Patrons

"His skin was pale and his eye was odd."

-- Sweeney Todd, by Stephen Sondheim

--

I'm sitting in a library lobby, facing the front doors. To my left, the stairs up to the children's room. To my right, an overweight, sour-faced, short-haired library policeman, at his own desk, labeled, "POLICE." Above me, some windowpanes and behind the greasy glass, the backs of computer towers. Behind me, an old man reads The Encyclopedia of Superheroes and looks up from his reading and squints at me and his eyes linger.

There's a book on display at the table before me. The Adventures of Tintin in the Land of the Soviets.

Beside it, a beach chair and umbrella (slices of blue, pink, gold and lime green) with an easel. On the wall adjacent, a black poster with bold white letters: BOOKS WITH BITE. There are bite marks in the corner of the second B, both the O's, so they look like partially covered boobs, or damaged donuts. In the B's, the holes are filled in white, and they look like the ass of someone bending over, seen from the top.

A woman dressed for the cold--thick, Nepalese coat, hat, long yellow scarf--huddles over the pile of books she carries. A boy with shaggy hair murmurs to me and drags away the chair to my left.

And the librarian at the front desk has a voice for the three-card monty and laughs like Philip Seymour Hoffman.

--

Meandering among all of this like a beast in a labyrinth, a young man swaggers. His arms swing wide. He moans from somewhere inside, like cries for help heard in a cave. The noise is noxious above the whispers, typing and data machines whirring. He limps and loses the limp.

He tosses his hair and shakes his head, fending off invisible flies.

He passes the policeman's desk and clicks his heels and snaps his arm in a sharp Nazi salute. The policeman eyes him with caution.

The young man laughs and it is like a gurgle. He goes upstairs to the children's level, and I do not see him again.

--

A dude in a black band T-shirt drops a penny on the brick floor, bends, and picks it up.

Another hugs the shelf of DVDs, one arm around the side, the other fondling the plastic cases.

A mother reads an application form to her teenager, who lays his head on the table, one ear up, one ear down.

--

A priest stands at the copy machine, dropping dimes in the vending machine attached, copying birth certificates, death certificates. He looks about him at the patrons, and he keeps a middle finger on the copier lid, pressing down. The pile of trifolded documents grows on the policeman's desk, and the fat man in uniform doesn't seem to notice. He is typing. The priest eyes him with caution and hits the green button. He stuffs the copies in a big brown envelope and rocks on his feet, left, right, left. The policeman clears his throat and looks at the priest. The clergyman bends to the change dispenser and the coins slide and clink as he fingers them out. As he leaves the library, he steps into the sun and puts on sunglasses. He looks both ways, and disappears.