Sitting here in the children's department manning the circ desk whilst 375 staff members are on vacation. It's a quiet Friday morning... kiddies are all back in school, books are shelved, weeded through the 600's, events are planned. I am innocently chatting with a friend from Israel on gmail when clomp, clomp, clomp. We have a rounded staircase that leads from upstairs with molded oak banisters and one of my superpowers here is being able to determine who is coming down the stairs by the sound of their feet, providing it is a staff member or one of our 'regulars' (read: crazies). I'd like to think that my years in graduate school prepared me for this unique talent as it attaches meaning to the checks I write each month to the folks at the student loan offices.

I usually don't look up to see who is coming down. The public restroom is located down here, so generally we have a rule not to make eye contact with the adults who visit our little world since more than likely they are using la toilette. We try not to pay attention to them unless we suddenly recall that they went into the bathroom at around 10:15 and it is now 10:40 and there is a line of people heckling and thumping on the door in which case it is now necessary to hit the panic button and wait for the police to rouse them.

So when this individual descended, I didn't even look up until something flashed off of the right corner of my glasses, a quick twinkle. Startled I glanced up and in an instant knew how the statement 'my jaw dropped' came about because I am pretty sure it did. Tellingly, my eyebrows also shot up and I mumbled a garbled 'hello' before swiveling around to fiddle with the date-due cards my eye still twitching a bit.

He swaggers. The clomping comes from the snakeskin cowboy boots and the glint came from the spurs. Spurs. In Chelsea, Massachusetts where the only thing you ride is the bus or the subway. There is a faint swish from the brown leather chaps. There is a bullet studded belt. There is a Hawaiian shirt peppered liberally with apples and worms. Yes, apples and worms. There is the requisite brown leather vest with what appears to be side holsters bulging with godonlyknows. I had skipped over his face because my eyes were quickly drawn to the snakeskin cowboy hat but as he stands in front of my computer expectantly I know that I have to look up. Rheumy blue eyes stare at me as he asks for restroom key and I vaguely point to where it rests as I stare at his beard which is braided into two skinny rattails that wiggled as he spoke. I am absurdly reminded of the guy from Anthrax because they were also dyed a brilliant red. This guy is no freakin joke.

He was a part of my life only briefly. He used the bathroom and then wandered into the non-fiction room with a sense of bravado coupled with disorientation. He eventually realized that this is the children's department and meandered back upstairs, still with a swagger, still with the spurs.