At the Library

At a small library branch, in Brooklyn, I see him all the time. Who is he? What’s he working on?

A man perhaps in his late 50s. Or maybe early 60s. He wears a weather-worn red baseball cap, inscribed with NY. He sports battered sneakers. He dons a scruffy beard. He’s dressed in a red ‘Occupy Staten Island’ t-shirt. He bears a beaten-up black-leather sports bag bulging with books. He lugs a laptop shoulder bag of manila folders and papers. An extra-large plastic bag from Duane Reade overflowing with pamphlets, a green-mesh grocery bag, and two additional black shoulder bags, all filled to capacity.

His books and papers lie strewn across two tables, two to three chairs, and are scattered about the floor. He spends most of his type frenziedly typing at the public computers. Two fingers. He signs up repeatedly to get multiple turns and sneaks in line secretly when nobody’s looking. He dashes from computer to document to book to table. And back again. And again and again. He used to bring croissants or bagels and gulp them down gruffly by the computers. That ceased a few weeks ago, when the library banned all food from its premises. Because of him?

He makes eye contact with no one and rarely engages. He’s frantic, yet focused. Distracted, yet immersed. Detached, yet absorbed. He’s indifferent to others, but passionately possessed by his private pursuits.

Who is he what’s he doing is he here every day? Where would he go if he couldn’t come here every day? What would he do?

Did I ask him today at the small library in Brooklyn? No, I did not. And won’t the next time I see him, either. Instead he’ll remain an enigmatic beacon of what the library is and whom it serves.