Mr. Campbell's Brother Brothers

Registered library cards to two Mormon brothers who also happened to be biological brothers. But, wait, there's more. They came in wearing uniforms, but not the tie and white shirt--well, the white shirt, yeah, but with a large horizontal-diamond patch over the left breast emblazoned ORKIN. When they came in surveying the place I looked for the cannisters and hoses, but they just wanted to use the computers.

When I started on their registrations one asked me, "Have you lived here all your life?" It sounded as if he either already knew the answer or didn't really care. He didn't really care: I could see through his blank eyes that my words were only data feeding into a response generator.

The other one, who'd brought in an Og Mandino paperback with a duct tape spine, said, "What kind of books do you read?"

"Scottish fiction."

That led to a question about my heritage, which I answered more expansively than I wanted to, somehow going so far as to explain that I was descended from Campbells. The other one asked if I had any familiarity with the Mackays, and I told him no. Then he tells me about the Scotsman So-and-So Mackay and his role in forming the Mormon church. I thought, "Wow, way to work that in." He thought the same thing--I could tell by the raised eyebrow he flashed his brother.

But then they start asking about my religious background, like what church I go to, and what religion I was raised with--things that I had every right to tell them was none of their business. Instead, I answered monosyllabically and without elaboration. Except when Eyebrow Boy asked me what my ideal church would be like if I were to found one, when I said, "Well, since my brain has never been challenged with that supposition before, I couldn't really answer that, except to say that I wouldn't deign to form a church."

That got a little chuckle from him, a chuckle I've heard many times--it means, "You talk funny"--and then he said, "What God could do with a brain like that!"

I said, "Well, maybe, when I'm done with it, God can have it."

When I gave them their cards, Eyebrow Boy who'd done most of the talking thanked me ("Mr. Campbell, right?" I nodded--as close as I could come to not lying without telling the truth) and gave me one of those disingenuous diving, elbow-up handshakes before telling me to have a "blessed day." Duct Tape Boy slid a two-by-four card across the counter. On one side was a white-edged psuedo-classical picture of ancient multitudes hugging toppled columns and shielding their eyes from a brilliant radiance defined by a dusty orange sky. On the other side was a photograph of The Book of Mormon and two ways to get hold of a copy. I didn't throw it away before they couldn't see me. Why I cared about their feelings I don't know--as if I thought they gave a damn about me beyond another feather in their cap and robot for their army. I was pissed off at their arrogance and my politeness.

I'm Watching Him, But Who's Watching Me?

Seems everyone has been familiarized with Mr. Peeps. I only had to tell Tara. Mary said she's seen him checking out children over in the Easies. Julie told me he's creeped her out ever since she first saw him, long before I ratted him out. He seemed to have spent most of his time today in fiction, and left and returned at least three times. His polo shirt today was yellow. What does this guy do--or not do--to be able to spend his whole day in a library?

Funny thing: He doesn't seem to scope the female employees, of which the library is full. I've seen him glance at Tara and quickly away again, as with either disinterest or caution. How he keeps his eyes off Liz, I don't know. I have a hard time myself. She has a firm round butt, and a firm, long stride with bent arms pumping--like an exercise walker--that makes her high-held breasts bubble. She'll show some cleavage, too, and I can tell by the wrinkling when it closes that she's about my age, or just oversunned. Last week she flashed me her panties, but was cruel as she could be about it, maintaining eye contact with me (we were talking) as she squatted sidesaddle in front of her locker. Oh, to think what I was missing while being a gentleman.

Peeps doesn't watch Dierdre either, from what I can tell. Like Tara, Dierdre's attractiveness has been an acquired taste. At first I just thought she was odd looking--black curly hair, black eyebrows, square jaw and ruddy cheeks. Then she began to resemble a lot of Scottish girls I've met. I still don't think she's pretty, but if I could just see her bounce up the steps a few times a day and watch that small loose bottom jiggle.... I often imagine watching it ripple with the shockwave of my groin banging into it.

Took two fines of over $2 paid entirely in coins, and the first one had only two quarters. On another fine of $2.10 a woman pulls out a wad of bills, peels off two ones, and instead of peeling off another one, says she doesn't have the ten cents and just hands me the two bills. This is someone who hates change and/or can't let go of debt.

Busy day. Scott is off this week, and Tara's at a class, so it's just Julie, Rebecca and me. First thing, I do two registrations before I checked out anything to anyone. Did four or five more. Rebecca and I made a decent dent in the shelving. But why is it, since the inception of the priority labels, that the fiction cart is filling up the fastest?

Once again, as seems par for the course anymore, I pull a book for the pick list that I'd just shelved a few hours before.

274

274, the number of pages in Highland Pack, gives no satisfaction whatever. It doesn't have the guts to be prime and can only be halved. It can't at least be plainly workable, like 275, or a bit more diverse yet, like 276. 273 can even be divided by two primes (7 and 13). I like that. There's some personality. But add one and I get stuck with a cowardly number that does just about as little as a number can do, that can't distinguish itself in any way--unless that is somehow distinctive. Like baloney on white toast.

Part of the Problem

So this is Earth Day, and what have we done? Of three sixty-five, we've given her just one. The traffic still drowns the birdsong twenty-three-and-a-half hours a day, but who hears anything while they sleep? Or sees anything while awake? Who sees the razing of the living to construct the dead? And who doesn't call that progress, a Leading Economic Indicator? Who sees a cyclist, even after he's run over, or a car carrying at least two people? Who sees a tree erect and not a house behind it? Are there more birds in the air, or just not enough trees to go around? The road to Nowhere is paved with dead animals. When we can no longer go avoid them we'll get used to the smell of the feathery, furry carpet beneath our wheels as easily as the fetid gray blanket falling upon our heads. My heart is broken, tired of the wanton ignorance of humanity, tired of believing it will get what it deserves, for as long as it gets what it takes it will believe it's getting what it deserves. I awake early in the morning with anxiety to hear the birds tell the world what it's missing, what it's killing; then, in half an hour, I'm lullabied back into a fitful sleep by the mantric susurration of burdened rubber on asphalt.

Blind

Fell asleep reading after work and dreamed of work:

I went to see Tara about something. We work in cubicles, but I met her at the door to an office--hers--which opened outward to the right. I stood on the door side of the doorway (she opposite), and started to tell her something, but forgot what I had to say and said so. She seemed amused. I closed my eyes, said, "I'm so tired," leaned against the doorframe, and slid to a squat. Inside, her desk was at the bottom of a long slope of slick concrete. I said something to the effect of "Meet you at the bottom," and began sliding down on the small of my back, head facing the door, curled in a ball and leaning lightly against the right wall on my shoulder. I was worried about being clipped by a protrusion but couldn't open my eyes. Then I began picking up speed, and I worried out loud that I might crash into the back wall or her desk. I still couldn't get my eyes open. I untucked and suddenly stop sliding. I felt very weak, and could only barely open my eyes. Tara helped me up. I was touched unduly by her assistance, as if she wouldn't have done it for just anyone. I started to support myself, reaching out to a lamp with my right hand, but noticed blearily that not only would it not likely support me, but was too nice to touch like that, its shade being a kind of suede. My sight came back, and I noticed a stereo and CD's and comfortable chairs around a round coffee table. "Nice," I said. "Is this really your office?" "Yes."

When Tara took over from that unbalanced micro-manager Jack (saving both my life and his) she was a horse-faced girl with three-toned hair. But she's grown on me, and somehow she's become attractive. She's always had a decent body, with perky breasts too far apart for a decent cleavage, though that doesn't stop her from wearing v-necks (or me from discreetly looking when she bends over in front of me). I've assiduously avoided fantasizing about her, though my respect for her has made that easy. We get along very well, converse easily. I miss her when she's not there.

Passive, Aggressive, Passive-Aggressive

A kid, maybe five, asked me where Peter Pan was--the "girl one." I told him to ask the librarian. He came back and asked me where the pirate books were, the ones about real pirates. I showed him where they should've been, 910-somethingorother, but there weren't any there. Then he asked me if I'd seen Hook. I said yeah. "Is it scary?" he said. "No. It's more funny than scary. But it's more stupid than funny." "Is this the one you saw?" I looked up from my shelving to see he had the DVD in his hand. "Yeah." He walked away but his little sister (three, I guess) filled the void, went, "Pss." "Yes?" She rubbed the corner of her mouth, where there was an orange streak curving toward her chin, then pointed at her head, on which was one of those layered-foam headpieces. "I have a hat. It's an owl." She turned and left as I was trying to compliment her stylish headgear. Then the dad of the bunch asked me, "Where are the Bar-bar books?" I couldn't help correcting him. "You mean Babar?" Blank. "The elephant?" "Yeah." "They're under 'Brunhoff'," but I knew I was wasting my breath and just walked him over to them and pulled them out a little ways from their neighbors.

No telling how the cart-tagging scheme is working yet. I was the first shelver, so naturally I took #1. Rebecca was the only other associate. She shelved the following hour, taking #2 out before I got back. Rebecca, scheduled to shelve for two hours, finished the cart (fiction) in 1:20. I'd since re-designated the carts, raising juvenile fiction/non-fiction to the top. But, instead of pulling that cart out to the stacks, Rebecca sat on a step-stool in front of the adult non and began sorting that cart. That done, she took a long break to round out her second hour. What could I say?

Tara was at an Excel class, so I was left with Julie and Scott for overlings. That means Julie found an overdrive gear for complaining, mostly about Scott, her favorite object of scorn--he should do this, he should do that, I'm tired of him always..., I wish he would.... And the one that got her engine really whining: He left all his discharges on the counter for the next backup to clean up. It's his habit, and it annoys all of us to have to spend ten minutes of our hour filling the carts with his discharges instead of discharging. The thing is, he didn't use to do it. It seemed to have coincided with my reconfiguring the carts in order to better facilitate their loading. For 13 years the carts had been lined up in a row across the back of an alcove with metal shelf units for walls. Only the outside of the carts on each end was accessible to place books on without shoving at least one other (usually two) aside. It took me two years, but I finally realized it didn't have to be that way. I visualized the new configuration for a couple of months, until, one morning last fall, I made it real. I arranged all carts equidistant from each other in that alcove by pointing two out from each side wall and one from the center of the back wall. Suddenly, there was room enough to walk between all the carts. I hadn't warned or asked permission of anyone, but everyone seemed to like it--except Scott. For a couple of weeks I'd return from shelving or come in in the morning to find the carts de-configured to the original arrangement. I thought it was Rebecca who was resistant and asked her. She said she had no problem with it, but that Scott blew up at her as she sorted a cart--"Who did this? Put it back now!" This from a guy who'd just as soon not have the responsibility of authority over anyone. That's when it seemed he stopped putting the books on the carts. Anyway, Julie fired off an email to Tara today complaining about it. It's not the first time, so I don't think anything will change, since Tara doesn't confront anyone but sends out a general email to all circ staff that's really meant for one person, stating "we" have a problem with such-and-such and let's all try to do better--that kind of thing.

On the median on Knotts was a twenty-foot trail of bumper pieces and hubcaps. In the middle of all the plastic and styrofoam lay a duck, flat, dead, dirty and bloody.

Accountability

Told Tara about the fiction cart going out before the heavier ones (happened again--Beth--yesterday), and she decided to prioritize the carts with taped-on numbers. I asked to be in charge of it, but she said she didn't want the other associates to feel I was bossing them around and begin to resent me. Me, either. I acquiesced. Now, if we can just trust everyone not to switch the numbers to suit themselves. I'm concerned with Rebecca, who is always looking for the loophole.

While Julie was vacationing on the bookmobile and Tara was dandling preschoolers at storytime, I spoke on the phone with someone who identified herself first as Tara's, then Julie's, friend. By the time she actually told me her name it was unnecessary, for she'd already told me the story of how she'd just been to Gayton, where they didn't have a copy of Jonathan Kellerman's latest but had told her we did, and could I please hold a copy for her. We did, and I did. Bonnie asked me my name. I told her. I think I'm on her list now--at least until she asks me to recommend something to her.

Mr. Spry was in Tuesday, picking up material for his latest interests, painting and cowboys. He said, apropos of nothing, as a joke that can't wait to be told, "When you're out back working on the deck and your pants split and the lady next door is watching, you know you've still got it." "Maybe," I told him, "she's watching a train wreck. A caboose on the loose." He liked that, got a laugh out of him. Tara, too. Mr. Spry left us with his trademark fake fart and even faker apology.

Disappointed I didn't see any real lookers today. On such a warm day I'd hoped to see some skin.

On the way home saw a hawk in its nest and a beaver, neither more than twenty feet off Gaskins. No telling which construction site forced them so close to the menace.

Fees, Bees, Peeps, and Two-and-a-Half or Four Celebrities

The usual heavy Monday, though kind of light in the weekend bookdrop. Not a usual day, though: Two cards left behind at computers; while I was on the desk I dragged Scott out to do two lost books and a damaged book, and I got Tara out to deal with a lady who swore she returned her 18 books on time despite the computer's (and Tara's and my) insistence that they'd been turned in three days late. The moment Tara cancelled her fine she said she'd pay it.

Talked to the county spelling bee champ's father. His son didn't make it out of the first round of the regionals. "All those kids were from middle school," he told me. I asked him how long the county bee went on--I having left somewhere around the tenth tiebreaker between the last two--and he said it went to about 25 rounds, when his son spelled "champion" and another word of similar difficulty. When I told him those words seemed pretty easy compared to the ones they were missing when I left, he said they had to finally dumb it down so someone might actually win. (Those weren't his words, just my blunt interpretation.)

Mr. Peeps was in today. His polo shirt was pink today. Friday it was yellow, and Thursday orange. A woman told me she started to go in the bathroom looking for her daughter when a man came out. She had been startled but amused, figuring it to be an honest mistake. I asked her what he was wearing, and she said he was balding (okay, so he wasn't wearing much hair) but didn't say anything about his clothes. I didn't tell her why I asked. I'm sure she knew generally, but I wasn't going to let her know there was a guy of questionable moral rectitude wandering around the library. Last Monday, I was passing the adult non-fiction on my way to the audio books, my curiosity pointing my eyes down each aisle, when they were briefly and discreetly arrested by long legs falling to the floor from a short pleated skirt. I couldn't see a face behind the dark curtain of straight hair shielding her profile, but the rest of her made me wonder if she was old enough for me to be looking at the way I was. But, like I said, I was discreet--not so much as a hitch in my gait as I moved along. In the next aisle, Mr. Peeps had already resolved what pangs of conscience he may have had regarding the same issue. On his knees, a stack of books beside him, Mr. Peeps craned forward, head nearly in the foot-wide gap he'd created, chin just about resting on the partially emptied second shelf from the floor (mid-940's, I checked later). For a moment, after I'd seen her then just spied him, I saw them both, the stacks between. The scene sickened and saddened me at the instant of recognition. My first thought was just to chase him away, make him uncomfortable. All I really had to do was make eye contact. His paranoia usually finds the eyes watching him, and I'm always watching him, and I'm never the first to break eye contact, which is always brief. I'm convinced his paranoia has convinced him that I'm on to him. Maybe I've just motivated him to take greater precautions. I did nothing.

Celebrity sightings: Marg Helgenberger was back in today. She came to the desk when Beth was up. (She never comes to see me! Maybe I give off a Mr. Peeps vibe since I have a hard time not looking at her) Georgette from Mary Tyler Moore was also in, as was a Garrison Keillor/Roger Ebert hybrid (runs on ethanol and solar).

Watched the least-laden cart (fiction) go out in the morning with Beth behind it. Disappointed that she made a personal decision on a professional matter.

Happy Whatever

You know what Easter means to me? It means not going to church but walking the gauntlet, coffee mug in hand, of the block of Gasten with the Baptists coming out on one end and the Catholics going in on the other, on my way to Starbucks. It means smirking at the tightly wound matrons with lacquered hair and not pitying the kids--boys in their strangling ties, girls in their formless bags of drapery-patterned dresses hanging on formless wraithin bodies--though they plead with envious, despairing eyes to be rescued from the soul-sucking indoctrination. Easter means sipping Papua on the way back, smelling the wiegela, and smirking from the other side of my mouth at the continuing procession of fools. Easter means not going to the "parade" downtown with all the hats and dogs and dogs with hats, and doing what the hell I want and not speaking to anyone if I don't want to. (I don't want to.) Easter means another pagan holiday co-opted by Christianity. It means it's Sunday, that's all.

11

11 fascinates me lately--at least its multiples. The Lost Chart is 352 pages. By the time I picked it up at the library I had 32 days to read it--11 pages a day. 352: 3 plus 2 equals the 5 in the middle, and 3-2, 32, the time I have to read the book. Great fun until I get to 209. 2 plus 9 does not equal zero, and 29 times 11 does not equal 209. The interruption in the pattern is annoying. At 209 I have to subtract 11 from the sum of the two end numerals to equal the middle numeral. The original pattern resumes with the next multiple, 220, but is interrupted again by the first two multiples over 300, and again by the first three multiples over 400, and so on, until there's only one multiple of 11 betwen 900 and 1000 to which the first pattern applies. Let's not even talk about it after that. Decent number, 11, but it's not up to my standards.