In my junior year, I began work at the Hackettstown Library. An interesting fact about this building: it is the nearest thing to dust that can still be called a solid. It was built by the Works Progress Administration in 1935, out of what I can only assume were tinker toys and petrified wood. Being a library, it is usually completely devoid of conversation. However, the void left by the absence of human speech is filled with multitude of other sounds. The lights buzz viciously, the heater grumbles menacingly, you can’t breathe without causing something to creak, and the walls themselves seem to gasp as they emit some unholy gas. This is the perfect place for someone who’s last job was at a Haunted House.

The building, though, is nothing compared to the patrons that frequent it. The frantic nanny who scoops up however many hundreds of children’s books she can hold before scurrying out without her card. The lonely college student who sits at the table reading the Times until we close. The registered sex offender who’s afraid to register for a card, and just piddles on Microsoft Word all day. The wide-eyed Pakistani man who tries furiously to barter for his books, unwilling to believe that they are to be borrowed for free.

“No, Mr. Hasaan, I wouldn’t have much use for a goat. Yes, I’m sure it’s a very nice goat.”

These are people you’re not exposed to in everyday life, the square pegs. These are the people who are attracted to public libraries. If I encountered these oddities in any other setting, I would probably treat them like most people treat a roadside attraction: glance in momentary interest, and then write it off as not worth the effort.

“No, Mr. Hasaan, I’m sure your daughter is very lovely. I’m just not sure I want to get married just yet.”

But in this setting, in this isolated, creaky wooden box, what else is there to do? There is an alternative, I suppose: read.

Day to day life in the 1800’s. The Idiot’s Guide to Postpartum Depression. You read the nearest book, regardless of the subject. How Salt is Made. The Bhagavad Gita. Ten Biographies of Philo Farnsworth. I can tell you how to take apart a fuel injector, or how to make home-made glaze for pottery. I can tell you what Neville Chamberlain’s favorite food was. There is no better way to acquire a gangly, sprawling spread of knowledge than to read the books that no one checks out. Besides, perhaps, reading only the books that people check out.

By this I mean walking over to the pile of recently returned items, the contents of which are controlled entirely by the interests of 100 different people at any time, and picking a book at random. If someone was remodeling their kitchen, you get to learn about tiling and caulking. If somebody has lost a loved one, you’ll find “Coping with Personal Loss”. Maybe some of the letters on the first page are pushed up into soft little bubbles, warped by teardrops. Maybe they left a bookmark in the chapter on “Survivor’s Guilt”.

It’s this voyeuristic quality of my job that I enjoy most. The relationship between a librarian and his patrons is an intimate one. When a thirty-something woman stumbles in, hair plastered to her face with rain-water or tears, and drops a pile of books on the table, I know her story. She’s returning “A Freudian Primer,” “Roadmap to the Human Brain” and “How to Bounce Back: An Unemployment Guide.” This one’s a struggling student. Also available to me are the titles she’s checked out before, her street address, phone number, e-mail address, and various other information. Mine is a privileged position.

So to what use do I put this power? Sure, I could snigger covertly about the old woman who returns “Men’s Health” magazine with full page photos torn out, or break the sacred librarian’s code by outing guys in my school as Twilight fans. And alright, yes I have. But I also want to be a part of them. I want to extend a finger and poke their lives.

So when the anonymous girl checks out an Ellen Hopkins book stuffed with addiction pamphlets, maybe I slip in the number of a local rehab center that helped out a good friend of mine.

When the bullies in the Juvenile room steal the introverted 3rd grader’s time travel books, maybe I type out a “mission from the future”, print it out and slip it in his backpack.

Or when the solitary, silent Mr. Gibbs picks up his tenth mystery novel this week, maybe I’ve scrawled something on the back page like “Gazebo, Monday, 4 PM.” Maybe those lonely eyes of his sweep over it at the same time that the widow with the British accent, who checks out all the same authors, sees the one I wrote for her.

Maybe when I see that the 19 year old father racked up a fifty dollar fine on a late Clifford DVD, I accidentally make it disappear.
And when the middle-aged Nazi guy checks out Apocalypse Now, maybe I accidentally gave him the disk for American History X.

Am I abusing my position then? No more than the psychologist who takes pleasure in listening to and directing their clients’ lives; a pleasure completely separate from professional interest. No more than the mailman who occasionally peeks into his loot, the darkroom technician who makes extra copies of the quirkiest photos for his own collection. The desire to observe a thing and perhaps prod it with a stick is not a flaw or sin, but a tendency of all humans.

The grunts of these things harmonize with the groans of the plumbing. The door squeaks in time with the little girl who spots a mouse. These people are a part of the building just as much as it is a part of them. Yes, it holds the knowledge and stories written by people before us, but the most important things it holds are the stories lived by those around us.

This was posted on May 11th, 2009 at 8:05 pm in the category Memoir.
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