The Librarianist

Bob never missed a day of school, and he did the work required of him, but he had no belief that the work was important. Occasionally it was that funny or interesting things happened at school, as children are often both funny and interesting, but just as often, or more often, Bob thought, they were neither. Throughout the week, he thought of and looked forward to the weekend: Saturdays he rose early, made himself breakfast, took up his running-away knapsack (clean socks and underwear, pajamas, a novel, a toothbrush, a comb, and the entirety of his savings, twenty-one dollars), walked down the hill, and crossed the Broadway bridge for Union Station. GO BY TRAIN the neon sign said, and Bob thought that sounded like an intelligent idea. He liked to sit on the long wooden benches in the main hall, to watch the bustle of it, the travelers’ stories playing out all around him, the soldiers’ comings and goings, their weepy familial separations, the romantic reunions. He liked the way the trains eased into the station, hissing and stuttering like someone easing into a hot bath. He liked the flipping and clacking of the letters on the arrivals and departures board. There was no one city he wished to run away to, not Bakersfield, California, or Greenville, Mississippi; Abilene, Texas; or Gallup, New Mexico; but he liked the names of the places and it was exciting to think of the destinations as real, that the people climbing onto the trains soon would be breathing the air there.

After some weekends spent lurking in the main hall, Bob became emboldened and began inspecting the interior of the trains as they sat in the station. It was good to be one among the many in motion, to step down the aisle, squeezing past men and women while they stowed their luggage in the overhead racks or settled into their seats. “Excuse me,” he liked to say. “Excuse me, please.” When he got to the caboose, or whenever he heard the call of all aboard from the platform, he would exit the train and return to the long wooden benches, or wander back across the bridge, and home, only to wake up the next morning and relive the experience all over again.

One Friday afternoon in May, Bob returned home from school to find his mother pacing about the living room, smoking and drinking a cocktail, and her face was heavily made up, her hair in curlers, and a crisply new dress was laid out over the long shoulder of the sofa. She explained to Bob that she was hosting what she named a social function that same evening, and that Bob would be sleeping over at a coworker’s house across town. “She’s got a boy about your age. Rory’s his name, and he sounds like a great kid and I’m sure you’ll get along great and have a very good time.” Bob had never slept over before, and felt strongly he did not want to do this, and so began to plead and bargain with his mother: he’d stay hidden in his room that night; he wouldn’t make a sound, and no one taking part in the social function would know he was there at all. But his mother refused, the finality in her voice total. She ordered him to pack a bag and Bob fetched his running-away knapsack from his room, then went out and sat in the car to wait. When his mother came out of the house, her curlers were wrapped up in a sheer pink scarf and she was talking to herself and wagging the car keys from her red-nailed pointer finger. On the drive across town she tried to cheer Bob by reminiscing of the sleepovers of her youth: the games she and her girlfriends played, the fits-of-insanity giggles, the way they would attempt to stay awake all through the night, and the way they always failed. “Maybe you and Rory’ll go the distance, though, huh? Maybe you two’ll make it clear to sunrise.” His mother was rushed, distracted, looking at her watch every few minutes, chain-smoking and ashing nervously out the window. Bob sat in silence, the prisoner on his way to the gallows. “Don’t make me feel bad about this,” his mother said.

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“Not on purpose I’m not.”

Her voice was tight with annoyance: “I want you. To have fun. For once in your life. Do you understand me?” Soon she pulled up at the curb out front of a small house with an overgrown lawn and a pile of warped scrap lumber in the driveway. “I don’t have time to come in,” she said, “but they’re expecting you, so just go on up and knock, okay?” Bob took his knapsack and walked toward the house. His mother honked as she pulled away, which summoned her coworker, who opened her door and stood staring after the car as it drove quickly away. “Wow,” she said. “I guess your ma’s in a hurry, huh?”

“I guess.”

“And you must be Bob?”

“Yes.”

“Nice to meet you, Bob. I’m Rory’s mom and hey, look at this, here comes Rory.” Rory moved to stand beside his mother. He was two or three years older than Bob, his face meaty, disinterested. He held a basketball under his arm, and when his mother said, “Say hello to Bob, Rory,” Rory did not say it.

“Hello,” Bob said.