The Librarianist

It was a miles-long walk through a balmy, windless night, and Bob was relieved to be free of the feelings the sleepover had provoked in him. He walked slowly through various suburban and urban areas. He’d never been out so late before and found the nighttime not at all frightening, but easy and safe in its emptiness. He was neither lost nor not-lost; he understood the general direction home and he used the bridges as guides. Crossing the river at Morrison, he made his way up the long hill and toward the mint-colored house.

It was after midnight when Bob entered his neighborhood. His house was the only one on the block with the lights on, and there was a black Packard in the driveway, gleaming and new beneath the reach of the streetlamp. Bob could hear the stereo playing; he crept up the front lawn to the kitchen window, standing on his toes to look in. Down the hall from the kitchen he could see a piece of the living room, and in the living room was the broad back of a man, coat off, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up, and Bob’s mother’s disembodied hands hung over the man’s shoulders, her red nails clinging to him as they slowly danced. When the music ceased, their bodies compressed in a clench of passion, and Bob turned and walked away from his home and to the park down the street. The park was empty and Bob sat, then lay down on a bench, to look at the sky, because he didn’t know what else to do. What he felt was something deeper and richer than nausea: nausea of the heart. But the clouds were a mysterious show of patient, moonlit shapes and moods; they lulled and distracted Bob, they tricked him into falling asleep. When he woke up it was after seven o’clock, and he stood and stretched and walked back to the house. There was a puddle of oil on the driveway but the Packard was gone. Bob let himself in and found his mother standing in the kitchen and staring at the sink, overfilled with dirty dishes and greasy pots. The house smelt of burned oil and cigarette butts and Bob’s mother was ill-looking and she was clutching her kimono shut at her neck. When she heard his approach she turned, like a mannequin on a dais, to look at him. Her eyes betrayed nothing; in a croaking voice, she said, “Here’s Mr. Popularity.” She didn’t think it odd he was back so early, or that he’d seen himself home. She explained she wasn’t well and that she needed rest and silence and she went away and up the stairs in search of those things. Bob sat awhile in the kitchen nook, looking out the window he’d been looking into the night before. He decided he would run away, and truly, that same day, that same moment, and he left the house and walked back down the hill and across the river to Union Station, his pajamas peeking out past the folded cuffs of his blue jeans.

BOB WAS SURPRISED AT HOW EASY RUNNING AWAY WAS. HE SAT IN a moderately populated third-class compartment, and fifteen minutes later the train came unstuck from its track and they were off. Five minutes after the train left the station and already Bob didn’t recognize the landscape: drab, flat, rocky fields with power lines overhead and forested hills rising up in the distance. The train was traveling toward those hills, traveling west to Astoria, where the Columbia River meets the Pacific Ocean. When Bob saw a conductor taking tickets at the bottom of the car he stood and walked in the opposite direction, up through the second-class cars, the dining and observation cars, and into the first-class car. He came to a compartment with a RESERVED sign hanging on the doorknob; but he could see through a slit in the curtain the compartment was empty, and so he entered, closed the curtain, sat, and waited. When he heard the conductor pass, calling out for “Tickets, tickets, please,” then he relaxed a little, glad to be alone in his ritzy, superior quarters. He studied the passing landscape, which grew ever prettier: soft-rolling green hills, whitewashed churches set away in meadows, dairy farms, silos, and sentry box bus shelters standing at the intersections of country roads. When the train pulled into the station at the town of Vernonia, Bob peered down see what he could see of the platform. As it happened there was a story taking place, and just beneath his window.

At the center of the story were two middle-aged women in tweed coats and skirts, and both wore hats with long, bowed feathers sprouting from their hatbands. Large of breast but modest of chin, the women had something paired with the city-living pigeon. They were accompanied by two diminutive and bright-eyed dogs, both black with white socks and who looked to be siblings. Each was nestled in the nook of the arm of its respective master and their entire beings were devoted to watching the movements of and sounds made by the women. The women were speaking with a porter apiece, making gestures with their free hands, naming their instruction or desire, and there was nothing faltering or coy in their body language.