Glister

by John Burnside

  Almost, but not quite. Nowadays, there's this mad librarian called John, a big fat bloke with bad hair and worse glasses, who sneaks a few good things in under the radar every now and then. I didn't like John when I first met him. Now I think he's all right—though I imagine he could do with getting laid sometime in the next fifty years. I mean, I love books, but John is a pathologically compulsive reader, which mostly means that he can turn up for work in the morning with egg yolk on his tie and hair out of a Godzilla movie and he hasn't even noticed. To begin with, I thought he was wrapped too tight for the Innertown, but I more or less like him now. He loves books, and he knows everything there is to know about music. That's all the life he has.

  When I first met him, though, I have to admit that he got up my nose. I'd been browsing the shelves, looking for something new and coming up stumped. I'd read all the Dostoyevsky they had, the complete fucking works in some ancient edition with red-and-yellow dust wrappers, so they looked like boxes of cheap sweets. I'd read Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse, which was the only book of hers they had managed to acquire. Not much happened, but I liked the way she looked at things, and I'd have liked to read more of her stuff. I'd have enjoyed knowing what she thought of the Innertown; that would have been an amazing book. I read Nostromo and Heart of Darkness and Lord Jim, and I'd try to imagine what it would have been like to have Joseph Conrad as a mate, or maybe an uncle, when you were a kid. I'd read F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and I'd almost cried at the end, around about the point where Gatsby's dad turns up. I'd read fucking Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms and wondered why nobody ever bought the guy a dictionary. I'd read Diary of a Nobody, and all the Charles Dickens stuff they had, and they were great, but I couldn't get on with Trollope. I'd read the anthology of poetry from 1400 to 1945. I'd read some history books, some biographies, and a book about English folk music that looked like it had been used as a doorstop for fifty years. By the time John arrived at the library, I was running out of stuff to read, next step sniffing glue and juvenile delinquency. Or worse still, celebrity memoirs.

  That was when I found Marcel Proust.

  It was a nice edition, almost brand-new and nice colors, all dust-wrapped and smelling of the printers. Blue on the cover, like some French song about la mer. Weird titles. When I saw the complete set on the shelf I almost cried, it was so beautiful. I grabbed the first four volumes, the limit of books I could borrow on my ticket, and carried them off to the checkout desk. That was when I met John. He had just arrived, to take over from the stuck-up cow who used to be head librarian, and he was working what budget he had for the Greater Good of all. That's the wonderful thing with nerds: they're enthusiasts. Not having a life means you get to love things with a passion and nobody bothers you about it. And every now and then, you get to pass something on.

  John looked at me a bit snooty, that first time, when I wandered over to the checkout desk clutching my prize. I think he was a bit of a snob; he probably figured he'd ended up working in the Innertown library because of some cruel twist of fate. “You'd do better to read these one at a time,” he said, picking up the first volume, which was intriguingly called Swann's Way. “It's slow, but satisfying reading. Definitely not Rider Haggard.”

  Of course, I'd never heard of Rider Haggard, though it was a pretty good name for a writer. Too good really. Maybe he'd made it up. “Is it good?” I asked.

  “Good?” He looked at me over his wobbly glasses. “Yes. It's good. It's better in French, though, it has to be said.”

  “French?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have it in French?”

  “Why?” He smiled slightly. “Can you read French?”

  “Not really,” I said. I was doing languages in school, but I was pretty sure Miss Lemmon's French classes hadn't quite equipped me for this yet. “Un petit peu,” I added, hopefully.

  “Not much point, then,” he said.

  I was a bit annoyed by that. “So,” I said, “have you read it in French?”

  He nodded. Smug fucking bastard.

  “What, all of it?”

  “It's a real page-turner.”

  “I thought you said it was slow.”

  “Definition of a page-turner,” he said. Then he grinned, and I knew he was just mucking about, and I kind of liked him from that moment on. It was John, after all, who made me go back and read Herman Melville. I'd consumed some kids' version of Moby-Dick they had in the junior library, but not the real book. For some reason, the powers that be decided many years ago that Moby-Dick is some sort of kids' book, and they put it out in all kinds of weird editions, all abridged and illustrated and gutted to the bare bones of an “adventure.” Worse still, they had Melville down as a one-book wonder, so I didn't even know about The Confidence-Man, or Bartleby the Scrivener or Billy Budd, until John came along. Nobody should ever forget the debt of eternal gratitude they owe to whoever it was who first got them to read Herman Melville properly. According to John, the real version of Moby-Dick was a page-turner, too—and he was right about that, just as he was right about Proust and all those others. The definition of a page-turner really ought to be that this page is so good, you can't bear to leave it behind, but then the next page is there and it might be just as amazing as this one. Or something like that. Of course, as right as he was about all things literary, John was wrong about pretty much everything else.

  After that first meeting, I spent as much time as I could in the library. Before John arrived, I'd just gone in, browsed the shelves, picked four books, got them checked out, and ran home. Some woman my dad's age, with the same gray skin as his, only upright and walking about all by herself, would stamp them for me, looking like she'd rather call the police than let me borrow these particular fucking books. Once, she'd stopped midway and looked me in the face, possibly for the first time ever.

  “Do you actually like Henry James?” she said.

  I nodded. “Can't get enough of him,” I said.

  “You know, we've got some great books for teenagers in the Young Adults section,” she said.

  I shook my head. “Not really my kind of thing,” I said.

  She frowned then and stamped my copy of The Turn of the Screw. “I hope you enjoy it,” she said. “Henry James may be just a bit old for you.”

  I smiled happily. “Well,” I said, “I only read him for the sex scenes.”

  I thought she'd crack a smile then, but she didn't.

  So I was pretty happy when the old cow suddenly retired and John showed up. I tried to imagine his life: where he lived, what he did. I thought maybe he wrote books in his spare time. If he did, I can't imagine they were any good. He liked books too much. Though I sometimes wondered what he liked them for. There was one night, for example: I was in late, and John was sitting at the desk, reading a book with a bright, gaudy-looking cover. It was quiet, and he was completely absorbed in whatever it was he was reading. That made me curious, so I went over and tried to sneak a closer peek at the cover, to see what the title was. But as soon as he saw me, John laid the book flat on the desk and started reading out loud.

  “When engaged in hand-to-hand combat” he said, “your life is always at stake. There is only one purpose in combat, and that is to kill your enemy. Never face an enemy with the idea of knocking him out. The chances are extremely good that he will kill you instead. When a weapon is not available, one must resort to the full use of his natural weapons. The natural weapons are—” He looked up at me. “What are the natural weapons, Leonard?” he said.

  I shook my head. I didn't want to interrupt the reading.

  John shook his head likewise and went on. “One” he said. “The knife-edge of your hand. Two: Fingers folded at the second joint or knuckle. Three: The protruding knuckle of your second finger. Four: The heel of your hand.” He gave me an amazed-and-happy look. “Isn't it great, Leonard? This is a book that actually tells you how to kill people with your bare hands.”

  “What the fuck is
it?” I said.

  “The Anarchist Cookbook” he said. “Listen.” He went back to reading from the book. “Attacking is a primary factor. A fight was never won by defensive action. Attack with all of your strength. At any point or any situation, some vulnerable point on your enemy's body will be open for attack.” He flicked the page, then went on. He'd obviously been reading this for a while. “This bit is good,” he said. “There are many vulnerable points of the body. We will cover them now: Eyes: Use your fingers in a V-shape and attack in gouging motion. Nose: (Extremely vulnerable) Strike with the knife-edge of the hand along the bridge, which will cause breakage, sharp pain, temporary blindness, and if the blow is hard enough, death. Also, deliver a blow with the heel of your hand in an upward motion, this will shove the bone up into the brain causing death. Adam's Apple: This spot is usually pretty well protected, but if you get the chance, strike hard with the knife-edge of your hand. This should sever the wind-pipe, and then it's all over in a matter of minutes.” He grinned at me. “Et cetera, et cetera,” he said. “Isn't it fantastic?”

  “Why's that then?” I say.

  He looked at me. “This book teaches you how to kill and maim people,” he said. “I mean, at last a book that is actually useful.” He quoted again. “Ears: Coming up from behind an enemy and cupping the hands in a clapping motion over the victim's ears can kill him immediately. The vibrations caused from the clapping motion will burst his eardrums, and cause internal bleeding in the brain.” He genuinely was excited. “I didn't know that,” he said. “Did you know that, Leonard?”

  I didn't say anything. I hadn't realized John had such a deep and abiding interest in fucking people up.

  “Here's a good bit,” he said. “Listen: There are many more ways to kill and injure an enemy, but these should work best for the average person. This is meant only as information and I would not recommend that you use this for a simple High School Brawl. Use these methods only, in your opinion, if your life is in danger. Any one of these methods could very easily kill or cause permanent damage to someone.” He was so happy. “This guy tells you how to kill people, and then he tells you not to do it.”

  “Well,” I said, “that's very responsible of him.”

  John snorted. “Hell, that's not going to make any difference,” he said. “Once you've got stuff like this at your fingertips, you're going to use it, right?”

  “I don't know,” I said. “Who are you going to use it on?”

  He laughed. “Well,” he said, “I've started a list. I'm up to twenty-seven now.”

  “Am I on it?”

  John looked hurt. “Why would I want to kill you, Leonard?” he said. “I mean, you of all people. The one other bibliophile in town?”

  “Edmund Hillary,” I said. I felt a bit grim, to be honest.

  “Edmund Hillary?” He looked puzzled.

  “Because I'm there,” I said. Of course I knew that it doesn't matter what you read in a book, because you have to have the will to kill somebody to actually do it and you can't read up on will. It doesn't matter what techniques you master, you actually have to be prepared to do it. The surprising thing about most people, considering how much we all hate one another, is that they're not prepared for that. They fantasize about it all the time, but they couldn't do it. At some unspoken level, that fact defines everything that happens between us. It's that simple. Even in the most law-abiding place, what makes the difference is that one man is capable of killing and another isn't. You put those two men in the same room, and it doesn't matter what else comes into play. It's the difference between giving a shit and not. No matter how bad things get, most people still care about something. That's what makes them so fucking sad, and that's what makes them beautiful. Still, I don't say any of this to John. I just wait for his answer.

  “I'd never kill you, Leonard,” he said. He looked unhappy. As if he was hurt that I asked.

  “That's fine, then,” I said.

  He gave me a wry smile. “Fucking Anarchist Cookbook” he said.

  “Mrs. Beeton's what I go by,” I said.

  He nods. “Yeah,” he said. “She's got a really good recipe for rhubarb crumble, I hear.”

  I made a face. “Now there's how to kill somebody,” I said.

  So. A pretty dubious character when all is said and done. A mixed bag. Still, it was partly because of John that I met Elspeth. After he arrived, I had permission, I could hang about for hours and that was exactly what I did, partly because I was curious about John, but mostly because he had all kinds of secrets tucked away there, in back rooms, in forgotten boxes that he'd pulled out and started going through. Sometimes he would be too busy to talk, but when he was free, he'd get stuff out of the archives or the Reference section for me to look at. Sometimes, he'd just pull out a pile of stuff and let me go through it while he did his work. So one afternoon, after school, I've been sitting for a while, head down, going through a dictionary of quotations—sometimes that's the way to read, in little snippets, the sushi version of food for thought—when, all of a sudden, I look up and I realize it's evening already. I can see the soft green of the evening trees and the splashes of orange between the leaves. I have this amazing sensation, then, a kind of quiet happiness, to think that everything—the park, the street-lamps, the little petrol station on the corner opposite—has all just arrived from nowhere, temporary, like a film set. Then I look into the space facing me and that is when I see her: a girl my age, but older-looking, in her short leather jacket and blue jeans, her hair cut short, like a boy, the plaid shirt under the jacket unbuttoned enough to show the thin gold chain around her neck. After a moment, she catches me watching her and shoots me a questioning glance. “Can I help you?” she says. She isn't being snotty, but she means it as a challenge. It makes me think she's been looking at me before I saw her, and she was just waiting for me to notice.

  “What time is it?” I say. This is the best I can come up with.

  She looks round at the clock on the far wall, then back to me. “Well,” she says, “the big hand is at six, and the little hand—”

  “All right,” I say.

  She laughs. “What's the problem?” she says. “Is there someplace you have to be?”

  I shake my head. “No problem,” I say. I'm trying to place her. I think she looks like somebody at our school, some girl in fourth year, but she also looks different. Then I figure it out. “You used to go out with Jimmy van Doren,” I say. It sounds a bit like an accusation.

  She smiles. “Oh my,” she says, “don't I have the checkered past.”

  That makes me laugh, but I don't say anything.

  “Well,” she says. “I don't go out with Jimmy van Doren anymore. He's archived.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “So what are you doing here?” I say. On reflection, that sounds like a rude question, but she doesn't mind.

  “Watching you read,” she says.

  “That must be interesting.”

  “It is,” she says. “I like the way your lips move when you come to the big words. It's very touching.”

  “Ha ha,” I say.

  “Ha ha,” she says. “So. Now that I'm free and everything, do you want to go out with me?”

  “Why would I want to do that?” I say.

  “Because I'm very sexy and very, very beautiful.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Absolutely,” she says. “So. What do you think?”

  “I don't know.”

  “You don't know if you'd like to go out with me?”

  “Don't rush me,” I say.

  “We could stay in, if you like,” she says. “I'm not fussy.”

  “I told you,” I say, “don't rush me.”

  “Well,” she says, “suit yourself.”

  “I will.”

  “You don't know what you're missing.”

  “I can imagine,” I say.

  “Oh no you can't,” she says. She smiles real beautiful t
hen, and I know I'm wasting my time pretending.

  “I didn't say no,” I say. “I said don't rush me.”

  “Well, you better make up your mind quick,” she says, “or you'll regret it forever.”

  “Oh yeah?” I say. “How do you know that?”

  “Believe me,” she says. “I know.”

  I have to smile. She's pretty, that's for sure.

  “So,” she says. “What's it to be?”

  I don't say anything. Maybe, right at that moment, I am in love. Romantically, that is.

  “I'll give you a blow job, if you like,” she says.

  I'm a bit taken aback by that, but I manage not to show it. Or not too much. “Oh yeah?” I say, trying to look nonchalant.

  “Absolutely,” she says.

  “When?” I feel hollow deep down, like somebody has just scooped out my insides.

  “Now,” she says.

  “Where?”

  “We can go outside,” she says. “Back of the library.” She looks over at John, who is pretending to put away books under the Home Improvements section, but is really watching us. “Where John goes to smoke reefer,” she says, just loud enough for him to hear.

  By this time, she's pretty sure she has me, and she does, but not for the reason she's thinking. She's thinking I've never had a blow job before, but I have. Some old woman stopped me when I was going down the West Side Road toward the shore. She was in a car, and she just pulled up beside me and asked if I wanted to go for a little ride. I'd never seen her before, her or the car, which was odd because you don't get many tourists driving down the West Side Road. So I asked her what she meant and she said she would give me ten quid if I'd let her give me a blow job.

  I wasn't sure, to be honest. She was pretty old, and she wasn't nice-looking by any stretch; if anything, she looked more like a bloke than a woman, with loads of makeup and dark red lipstick. But then, I thought, ten quid is ten quid. So I got in the car and she drove me down to the shore, which was where I was going anyway. It didn't take long, and she seemed happy enough. She told me I was a nice boy, and she gave me the ten quid. Then she gave me another five. “That's for your little brother,” she said. “Have you got a little brother?”