The library is not safe.
Once, while minding my own business, a man dropped a hand-scrawled note into my lap:
The same man rubs cocoa butter on his elbows in the bathroom.
Another man, with dreadlocks, half-dyed pink, wearing skinny jeans and dressed like a skater stands against the wall by the printers, staring out at the small study room with desperate and craven eyes. He periodically relocates to the other far corner, where he stands like he is posing for a police lineup, staring at the obedient library patrons working diligently on their laptops. He marches from wall to wall, every few minutes. He tippy-toe stalks around the long table—it seats max 28 people—like he is performing a rain dance. Probably, he is scouting for unattended phones or portable laptop monitors to swipe. Acting suspiciously is not reason enough for me to call security, and even if I did, they would toothlessly tell me that each patron chooses to use the library in their own way.
An old boomer sitting across from me notices this young gentleman too, and takes his personal belongings into the bathroom stall. He thereby relinquishes his seat, and is replaced by a woman wearing a suit jacket with nothing underneath. Her eyes are wide and rabid, and she places a huge pink laundry bag, with brown and grey stains reaching up from the bottom. The other respectable patrons seem oblivious to these sketchy characters all around us, busy concentrating on their work or scrolling on their phones.
I am naturally distracted by the freaks of the library, and question whether I come here to procrastinate writing my novel, or to be bothered by the groaning sounds coming from the guy with his hood pulled anus-like over his face, tapping his phone with long fingernails.
The library was once a place of silence and study. It has now become a place of danger, and teaches its sheltered patrons the lessons of the streets; namely, do not to make eye contact with strangers. It is a place for normal people to learn they cannot trust 10% of their neighbors.
I am not new here, but the Karen-woman sitting across from me is. Somewhere between the ages of 35-45, her wavy brown hair has premature grey strands. She is skinny, and wearing a grey t-shirt, and a row of outlined stars is tattooed on her arm, a sign that she has at least one advanced degree, and she looks like she still believes everything she did at 25. A tablet is propped up beside her laptop, with a lengthy article, mostly highlights, open on her tablet. She looks from one to the other. She gives me grad student vibes, with her dissertation a children’s story, its working title called Queer Ducks and Other Animals.
Likely single, she seems bothered by everything, including all men, and she is frustrated—I can tell by the way she narrows her eyes when she hears an unfamiliar and grating noise behind her. There are many. It is like the forest, with growls, squawks, burps, and scratching. The sounds are very bothersome, I agree silently, and it is very easy to despise thy cackling library neighbor.
A Greek man makes a mouth noise every few seconds, like he is trying to bite an invisible yeero. The fifth time he makes the noise she turns around and scowls loudly, but he doesn’t notice. He takes a sixth bite of the yeero. While he is only visiting the library to read the local Greek newspaper available everywhere for $1.50, she is here trying to do important work.
An Indian man’s ringtone announces “Hello Moto!” to the entire library. I am alarmed, but refuse to convey any trace of annoyance. There is only room for one scowling Karen in this library! The Indian man is equally flustered and embarrassed, grasping his phone trying to contain its awesome and loud power. He sets it down after silencing, but does not know how to keep it silent.
“Hello Moto!” rings for two more times in five minutes—this guy is strangely popular—and Karen cannot appreciate the humor of his popularity or his perplexity, and whips around to silently scowl.
“Jesus Christ,” she mutters in vain.
Someone yelps far off in the back of the stacks. It goes unanswered.
She rolls her eyes again when one of the last living WWII vets loudly jokes about his benefits getting cut to another fellow reading about Medicare cuts in the newspaper. “They’re hoping I’ll die before they have to cut me another check.”
Karen is miserable in place of me, which gives me space to think the old man is funny, even cute. It is even funnier when he sits next to her and noisily opens and eats a bag of shelled peanuts.
Hoping the pressure from her psychic nags will stop him from enjoying his snack in a country he defended, she says and does nothing. His best friends were killed in the prime of their life in 1945.
Even if he noticed her, he is too old to care that she is bothered; she is old enough to be his great granddaughter. He smiles at the newspaper, as he reads about the recent subway beheading.
Then, my eyes meet with Karen’s—she was looking at me! Did I wake from a daydream in her direction? Or was she looking at me first, perhaps sensing that I am the library’s male Karen, and looking for my agreement that everyone is annoying but us, and how perfect the library — and the world — would be if only people like us existed. If only we existed…
Or do I come to the library just to daydream? Is the “work” I come to the library to do just staring at my fellow patrons to write down what they are doing?
It is my turn to leave the library to eat lunch—or possibly nap face down on the warm pavement, with the sun as my blanket. I groan audibly as I zip up my bag, bursting with my sock collection. I hum a little tune and fart loudly. I make eye contact with her scowl, then apologize.
The library is not the place to go to concentrate.