I stood in line with my pretend family for a long, long time. Everybody was very quiet about standing in line, even my pretend brother and sister and all the other kids. When we finally got around the last comer and could see the door and folks going in it seemed like a bubble busted and people started laughing and talking. The main thing people were talking about was the great big sign that was hanging over the building.
It showed a gigantic picture of a family of four rich white people sitting in a car driving somewhere. You could tell it was a family 'cause they all looked exactly alike. The only difference amongst them was that the daddy had a big head and a hat and the momma had the same head with a woman's hat and the girl had two big yellow pigtails coming out from above her ears. They all had big shiny teeth and big shiny eyes and big shiny cheeks and big shiny smiles.
Shucks, you'd need to squint your eyes if that shiny family drove anywhere near you.
You could tell they were rich 'cause the car looked like it had room for eight or nine more people in it and 'cause they had movie star clothes on. The woman was wearing a coat with a hunk of fur around the neck and the man was wearing a suit and a tie and the kids looked like they were wearing ten-dollar- apiece jackets.
Writ about their car in fancy letters it said, THERE IS NO PLACE LIKE AMERICA TODAY!
My pretend daddy read it and said, "Uh-uh-uh, well, you got to give them credit, you wouldn't expect that they'd have the nerve to come down here and tell the truth."
When we finally got into the building it was worth the wait. The first thing you noticed when you got inside was how big the place was, and how many people were in it and how quiet it was. The only sound you could hear was when someone scraped a spoon across the bottom of their bowl or pulled a chair in or put one back or when the people in front of you dragged their feet on the floor moving up to where they were spooning out the food.
After we'd picked up our spoons and bowls a lady dug a big mess of oatmeal out of a giant pot and swopped it down into our bowls. She smiled and said, "I hope you enjoy?"
Me and my pretend family all said, "Thank you, ma'am". Then a man put two pieces of bread and a apple and a big glass of milk on your tray and said, "Please read the signs to your children. Thank you."
We all said "Thank you, sir." Then we walked past some signs someone'd stuck up on the wall.
One said, PLEASE DO NOT SMOKE, another said PLEASE EAT AS QUICKLY AND QUIETW AS POSSIBLE, another one said, PLEASE BE CONSIDERATE AND PATIENT--CLEAN UP AFTER YOURSELF--YOUR NEIGHBORS WILL BE EATING AFTER YOU, and the last one said, we ARE TERRIBLY SORRY BUT WE HAVE NO WORK AVAILABLE.
My pretend daddy read the signs to my pretend brother and sister and we all sat at a long table with strangers on both sides of us.
The oatmeal was delicious! I poured some of my milk into it so it wouldn't be so lumpy and mixed it all together.
My pretend mother opened her pocketbook and took out a little brown envelope. She reached inside of it and sprinkled something on my pretend brother's and sister's oatmeal, then said to them, "I know that's not as much as you normally get, but I wanted to ask you if you minded sharing some with Clarence."
They pouted and gave me a couple of dirty looks. My pretend mother said, "Good," and emptied the rest of the envelope over my oatmeal. Brown sugar!
Shucks, I didn't even mind them calling me Clarence anymore. I said "Thank you, Momma, ma'am."
She and my pretend daddy laughed and he said, "It took you long enough to catch on, Clarence." He acted like he was going to smack me again but he didn't.
After we'd finished all our food we put our bowls up and I thanked my pretend family again, I asked them, "Are you going to be coming back for supper?"
My pretend momma said, "No, dear, we only come here mornings. But you make sure you get here plenty early, you hear?"
I said, "Yes, Momma, I mean, ma'am". I watched them walking away. My pretend brother looked back at me and stuck out his tongue, then reached up and took my pretend mother's hand. I couldn't really blame him, I don't think I'd be real happy about sharing my brown sugar and my folks with any strange kids either.
***
I PUSHED the heavy door open and walked into the library. The air in the library isn't like the air anywhere else, first it's always cooler than the air outside, it feels like you're walking into a cellar on a hot July day, even if you have to walk up a bunch of stairs to get into it.
The next thing about the air in the library is that no other place smells anything like it. If you close your eyes and try to pick out what it is that you're sniffing you're only going to get confused, because all the smells have blended together and turned themselves into a different one.
As soon as I got into the library I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I got a whiff of the leather on all the old books, a smell that got real strong if you picked one of them up and stuck your nose real close to it when you turned the pages. Then there was the smell of the cloth that covered the brand-new books, the books that made a splitting sound when you opened them. Then I could sniff the paper, that soft, powdery, drowsy smell that comes off the pages in little puffs when you're reading something or looking at some pictures, a kind of hypnotizing smell.
I think it's that smell that makes so many folks fall asleep in the library. You'll see someone turn a page and you can imagine a puff of page powder coming up really slow and easy until it starts piling on the person's eyelashes, weighing their eyes down so much that they stay down a little longer after each blink and finally making them so heavy that they just don't come back up at all. Then their mouths come open and their heads start bouncing up and down like they're bobbing in a big tub of water for apples and before you know it.., woop, zoop, sloop, they're out cold and their face thunks down smack-dab on the book.