Why me and not them? Why couldn’t that guy have died? Why am I not here right now with Ben looking at a sad woman pacing on the street, on the edge of a nervous breakdown? What right do they have to be happy? Why does everyone in the world have to be happy in front of me?
I go back inside and tell Nancy I’ll be in the Native American section. I tell her I’m researching the Aztecs for next month’s display. I stand in the aisle, running my fingers over the spines, feeling the cellophane crackle as I touch it. I watch as the Dewey decimal numbers escalate higher and higher. I try to focus only on the numbers, only on the spines. It works for a moment, for a moment I don’t feel like I want to get a gun. But in that moment, I crash face-first into someone else.
“Oh! I’m so sorry,” he says to me, picking up the book he’s dropped. He’s my age, maybe a bit older. He has black hair and what is probably a permanent five o’clock shadow. He is tall with a firm body and broad shoulders. He is dressed in a faded T-shirt and jeans. I notice his brightly colored Chuck Taylors as he picks up his book. I move to get out of his way, but he seems to want to stop and talk.
“Brett,” he says and puts out his hand. I shake it, trying to move on.
“Elsie,” I say.
“Sorry to bump into you like that,” he says. “I’m not that familiar with this library, and the librarians here aren’t very helpful.”
“I’m a librarian here,” I say. I don’t care if he feels awkward.
“Oh.” He laughs shyly. “That is embarrassing. I’m so sorry. Again. Wow. This isn’t going well for me, huh?”
“No, I guess not,” I say.
“Listen, would you let me buy you a coffee, as an apology?” he asks.
“No, that’s okay. It’s not a big deal.”
“No, really. I’d like to. It would be my pleasure,” he says, and now he’s smiling like he thinks he’s cute or something.
“Oh,” I say. “No, I really should be getting back to work.”
“Some other time then,” he says. Maybe he thinks I’m being demure or shy. I don’t know.
“I’m married,” I say, trying to end it. I don’t know if I’m saying that because I think it’s true or just to get him off my back, the way I used to say “I don’t think my boyfriend would like that” when I was single and hit on by homeless men outside convenience stores.
“Oh,” he says. “I’m sorry, I didn’t . . . I wasn’t expecting that.”
“Yeah, well,” I say as I lift up my hand and show him.
“Well,” he says, laughing. “If it doesn’t work out with you and your husband . . . ”
That’s when I punch him in the face.
I’m surprised at how satisfying it is to make contact: the crack of fist to face, the sight of just the smallest trickle of blood out of a nose.
You are not supposed to punch people in the face. You’re especially not supposed to punch people in the face while you are at work. When you work for the city. And when the person you punch in the face is kind of a baby about it and insists that the library call the cops.