The Librarianist

Two nurses’ aides, large men in pale green scrubs, entered the center from the back door, awkwardly hefting a large metal washtub filled with water. They were facing each other and walking crabways, legs bent but with straight backs, panting under their shared burden. Without meaning to, the men had created a spectacle, and the seniors and children paused their business to witness the completion of the task, or else the failure of its completion. The water was rocking broadly back and forth in the tub, and an expectation of spillage gripped the onlookers. When the tub was finally set in its place on a pallet in the center of the room, and without a drop of water on the floor, there came a round of polite applause. Linus loudly asked, “What’s the tub for? Are the children going to wash me?” He raised his hand and “washed” his underarm area and the children wailed out their disgust. He turned to Bob. “I keep forgetting to tell you, buddy. Remember the bricklayers? From my TV show? They teased the story line out this whole goddamned time but yesterday they finally let us have it, and guess what? They’re twin brothers. Arch enemies from birth, bad blood going back to the cradle apparently — back to the womb.”

“Was there a showdown?” Bob asked.

“Capital S Showdown, you bet there was.”

“And how did they film that with one actor in both roles?”

“Good question, Bob,” Linus said earnestly. “I’d be glad to answer that one for you. The effect was achieved by rapid cuts and edits. To their credit they did not use the never-effective dummy double, and neither did they succumb to our newest dishonest computer-generated technologies.”

“Was it believable?”

“Not really. But, you know, it’s a wonder any committee-run artworks even achieve completion, much less pass muster. I was rapt, and that’s that.”

Maria came to stand beside the tub, holding up a plastic bag filled with apples and grinning enigmatically. When she dumped the apples into the water, the room grew quiet. She explained about the tradition of bobbing to the children, and said that anyone who could come up with an apple in their mouth would receive a mystery prize from the mystery prize box, which was a shoebox decorated with question marks and sparkles. The children were obviously interested in what Maria was saying but when she asked who would be first, none of them came forward. An edgy paranoia had gripped the group, a sort of herd shyness, and they formed into a cluster, peering warily over their shoulders. Maria had imagined a mad rush to take part but there was nothing, no movement at all, and for the first time that Bob could recall, she was embarrassed. He felt he couldn’t stand to see her suffer; cutting through the room’s psychic agony he came to a quiet place in himself and understood in a sudden and complete way that he would do it — that he would be the first to play this game, the one who broke the ice, with all his peers and all the children watching. He stood and made for the tub; Maria looked confused. “What’s the matter?” she asked. When Bob lowered himself to his knees, then she understood, and she draped a towel over his shoulders and quietly told him, “Thank you, Bob. Whenever you’re ready.” Bob looked down at the cluster of floating red apples. Plunging his head into the water, the children resumed shrieking. The water, Bob discovered, was shockingly, painfully cold.

Bob was alone with his task, half-submerged, thrashing about, thinking the violence of it would land him with an apple in his mouth. When he recognized he was only pushing the apples away, then did he fine-tune his method, approaching the fruit from a slow-moving sideways angle.

Those who knew Bob were impressed by his behavior, but also worried; was it not late in the game to make a change to one’s own personality? To suddenly begin acting in a totally new way? Some among the seniors found Bob’s actions off-putting, and were hopeful he wasn’t having a final-hour identity crisis, which was not unheard of in the assisted-living landscape.