Bates's mom's living room. Nothing trendy or hip for them, nosiree.
Rather than recognizing that Category Six Books had only been sold and renamed, word mistakenly got around that the store had instead closed, not the kind of word of mouth new owners want to cultivate within the community. Sales of my own books at the store plummeted after the new owners took over. They later tried to promote several of us local authors, but it was too late. Even after The Book Garden, the local lesbian bookstore, closed and they began carrying books for the entire GLBT community, including women, sales did not pick up.
After they had owned the store for about a year, we all learned that James Dovali had died of liver cancer. After suddenly falling ill, he entered the hospital and died shortly thereafter. He may actually have died of AIDS-related complications, but liver cancer was what everyone was told. In the months after he sold the store, he had tried a couple of different careers, but nothing seemed to work out for him. He appeared to others to be rudderless.
I never saw James after the other two took over the store and changed everything. I definitely missed our Saturday morning discussions, and especially the twice-yearly book signings that we enjoyed so much. A couple of years before he moved on, I had given James Schnozz's old, beloved, carpeted cylindar when I had moved to my condo and had less space. James had found a stray kitten one morning outside the back entrance to his store. He named the striped kitten Slim Shady. Shady loved the cylindar, James told me, taking up immediate residence. After James died, I heard from his boyfriend. He'd inherited Shady but could not keep him since he himself periodically lived on the streets after that. He assured me that he'd given Shady and the cylindar to an older couple who had known James in happier times. Shady again had a loving home.
relativelyWilde, the store's new name, died sadly, as well, about a year or so after James passed. The new landlord intended to remodel the storefronts of it and the space he owned beside it. Business had been bad enough in the previous months, but the thought of their few remaining patrons having to clamber over and around construction apparatus and debris just to get inside made the two realize that their days as proud bookstore owners were about over. The landlord would not let them out of their lease to allow them to move elsewhere, so they put everything inside up for sale over a few short weeks' time and then closed the door when the entire contents, including the relatively new cash register, were gone. Before the end, they told me to come and get my books before the sale since they knew I always had my novels there on consignment rather than have James pay me in advance.
I suspect that James would have been mortified at the thought of downloadable books. He also bought music CDs, so even downloadable music would probably have been strange to him. He was not a man for the digital age. The era of Category Six Books and other gay book stores like it all over the country has certainly passed. They were havens of gay culture at a time when there were few other places to go. The gay person behind the counter could steer you in the direction of gay authors like Armistead Maupin and others and to gay books like Tales of the City. They opened up whole new worlds for many of us, and Rainbow Arc of Fire would not have existed had those stores not existed.
Not a Christmas season or Pride weekend goes by that I don't think fondly once more about James Dovali and his gay bookstore. A few more than 20 years passed since the store first opened on Colfax Blvd., and then it was all gone for good.
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