The RFID gate beeped when a pair of men with a bunch of bags came in, and a book title popped up in red on our security screen. It could have just been a tag that hadn't been deactivated. Or it could have been a book stolen from another branch. Either way, not worth chasing after, and at that moment someone else dumped about 200 children's books on the desk, so I got busy checking them in.
A few minutes later one of the men came up, asking to borrow the bathroom key in a loud whisper. He said he was using his 'library voice' because he'd been thrown out of two other libraries, then complained about the “chronics” at the downtown library sleeping on the floor like they lived there (there is classism within the homeless community - people who camp in tents vs. addicts who day-sleep in public spaces), and then he went into the bathroom.
A second later the gate went off again, and I looked up to see the other guy leaving, with the same book title popping up on the alert screen. My coworker shrugged and decided to go outside to ask him about it. She came back a moment later with a funny look on her face, and immediately got waylaid by a patron with a question before telling me what happened. The first guy came out of the bathroom and introduced himself, then said he had to run to the post office to buy some stamps and offered to pick me up a beer on his way back. I said nah.
When he left I said to my coworker, "Dude just offered to bring me a beer. Looks like I’m still popular with men of a certain demographic [unemployed white guys over 60]. So what did the other guy say about the book?"
"Oh yeah, he said he took it from another library and he doesn’t have a card, but he knows someone who has one who can check it out for him later. Then he says, 'is that what that beep was? I thought it was a gun detector!' Haha, so funny."
“Girl. He set it off twice and he heard it, but didn’t stop. He’s got a gun in his bag."
"IS THAT WHAT HE MEANT?”
“Don’t worry, they like us, they don’t want to get thrown out of the library for shooting the librarians.”
Just then our student helper walked up. “Hey, so there’s someone fully sleeping on the ground in the Hawaiiana section. Like, with a mat rolled out and everything.” Goddamn it.
We rousted the sleeping lady and gave her 5 minutes to pack up and leave. Student helper came back about 3 minutes later. “Now she’s sitting up and eating ramen.” By the time we got sleeping mat lady out with all her bags and bedrolls and food, beer guy had spread his shit out over three tables and wandered off again, leaving cords and laptops and handwritten legal documents everywhere.
15 minutes to closing, I heard voices at the back door, and climbed up onto the counter to look out the window. Two guys with bicycles were crouched on the staff stairs, doing who-knows-what with something I couldn’t quite see. Packing a crack pipe, probably. “We’re leaving out the front tonight,” I told my coworker and student helper.
10 minutes to closing, beer guy shows back up and started making copies, his shit still spread out all over the tables. I told him to start packing up.
5 minutes to closing, he started slowly gathering his stuff onto one table. I told him I was shutting the lights off.
2 minutes to closing, sleepy ramen lady comes back in and says she’s there to help him carry stuff. After all that complaining about homeless people sleeping in public, he was there with the very same. I told him to get a move on.
In the end we were 5 minutes late locking up for the day. As we walked to our cars, beer guy asked, “You open at 9am, right?” Oh yay. It’s an obstacle course of fuckery at the library this week.
(The book was Trump: Think like a Billionaire. He can keep it.)
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