The Incident Report by Martha Baillie Page A

weather, a plaid bow tie, and marks the ends of his sentences with a vigorous sniff that suggests the day is on probation, his judgment of it pending. His wife, who is considerably younger than he, a tall, austere woman, delivers him to us nearly every morning with perfunctory efficiency, then continues on her way. Her high heels click on the tiled floor of the library foyer. Her patrician bones—cheek, collar and wrist—where they press against her unblemished skin, appear worthy of admiration. At the end of the day she collects him.
    Though the patron in question makes every effort to appear obedient in his wife’s presence, in her absence he cannot hide the cunning look in his eye. He conceals candies in his pocket and jots down telephone numbers in his address book, numbers he dials while his wife is gone, using the pay phone in the library foyer.
    I suspect his wife knows he won’t live forever. Last winter he slipped on the ice and broke his leg in three separate places.

INCIDENT REPORT 117
    The time was 2:04 PM . An exceptionally long-limbed male patron, a regular with wiry white hair drawn back in a short ponytail, and an amused expression in his bright eyes, requested one of the daily newspapers that we keep behind the desk. He stood motionless as a stork, though not on one leg, and from his great height, unhurried, contemplated the circulation desk. He was wearing a paisley necktie that matched his frayed jacket surprisingly well. I complimented him upon his appearance.
    â€œAh, this, well, the wind was up this morning, and I thought of a scarf, but then that might have been a bit much in this weather, though it was too cold to wear my shirt open at the neck. So I put on this tie, which I’ve had for, oh, some thirty years, it can’t be true, but there it is, some thirty years. Do you know what they call this pattern? Paisley. And do you know why? It’s a wee place some fifteen kilometres to the west, and you can see it from Glasgow, but never mind. This old tie, it might be made in Scotland, I’m not sure. Let’s see now.”
    He twisted his tie so I could read the label. It was in fact made in Scotland.
    â€œThe jacket, of course, is old as well, but bearing up. And I’m willing to confess I found it. Quite a lovely blue, don’t you think?” He tossed me a flirtatious smile. “Oh, I don’t mind admitting, I do salvage a useful object here and there. Someone had thrown out this lovely jacket, and a pair of pants as well. The pants were not quite the same blue, and they didn’t last long. Big holes in the knees, I had to let them go. But the jacket is quite fine, holding up well, I believe. Quite nice, don’t you think?”
    He held out the lapels for me to admire, and playfully puffed up his bony chest, grinning with pleasure like a child at a party, but with a look of irony in his eyes.
    It was then that another patron, also a regular, came up to the desk. This man turned to the unsuspecting first patron and shouted, “She was my colleague, we were working at the same clinic when we met and I married her, and what a bitch she turned out to be.”
    The first patron nodded politely, ran his tongue along his upper teeth and listened while the second patron continued to pour out his anguish. “She climbed into bed with one of my patients. She’s been harassing me ever since, followed me here from Cochrane, can’t get rid of her, had a restraining order put on her. A real bitch.”
    I knew the second man’s stormy tale by heart. Over the past few months he’d mistaken numerousfemale patrons for his ex-wife, and each time he’d pointed at the woman and yelled, “Get her away from me.”
    I slipped away from the desk, leaving the two men to their conversation.
    When I returned some ten minutes later, both men were gone. But soon enough the lanky Scotsman reappeared. He cleared his throat and straightened his