“What's the difference?” He says
“The difference is that mouthwash is for cleaning your teeth. Plus, you might want to celebrate something. Then maybe you’ll drink something other than mouthwash”
“What am I gonna celebrate?” He asks, not looking at me
“How about your new backpack... That is something to celebrate”
“Drug store opens before the liquor store” he says
“Well, then use the backpack to carry the bottles of mouthwash from the drug store”
“If I walk into the drug store with a backpack, they will think I’m gonna steal something”
“I’m surprised they would think that about a person with such great dental hygiene” I say
“What?”
“Nothing. It was a bad joke. Anyway, enjoy the backpack. Please tell Ben that someone came by looking for him ok?”
“I told you. No.” The man says
Then, I tell him goodbye, but he doesn’t say anything, so I leave and start walking home. On the way, a sad looking prostitute wearing shorts and a thick winter coat tries to make a joke about the box with Ben’s clay head in it, and it somehow being an engagement ring for her. I laugh but try to walk by her as quickly as possible. She probably doesn’t remember, but last year, I tried to give her ten dollars when she propositioned me on the street. When she finally understood that I was just offering the money without an expectation of any services, she got in a really animated argument with me where she claimed I was a cop, and nothing I said could persuade her that randomly giving money to a prostitute would be an extraordinary misuse of police funds. In the end, she crumpled the ten dollar bill into a ball and threw it at me, but I walked away without picking it up.
When I get back to my apartment, I am met with a horrible smell like maybe a mouse died behind one of the walls. The maintenance guys have been using poison again, so it would stand to reason that that is the likely culprit. Either way, I am too tired to check and I fall into bed, and in a few minutes am totally asleep. At midnight, I am woken from an incredibly bizarre dream where I am in some sort of large animal pen, and my job is to occupy the lions while Coats is in a business meeting. I try to fall back to sleep, but I can’t. So, I decide to try to look around for the source of the horrible smell. I check behind the radiator, but there is nothing there but a clump of dust. Then, I look behind the refrigerator and stove, and in all of the cabinets. I end up cleaning quite bit in the process, but I still don’t find the mouse. So I take everything out of all of my drawers, and everything out of my closet, but there is no mouse. So then I move the bed. Underneath my bed, is a huge cache of magazines that I had picked up from outside of the used bookstore. They were throwing them away, so I took all of them. It was six boxes, and it took me that many trips to get them home since I had already sold my car. But I have never taken the opportunity to read any of them, so I decide to throw them all away. I take each box out to the dumpster, but when I get back from the last trip, I can still smell the decay. So I throw more things away, but still the smell persists.
Then, as I am emptying my normal trash can, I find the source of the smell. Underneath the can liner, there is the body of a tiny dead mouse. Somehow, it had managed to get itself between the bag and the can, and had died at the bottom. For some reason, the dead mouse made me incredibly depressed. It had probably died of dehydration, or starvation, or fear, but whatever the case, it was a horrible way to die: In the bottom of an inescapable can. Looking at its tiny body, and its soft grey fur, I feel bad about throwing it into the dumpsters. I consider finding a place for a proper burial, but the only peaceful patches of grass are in the park, and at this time of night, I would probably be arrested as a weirdo if I was caught burying a mouse. Then, I remember the cats that the old lady was feeding behind the noodle shop. One of the cats would probably like to eat the mouse, so I wrap it in a paper towel and put it into the refrigerator.
Then, I try to sleep for a while, but I can’t. At 5:30 I get up, and have another glass of milk and an apple and take a shower. Then I take a long time shaving. William Burroughs said that shaving was one of the things that kept him sane, and I am inclined to agree. Feeling tired but fresh, I collect my things, the head for Ben, and the little mouse in the paper towel, into one of those cloth grocery bags and start walking towards the noodle shop. When I get there, the paper plates from yesterday are empty of their cat food, and the woman has not been there to replenish it yet. I crouch down a little and try to make a noise to call the cats. I had a dog when I was a kid, not a cat, so I don’t really have a good idea of what it takes to call a cat, but I make that little hissing noise that people sometimes do. No cats come. About twenty minutes later, the back door of the noodle shop opens and the old woman starts to come out, but when she sees me, she stops right away.
“Don’t be afraid” I say. “I’m just here to feed the cats”
She looks at me suspiciously for a moment, and sort of holds the door in front of her body. So, I smile, and try my best to look totally non-threatening. I must have convinced her because then, she steps out from inside the shop with a bag of cat food in her hand. She fills the plates without looking at me, so I say, “How do you get the cats to come out?”
“You don’t. Cats come and go when they want to” she says
“Sounds like a nice life” I say
“Don’t I know it. What do you have there?” She asks, gesturing to the paper towel in my hand.
“A mouse. It died in my apartment” I hold the mouse out to her, but she doesn’t look at it very closely
“Oh, honey, I don’t think they are going to eat that mouse”
“Why not? I thought cats eat mice”
“Live mice normally. “ She says
“I just felt so bad. The poor thing got trapped in the bottom of my trash can…I couldn’t get out. It was dead when I found it. If it was alive, I would have just let it go”
She gently reaches out and takes the mouse from my hand. Then, she takes a couple of steps towards the dumpster, lifts the lid, and drops the mouse inside.
“There.” She says
“Dust to dust”
“That’s right. Dust to dust. You can help me put some food on these plates if you want” She says, and so I do. It only takes a few minutes, and then we are done. After that, I stand there for a minute trying to think of something to say, but she speaks first,
“I take care of feeding all of the cats back here. I don’t really need a lot of help, but I bet there are some stray cats near where you live that you can feed”
“I haven’t seen any. “ I say
“I’m sure there are some”
“I saw you putting out food here yesterday”
“Yep, and I do it every day. I never miss a day, even Christmas. You don’t have to worry about these cats” she says
“Are you saying I need to find my own cats?”
“If you want to feed some cats, yes. I feed these cats. And if you are going to feed some cats, you should buy some regular cat food because most cats don’t eat dead mice”
“I don’t know a lot about cats” I say
“Well, now you know that they don’t eat a lot of dead mice, and you also know that I feed the cats that eat here, and these cats aren’t hungry, so you don’t have to worry about these cats anymore. Do you understand?” She says
“Ok. I understand. I will look for my own cats. “I say
“Good idea, because I don’t really need any help with these ones”
“Thank you for letting me help you.” I say
“Ok” she says. “But I don’t need any more help, ok? My husband and son live right upstairs, they help me carry the cat food, and they will look after the cats if I can’t, ok?”
“Ok. Well, thank you for today, at least” I say, and I start walking off towards the library. It was nice of her to let me feed the cats, but I understand, she was afraid of me. That is how people have to be, afraid. A bartender. … I was that once. For a bunch of years actually, and it was mostly good because people are mostly good. The ones who came in the afternoons were the best, honest people without a lot of other hobbies who liked something that made their bellies warm and a little bit of companionship. Then there were the kids, who are always accidentally cruel and vain, and some of them will grow out of it and some of them won’t, but there was one young guy: A nice kid, handsome, polite, but a little bit slow. I think he lived with his parents somewhere else past Kittanning.
He would come into town of Friday nights and hang around the bar. He used to challenge me to arm wrestling matches and tell me about his dad and sister, and you could tell that somebody loved him and took good care of him and probably worried that he wanted to come into town on the weekends, but they trusted him. But he was sweet and kind and trusting, and his family probably figured because they were blessed enough to share life with someone who was that way by nature, that other people were that way too. So he came into town, and made friends with people who weren’t that way. People who needed him to pay for every tab, who secretly laughed at him, who could teach him about the ugly way that it is sometimes with friendship, and that is why I have to find my own cats, because as bad things go, the kid at the bar doesn’t even rank.
So, I walk up to the library. It is closed, and the picnic benches are empty. I look around cautiously for Coats, but he is nowhere to be seen. So, I sit for a while and think. I still can’t get past the mouse for some reason, I keep imagining the terror it must have felt looking up at the un-scalable walls of plastic. Then I realize that there is a possibility that the weight of the trash bag may have suffocated it, which gives me some measure of comfort. The desperation is what is most intolerable. The library opens, and I return to the same table I sat at yesterday. Seeking a companion in my guilt over the death of the mouse, I ignore the Milosz, in favor Hrabal. I am nearly finished with the little book by the time Ben comes in. He is perspiring heavily and carrying two large bags. He sits down across from me, and offers me his hand. I shake it, and he looks at me closely in his sincere way and says, “You were sleeping yesterday”
“I know. I was up late the night before…you could have woken me.” I say
“I didn’t want you to be mad" He says, as he sits down and arranges his bags.
“Ben, I wouldn’t have been mad. I was here waiting for you.”
“You don’t know if you would have been mad or not. Were you mad when you woke up?” He asks
“No, not really. Surprised that I feel asleep in the library, actually”
“Well, then you probably wouldn’t have been mad. They just let you sleep here, huh?” He asks, as opens a can of contraband Coca Cola
“No, a guard woke me up after a couple of hours” I say
“They wouldn’t let me sleep here even for a minute. I know it” He says
“They might. You don’t know that”
He takes a long drink “I know it. They are always coming down on me here”
“I think it is mostly because you aren’t supposed to drink in here” I say
“I need to. I am so tired all the time. Without this...” He says holding up the can “I’d be passed out like you were yesterday”
We sit in silence for a minute, and I take out the little box with the clay head in it. I hand it to Ben.
“What is this?” He asks
“It is what I promised. A replacement for your clay head”
He slowly unties the ribbon and lifts the lid off of the Styrofoam box.
“This is…”
“It is a little bit more elaborate than the last one” I say
“Where did you get it?”
“I made it. I made it for you, Ben. “
He gently touches the face.
“It has hair”
“And eyelashes, and eyebrows. The eyes are from a taxidermy supply company”
He looks at the head for a few moments, stroking the hair with his pinky, and then he very delicately closes the box and re-ties the ribbon. He reaches out and touches my arm for a moment, and then jerks away abruptly.
“I almost forgot” He says, too loudly. Then he leans over and rummages through his bag and removes a rumpled navy backpack. “This is yours, right?”
I take the bag from him. It is damp. I bring it to my nose and smell it. It smells strongly of mint.
“I think my neighbor stole it from you” Ben says
I hold the bag, and gently unzip it. As I look inside, Ben says “It is yours, right? I was watching him. It looks just like yours. Even that stain on the small pocket. “
“It is…or it was”
“I knew it...I knew it!” He said triumphantly “He steals. He always complains about my radio too”
I look down at the damp bag in my hands “how did you get it, Ben?”
“I took it from him. I saw him with it; I was picking up my prescription…. He was trying to put a bottle of mouthwash in it. I told the people at the store, and they tried to stop him. The lid came of the bottle. That’s how it got wet…they kicked him out. Told him never to come back.”
“But how did you get it, Ben?” I ask
“He was sitting outside the store. It was just at his feet, I picked it up.”
“But you didn’t hurt him, right?” I ask
“What? No! I didn’t hurt him”
We sit in silence for a while, and I read a little more of my book. Then I say, “Where do you think he’ll get his mouthwash now?”
“Anywhere. They have mouthwash everywhere.” Ben says
“I guess you’re right.” I say
“Are you mad at me?”
“No, Ben. I’m not mad at you.”
“You seem mad”
“Do you like the head?” I ask
He takes the box out of his bag, and slowly goes through the whole process of unwrapping it again. He gently lifts the lid off, and looks at the face. “It is the greatest present I ever got.”
“Thank you, Ben. It means a lot to hear you say that.” I say
“You never said anything about that bag.”
“Thank you for thinking of me, Ben. But you didn’t need to take it” I say
“So, you are mad” He says looking dejectedly at the table
‘No. no, I’m not mad at all, Ben. I just don’t want you to get in trouble”
“But you are my friend” He says
“I am your friend, and as your friend, I want you to be careful”
“I’m sorry”
“Ben, don’t be sorry. You were trying to be kind, but maybe I gave him the bag”
“But you didn’t”
“Maybe I did” I say
“You give things to me. You gave me this face.” He said, holding up the box
“And I could have given something different to your neighbor, but don’t worry about it. I am not mad. I just want you to be careful. People can misunderstand things.”
“Ok...fine. Do you want to talk a walk?” He asks
“I think I am going to read for a while”
He gets out of his chair and stands there looking at me. So I say, “You are going for a walk carrying all of that stuff?”
“It's not so bad, I carried it all here.” He says
“You can use my backpack if you want” I say
“Ok”
I watch as Ben transfers the contents of one of his bags into the backpack. Then he knocks his hairy knuckles against the desk as a way of saying goodbye and walks off.
I sit and read for a little while. Then, a man in a dark sport coat and a brown plaid shirt comes and sits down across from me.
“Hello” I say
“Hello, I am Brian Folz, I am one of the Assistant Directors here, and I was wondering if I might speak to you for a moment?”
“Sure, ok” I say
“Do you mind coming down to my office? I don’t want to interrupt any of the other patrons”
I look around, and don’t notice any other patrons but agree to follow Brian Folz down to his office anyway. Once there, he offers me a glass of water, but I decline. Then, I take a seat in one of the two shabby chairs that are across from his narrow wooden desk.
“Looking for some book recommendations?” I suggest, smiling
Brian Folz takes off his plastic glasses and cleans the nose piece with a small grey cloth. “Um, no. I was actually hoping to talk to you about a somewhat different matter.”
“A different matter?” I ask
“This gentleman, Ben…he is a friend of yours?” He begins, tentatively
“Yeah. He is a friend of mine”
“…and I assume you are aware that he is quite dangerous”
“I don’t think he is dangerous. He just gets confused. He occasionally has some problems separating fantasy from reality, but who doesn’t really? It's… all a matter of degree”
“We have had serious problems with him. In fact, one of our best staff members threatened to resign because of him”
“You mean about the can thing? I was here for that. That was overblown” I say
“I know you were here then. I saw you on the surveillance tapes”
“Well, then you saw how it happened. “ I say “You can’t honestly say that you felt that someone’s safety was at risk”
“It is all very subjective. Perhaps you weren’t afraid, but some of our staff certainly were” Brain Folz says
“I’m sorry to hear that, but I’m still not sure…”
“I had a discussion with Mr. Coats. He tells me that you have fashioned yourself as a sort of Svengali to some of our patrons with more troublesome mental disturbances”
“Mister Coats?” I say
“Oh yes. He has been quite helpful. As I’m sure you were aware, we had a problem with some individuals meeting for liaisons in the stacks”
“I wasn’t aware” I say
“Oh yes, it was quite a problem. Mr. Coats helped us identify some of the problematic actors, and we were able to work with the authorities to find a solution”
“A solution?” I ask
“Yes, to stop the people from meeting for sex”
“And now Coats is suggesting that I…”
“In fact, Mr. Coats has suggested something a bit more unusual. “Brian Folz says
“What exactly is he suggesting?”
“That you are using this building as a base of operations to meet some of our more troubled patrons and encourage them to act negatively through unusual methods of psychological control”
“Are you even listening to yourself right now? Are you hearing the words you are saying? ‘unusual methods of psychological control’ is that a real thing?”
“I thought it was quite odd myself, and would have continued to think so, if I hadn’t just seen exactly what Mr. Coats described on the surveillance camera”
“Which was what?” I ask
“You… giving Ben a small box containing a head, and him providing you with a empty knapsack that was clearly wet with an unknown substance.”
“The substance is only unknown because you did not ask what it is” I say
“What is it, sir?” Brian Folz asks
“Mouthwash.”
“Mouthwash?”
“Yes, the rinse a person uses after they brush their teeth. It is really quite a common product...”
“…should I bother to ask what the significance of a mouthwash covered knapsack is?”
“Not if you want an answer that will satisfy your line of questioning you shouldn’t, but if you really want to know, it was covered in mouthwash because it became so during an effort to thwart a retail burglary”
“I see” says Brian Folz, and he picks up a pen and begins to make a note in a yellow pad
“What are you writing?”
“I am documenting what you told me. Mr?”
“Luke. You can call me Luke.”
“Well, Luke. As I said, Mr. Coats mentioned that you are the person that has been vandalizing the library with these bizarre clay totems, and we of course, reserved judgment on that matter but the proof was on the video. You gave one to Ben. We all watched it.”
“I’m not sure I would call it vandalism” I say
“I’m sure you wouldn’t, and perhaps it isn’t, but at best, it is an unusual form of littering. “
“This really seems this is outside of the boundaries of what would be included in the job description of an Assistant Library Director” I say
“I assure you that it isn’t. This is a public building, and as stewards of this public asset, we have a responsibility to ensure a safe and welcoming environment for all of our patrons. Part of the nature of our work, is that we need to make accommodations for the members of our community who have issues related to their physical and mental health. Further, if we had a patron who was preying on our other patrons with some sort of financial scam, I can assure you that we would take some responsibility on that front as well.”
“So, what you are saying is, I can’t bring any more clay heads to the library. Ok. Fine. You could have just said that directly, and we could be done” I say
“If I was confident that was the extent of it, yes. But I also feel a personal responsibility to consider what is best for Ben and our other at risk patrons.” Brian Folz says
“At risk? You were just telling me that your staff felt like they were the ones at risk”
“Sadly, things aren’t always so clear.” Brian Folz says
“So then what, Mr. Folz? You are going to make a citizen’s arrest for the crime of giving a small handmade gift to a schizophrenic?”
Brian Folz spun around in his chair and loudly opened a file cabinet. With his back towards me, he said “When we had the previous incident, I had extensive discussions with Ben’s case worker. We worked together to find a solution that would be best for Ben, and that would allow him to continue to enjoy the library as, in the view of his caseworker, his access to the information housed here is a key part of his therapeutic process.”
“Ok...” I say
“And, as such” Brian Folz continued, “I feel an obligation to inform her that Ben may have encountered a person who is preying on his weakness”
“You can’t be serious”
“Oh, I am quite serious, sir”
“First of all, you can stop calling me ‘sir’. And second, do you think that the best way to respond to an individual who has a perception that there is a vast evil conspiracy out to get him, is to construct a vast evil conspiracy out of whole cloth?”
“You seem to have given this some thought, Luke.” Says Brian Folz
“I really haven’t.”
“Well, my recommendation is that you do so, and I’m saying this personally, and not in any authoritative capacity, but people like Ben are not to be manipulated. “
“So, are you banning me from the library?” I ask
“No. I actually don’t have the authority to do that. “
“Do you have the authority to prevent me from meeting my friends here?” I ask
“No, I don’t have that authority either.” He says
“So, then this is a conversation to inform me that, in your perfect world, you would have some authority that you do not?”
“No. This is a conversation to inform you that I have created a record of your actions and behavior, and that we may have identified you as a vandal who has disturbed library property, and...”
“’Disturbed’ library property, Mr. Folz? “
“I plan to record the specifics in the file”
I stand up, and walk towards the door. Pausing before I leave, I say, “Do you want me to make you one of the heads, is that it? I can make you one if you want.”
“No. I would also recommend that you confine your activities here to normal usage of the library facilities. Please consider this a formal warning, any further issues and we will take the steps necessary to issue a ban from this building”
“I thought you didn’t have the authority” I say
“We are in communication with the authorities, sir” Brian Folz says as I walk out the door.
After I left Brian Folz’s office, I went down to the basement to try to find Coats. He is there, in his normal wing chair reading a hardback Louis L’Amour book, I watch him for a few minutes, but decide against saying anything. I’m tired of being in the library anyway. I consider going to the museum, but I figured it would probably best to avoid any additional bizarre intera