The Poet : Chapter 29

TWENTY-NINE

 

 “I was online looking up stuff on that disgusting, un-American protest at the billionaire’s building the other day,” Hazel said to me. “And I saw this.”

She turned her computer screen and sure enough there was a photo of me, Larissa, Kale and Astra, amongst the multitudes, in a stare-down with the cops. “I always hate how fat and bloated I look in protest photos,” I said. “It’s like you have this image in your mind of how you think you look in them…but then you see a photo and the reality sets in and…”

“Well, I hope HR doesn’t see this.”

“Believe it or not, Hazel, we do have a small amount of personal autonomy when not on the clock.” I figured I’d leave out the shittng in my pants at the rally part of the experience.

“Contrary to what rebel rousers like you think, the police are here to protect us. I say people who are worried about the police and surveillance cameras are obviously up to no good.”

What was there to say to that? America was Hazel De Vitis’ country and fools like me just lived in it the best we could. I was too depressed and didn’t have enough money in my bank account to leave. I checked my computer while Hazel sat there ranting about the government and leftist conspiracies. I looked for Larissa’s little green light but it wasn’t there. It hadn’t been for a few days. An apology email I’d sent her went unanswered. But she was up to plenty of hijinks on Facebook and Twitter. Apparently, a Harry Potter movie fest and homemade Egg Creams with Gigi were all it took to get over yours truly. Meanwhile my liver was as hard as a rock from all of the vodka I’d been syphoning into my system, and I was back to a steady vomiting streak. People just handled things differently, I guess.

 I looked over toward the stacks where Scott was shelving YA books; YA books once meant for Lena Alvarez, who’d ghosted the library for sure, and was most likely working that waitressing job. The world was such sadness. “Rand.” I looked up from the screen and Oleg was standing there. “I have new eBay plan.”

I sighed. My work day. Same as it ever was. I thought to ignore him, but I knew Oleg would just persist. It was best to just shut the mind off…insert something witty here. Even I was tired of my act. “What are you doing now, Columbo? Buying bootleg driver’s licenses?”

“I don’t want to discuss driver’s license anymore,” Oleg said. “Is sore spot.”

“Then how about the Pacific Trade Pact? Syrian refugees?” I looked over at Hazel’s computer screen because she was being oddly docile. She still had that article up on the orange-faced billionaire and she was looking at his scowling, neo-fascist visage the way I imagined she had her David Cassidy posters back in the innocent 1970s.

“Oleg is suing library union over license,” he said. “Is better than suing city of New York. At least that’s what television and billboard lawyer says.”

“Well, you’ve assimilated quite well into the United States,” I said.

“I take citizens test next year.”

“You know you can’t buy your citizenship on eBay,” I said.

“I buy nothing,” Oleg said. “I study. I learn all about America, and then I…” But then one of our patrons began smacking his head off of a table, and it was time for him to play keystone cop again. “Is no smack head! Is no smack head!” He shouted en route.

“I don’t want that man learning our state secrets,” Hazel said.

“What exactly do you think is on the citizenship test?”

The door to the program room opened, and two dozen kids whose parents had signed at least two dozen customer service forms saying that I’d traumatized them, came flooding out into the library screaming and seemingly fine. A few seconds later good old Willy shuffled out with guitar in hand, like he was fucking Neil Young. The man treated his sporadic and lackluster children’s performances as if he just finished playing a grueling yet brilliant set at Coachella. I kept the bundle of complaint letters and emails from parents hidden from him; although there was nothing that I could do about the Yelp comments.

Willy came over to the reference desk and stood looking down on Hazel’s breasts. Eleven in the morning and if I wasn’t already so hungover I’d be ready for a drink. “I’m leaving now,” he said to me.

“What do you mean leaving,” I said.

Willy shrugged. Again, the urge struck me to rip those moustache hairs out one by one. “You know. Leaving. Departing. Going. Absconding, if you will. Disappearing. Exiting. Vamoosing.”

“I’m leaving on a jet plane,” Hazel sang. Willy strummed his guitar.

“So, I’m just going to, you know, go,” he said.

“You can’t just leave, Ranger Roach,” I said.

“Says the man who doesn’t even come back from meetings,” Hazel said.

“Yeah,” Willy said. “And I have a doctor’s appointment. What’s your excuse, Rand?”

“Self-preservation,” I said. “As per every single conversation we’ve been having since the fall you should’ve told someone before now.” And the creep into hypocritical, asshole boss territory continued.

“Do you tell Sheldon when you skip out on meetings?”

“My leaving meetings are… a spontaneous act of civil disobedience.”

Willy shrugged again. Not a care in the world. “I’m a sixty-two-year-old man,” he said. “I’m done telling people like you when I’m coming and going.”

Sound logic to me…but still. “Let me tell you something your pot-riddled head probably doesn’t know. You’re leaving me in the lurch. Scott has a class visits all afternoon, and Sheldon is heading to, coincidentally enough, a manager’s meeting. I’ll be here alone, all-day, on this desk.”

“Sounds like you should contact the union,” Willy said.

“I crush union!” Oleg shouted, from across the room.

“It is your problem when you work somewhere and people rely on you, and you don’t bother to tell them you have a doctor’s appointment. Life doesn’t work like that.”
            “It worked like that last week when I was stuck here until six because of you of calling out,” he said.

“I thought Sheldon was cov… and that’s not even the same fucking thing,” I said.

Willy’s eyes bulged. “Did you curse at me?” He looked to Hazel for confirmation, and she was nodding away. “Because I’ll go to HR.”

“I should be the one going to HR,” I said. “Your list of demands. Your telling me you won’t work weeknights. Your calling off on Saturdays.” I sniffed. “And what’s that in the air? Hmmm, smells like weed. Do you smoke weed, Hazel?” She shook her head. “I’m certainly not high? Maybe Oleg over there burned one this morning? Gee, I wonder whom it could’ve been who got stoned in his car and then was put in charge of entertaining small, defenseless children.”

“At least he didn’t vomit,” Hazel added.

“You threatening me, Rand?” Willy said. He was getting heated. So was I. A man could only take so much even if that old stoner had me pegged on truancies. “I don’t take kindly to threats…especially from someone who smells like stale whisky.”

“You’re looking at someone who doesn’t really give a shit today,” I said. “And it’s stale vodka…at least most of the time.”

Willy looked at Hazel with an air of exasperation. “Another curse! Another one! Do you believe it? Do you? I’m calling HR as soon as I’m out of my doctor’s appointment!”

“You’re not going to that appointment, dude. You’re going to be sitting right here at this desk telling people where the bathrooms are, and listening to Oleg’s plan to take over the nation via his eBay account.”

“I’ll file a grievance against you!”

“And I’ll sue you for loss of enjoyment of life!”

In lieu of punching Willy Abelman square in his jaw, I got up from the ref desk and started heading toward my office. I was done. Done being a punching bag for the poets of the world. Done feeling guilty over Larissa. Done with Carolina’s unanswered emails. Done being a whipping boy for Willy Abelman and his insane drug-addled mind. It was time for a changing of the guards. Jill and Sheldon’s voices were getting louder.

“Where are you going?” Willy shouted.

“To tell on you,” I said. “You want to act like a child, man. I’ll act like a child.”

“Well, I’m going with you to tell on you too!”

I reached the office first and caught Jill holding a fresh stack of Sheldon’s fast-food bags. She was shaking them at him. The bushy-haired milquetoast had no recourse other than to slide further and further into his chair. How many days of my life were going to be this exact mouse wheel of common occurrence? How many more hours of redundancy could a man take? “Rand, tell this idiot once again about these damned fast-food bags,” Jill said, when she saw me. Then she looked at the floor. “Ants! Ants!” There was another trail of ants going behind my desk all the way to Sheldon’s.

“But…I…” he started.

Then Willy bust into the narrow office and stormed past me. “I want to file a formal complaint against Rand Wyndham,” he shouted, finger waving in the air and guitar in his other hand. “I want him written up! I want a file sent to HR!”

“What is that idiot going on about?” Jill said to me.

“Willy is having delusions of grandeur again,” I said. “Did he tell either of you about his doctor’s appointment?” They both shook their heads. “Well, he’s got one and he’s leaving right now.”

“You can’t do that,” Jill said to him. “We’ve been over this and over this and ove…”

“Rand verbally assaulted me,” Willy shouted. “He used curse words. He used invective that I’ve never heard before. The whole library heard him. Patrons were complaining. There are small, defenseless children here! Now are you going to do anything about this, Sheldon?”

“You can’t just leave,” Sheldon lisped. Willy slammed his guitar down on my desk and threw up his hands. “You have to give people notification. Especially supervisors…at least I think so.”

“Are you people not listening to me?” Good old Willy paced in a small circle. He stopped and pointed at me. The fool got a little too close. Then he started wagging his finger in my face, which I didn’t fucking appreciate at all. I was once again getting dangerously close to head-butting time. What was it between me and public libraries that brought out the violence? “This man swore at me. He cursed me. He’s making light of a medical condition of mine, which I’m unable to disclose right now, yet he skips meetings and doesn’t come back to work! He’s not taken my scheduling suggestions at all. Rand Wyndham is poor supervisor and a lackluster librarian. He does not get along with staff or the patrons, and most likely he’s abusing drugs and alcohol.”

“Remind me to get you to blurb my book if it ever comes out,” I said.

Jill stood there with her arms crossed over her green sweater. She looked bored. Sheldon looked like he was going to piss himself. “Are you done whining,” she finally said to Willy.

“Are you going to write it down or am I?” he said.

“What I’m going to do is call security and call HR, if you keep this up, because you’re not right in the head. You haven’t been right in the head in years. Not since your wife left you.”

“W-what’s that got to do with anything?” Willy shouted. Again, he turned on me and started wagging that finger in my face. His breath smelt like a can of rancid sardines. “It’s Rand, can’t you see? Every day I come in here and he harasses me. He bullies Hazel and is trying to have an affair with her. He bullies Scott. He sexually propositioned Lena a few months ago, and now she’s gone because of him. I caught her crying in the staff room.”

“You know she was upset about sch…,” was all I could get out before Willy started on his path toward disgracing me again.

“What about all of those meetings Rand misses?” He said again. Doctor fucking redundant. “Huh? Huh?’ Willy looked from Jill to Sheldon. “All that information that was lost. Valuable, valuable library information. I mean who knows what knowledge he’s kept from us.”

“I could build you a mean Lego bridge,” I said.

“Rand should be fired just for that. My back still hurts from hoisting those dictionaries the slave driver forced me to lift by his absence!” Willy shook his head. “I tell you both it takes all my strength to come in here each day and not kick him off his throne! Not sock him right in his smug face or strangle him on the way to his bus stop!”

“Did you just threaten your supervisor?” Jill said.

“I…” Willy said. He was suddenly shaken out of his trance-like rant. His finger froze mid-shake. “I…did I….?”

“Rand, leave the room.” Jill craned her neck to Sheldon. “You, do something productive and call security and HR.” She walked over to me and took my arm to lead me out of the room. I hadn’t realized it but my chest was heaving and I was breathing so fast I thought that I was going to pass out, or have that heart attack Jackson so wanted to see me have. Jill led me out into the library proper where Hazel, Scott, Oleg, and at least half a dozen library patrons were staring at me. “You.” Jill pointed at Oleg. “Get your big, goofy ass in there and keep a watch on Willy until someone better shows up. He’s liable to strangle Sheldon at this rate.”

Oleg’s eyes lit up and he smiled. “Is showtime,” he said. Then he marched toward the office.

Jill led me into the work room and she shut the door. “Well,” I said. “That got a little tense.”

“You sit down at my desk,” she said. I followed suit. “I want you to stay in here until we have him removed from the building. I don’t care what noises you hear. What shouting. You stay in here. He can’t go around physically threatening staff.”

I shadow boxed. “I doubt Willy Abelman could take me,” I said.

“That’s not the point,” Jill said. “This ends today. I’ve been telling you for months, and look what happened! And since neither you nor that wooly haired milquetoast will do anything, I’m going to call HR and have them relocate Willy to another branch. Let him be someone else’s problem from now on.”

“But who’s going to look at Hazel’s breasts?”

“Never mind your nonsense, Rand.” Jill shook her head. “This is serious.”

She was right. “That stuff Willy said…about me?”

“The stuff that nut bag said ain’t gonna hold water. You have an entire staff here that like and respect you, and I’m including Hazel in this. We all know what a waste Willy is. He’s been a waste for years. And now he’s causing problems by skipping work and probably sending your writings to HR. The only reason he’s not gone now is because of the union. But that changes once you threaten someone…now it’s bye-bye town.”

Then I was alone in the office awaiting either salvation in the form of a fleet of rent-a-cops, or else certain death if Willy really popped a gasket and shot up the whole staff. This was America after all. I gave a quick glance to the emergency exit door just to make sure it was unlocked. Shit. I knew that Willy disliked me, but I had no clue the depths of his hatred. I was willing to bet that if he were allowed to pontificate further, he would’ve drawn the typical comparisons between me, Mussolini, the orange-faced billionaire and Hitler. It always came down to Hitler between staff and their supervisors. I’d faced many a middle-management Fuhrer in my day.

A little while later, the office door cracked open and Hazel came creeping in with a stack of picture books like she was twenty minutes late for a baptism or shitty piano recital. She went over to a desk and started fumbling around with them. “The big shots just showed up,” she said.

“That was quick,” I said. “Maybe I’ve been wrong about this organization all along.”

“There’s like a fleet of them. And they brought these guards, these big Black bucks. They got Willy sitting in the programming room with their hands on his shoulders keeping him down. I think he’s foaming at the mouth.”

“We should be filming him for an anti-drug PSA,” I said.

Her face turned red. “Look, I know Willy has been crazy lately. But deep down he’s a good man. He’s just…. look, I don’t want to tell anyone this, but you know how Willy thinks that you and I are having an affair?”

“He may have mentioned something in passing.”

“Willy has sort of been stalking me for a bit.”

“How much is a bit?”

“Like months.” Hazel shook her head. “You know how kind-hearted I am. Well, I made the mistake of trying to help Willy get over his wife. But he got the wrong idea. It started with emails after work. Then phone calls to my cell. Then he started showing up at my house after he knew Luigi left for work. Yesterday Willy told me that he loved me and I had to tell him to leave me alone. He came to work in a rage this morning.” Tears began to form in her eyes. “You know and I know Willy smokes marijuana. I don’t know if it’s making him paranoid or what. He sees me at work sitting with you at the reference desk, and he thinks you fixed the schedule to keep him away. He sees me going into your office and complaining…and he thinks we’re flirting. He thinks I’m going into your office and we’re fooling around.”

“I always knew the Reefer Madness people were right,” I said. I pointed between Hazel and I. “He honestly thinks this is going on?”

Hazel wiped away a tear. “I might’ve egged him on a bit,” she said. “Your poems I read them…the printed ones…and then I Googled you. I started telling Willy how much I loved your writing. How gritty and raw I thought it was. I…I didn’t do it to make him jealous…I think I did it to make him stop bothering me.” She began pacing around the office. “I told Willy that I felt like I had a connection to you. I used to write poems too. And songs. I wanted to be singer so badly. I played in some high school bands. People told me that I sounded like Grace Slick. But my father…my father, Rand. You don’t understand old Italian men in the 1970s. My old man saw me leaving for a gig in a black leather jacket and a mini-skirt. He pulled me away from the door by my elbow and started slapping me around, calling me…” Tears broke again. “Calling me all kinds of names. He said a woman didn’t belong on stage singing that shit. Was I some kinda whore? So, I quit. I met Luigi. The rest is history.”

“Jesus.”

“And Willy was mad about that,” she said. “Never mind I told him my old man used to beat me…it was all, well, why do you connect with Rand? I’m a musician why aren’t you connecting with me? And now…now it’s all of this.”

“So, it was you all along printing up those poems,” I said.

“Me?” Hazel scrunched up her face. “Typical male. I tell you a tragic story and all you care about is yourself. You and Willy deserve each other.”

“I beg your pardon,” I said. “But I’m running a touch low on empathy these days.”

“Well, Mr. Self-serving, it wasn’t me who printed your goddamned poems…it was Scott.”

“Scott?” Of all the shockers of the day, that was the Moby Dick of shockers. “Scott…Scott who works here…quiet as a mouse Scott who eats peppers whole and is willing to take on any assignment that I give him, work extra nights and take extra desks? That Scott?”

“Bone Daddy himself.” Hazel smirked. “I told ya’ he was a creep.” Well, I was floored. She walked over to me “Since you started having that little poem problem, I decided to start keeping track of the paper we use here, just in case the poems were being printed at the branch. And they were. We’ve been going through a ton of paper and let me tell you paper isn’t cheap, and I have to send these reports on tech use once a month, so I don’t want it to look like anyone here was abusing…”

“Is there a moral to this story, Hazel?”

“I came into work extra-early the other day,” she said. “And I caught him red-handed. I spied Scott at the printer with a big stack of paper in the tray, and just these spools of it coming out. I sensed something was up so I immediately go over to Scott and rip one of them papers right out of his hand. And it’s your poems. He was so scared and caught red-handed that it took nothing to get him to admit what he did. Then I tell Scott to stop printing the poems or else I was gonna go to you about it.” Hazel smiled. “I also got him to stop eating those damned peppers, and he’s on a five-minute timer for the bathroom.”

“Fuck.” I sat back and scratched my head. Willy was innocent, at least on that charge. So was Hazel. But I was still surrounded by lunatics and schemers on all sides, and apparently involved in a love triangle that I had no clue I was in.

“I told you Scott was a dirtbag.”

“Did he say why he was printing the poems? Why he was sending them to HR?”

Hazel shrugged. “I forgot to ask,” she said. “I just knew that I had to try and save Willy…despite everything. Rand, you have to admit you’re kind of wrong with skipping out on your responsibilities and then giving him crap. But he didn’t print those poems, like I know you thought he did…. because I know deep down you didn’t really think that it was me. I just thought telling you now maybe you could stop them from dragging Willy out of here and shipping him off to Siberia or whatever. And you’re the only one I told. Because deep down I know you’re a good man. I know you’ll always do the right thing. I-I promise you I can get Willy to calm down and be reasonable.”

I got up from Jill’s desk. I was tired of hiding away and it was time to face my accuser, make a case for myself, and unfortunately now try and save Willy from being deported to some branch across Brooklyn and maybe even straighten a lot of this shit out. I opened the office door and there were now about four or five big shots standing around in their polyester suits. The door to the meeting room opened, and out came Oleg and the other two security guards. In the middle of the pack was Willy, haggard looking, like some national fugitive brought to justice.

He was ranting and raving, foaming at the mouth and wagging his finger at each and every one of them. Lawsuits were being threatened. Conspiracies tossed at the walls to see if they’d stick. Jill stood by my office door with her arms folded, shaking her head at the whole ordeal with those fast-food bags still in her hands. Sheldon was nowhere to be found. Scott was still in the children’s room with his picture books. I glanced at him, and he looked like he was staring right through me. I always thought that it was a blank stare, but now I could see the menace. I could feel the abject hate. He mouthed words at me. Bone Daddy, I think. He was another problem for another time.

I started for the big shots. “Look, guys I…”

“It’s him!” Willy shouted across the library. Before I knew it there were dozens of faces looking my way. “He’s the one who’s guilty! Not me! I didn’t do anything! I’m innocent here! All I wanted to do was retire in peace! It’s him not me! Rand Wyndham is the liar! Rand Wyndham is the one who cheats the system! Who head-butts people! Who writes about drugs and sex! Who vomits in front of children and has affairs with co-workers! It’s Rand who skips his meetings and is a sexual predator! Just ask Lena Alvarez! It’s Rand! He’s the one writing poems about all of us. It’s him…the poet. It’s…” But they had Willy out the door before he could finish.

Fuck him, I thought. So long Ganja Joe. Of all of the problems that I had in this world, innocent or not, at least Willy Abelman was no longer mine. I looked back at Hazel and she was glaring at me. I shrugged. She stormed off and slammed the staff room door. Oh well. I decided to let the truth burry itself deep down in my soul. I wasn’t such a good man after all.