The Librarianist

The streets were filled with people. Cars were stopped on the highway, the roadside overrun; there was no center or border to the activity, and there was nothing like a violence taking place. It was as if an anthill had had its top kicked off and now there was motion all across the area, a giddy chaos, with every individual following his or her own line, place to place, picking out a friend and moving through the scrabble to meet up with them, to grasp, to rave. Bob dressed and hurried down the stairs and through the hotel to stand at the top of the blue-painted steps and consider the spectacle. Mr. More exited the hotel. “That’s it, then, eh?” he asked Bob, before walking down and into the crowd. Bob watched him greeting this and that person, shaking hands and agreeing as the mass ate him up. Now Bob walked down the blue steps; instantly he was tossed about and pushed this and that way and it would have been frightening but for how everyone was behaving. People patted his head and shook him by the shoulders; a red-faced woman with gray teeth and tears running down her cheeks seized him and kissed his forehead. A young man was strutting about and blowing a trumpet in the air; he leveled the horn at Bob’s face and blew a comical, trembling note, and Bob could smell his sour, stranger’s breath. It was as if everyone knew everyone else but they hadn’t seen one another in a long while and were made ecstatic by the grand reunion. Bob passed a group of men standing in a circle around a pickup truck. They were listening to the news report coming from the truck’s radio; a man with a British accent was shout-reading a bulletin. Bob understood by what this man was saying that the war had ended. The men surrounding the truck threw their hands up and cheered.

Bob wanted to be with Ida and June, and began jumping up to try to catch sight of them. A passing soldier asked him, “You looking for your people?” and lifted him up to scan the crowd. Bob looked and looked but he couldn’t see his friends. After a while the soldier lost interest and set Bob back on the ground and walked off. Now the crowd shifted and spit Bob out to its edges.

The sheriff’s patrol car was parked against the south side of the hotel and the sheriff was sitting on the back bumper, massaging his temple, and his flesh had a waxy cast, and he was squinting against the sunlight. When he saw Bob, he pointed. “Hey, kid, come over here a minute, will you?” As Bob stepped closer, the sheriff told him, “You want to know what happened? I figured something out about you.” He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket, unfolded it, and showed it to Bob. It was a missing persons report; Bob stood looking at a blurred photostat of his school yearbook picture. The sheriff said, “This came through yesterday morning. I thought I remembered your face from seeing you the other day outside the P.O. I should have tracked you down sooner but it’s been a time here, and I’ve been distracted.” The sheriff removed a bottle of aspirin from his shirt pocket and tossed a handful of tablets into his mouth, chewing them up, his face made bitter by the taste. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he peered out at the crowd and said, “It’d have to happen today.” He looked back at Bob. “So, what are we going to do about you?” Bob shrugged and the sheriff said, “Maybe I ought to check in. Hang on a minute, kid, will you?” He leaned into his car and took up his two-way radio. “Come in HQ. HQ, do you read.”

“HQ here. How’s your head, Sheriff?”

“Well, how do you think it is?”

“Shame they couldn’t wait a day to call the war off.”

“It surely is. What about all the lumberjack crazies? How’s their outlook this morning?”

“About the same as yours, I’d say. They’re a lot quieter than last night, I’ve noticed. But say, we’re getting a lot of calls about the crowds downtown?”

“That’s where I’m at now, HQ.”

“Any problems?”

“No, there’s folks on the loose, but it’s a cheery occasion and no troubles that I can see.”

“That’s nice.”

“I guess we were due some good news. Which reminds me. The reason I’m calling is. I found the kid from Portland. Comet.”

“You did? Where is he?”

“I got him here with me now.”

“He all right?”

“He looks all right. You all right, kid?” Bob nodded and the sheriff said, “He’s all right.”

“What kind of name is Comet?”

“I don’t know. Kid, what kind of name’s your name?”

Bob shrugged.

“Kid doesn’t know what. He’s the incurious type. Anyway, you’re going to want to call Portland PD, tell them the blessed news.”

“I will do, Sheriff. When should I say they can expect him home?”

“Well, I’d like you to frame that as their problem to solve, HQ. Maybe they’ll send his folks to fetch him, or maybe Portland PD can spare a man. But, shoot, wait a minute.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Where’re we going to keep him until then?”

“Put him in the tank.”

“Squeezed in with the crazies?”

“Not so crazy anymore, like I was saying.”