The Librarianist

“I don’t believe you need cross them, June, but if it brings you solace then please do do it, and just as tightly as you wish.”

The group broke up and made their way to their respective quarters. Bob climbed the steps to the second floor; as he passed down the length of the hallway the tilt in the building became pronounced, so that he felt his speed increasing with each step. His room was the last on the right, unremarkable, unwarm, dark, a little dingy, even; but Bob was very much impressed by it, for it was a room and it was his, at least temporarily. He stood awhile in honor of his having a location of his own before making an investigation of the area, opening and closing each drawer and dresser, searching for something but finding nothing, not even a Bible. Next and he lay his remaining dollar bills in a marching line across the bedspread, counting out seventeen singles, which meant he had three to four days before any true crisis came into focus. Altogether he was feeling very much a distinguished young man of the world when the girl named Alice knocked once and walked into the room. She halted, backlit by the light from the hallway. Squinting, she said, “What are you doing in the dark, Mr. Sneaky? You’re not going to jump out and terrify me again, I hope.” She clicked on the light and crossed over to stand with Bob. Glancing at the money, she folded up her arms and said, “Christ, it’s freezing in here. Why don’t you turn the heat on?” She knelt to turn on the radiator, then moved to sit on the bed, dollar bills sticking up at kinked angles from under her backside. She commenced rolling a cigarette and said, “So, let me get this straight. You’re standing around in the dark and cold, counting out your five dollars?”

“It’s seventeen dollars,” said Bob.

“Ho ho,” Alice said. She lit her bumpy cigarette and waved the smoke away. Bob saw that she’d put on lipstick, and that her greasy hair was pulled back by a bejeweled barrette. As if in response to Bob’s noticing this, she said, “I don’t have a lot of time to talk to you because me and Tommy are going to the movies.”

“Who’s Tommy?” Bob asked.

“Tommy’s the guy who says we can go steady if I sit up in the balcony with him. I think it’s probably a trick, but I also think I might do it anyway. Sound like a plan?”

“Okay,” Bob said.

Alice took a drag from her cigarette, head tilted to catch the stark light of the naked bulb on the ceiling. She looked Bob up and down and said, “My uncle told me I should be nice to you?”

Bob said, “Okay.”

Alice shook her head. “I’m asking, why’d he say that? Is there something wrong with you?”

“I don’t know,” Bob said.

“You don’t know if there’s something wrong with you?”

“There’s nothing.”

“Well, I’ll tell you what, Mr. Sneaky. I’ll be nice to you if you want me to be nice to you. But you have to say it so I know, okay?”

“Okay,” said Bob.

“Say it.”

“Be nice to me.”

Alice stood and kissed Bob softly on the cheek, then left the room. Bob stood touching the place where she’d kissed him, then checked his reflection in the mirror, gratified and impressed to find a faint smudge of lipstick on his face.

Bob stacked up his money and hid it away in his shoe. He still wore his pajamas under his street clothes; he took his street clothes off, turned out the light, and climbed into bed. There was a portable radio on the bedside table and he listened to the war news for some minutes; when this grew tiresome he shut the radio off and tried to sleep, but the moon was near to full, its light bright as a streetlamp in the window, and Bob got out of bed to lower the shade. Looking out, he could see Alice standing in front of the movie theater across the road from the hotel. She was alone, and looked small under the glow of the marquee. She peered down the road, once, and again. She turned and bought herself a ticket to the movie and went in by herself.

IN THE MORNING BOB WAS AWAKENED BY A KNOCK ON HIS DOOR, AND there again was Alice. She was not the playful youngster of the night previous but the sullen hotel laborer who had found him hiding behind the mountain of baggage. “You want breakfast? It’s fifty cents if you do.” She held out her hand beneath her chin, as if to catch her own spit. “It’s porridge and coffee. We’re out of cream.”

Bob disliked porridge, and had no use for coffee. “Can I have eggs?”

“No, because there are none. If you want eggs, you should go to the diner. That’s where your interesting friends went.”

“When?”

“Just now.”