One
It was a quiet day in the Clob Public Library. Almost every day had become a quiet day in the library. I sat behind the checkout counter reading Kobo Abe’s The Box Man and listening to Miles Davis’s In a Silent Way through ear buds. The library was large but most of the shelves were empty. Currently, the Clob Public Library boasted only seventeen titles. Whatever readers the city had left checked out the rest of them long ago and forgot to return them or, figuring they would never be caught, simply refused to return them. Our country had spread itself very thin and while most of the globe was now under our watch, things were falling apart on the home front. Soldiers were stationed in every city and town but funding for something as useless and unprofitable as libraries fell by the wayside.
Earlier, a haggard man had blown in through the front doors and asked, “What do you guys do here?”
“ We’re a library,” I answered.
“ What’s that?”
“ We loan books.”
He stood there for a moment, wondering if this was something he would be interested in. He looked at the mostly barren surroundings, nodded to a voice in his head, offered a conciliatory wave, and left.
My boss, Clovis Mapes, barreled out of his office. He sat in there all day and watched the news on a small television. The news mostly covered our country’s various wars and Mapes watched them as fervently as most men watched sports. Of course, war had become something of a national sport.
“ Fuck yes!” he shouted, pumping his fist in the air.
I couldn’t hear him over the music.
“ What’s that?” I pulled the bud out of my left ear.
“ We just beat the holy fuck out of France!” He pumped his arm again. Sweat stains blossomed the pits of his Hawaiian shirt. I wasn’t sure how he became the head of a library. Maybe he gained the position by force.
“ Is that good?”
“ Is that good? Of course it’s good! It’s a victory! Victory is always good, Saul! Those frogs have had it coming for years. For like ever, if you ask me. Stand up! Stand up! Let’s sing the fucking Everything Anthem!”
“ That’s okay. I’m… okay.”
“ Stop acting like a fucking goddamn terrorist, Saul. Stand the fuck up.”
He approached me and grabbed my shirt, hoisting me up out of the chair. He began singing the Everything Anthem as loudly as he possibly could. I thought it was kind of embarrassing. Actually, I guess it would have only been embarrassing if there was anyone else in the library, which there definitely was not. I didn’t even know the words so I just mouthed along. I’m sure he couldn’t hear me over the blaring of his own voice.
He got tired of singing about halfway through and stopped. He looked down at the floor and said, “Jesus Christ, Saul, how fucking big are your feet!”
“ I don’t… I’m not…”
“ What size shoes are those?”
“ A size sixteen, I believe.”
“ Sixteen! You’re not even as tall as me. Let’s stand back to back.”
“ We just did this last week. You were taller.”
“ Come on. Let’s do it! No fucking way your feet were that big last week.”
I slumped my shoulders and turned around. I didn’t know how much longer I was going to be able to keep coming in here. Collecting unemployment like just about everyone else would have to be better than this.
“ Stand up straight or it don’t work!”
I stood up as straight as I ever did.
He placed the palm of his hand on the bald top of my head and ran it along until it met the back of his head.
“ I’m a good inch taller,” he said. “Jesus, your dick must be huge! Let’s see it.” He reached for the button of his khaki pants, ready to drop them and compare.
“ I don’t think that’s appropriate, Mr. Mapes. I agreed to sing the Anthem with you so you wouldn’t think I was unpatriotic, but I will not show you my genitalia.”
“ No fun!”
He buttoned his pants and stormed back into his office, slamming
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