William Gass - Middle C

Hands are important here, Joseph ventured.

Ah, yes, good. Your hands will get dusty in this world of ours, and you’ll need to wash them often. Not just for the books’ sake. You’ll suffer paper cuts. Infection sites. A nuisance but a peril of the job. You’ve probably seen the notices I’ve put up in the bathrooms, yes? Dust jackets weren’t idly named. We do risk the jackets for the first few weeks, when the books are NAs, because even protected they’ll nick or fade a little, but then, after the volumes come back here to the open stacks, we store the jackets in basement boxes as if they were winter wear. Miss Moss … if she chooses … Miss Moss can show you where. Have you encountered Miss Moss?

Yes I have. We—

We allow pencils, but watch out for readers, usually women, who use the eraser to capture corners and roll pages over or, worse, who lick their fingers. Admonish them. Be gentle. But admonishment is necessary.

Ah—

I know the jokes. Do I have my hair in a bun? With a pencil thrust through it? But we have to admonish; we have to shush. We have few funds and can’t replace books readily, so we must be particular. And we haven’t the space to keep duplicates. We’ve got to sell them off, you know. Send them on their way. Patrons are always giving us duplicates. Miss Moss is in charge of the poor things, as well as the old folks and the orphans. Sometimes I think she is a faint late duplicate herself.

Joseph laughed in a way that showed his admiration for Marjorie’s turn of phrase without making his mirth seem malicious about Miss Moss. He was learning, and Marjorie sent him a look that said “Well done.”

Marjorie had told him to choose his eight hours from the library’s day, but Joseph had hesitated because he wanted to pick what would be, for her, the most suitable times. She liked to arrive and leave late — working from ten to six usually — so he said he’d do nine to twelve and five to ten. Although Marjorie only nodded and made a note to install him at the early and late “stamp-out desk,” as Marjorie called it, she appeared hugely gratified, particularly since she didn’t like to make Miss Moss work after dark. In winter Marjorie worried about her steadiness in the streets. However, worry is the most she could do because Miss Moss wasn’t a woman who was easily helped.

You dust each book when you put it back, Joseph asked Miss Moss, having thought of nothing better to say.

Yes, I indeed do. I do. Which is to tell you twice.

I–I guess you did.

I wipe them with this rag that Major doesn’t like. She wants me to use the vac.

Noisy. Awkward to carry about, I suppose.

Because the rag just rubs it in, she says — pushes the dust down between pages. The dust is as fine as polish paper down here. It will work its way into the least crack or crevice. But I wipe it in anyway. The top ends get gray, as do we all. Including the Major. Why shouldn’t they show their age?

Well, yes, you are certainly right about that.

You don’t really think so. I’m sure you side with the Major.

Well, I–I really haven’t sides.

We all have sides. I am at least hexagonal.

Well … that many?

Those who go to the well too often, often fall in.

Ah, yes, well warned.

Major wants me to fasten cheesecloth over the nose of the hose and then push the attachment in.

Really? Why? That seems extreme.

The Major is extreme. If any fragments of paper, cloth, or leather fly off when I’m hosing, they will be caught in the net of the cheese. Of course they’d be minute and of no worth even if they were pasted back where they bee-long.

Well, that is clever.

Ver-ee clever. Miss Moss held her swatch aloft. I am clever, tooo.

Joseph now noticed how streaked her cloth was. Miss Moss had turned her back. Her dust rag lolled over her thin shoulder like a small towel. Marjorie’d have us wear white gloves if she wouldn’t have to wash them. Miss Moss managed to dial her voice up for that remark.

As far as the library goes, I guess, she thinks all books are fine ones.

Joseph thought Miss Moss hissed. She certainly sailed out of sight. Her world must be flat because she disappeared all at once rather than a bit at a time.

During the week, the busiest times at the desk occurred shortly after the schools let their pupils out. Many stopped by on their way home, high school kids mostly, though occasionally lower grades showed up with mothers in tow. Weekends could get heavy. Then only the front desk was manned. Sunday Joseph was free and took his obligatory drive to Woodbine. Miriam was always glad to see him, though she complained constantly of this or that — this or that condition, repair, or logistical problem for which Joey would have found a solution if he wasn’t living far away in the country of the witches. He had gotten the Rambler to back down Marjorie’s steep drive safely a few times — he just held the wheel steady, disengaged the clutch, and rode the brake — though always with great trepidation, particularly while essaying the turn of the car’s rear into the road. Fortunately, there was little traffic. There, after sitting a bit to regain control of his breath, Joseph would start the motor. The Bumbler (he had given it the same name he had given its driver) made lots of funny noises, but they seemed to signal nothing that impeded his progress, so he learned to ignore them. Driving without a license was the least of his crimes. Driving without knowledge was probably foremost, though the car itself was threat enough. He did swerve unaccountably a number of times, and the gears were still inclined to clash, but he was beginning to enjoy the machine’s passage through the country — with himself at the helm. The automobile enslaved and set free at the same time. This realization, appropriate to so many things, would become a constant in the character of Joseph Skizzen while he was a professor of music at Whittlebauer College. You think choosing the chromatic scale set the composer free? he would ask his class as acidly as he could. It made a slave of him!

In her own domain, Miss Moss could be as particular as Marjorie was meticulous. Perhaps that was the plan. In one hand Joseph had brought a new arrival, which had a slightly shaken lower spine, down to Miss Moss’s workroom to receive a modest injection of paste, while in the other — Marjorie did not approve of towering stacks from which, when carried, volumes slid off to disaster — he held an old worn Bullfinch whose cover had come off entirely. These he placed on the trolley that stood outside her door and knocked. A knock, down there, was a real noise. He waited and was about to knock again when the door opened. Joseph did not understand that she was the Star and that this was — if not her dressing room — Her Office. Consequently a certain delay in response was necessary. He was, nevertheless, as deferential to her as to a dancer. Miss Moss, I just wanted you to know I’ve left these books — he waved in their direction — for repair. She actually seemed to be smiling until she saw the trolley.

Oh my, she said, as if in deep distress. I’m going to have to show you how to load a book truck. Don’t balance books on the heads of other books, as you’ve done here. They aren’t practicing to improve their posture. And if you row them like this, with their fore-edges down, see how the entire content hangs from the spine? These days so many books are glued instead of sewn, and it is particularly hard on them to do what bats do. On the other hand if you put them spine down on the truck, the back gets roughened up. The corners of the boards are also exposed, and these points are the most easily bumped and dented. That will happen to them soon enough. You can’t know yet what people inflict on the poor things.