After she stopped laughing, which took about five minutes, very funny, she went and got her purse and gave me a handful of change.
‘You’re too much,’ she said. ‘Are you sure you haven’t forgotten how to use money? You hold it like this.’ She held an imaginary coin between her fingers and started laughing all over again.
I left. I had my dime.
Foster’s Coming
I called Foster up at the caves. I could hear his telephone ringing. It rang seven or eight times and then Foster answered it.
‘What’s happening? Foster said. ‘Who is this? What are you up to, you son-of-a-bitch? Don’t you know it’s one o’clock in the afternoon. What are you? A vampire?’
‘It’s me,’ I said. ‘You old drunk!’
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘The kid. Hell, why didn’t you say so? What’s up down there? Somebody bring in an elephant with a book written on it? Well, feed it some hay and I’ll be down with the van.’
‘Very funny, Foster,’ I said.
‘Not bad,’ he said. ‘Nothing’s impossible at that loony bin you’ve got down there. What’s up, kid?’
‘I’ve got a problem.’
‘You?’ he said. ‘How in the hell can you have a problem? You’re inside all the time. Is that prison pallor of yours beginning to flake?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘My girlfriend is pregnant.’
‘DINGALING CUCKOO!’ Foster said and the conversation stopped for a moment while Foster laughed so hard it almost shook the telephone booth hundreds of miles away.
Finally he stopped laughing and said, ‘It sounds like you’ve really been working hard at the library, but when did fornication become one of its services? Girlfriend, huh? Pregnant, huh? Cuckoo, kid!’
He started to laugh all over again. It was everybody’s day to laugh except mine.
‘Well, what do you need?’ he said. ‘A little trip down to Tijuana? A short visit with my abortionist buddy, Dr Garcia?’
‘Something like that,’ I said.
‘Well, I’ll have a few drinks for breakfast,’ he said. ‘And get in the van and be in sometime late this evening.’
‘Good,’ I said. ‘That’s what I need.’
Then there was a slight pause at the cave end of the telephone.
‘You don’t have any money, do you, kid?’ Foster said.
‘Are you kidding?’ I said. ‘Where would I get any money? This is the lowest-paying job in the world because it doesn’t. I had to borrow this dime from my girlfriend to call you collect.’
‘I guess I’m still gorgonized,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking. I was probably thinking that I spent all my money last night on drink or was it last week? and I haven’t got a cent. Cuckoo, have I been out of it!’
‘What about my food?’ I said, realizing that he had spent my food money, too.
‘Is she good-looking?’ Foster said. ‘Will she do in a dust storm at midnight with a candle?’
‘What?’ I said.
‘I’ll bring the money, then,’ he said. ‘It costs a couple of hundred if you make the good doctor toe the line. He likes to speculate sometimes — it’s the businessman in him — but you can hold him down by putting the two hundred in his hand.
‘Let’s see: You’ll need plane tickets and walking around money and you might need a hotel room for her to rest up after she sees Dr Garcia.
‘I’ll go down to the bar and turn a couple of the patrons upside down and see what I can shake out of their pockets, so you hang on, kid, and I’ll be in late this evening and we’ll get this show on the road.
‘I never thought you had it in you, kid. Tell your young lady hello for me and that everything will be all right. Foster’s coming.’
Masturbation
That Foster! I went back to the library. Somebody was just leaving as I arrived. It was a young boy, maybe sixteen. He looked awfully tired and nervous. He hurried past me.
‘Thank God, darling, you didn’t get lost,’ Vida said. ‘I was worried that you wouldn’t be able to find your way back up the block. It’s great to see you, honey.’
She came out from behind the desk and moved breathlessly to where I was given a great big lingering kiss. She had lost about 80 per cent of her awkwardness since she had come to the library that evening late last year. The 20 per cent she had left was very intriguing.
‘How did it go?’ she said.
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Here’s your dime. Foster’s on his way down. He’ll be in late this evening.’
‘Good,’ she said. ‘I’ll be glad when this thing is over. I wouldn’t like to wait for an abortion. I’m glad we’re doing it right now.’
‘So am I. Foster knows a great doctor,’ I said. ‘Everything will be all right. Foster’s going to take care of everything.’
‘Fine, just fine,’ she said. ‘What about money? I have—’
‘No, no,’ I said. ‘Foster will get the money.’
‘You’re sure, because—’
‘No, I’m sure,’ I said. ‘Who was that boy who was leaving?’
‘Some kid who brought in a book,’ she said. ‘I welcomed it in my most pleasing manner and recorded it in my best handwriting in the Library Contents Ledger.’
‘Gee,’ I said. ‘This is the first time I haven’t received a book in years.’
‘Oh, honey,’ she said. ‘You aren’t that old, even though you try to be, but that kind of thinking is going to make you an old man if you work at it hard enough.’
She kissed me again.
‘I’ll take a look at it,’ I said.
‘Your old age?’ she said.
‘No, the book.’
She stood there and smiled after me as I walked over behind the desk and opened the Library Contents Ledger and read:
THE OTHER SIDE OF MY HAND by Harlow Blade, Jr. The author was about sixteen and seemed a little sadder than he should have been for his age. He was very shy around me. The poor dear. He kept looking at me out of the corner of his eye.
Finally he said, ‘Are you the librarian?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘I expected a man.’
‘He’s out,’ I said. ‘So I’ll just have to do. I don’t bite.’
‘You’re not a man,’ he said.
‘What’s your name?’
‘What?’
‘Your name, please? I have to write it down here in the ledger before we can take your book. You do have a name, don’t you?’
‘Yes. Harlow Blade, Jr.’
‘Now what’s your book about? I have to have that, too. Just tell me what it’s about and I’ll write it down here in the ledger.’
‘I was expecting a man,’ he said.
‘What’s your book about? The subject, please?’
‘Masturbation. I’d better be going now.’
I started to thank him for bringing his book in and tell him that he could put it anywhere he wanted to in the library, but he left without saying anything else. Poor kid.
What a strange place this library is, but I guess it’s the only place you can bring a book in the end. I brought mine here and I’m still here.
Vida trailed over to the desk and moved behind it with me and put her arm around me and read the entry over my shoulder after I finished reading it.
‘I think it sounds pretty good,’ she said.
Gee, the handwriting of a different librarian lay before me on the desk. It was the first book I hadn’t welcomed and recorded there myself in years.
I looked over at Vida for a moment. I must have looked at her kind of strangely because she said, ‘Oh, no. No, no, no.’
Foster