Library Card

Disclaimer: This is an event that took place during a particularly angry time in my life. I’d also been reading a lot of Hunter S. Thompson at the time and channeled his leanings in both my lifestyle and writing. I understand that I’m the villain in this story, but it’s art. Sometimes art isn’t about the good guys.

I tried to get a library card a few weeks ago and instead got into an argument with an elderly librarian. She was a bitch. “Do you live in Davidson county?” she asked. Harmless. Unassuming. A fucking tiger acting like a kitten while she circles her prey. She wore glasses and a cardigan and a blouse and smelled like pink and talcum powder. I reeked of cigarettes and needed a shave but didn’t think anything of that because I was just getting a library card. It’s reading. The community supports every person’s right to read, even hungover, emaciated greasers with bloodshot eyes and sailor’s mouths like me.

“Yes, I live off White Avenue. I can give you the address.”

“Have you received mail there, or do you have bank statements or a checkbook with that address?” simple enough. I just didn’t have those.

“I just moved there. The closest thing I have to a permanent address — ” I let the words linger to emphasize them more, “ — is my parents’ address, but it’s also Davidson county, so it shouldn’t be a problem. And I have a checkbook with that address and it’s on my license and that should work, right?”

“I’m sorry,” she had me. It was time for her to get her kicks teaching a twenty-something the least relevant lesson ever. “You told me you lived on White Avenue. I have to have proof of residence for that address.”

I didn’t think she’d be unreasonable. Not once I explained. “Well if I have an overdue book, it’s best the mail goes to my parent’s address. I move and travel a lot and it’ll have a better chance of getting to me if it goes to that address.”

“I’m sorry,” she ignored my lawyerly rationale, “but I heard you say you lived on White Avenue.”

My headache kicked into full gear and I felt the wrath of the cheap tequila I’d been chasing with Dos Equis the night before. This woman. This sixty-plus human who probably had grandchildren and diminishing social security and some sort of cancer lying in wait at her next doctor’s visit — of everything she could give a fuck about, this was what she chose. No one else had heard. No one else would care. It was a Davidson county address either way. What was she trying to prove?

“Mam,” I tried to pull it together, “are you serious? I just want to check out a couple of books.”

“I can give you a postcard, and we will mail it to you at no charge so you have proof of address,” she hummed along, still high, detached, swinging mightily the hammer of her one remaining power in a society that had passed her by.

I gritted my teeth. Some people are unreasonable and some people are hungover and I had run the pros and cons of cursing at a librarian and that didn’t work because you can’t even yell in these places.

“Give me the postcard.”

She had beaten me. She smiled and hummed and even pretended to care that I’d ridden a bus for 30 minutes to come to a relic of the 20th century only to be turned away by a more mobile but no less obsolete artifact of the same. I scribbled my name and address on the card. She beamed, but she presumed her victory prematurely.

I was angry and when I’m angry my words are daggers. I was summoning all the vitriol at my disposal to ambush her. I didn’t swear. I didn’t raise my voice. Instead I made it drip with hate, disrespect, and deprecation. I took on her detached, high and mighty demeanor and as she turned her back to put the postcard in a crate I stabbed her with:

“You understand how ridiculous you are.”

She faltered, now on the defensive from a hit-and-run by “the youth of today.” I turned and walked away before she could gather herself enough to respond.

I was hungover so I hated everyone and especially her. Just another piece of flesh in my way.

A sentient obstacle.