I was at the welcome station. Everything I needed was there. Masks. Social distancing calipers. Cleaning checklist. A red sharpie.
"Your mask looks weird," a little old lady said. She peered into the abyss that was my face. "Is that a picture of you on it?"
"No," I said. "It's Allen Funt. Big, big Allen Funt fan."
I beeped the counter as people came streaming into the library, imperiling our lives and pawing at our gardening books and 300s. I mean, what the fuck. Whose idea was it to let people come unimpeded into a library??
A little old lady came in. She puckered. "Is that you on your mask, sonny?"
I sighed. "No, it's a city councilman I know in Duluth. Big, big fan."
Another little old lady came over. "Green or purple," Todd said.
"What?"
"Make sure you use the green or purple library cards. Be a rebel, Gee Jo. Don't use the other library cards. Those are for sinners."
"Uh, okay."
Someone came up to check out a pile of DVDs.
"Still rocking the DVD player, huh?" Todd said.
The customer stared maskly. "Rocking...?"
Todd slapped the DVDs out of the man's arms. "Get out."
"What?"
"GET OUT! OUT!!"
The man ran for his life.
As the supervisor, I felt I needed to say something of a supervisory nature. "Ah, I believe the line is, 'Thank you, come again.'"
"Fuck that," Todd said. He did a little hoppity-hop. "Gotta pee. Back in a sec. Just hope I get it all in."
"In...?"
"The toilet."
"Right. Your cock. And how torn up it is with piercings, and such. But I thought you sat down to pee?"
Todd made a face of infinite disgust that burned radioactively through his mask. "And sit on the toilet here? The toilet you sit on?! Fuck no. Barf."
"May your aim be true."
Another little old lady came over. "I'm so glad you didn't bow to the cancel culture people and get rid of your Dr. Seuss books."
It was Cindy (EDIT!!) Scone. She wore a fey bowler on her waxen crypt hair.
"Yes," I said. "But we did take out all the Dr. Spock books. Just to be safe."
Cindy Fuckin' Scone emitted a weak little cough. "Oh!" Her watery gypsy eyes blinked in fear. "That's just allergies. Yes. Allergies."
To recap: we were both fully vaccinated, we were both wearing masks, we were twenty-seven versts apart, and a sneeze guard towered between us the size of the Titanic iceberg. So naturally I summoned security.
"Seize her," I said.
Two Federal Quarantine Stormtroopers came over.
"Ossifer?" Cindy said, her bowler askew.
"'Tis me distinct displeasure to inform you, ma'am, that ye are in violation of the pandemic, don't you know, begorrah."
They held her down and, after grabbing the red sharpie and drawing a spot on Cindy's bony crypt torso, slammed a syringe into her screaming body ha ha.
"That's one way to get the booster," I said with zero wit.
"Oh, there's nothing in the syringe," one of the uniformed guards informed me.
They led her limply away. She was 74.
"She does not prod the boning experience in me," I said to the vestibule. "If only someone were here to savor my quips."
Pat came in, looking savory. "Hey! I'm just here to annoy Drew. Is he in, by chance?"
"No. He hasn't been in a library since the one in Alexandria suffered a heat wave." I looked around the vestibule. "Mm? Mm?"
"I just talked to my State Farm insurance agent," Pat said. "He accused me of committing fraud because I drive here but want to karate chop a parking spot in Missoula. Also, I just went to the bank to open an account. I gave the lady one thousand dollars and she asked if the money had been stolen."
He was 47.
Once security limply led Pat away (to the cheers of Drew), a little old man came into the vestibule. He wore blue velvet gloves. But this didn't stop him from pausing to squirt sanitizer on his hands. Then he stopped to squirt sanitizer at a station further in. Then at the elevator he... squirted sanitizer on his gloved hands. Just as he got in the elevator, someone power coughed in his face, and he dropped dead. See? Who says the pandemic can't be unfunny?
He was 88.
Jeff came in. He had a new version of his screenplay Causo y Effecto finished, now just wanting to have it animated and voiced by Harry Connick Jr. He was wrapped in a neck gaiter, his bushy white eyebrows moving as he boasted with tumeric gusts about his stock portfolio. As he went on, I put the STOP chalk easel in front of him.
"Sorry," I said. "We've hit our capacity. Come back some other day."
Puzzled by the causo and effecto of it all, Jeff left. At last I was afforded some peace. I yawned. Where was everyone? Finally, Chambers relieved me at the welcome desk. He took up the red sharpie, puzzled.
"What's this for?"
I smiled. "Let's just say it's for cracking the sternums of crazy old women. Heh heh."
"Huh?"
I looked around the vestibule. Todd wasn't laughing. His jeans were piebald with pee.
"I missed," he said. His beard was sad.
"Chambers out."
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