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| | nuts at the libraryI don't doubt that government buildings and offices have a way of attracting some of the crazier elements of the citizenry, and from what I've seen this seems to also be true of libraries. Granted, the library I work at isn't a normal public library where you go and check out books or have summer reading clubs for the kids or invite authors to discuss their latest tome. The law library is open to the public but is not a lending library, and most of the people who visit are either lawyers, various Dallas County employees, or people who need to make copies of various legal forms. What these forms are depend on which library they are visiting. One goes to the civil law library for forms relating to divorce, name change, suit affecting parent-child relationship (SAPCR), annulment, modification of child support, etc. One goes to the criminal law library for forms relating to occupational drivers licenses, or expunction and nondisclosure, which are two common procedures for clearing one's criminal record.
So the law libraries, by nature, will attract lots of people with instability in their lives, or worse yet, their brains. At the civil law library, we have nicknames for several of the regulars who have come in over the years. One of my co-workers even went through the trouble to make a roster of all the nicknames the staff members have come up with, almost all of which pre-date the 14 months I've worked there.
Thankfully most of these only visit the civil branch, where I am half my work day, but that is usually spent doing behind-the-scenes work and not working at the front desk, meaning I rarely have up close encounters with the crazier ones unless someone is sick and I have to fill in up front. I spend the other half of my work day at the criminal branch, and though appearances of crazies is rare there, it is certainly not unheard of.
My least favorite of those came by this afternoon. This was the third time I had seen him. The first time was several months back when I had to work a whole day solo at the criminal branch (it's a small library and there are never more than two workers there at a time). This person was an old, ragged-looking man, probably in his 40s. The most distinctive thing about him was that he would laugh uncontrollably at absolutely nothing. He'd talk in words that made little sense, when they were discernible at all.
The first time I saw him come into the criminal library, he was carrying a mess of papers, sucking on a lollipop, and periodically chomping on an apple and splattering little bits of juice everywhere. He smelled awful, spoke nonsense, and laughed every few seconds, for reasons known only to him. He'd walk around the room, talk to himself, laugh at the air, walk some more, laugh some more, repeat. He asked me for help finding something, though I was never sure if it was a book or article he was after, he only said it was called "George W. Bush and the Bible". Even is such a book exists, it's not the kind that the law library would have, so I told him we didn't have it and that I'd never heard of it. "Oh, it's out. They've got it", he said, "they", meaning bookstores I guess. He looked on the internet and printed out a page of something and came to get what he'd copied. I told him copies were 20 cents per page, he pulled out a nickel and a few pennies out of his pocket and asked if it would be enough. I figured, anything that would get him out of there would be okay, and since I had some coin change of my own with me, I told him he could take his copy.
That was disturbing and disgusting. It was the kind of encounter that makes you want to take a shower afterwards. After he left I called a co-worker at the civil branch, who was a lot more amused by my story than I was. I didn't see the guy again for a few months. The next time he came was in the morning on another day when I happened to be spending a full day at the criminal branch. He came in the door and said, "Hey, I know you!" He was carrying a bunch of papers, several large paper envelopes that one usually gets at a post office, a Bible, and a small plastic basket that looked like the kind one would put their keys and cell phone into when going through the metal detectors inside the public entrance of the building. He retreated into one of the public telephone rooms and was there for a while, doing who knows what. I had a chance to walk over to the table he'd left his stuff, and when I took a look at the Bible I saw that it had the name of a local hospital stamped on the inside of it. He eventually left without incident and without addressing me or anyone else in the library, although he left all the envelopes and the plastic basket, and when he hadn't returned a few hours later I trashed them.
This afternoon when I was delivering a book to another office I saw him walking through the main lobby of the building, except by "saw", I mean "heard his crazed laugh and knew immediately who it was". I was hoping against hope that he had a legitimate reason for being in the building and wouldn't find his way to the law library, but those hopes were dashed when I got back from my delivery run. Once again, he'd brought a bunch of large envelopes with him, and he was laughing at the air a lot. I was in my "office" (really just a room where I stash my stuff when I'm at that library, and where I process any books that I deal with) when he went into one of the phone rooms. I poked my head out and saw one of the public computers had a wikipedia page up, with an image I was sure I recognized, even from 40 feet away. I went to the computer to get a better look, and sure enough, the man had pulled up George W. Bush's wikipedia page! He is nothing if not a creature of habit.
After he came out of the phone room he stood near one of the copy machines and talked (or pretended to talk) loudly on a cell phone, occasionally laughing. My co-worker Chris told him he needed to talk outside the library, and the man ignored him at first. Then Chris asked him if he was here to do legal research, which he undoubtedly was not. He left soon afterwards. Chris said asking that question might get him to leave sooner. After he left, I got some sanitizing wipes and wiped down the table he had sat at and the telephone in the phone room he'd gone into, as well as the door knobs. His presence had lent an odoriferous quality to that area of the library, so I also took a can of odor neutralizer and sprayed a couple times in the phone room. I was just thankful he didn't bring an apple with him this time.
I would guess he is either insane or otherwise chemically imbalanced, though whether that is caused naturally or synthetically is anyone's guess. I'm sure he'll be back eventually, I just hope it's not when I'm there. As we say about some of the regular crazies who visit the civil branch, how miserable must one's life be when, out of everything they could be doing with their day, they choose on a regular basis to go to a government building and haunt the county law library. Why us? Why can't they go bother the purchasing department or the county auditor? | | | Posted 5/7/2008 12:40 AM - 0 comments
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