The Librarianist

June said, “Communicative percussion predates the written word by thousands of years.”

“Well, there you go.” The waitress held her pencil to her pad and became poised to take the order. June was squinting at a menu; she asked, “What is frizzled beef?”

“It’s hard to describe,” said the waitress.

“Mightn’t you try?” wondered June.

The waitress said, “Okay, well, it’s beef, you know. The meat of a cow.”

June joined her hands together to form a temple.

“And it’s boiled,” the waitress continued, “then it’s shredded, then it’s fried in oil, then it’s salted, and then they put something that’s like ketchup on it, then set it under a lamp to warm it up and sort of soften it. And there you are.”

“It’s frizzled.”

“Right,” said the waitress. “Is that what you’d like to have?”

“It’s not, no.” Addressing the table, June said, “The word frizzled, to my mind, evokes the visual of a dish of meat with hair still attached.”

The waitress said, “There’s no hair on our meats.”

“There’s a confidence-inspiring phrase,” said Ida. “You should put it on a matchbook.”

June still was squinting at the menu. “I shall have — the Lumberjacker.”

“The Lumberjacker or the Little Lumberjacker?” asked the waitress.

“The Lumberjacker.”

Bob likewise ordered the Lumberjacker. Ida quietly asked for cottage cheese and a cup of coffee; June raised her hand and said, “No, Ida. That is not your order. You will order more. Yes, you must.” She turned to Bob: “She cheats herself at breakfast and thinks she’s getting one over on someone, God in heaven, for all I know. But then at about eleven o’clock she becomes monstrous because she’s so miserable at the emptiness of her stomach.” She collected the menus into a stack and handed them up to the waitress. “My friend will also have a Lumberjacker, thank you.”

“The Little Lumberjacker,” said Ida, and the waitress went away. In a short while they were served, and they all ate well, and happily. June asked Bob if he didn’t want a nap after all the syrup, and Bob said he didn’t.

“You wish to begin your labors now, then?”

“Yes.”

“All right, here’s my thought. Ida and myself will retire to the hotel to plot out our day of rehearsals. Certain of the scenes do not feature the boys as players, and we have learned that the boys can disrupt when they are idle, especially when we’re setting up a stage. And so, while we are setting up, you will show the boys the town, all right? Yes?”

The bill came and June lay down money for the group, then passed Bob a dollar. When the waitress returned to make change, Bob set his dime on the tabletop and asked for a newspaper and a cigar, and the waitress looked to June, who looked to Ida, who, looking at Bob, said, “Cat’s-eyes and aggies, indeed.”

Later, out front of the diner, June and Ida and Bob stood by with the dogs, now leashed. June told Bob that their names were Buddy and Pal and said, “I hope you understand Ida’s and my need of these animals. They are not pets. They are the entirety of our lives, beyond our relationships to one another and ourselves and our work.”

“Well, it’s all one thing,” Ida explained. “But the thing cannot be without their input.”

“Yes,” June agreed. She asked Bob, “Will you be careful and good?” And Bob said that he would be, and June told Ida, “Bob understands.”

Bob took the leashes into his grip and the women walked toward the ocean, the hotel. Once they rounded the corner, the dogs looked up at Bob. They were not distressed; perhaps they were curious about what should come next. Bob giddy-upped the leashes and he and the dogs crossed the road to stand before the dead printer’s storefront. The suicide note still was taped up, an eerie document that Bob did read fully through. It struck him as levelheaded when he considered its proximity to the author’s act of self-murder by hanging. Friends of my community, it began. There followed a sort of curriculum vitae: where he was born, schooled, which church he attended, and how he came to work in his field. He wrote, I found many answers and comforts in my profession, but not every answer and not every comfort. In particular I could never find the answer to the question of why; and if a man cannot answer this question, there shall be no lasting comfort available to him.