Broken Silence

“Get out of my chair and put down my paper,” Robert Mulligan whisper-screams to the man wearing a blue button-down shirt, who’d just plopped down into a leather recliner, the Wall Street Journal blocking his entire appearance.

“Beat it, buddy. I’ll only be a minute,” the man replies.

“Shush, shush, shush,” says the bespectacled librarian, hair balled tightly with bobby pins, left hand propped firmly on her hip, right index finger jutting perpendicular over her lips. Standing in the expansive wood-framed entryway to the library’s Reading Room, she directs her right index finger from her lips into a pointing position, directed at the nearby sign: Quiet—Offenders Will Be Sorted, Catalogued, and Sent to the Stacks.

Robert came to the Reading Room every Friday morning, sat in the same always-unoccupied leather recliner, and read the crisp copy of the morning’s Wall Street Journal, before heading off to work—he was a vice president at a large insurance agency. A regular donor to the library, on the board of the local symphony, leader for his sons’ Boy Scout troops. Successful enough to join the country club and frugal enough to take advantage of a free read of the morning paper—the lovely print version, laid out beautifully for easy perusing and scanning. No ads loading, no email notifications, no pop-up videos. The quiet reading room, his comfortable chair, and a best-kept-secret bathroom a few steps away. His Friday-morning bliss.

As he finished reading an article about crypto-currencies, he stood up to stretch and think about this crazy new form of money and how it might affect his life.

That is when the blue-shirted man carrying a plastic shopping bag walked in the side entrance of the Reading Room and plopped down into the leather recliner and picked up the clearly-in-use newspaper. Robert’s newspaper.

Robert did the best he could to be angry silently. And by coincidence the librarian had just checked in on the Reading Room—immediately hearing Robert’s outburst and wagging her scolding finger.

Both men went still. Robert petrified at the admonishment, the man in the blue shirt motionless behind the outspread broadsheet. The librarian peered through her glasses for extra emphasis, dropped her hands to her side, scanned the room, and exited. The blue-shirted man dumped the paper on the side table and scurried into the nearby restroom, rolling up the plastic shopping bag with his hands.

Meanwhile the sound of sirens began to pierce the newly established quiet of the room. Racing police cars. The undulating high-pitched sound grows louder then begins to get softer as the cruisers go passed the building. Then another siren volumes up and then volumes down as it too goes passed. Then a third.

“What in heaven’s name?” says Robert out loud. He pokes his head out the Reading Room entry and overhears a woman say to her friend: “The bank, on the corner there, was robbed, I heard.”

Robert could not imagine robbing a bank. Do people even get away with that anymore? Alarms, video cameras, secret buttons to alert the police. Crypto-currency is where the money is. Not banks.

Moments later the blue-shirted man exits the restroom—now wearing a white shirt, dark-rimmed glasses, and a Detroit Tigers hat. And no bag. Strange. The man walks calmly out of the Reading Room and into the stacks, sliding his thumb on his phone screen as if reading texts. He heads slowly toward the library exit.

Then the sirens return, the volume of the high pitch rising steadily, and then instead of passing by the library, the sound seems to stop right out front.

Thinking the man was distracted by all the commotion, Robert went into the restroom to see if the man left his bag by mistake. Robert was the type of guy who would go out of his way to help strangers—even one who took his newspaper. He offers lost people directions. He points out to people when they leave their phone behind. He’s generally a helper. A good citizen.

In the restroom, Robert finds the blue button down hanging from the stall door and notices edges of the plastic bag wedged in behind the toilet flusher, almost hidden. He grabs both and heads for the exit—to give the man his things.

Meanwhile, all attention is focused out in front of the library, where Robert can see the red and blue flashing lights. Then as he gets closer to the exit, he sees officers fanning out across the parking lot, peering into windows of parked cars.

The dozen or so patrons and the librarian are gazing out the windows, their hands cupped atop their eyes to block the morning sun.

Officers stop the few people who exit the library, asking questions, looking people up and down, and holding up an iPad, with a grainy image displayed. “Have you seen this man?” an officer’s lips clearly mouth. One woman squats down, squints at the tablet, and shakes her head no. Another man does the same, lifting up his sunglasses to get a better look at what is presumably the suspect in the bank robbery.

Meanwhile, Robert sees the now-white-shirted man walking across the parking lot toward the road. He focuses on him—with the shopping bag under one arm and the blue shirt draped over his left shoulder. If I pick up the pace, I can reach him before he gets too far, Robert thinks.

Just then, a loud voice crackles from the bullhorn held by one of the police officers. “Anyone seeing a man, five-foot-nine, medium build, wearing a blue button-down shirt and carrying a plastic shopping bag, please contact …”

“You mean that guy?” a lady interrupts as she points out Robert quickly exiting the library with the shopping bag now in hand with the blue shirt rolled tightly with it.

Robert still had eyes beamed in on the man. “Hey,” an officer says. Robert peers up and wonders why several police officers, their weapons drawn, are now headed in his direction.

“Mr. Mulligan?” one of them says.