Revenge of the Lawn, the Abortion, So the Wind Won't Blow It All Away (20 page)

"I think you're right," I said. "I don't know about this library being a kooky place, but we're not ready for a child yet. Perhaps in a few years. I think you should use the pill after we have the abortion."

"Yes," she said. "It's the pill from now on."

Then she smiled and said, "It looks like our bodies got us."

"It happens sometimes," I said.

"Do you know anything about this kind of business?" Vida said. "I know a little bit. My sister had an abortion last year in Sacramento, but before she had the abortion, she went to a doctor in Marin County who gave her some hormone shots, but they didn't work because it was too late. The shots work if you take them soon enough and they're quite a bit cheaper than an abortion."

"I think I'd better call Foster," I said. "He got into a thing like this last year and had to go down to Tijuana with one of his Indian girls."

"Who's Foster?" Vida said.

"He takes care of the caves," I said.

"What caves?"

"This building is too small," I said.

"What caves?" she said.

I guess I was rattled by the events in Vida's stomach. I hadn't realized it. I calmed myself down a little bit and said, "Yes, we have some caves up in Northern California where we store most of our books because this building is too small for our collection.

"This library is very old. Foster takes care of the caves. He comes down here every few months and loads his van up with books and stores them in the caves.

"He also brings me food and the little things that I need. The rest of the time he stays drunk and chases the local women, mostly Indians. He's quite a guy. A regular explosion of a man.

"He had to go down to Tijuana last year. He told me all about it. He knows a very good doctor there. There's a telephone at the caves. I'll give him a ring. I've never done it before. Never had to. Things are usually pretty calm down here. We might as well get this thing going. Would you watch the library while I do it?"

"Yes," Vida said. "Of course. It would be a privilege. I never thought that I would end up being the librarian of this place, but I guess I should have had an inkling when I came in here with my book under my arm."

She was smiling and wearing a short green dress. Her smile was on top of the dress. It looked like a flower.

"It will only take a few minutes," I said. "I think there's a pay telephone down at the corner. That is, if it's still there. I haven't been out of here in so long that they may have moved it."

"No, it's still there," Vida said, smiling. "I'll take care of everything. Don't worry. Your library is in good hands."

She held her hands out to me and I kissed them.

"See?" she said.

"You know how to put the books down in the Library Contents Ledger?" I said.

"Yes," she said. "I know how to do it and I'll give anyone who brings in a book the royal carpet treatment. Don't worry. Everything's going to be all right. Stop worrying, Mr. Librarian. I think you have been in here too long. I think I'll kidnap you soon."

"You could ask them to wait," I said. "I'll only be gone for a few minutes."

"Come on now!" Vida said. "Let your granny gland relax a little and slow down those rocking chair secretions."

G
EE
, it had been a long time. I hadn't realized that being in that library for so many years was almost like being in some kind of timeless thing. Maybe an airplane of books, flying through the pages of eternity.

Actually being outside was quite different from looking out the window or the door. I walked down the street, feeling strangely awkward on the sidewalk. The concrete was too hard, aggressive or perhaps I was too light, passive.

It was something to think about.

I had a lot of trouble opening the telephone booth door but finally I got inside and started to call Foster up at the caves when suddenly I realized that I didn't have any money with me. I searched all my pockets but, alas, not a cent. I didn't need money in the library.

"Back already?" Vida said. She looked very pretty
behind the counter in her green dress with her flower-like head.

"I don't have any money," I said.

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.

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 airplane 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."

T
HAT
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% of her awkwardness since she had come to the library that evening late last year. The 20% 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."

F
OSTER
arrived at midnight. We were in my room, sitting around drinking coffee and talking about small casual things that are never remembered afterward, except perhaps in the twilight moments of our lives.

Foster never bothered to ring the bell on the front door. He said it made him think he was going into some kind of church and he'd had enough of that to last him forever.

 

BANG! BANG! BANG! he just slugged the door with his fist and I could always hear him and was afraid that he would break the glass. Foster couldn't be overlooked nor forgotten.

"What's that?" Vida said, jumping up startled from the bed.

"That's Foster," I said.

"It sounds like an elephant," she said.

"He never touches the stuff," I said.

We went out into the library and turned on the lights and there was Foster on the other side of the door, still banging away with that big fist of his.

There was a large smile on his face and he was wearing his traditional T-shirt. He never wore a shirt or a coat or a sweater. It didn't make any difference what the weather did. Cold, wind or rain, Foster always wore his T-shirt. He was of course sweating like a dam and his buffalo-heavy blond hair hung almost down to his shoulders.

"Hello!" he said. His voice came booming through as if the glass door were made of tissue paper. "What's going on in there?"

I opened the door for him and could see the van parked out in front. The van was big and strange and looked like a prehistoric animal asleep in front of the library.

"Well, here I am," he said and threw an arm around me and gave me a big hug. There was a bottle of whiskey in his other hand and half the whiskey was gone.

"How's it going, kid? Cheer up. Foster's here. Hey,
hello
there!" he said to Vida. "My, aren't you a pretty girl! Damn, am I glad I drove down here! Every mile was worth it. My God, ma'am, you're so pretty I'd walk ten miles barefooted on a freezing morning to stand in your shit."

Vida broke up. There was a big smile on her face. I could tell that she liked him instantly.

My, how her body had relaxed these few months we'd been going together. She was still a little awkward, but now instead of treating it as a handicap, she treated it as a form of poetry and it was fantastically charming.

Vida came over and put her arm around Foster. He gave her a great big hug, too, and offered her a drink from his bottle of whiskey.

"It's good for you," he said.

"All right, I'll give it a try," she said.

He wiped the mouth of the bottle off with his hand in the grand manner and offered her the bottle and she took a delicate nip.

"Hey, kid. You try some of this stuff, too. It'll grow hair on your books."