Available, online

He was biding his time, waiting for the opportune moment. He was coming to the public library four years now. Every morning he turned up, like clockwork, at ten a.m.

Ten was a good time, he figured. He’d done his walk and had his swim in de Bats. Ten was good too because everyone was relaxed around then once they’d got over the daily anxiety of opening the doors.

There were three librarians: the boss who sat in her office most of the day, writing in ledgers, talking on the phone or questioning her staff, the second one was a lifer, a veteran librarian with a dog-eared look, and then there was Aurora, the junior, all tattoos and attitude and the bulk of the library’s legwork.

It was the lifer, Old Sean, he had his eye on. He didn’t know why they called him Old Sean. He was younger than himself by seven years but when he thought about it, he could see why they called him Old Sean.

Sean had been in the library for close to thirty years. He’d seen eight head librarians come and go and probably twice as many juniors. Five generations of students from the college and the convent had sought his guidance.

Forget about the Dewey Decimal System, Old Sean’s memory was a system of its own, a catalogue of mind-boggling cross references from the Library of Congress to the Book of the Dead and the very latest graphic novels.

He had a distinctive look of his own, too, so there was no missing him. Although in his late 50s, his assiduously constructed quiff, though greying, was enough to mark him out as a ‘teddy boy’ for those who remembered but knew no better. To the aficionados, he was rockabilly, through and through.

It was bolstered by his choice of wardrobe — check drape jackets, ‘501s with turned up cuffs and plain white tee-shirts or colourful, short sleeved, bowling shirts. He had a leather jacket, a classic CHIPs’ biker, but he reserved that for special occasions like the Reverend Horton Heat’s visit in the summer.

For footwear, he vacillated between high, polished, leather biker boots or dark brown suede desert boots. Old Sean made no concessions to the weather either and always looked impeccable.

Aurora, the junior librarian, was a study in post-Millennial chic, according to Old Sean. He appeared to know about these things but he might as well’ve been speaking Venusian.

“Strictly speaking,” Old Sean opined, “she’s a millennial as she was born in 1995 but she’s a child of the ‘noughties, for all intents and purposes, which makes her a child of Generation Z.”

He hoped he looked interested and at least vaguely understanding when Old Sean told him things like this. As far as he could gather, youth fashion and culture was no longer fermented from rebellion but demographic marketing strategies. He understood marketing but had to look up ‘demographic’ after he read it three times in the same newspaper article.

The newspapers. That was his reason for the daily visits to the library. Come to think of it, that’s why he delayed his visits until ten. Earlier in the morning, papers were delivered by motorbike couriers each morning, cut from their packaging, and stacked at the door.

By ten, they were all laid out on the open shelves of the reading lounge, fresh and pristine, five tabloids, a racing journal and three broadsheets; one of the latter, The Guardian, stocked because of his persistent nagging.

The papers filled his morning, got him out of the house without spending money and kept him away from the limbo death of daytime television. Ten o’clock and the papers were fresh in your hand, no-one had done the crosswords or the godforsaken sudoku or torn out coupons.

He hated when someone folded a newspaper inside out just so they could check the tv listings or marked the form sheet for a day of gambling.

Today he didn’t mind because today, he wasn’t here for the newspapers. Today, he planned to consult Old Sean on his favourite hate topic, computers. He’d known Sean since the man first began to work in the library and since they both lived, played and worked in the same neighbourhood, their paths had crossed often enough to merit a nod in the street, the odd ‘Story?’, that minimalist greeting that denoted familiarity.

They’d even had the odd pint together and a few chats about Old Sean’s favourite subject, rockabilly, even when he, himself, was an avowed country music fan. Indeed, it was Old Sean who introduced him to the music of Rosie Flores, a Texan artist who straddled both genres and western swing jazz, as well.

At around eleven-thirty, his time arrived. The morning rush was over and the cups from the elevenses’ break all cleared away, Old Sean and Aurora were busily reshelving the morning’s returns and there was no-one on any of the three computers in the library.

He approached Old Sean, sideways, down the aisle of reference books and dictionaries.

‘How’re’ye, Sean, ‘story?’

‘It’s yerself, no story…same old, same old. ‘Bout yerself?’

‘Keepin’ the head down. No news is good news, they say.’

Old Sean resumed returning borrowed books to their respective shelves. For a split second our man thought the moment had gone but he was determined to proceed with his plan.

‘Sean?’ he said, hesitant and abashed. He looked at the ground.

He almost missed his chance again as he missed Old Sean’s curious glance. But he persisted.

‘I wanted to ask ye something.’

‘Wha? Sorry, I wasn’t sure if you’d asked me something. Yeh, how can I help ye.’

‘D’ye know much about compyouters?’

He spat out the last word to make it abundantly clear his interest in the topic was not entirely enthusiastic.

‘It depends,’ says Old Sean indicating, with an attitude of nonchalance, his own apparent disinterest in the topic.

‘What did you want to know?’ Old Sean asked.

That threw him off slightly. He wasn’t ready for that direct an approach and hadn’t formulated a suitable answer. What could he say? I’m lonely? I want to learn about online dating? I want to get my hole?

Realising his dilemma, Old Sean tried to hide his smirk and said, ‘look, let me finish off this trolley of returns then I’ll have a bit of time on my hands. Sit over by one of the computers and I’ll be over t’ye in a minute.’

Old Sean could see the relief on his face, his shoulders relax. He watched him shuffle over to the computers. He was their ‘paperman’, as they called him, another lost soul, old, retired and lonely, spending his mornings reading the ‘papers in the library, for the company and more for the heat.

“Right, what d’ye need to know?’

‘Ah Sean, d’ye have the time? I’m not takin’ ye away from anythin’, am I?’

‘Everythin’s squared away. We won’t be bothered for an hour, don’t worry ‘bout it.’

The paperman scanned the room, ready to apologise to anyone. He turned his attention to Old Sean.

‘Can ye show me how to use a compyouter?’ he asked.

‘Jaysus, that’s a tall order. Sure, I can show you how to use one but it’ll be easier if I know what you were looking for, specifically. Like d’ye want to shop online? Check yer email? Set up a Facebook profile? Is there somethin’ ye wanted to look up?’

Old Sean knew by the blank look returned, the paperman was lost at sea, so to speak.

There was a long pause as the wheels of decision churned in the paperman’s head. Old Sean imagined he could see them turn like the spiked wheels of a Swiss clock.

‘Jem put me on Cinder or Tinder or somethin’. How can I get into that?’ he blurted.

‘Ah,’ says Old Sean, struggling not to smirk or worse, fall out of his seat.

He busied himself with some keystrokes by way of distraction.

‘Did Jem give you a handle?’

Again with the blank look. Old Sean was fit to explode.

‘What name did he give ye?’ he asked.

‘My own name.’

Jem keyed the name into the Tinder login window.

‘Did he give ye a password?’

O Jaysus, Old Sean thought, he doesn’t have a clue.

‘I think we’ll have to give you a new profile,’ he said, ‘then I’ll show ye how to log on yerself. You’ll have to come up with a hand…sorry, a name. So you can check it whenever ye want. Excuse me a minute.’

Old Sean leapt from his seat and moved, with uncharacteristic speed, over to the front reception desk, his back to his new student. Aurora was at the desk, stamping returns. She looked up. He was almost bent over with giggles.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ she says, ‘what’s the big joke?’

‘Ah, nothin’, he replies, eyes scrunched, one hand to his side.

He took a deep breath, wiped his eyes with the back of his sleeve and walked back to his waiting student.

‘Right, where were we? Oh yeah. What should we call ye?’

‘These ‘handles’, is dat like a nickname or sumpin’?

Old Sean nodded, ‘yeah,’ he said, ‘ye can call yerself ‘Superman’ if ye like but I suspect there’s a few Clark Kents who’ve cornered that market. It’s got to be a name no-one else has.’

‘Paperman,’ he said.

Not for the last time Old Sean appeared to stagger.

‘Wha’?’ he asked, a little louder than he intended. It brought disapproving looks and a look of surprise from Aurora, the junior.

‘Youse all call me that behind me back. It’s the only nickname I can think of.’

Old Sean sat in silence, staring. He got the uneasy feeling there was more to the Paperman than he let on and most people preferred to ignore.

He started filling in the details, asking, occasionally, for relevant information like occupation, activities and personal interests. The paperman, his student, answered them assiduously, as though he’d already given them some serious thought and consideration.

‘What sort of person d’ye want to meet?’

‘Wha? Wimmin.’

Old Sean kept his gaze fixed on the screen before him. There was a pause before he asked his next question.

‘I mean, have ye any preferences like age or ethnicity, hair colour or size, y’know?’

The paperman didn’t answer immediately. He was thinking. Old Sean was sure he’d piss his pants.

‘Someone like Josephine,’ the paperman volunteered after an interval. He said it with a faraway look.

Sobering up, Old Sean asked, ‘Who’s Josephine?’

‘My wife. She’s dead these five years.’

Old Sean couldn’t find any words.

‘I’m sorry t’hear that,’ he said, eventually.

‘She was small and cuddly with a heart of gold, in her mid-50s, a bottle blonde.’

Old Sean was dumbstruck. He didn’t know where to look but felt compelled to look at the man in front of him. They both looked at something neither of them could see.

‘Okay,’ Old Sean said to break the impasse, ‘I’ll say you’re interested in meetin’ fair to blonde wimmin, aged 40 to 60 who enjoy home comforts, how’s dat?’

‘Dat sounds alri,’’ the paperman replied.

SNAP.

Old Sean’s camera flash disturbed his reverie. He gave him a dazed look of inquiry.

‘I have to put a profile picture in it so the ladies can examine the goods,’ Old Sean said, his levity lost on his student. He spent another ten minutes showing him how to get online and login. The paperman wrote down every step in detail, asking questions to make sure he had it all.

‘So there y’are,’ Old Sean said, ‘that’s you set up.’

‘Tanks very much, Sean,’ the paperman said before asking, ‘Will ye do me a favour?’

What next? Sean thought.

‘Please don’t let on to anyone else ‘bout dis, sure ye won’t?’

‘I won’t,’ Sean promised.

The paperman grinned, like he’d never seen him smile.

‘So now I’m available. Online, like?’

Old Sean could only nod and grin as the paperman departed, his step light, smile wide .