It took me forever to figure out who he looked like, but once it hit me, I couldn’t help but see it every time I went over there to help him out: he was a young, gay Joel Stein. Of course, after checking out his profile on facebook it turns out he is straight, and after wikipediaing Joel Stein, it turns out he’s straight too. Go figure. But that’s not my point.
I don’t know if it’s because I’m an English major, or if because my mom is a librarian, or if my time spent at a grocery store wasn’t as big of a waste as I had thought, or just because I love old books, but the job comes incredibly easy. For me, the hardest part of working at the library is shelving a new book in the middle of a row of old books; there’s just something aesthetically wrong about a glossy paperback betwixt dusty old tomes dating back to the 1800s. (Yeah, that’s right. Betwixt.)
The library is in the middle of a major shift; hopefully it will be finished by the time I graduate, but that’s tentative at best. We receive over 150,000 books a year, to say nothing about magazines, senior theses, compact discs, dvds, and those weird scroll things from Tibet. And once a floor becomes full, there’s a shift, where we rearrange the shelf height, pull out old unused books, recategorize books to different floors, and respace the books on the shelf. I was originally hired just to put returned books back on the shelves, a position jokingly referred to as a 'mole,' most of my time is now spent taking books from one part of the library and moving them to another. It’s actually a lot more complicated than it sounds, but I’ve taken a knack to it. Other people haven’t, and so I spent most of my time working with people who were hired the same time I was, trained the same time I was, and working with them on the shift, not technically supervising but usually asked to ‘keep an eye on ________ and make sure he’s doing things right.’
Joel (not his real name, but rather the aforementioned doppelganger) was one of those characters. I walked in, checked my schedule, and headed up to the shift, bumping into the department head while waiting for the elevator. He told me a few reminders and refreshers to pass along to Joel when I got up there, and when I got up there, I found out why.
Joel, it turns out, had never worked this part of the library before, and so I went around and showed him where we keep the rags (libraries can get incredibly dusty), how to work the ends of the rows, make sure to check the top shelf for stragglers, the easiest way to keep books flush, and other basics. He was full of ‘yeahs’ and ‘uh-huhs’ and kept fidgeting, his hands constantly in his back pockets. Throughout the conversation he kept looking me in the eyes, but once I looked back and we made eye contact, he quickly looked down, or closed his eyes in an incredibly long blink before looking away.
He went to work on one part of the shelves, and I went down and worked on the other part. I could hear him humming and singing quietly to himself, not really forming real words but just ‘ba da dah bum bah.’ We’re allowed mp3 players, but mine ran out of battery the day before and I don’t know why he didn’t have his. Every so often I’d catch him looking my way, but then darting back, dropping a book ‘accidentally on purpose’ and breaking his glances.
I went and brought a cartful of books over to him, and showed him a few mistakes he had made, like how these books weren’t properly flush, and it’s better to switch shelves on even numbers. He just smiled and said OK and kept putting books back on the shelf. I noticed that the shelf looked kind of dirty, wiped it with my finger, and asked if he remember to wipe it with a rag before he started putting the books back.
“No I didn’t remember well I didn’t think that what you said was that I didn’t have to until I just thought that you’d come tell me if I was doing it wrong and I wondered about it but I’ve never had to deal with this before and…”
He kept going, a mile a minute. His hands were in his front pockets now, and as he talked his body became more and more concave, and by the time I interrupted him and told him it was no big deal, he’d just have to grab the rag and do it now, a bystander would have guessed it was some yoga pose. He looked awkward and aloof all at once, like those heroin-chic models that were so popular ten years ago.
While he was dusting, I tried making small talk with him, but it was like pulling teeth: So what’s your major? “History.” What kind of history? “African.” What made you decide on African history? “I dunno.” What year are you? “Freshm.” (He didn’t bother to say the entire word.) Are you in the dorms then? “Yes.” Which one? “_______.” Do you like it? noncommittal shrug
He eventually fixed things, and we finished up without a hitch. As we took the elevator down to the workroom to grab our stuff, I bit the bullet and asked the question.
“So, are you gay or are you just… kinda awkward?”
He just stares at me.
“I mean, you don’t have to answer if you don’t feel comfortable or whatever; I’m just curious.”
“That’s a weird question.”
“I guess. I’m usually not so blunt about it.”
“Well then.” I was hoping he’d say more, but that was it. The elevator was filled with silence, with only the occasional rattle as we passed each floor. Finally there was a ding and the doors opened.
He grabs his coat and leaves. He looks at me, smiles, and does a backward nod of the head in a “see-ya” sort of fashion, and I was left standing there in the empty workroom, trying to figure out what just happened.
But then I had to rush home because America’s Next Top Model was starting.
