The Librarianist

Miss Ogilvie and Bob were standing side by side at the Information desk, and so had witnessed the episode together. Bob was moving to intervene when Miss Ogilvie clamped a hand on his forearm. She walked around the desk and toward Connie’s father with an eerie, sideways glint in her eye, as one in a trance. Touching her long finger to Connie’s father’s shoulder, she asked, “May I see your library card, please?” Connie’s father turned away from the priests to consider the person of Miss Ogilvie. They had been sizing each other up for months, each of them knowing this reckoning had to come, and here it was, and they stood staring at one another for what Bob felt was an awful length of time. The emotional information moving between the pair was unknown; clearly, though, there was some manner of psychic showdown taking place. In the end it was Miss Ogilvie crowned the victor: Bob watched as Connie’s father’s hand began to move, as if without its owner’s consent, to seek out and pass over his library card. Miss Ogilvie received this, held it up, and with a glorious slowness, ripped it in half. Tucking the two pieces into the pocket of her cardigan, she told Connie’s father, “You have irrevocably lost your rights to access the public library system in Oregon, effective immediately. If you ever set foot in this or any other branch in the state you will be arrested at once and prosecuted as a malicious trespasser. Now I’ll ask you to walk this way, please.” She gestured to the exit and stepped in that direction. Connie’s father did not follow immediately after but stood by, blinking and making to collect his wits. He had been temporarily dazzled by Miss Ogilvie’s awesome powers of negative confidence but now, recognizing his time of triumph had passed, some of his own negativity returned: looking back to the priests, he leaned toward them and spit at their feet. With that, he left the library, and Connie followed quietly after. After they’d gone, Bob came forward with a rag to wipe up the spit; Miss Ogilvie took the rag from Bob, got down on her knees, and cleaned the floor herself, bony backside bobbing in the air. Bob looked to the priests, to gauge their reaction at this unexpected visual, but the florid priest was gently touching his nose to check for tenderness while the white-haired priest made a discreet inspection of the state of his hands.

A week after this event, Connie came to the library alone. She was decked out in her usual garb but with the hood of the cape worn down. Her hair was middle length, blondish and flat, and she had not a trace of makeup on her face; but it seemed to Bob she was enjoying visibility, being a young woman in the world, in contrast to whatever genderless figure her father wished her to be when they were together. She set a tall stack of books on the counter and stood by, watching Bob. “Returning?” he asked, and she nodded. He was wondering if she was allowed to speak in public, or at all, when she shifted and said in a raspy voice, “I can’t tell if you recognize me or not.”

“I do,” he said. “The cape gives it away.”

“Oh, right,” she said, looking down. “Well, I’m returning my father’s books to you. But, I also have a list of books I’m meant to check out. Is that going to be a problem?”

“Why would it be?”

“Because of what happened. The books are for him, not me.”

Bob said, “It’s not for me to ask who the books are for; and you don’t have to say. If you have a valid library card and no outstanding fines, you can check out whatever books you wish.”

“And what if I don’t have a library card?”

“Then we’ll get you one.”

“And what if I don’t have any identification?”

“You don’t have any on you, you mean?”

“I mean I don’t have any at all. Personal identification is one of the things father is against.”

Bob wouldn’t have considered commenting on this were it not for the young woman’s obvious amusement in discussing her father’s behaviors, which prompted him to say, “He strikes me as the kind of man who is against many things.”

“Oh, yes, and more all the time,” she said, and began naming them off one by one. “Television, obviously, and film — moving images. But also radio — fictitious writing of any sort. Privately owned automobiles. All unnatural scent or flavor. All music. Exercise for exercise’s sake. Sunglasses. Calendars, watches. Escalators, elevators. Police, government, doctors, medicine.”

“What is he for?”

“Gender segregation. Sterilization of criminals. Public transportation. The death penalty. Disease. Gardening.”

“Gardening he supports.”

“He himself doesn’t garden, but he supports the action; it’s one of the very few things he encourages me to indulge in.”

“You like gardening?”

“Gardening is very important to me.”

“Decorative gardening or gardening for the table?”

“Both.” She liked that he’d asked that particular question. She watched him without shyness, and Bob felt exposed but he affected, as best he could, an unruffled ease.

“How can someone be in favor of disease?” he asked.