One Man's Trash

The reference stacks were close, dusty. The mismatched bookshelves crammed full, combined with the smell of aged paper and years of dust invoked the used bookstore Lisha loved as a child. Some of the volumes were beyond antique, many of them irreplaceable. So why, she wondered, is there a draft here, in the most protected part of the library?

Lisha used the flashlight on her phone to illuminate the dust motes in the air, following the currents and eddies upstream. She ended up at the most out-of-place bookshelf — if one could call it that — in the entire library. Students called it the “tank.”

The “tank” was the only bookshelf on wheels, and the only one hermetically sealed and fitted with its own climate control. Inside, held in precisely made cradles, were the rarest, most expensive tomes in the library’s collection. The top shelf held a thirteenth-century volume containing the gospels, along-side a little-known sketch book with Sir Isaac Newton’s scribbles.

The middle shelf held a scroll recovered from an archaeological dig dated to roughly 2000 BCE. It had never been opened, for fear it would disintegrate; for now, it waited for a new technology or technique to discover its secrets.

The collection of diaries on the bottom shelf, perhaps not as important as the other items, brought Lisha’s attention back to what she’d been doing. The draft was coming from beneath the tank. She rolled it forward into the aisle to see if there was a problem with the climate control.

It was only as she was looking at the solid back that hid the machinery that she realized she wouldn’t have been able to tell if there was anything wrong in the first place. She felt a breath of cool air against her ankle. The wall had a gap beneath it, there.

Lisha knelt to inspect the gap under the wall, and as she did, pushed against the wall for support. The wall — or more properly, the door covered in the same paneling as the walls — swung in. The room was a library within a library. The difference being this was the sort of Victorian library one would expect in a manor.

Still using her phone’s flashlight, she traced the books on the shelves. Encyclopedia Britannica, all, from the ninth edition to the fifteenth. She swept her light over the furnishings. Leather sofas and chairs, an ornate desk beside a fireplace, and on the other side of the fireplace another leather chair with a small table. On the table was a paperback, a battery-operated reading light, and a sport bottle.

So, she wasn’t the first to discover the room, and someone had been here recently. She heard the wind gusting outside, the sound, along with a blast of cool air, coming down the chimney and out the fireplace, swirling the ashes around.

“Oh, dear.” The voice that came with the bright light from the doorway startled her. Lisha whirled around, expecting to be in some sort of trouble.

“I…uh…there was a draft, and I—”

“It’s my fault,” the voice behind the bright light said. The large flashlight pointed at the floor, and Lisha could make out Esther, the head librarian.

“Uh…hi, Esther.”

“Nice to see you, Lisha. I guess I forgot to close the flue this morning.” Esther stepped in and pushed the door closed behind her. She lit one of the oil lamps near the door and the room was filled with a warm, soft glow.

“I didn’t know this was here.”

“Few do. And I would ask that you don’t share its existence with anyone. This is one of the rare places on campus that a few of us can retreat to and not be bothered.”

“Everything about this room, except for the more recent encyclopedias, looks Victorian. What was it?”

“When the Women’s College opened up and shared the library, this room was walled off to allow a place for the ‘gentlemen’ to avoid the women, smoke their cigars and pipes, and drink their brandy or sherry while they studied.” She pointed at the framed, Victorian-era, “French postcards” on the walls.

“I’m surprised it’s still here.”

“Not that surprising. It was never wired for electricity with the rest of the library — first in the thirties, then in the subsequent renovations since. When the colleges joined in the fifties, this became something of a ‘secret society’ boys club. Now, it’s a different sort of secret society that only a few staff and faculty that know about.”

“So, that’s your novel and water bottle?”

“No, that would be William — Dr. Hillyard. He only reads his trashy novels where he can’t be seen. Wouldn’t do for a professor of 19^th century French literature to be seen reading Wild Women in the Big House by Amee Butts.”

Lisha giggled. “No, I suppose it wouldn’t. Wait, how do you know what he’s reading?”

“We’re all reading it. This is a trashy novel reading club. We have our guilty pleasures.” Esther smiled. “Every Tuesday night we gather when the library closes early. We build a fire, have a couple drinks, and rip apart the latest trash we all read. Those of us who smoke or vape, do so by the fireplace — with the hot air rising, it pulls the smoke or vapor right out.”

Lisha looked around the room once more. “I suppose I have to leave, and not come back, then?”

“Technically, I can’t bar any student from access to any part of the library except for the offices, the storage, and the restorations room.”

“But…?”

“No buts — unless you abuse the privilege. Just remember, when you come in, pull the museum case back into place and push the door shut.”

Lisha nodded. “Museum case? Oh! The tank. Makes sense.”

Esther moved to the fireplace, reached up inside, and a squeak and clank announced the shutting of the flue. “No fire unless you’re part of Omtiamp, and then only during the meeting.”

“Omptiamp?”

Esther turned on her flashlight and pointed it at an embroidered patch above the fireplace that said, “One man’s trash is another man’s pleasure.”

“Ah. I didn’t even see any wood for a fire.”

“In the bottom of the desk over there.”

Lisha moved to the other side of the desk and found a stack of firewood and kindling in the now doorless cabinet on the left side. Two of the stack of drawers on the right side were labeled. The top said, “Matches.” The second down said “Drinks.” Lisha pulled on the handle, and the three drawer faces swung out together revealing a small wet bar.

“How does one join the Omtiamp Book Club?” Lisha asked.

“Just Omtiamp,” Esther said, “and it’s easy. Bring a bottle of decent booze. None of the ten-dollar plonk, but it doesn’t need to be top-shelf, either. Then, recommend a novel, the trashier and worse written the better. But there are rules.”

“Trashy novel rules, hit me.”

“First, it has to be currently available for sale somewhere we can all pick it up…in a physical copy. No e-book only deals. Second, it can’t be self-published, or we’d spend eternity reading Chuck Tingle books. Third, it can’t be one we’ve already done. Fourth and final rule, nothing that for some unknown reason, became popular.”

“You mean like the one that started as fanfiction and became a whole series of movies.”

“Right.”

“Have you already done ‘The Jungle Loves Back,’ by Rex Greentree?” Lisha asked.

Esther pulled out her phone, looked it up, and smiled. “Half a star! I’ll send out the buy notice to the club, and I’ll see you here next week, don’t forget the booze. If you like, you can read William’s copy of the current book and rip it apart with us.”

“I’ll be here.”