An elf in the library

It was the perfect hiding place. The Aryan crew, the Taylor Street Ballers, and the cops want me dead. I am secreted in the old forgotten Beckley Library at the center of City Park praying that I will survive.

I lived on Capital City's streets for 10 years because I lost my job and my house. So, it has been the street life for me.

My life living rough in the park is not completely unpleasant because I have a part-time job flipping burgers and share an off-the-beaten-path grotto with four close friends. We have to endure the violent gangs that terrorize the park. The cops harass us if we enter the rich people’s east side of the park for any reason. And of course, there were steaming hot summers and ice-cold winters to manage when you are homeless. But a person can get used to anything in time.

Now, I am in a forgotten coal storage room in the subbasement of the library, waiting for Mrs. Diebücher and Security Guard Boeke to lock up after closing time. I can’t help thinking about how I fell through the looking-glass and ended up here.  

Around 2am a couple of days back, my friend Harper got sick because she ran out of insulin. We put our dollars together, and I was the unlucky Galahad who went to the 24-hour east side pharmacy to fill her prescription. My best buddy, Bronte, went with me. In our blue jeans, t-shirts, and black hoodies, our friends called us twins. Bronte was a tall, thin, dark-skinned white guy. I was a tall, thin, light-skinned black guy. We were in our 40s but looked older.

It was a warm May night when we arrived at Dr. Chopra’s pharmacy across the street from the park's east side. The lights were on, but the door was locked. That was odd; this place was always open. We were anxious to get Harper’s medicine. We crept into the alley at the back of the store to see if the pharmacist's car was parked in his usual space. If his car were there, we would knock harder on the front door; he might be just catching a nap at the back.

As we reached the end of the alley and turned the corner, we heard angry voices. We slammed ourselves into the wall and its deep shadows. 

I saw three men standing in the alley under the floodlight that beamed on the pharmacist’s white Mercedes. I recognized Dr. Chopra. His face was badly beaten. He was pinned, chest down on the hood with his ruined face pointing in our direction.

There were two tall, hairy, muscled white guys with the Aryan Army’s Nazi tattoo on their necks. The park homeless were regularly beaten up by this gang. One of them was restraining and punching the pharmacist.

Aryan #1 demanded to know where the pharmacist had hidden “their share of the money.” 

Each time the doctor did not answer, Aryan #1 punched him in his ear. Aryan #2 tried to restrain his partner. Surprisingly, the doctor did not cry out under the torture.  

To my shock, Sergeant Orwell and Officer Twain wearing their uniforms, came out of the open back door of the building. I knew these cops' names and faces. They rousted us regularly in the park if we dared enjoy the sun on the rich people’s east side. Orwell was carrying a heavy duffle bag.  

They stepped out, chatting casually with Mycroft Jabar and DuBois Walker, the leaders of the Southside Ballers. Homeless folks are well-versed in gang hierarchy to know who to avoid. I wondered what would bring these natural enemies together in one place.  

When the cops and Ballers saw the bloody scene with the Aryans and the doctor, the Sergeant immediately intervened. Mycroft was growling about idiots killing the golden goose.

Walker inexplicably pulled his gun and began pistol-whipping Aryan #1. I can’t say I was too sorry to see that dose of kick-ass being handed out.  

In an instant, babyface Twain pulled his service weapon and pointed it at Walker and, using the “N” word, told him to stop beating his brother. 

Then, Mycroft pulled his chrome-plated gun and put it to the nape of babyface’s neck and said Twain needed to back off.

The Sergeant began looking around to see if anyone was watching. On the east side, if people called the police, there would be a swift response.

The Sergeant was trying to get everyone to calm down. “Settle down, assholes! We got enough Oxy in here to make enough for all of us this quarter and more to come. We each already have our fat cut from last quarter’s work!

“We protect you dickheads from the police. You Ballers move the product; you Aryans cause havoc to keep public attention off our operation. Dr. Feelgood here brings in the product using his network. DO.NOT.MESS.THIS.UP!

There was a tense few seconds of silence.  

Aryan #2 and Mycroft stepped back first; their weapons were at their sides. Everyone else backed away. It looked like the crisis was over.  

But then I heard the mocking laughter of the doctor. He had shakily raised himself off the hood of the car and had turned his battered face to his partners in crime. He coldly said, “None of this works without my network. There will be a reckoning for this night. Make funeral plans.”  

Then, the doctor began gasping for air as he tried to continue laughing. He grabbed his throat, and the blood began spurting through his fingers. Aryan#1, muttering anti-immigrant vitriol, had put a long knife in the doctor’s neck.  

It all jumped off after that. Walker put a silenced bullet in Aryan #1’s heart.  

Shockingly, a black-gloved Sergeant Orwell dropped the duffel bag and shot babyface Twain in the forehead with the sound suppressed gun. He moved fast. 

He quickly knelt down and put it in Aryan #1’s hand and made the lifeless body pull the trigger and shoot into the dirt.

Orwell came up quickly, drew his police service weapon, and pointed his gun at Mycroft.

The Baller dove off to the left beside the car dodging the bullet meant for him. Mycroft then jumped up and returned fire, hitting the Sergeant in the upper body. The Sergeant faltered, but not before using his service weapon to shoot Walker in the back of his head as he tried to run off with the duffle bag.

Mycroft was already crab walking toward us, using bushes and shadow for cover. His escape route was where Bronte and I were standing.

Aryan #2 began stepping over bodies moving right behind Mycroft. By now, lights had come on in the windows on the other side of the alley.  

Then, I heard the wounded Sergeant calling on his shoulder radio, “Officer down! The Aryans and Ballers shot us!” He choked out the address and location.

I turned to tell Bronte we needed to run, but no one was there. My neighbor had better sense than me. He was long gone.

I took off down the alley, no longer worried about being quiet. I could feel Mycroft rounding the corner and moving into the alley. 

Then, I did the dumbest thing in the world. I turned around under an alley streetlight and looked back. I saw Mycroft and Aryan #2 talking to each other, and they saw me. 

I saw the camera from the building across the street from the alley, and it saw me.  

What’s done is done. I ran with all speed out of the alley and headed into the park. I needed a place to lay low.  

Moving west, I ran through the trees and right into the water fountain at the back of the library. The dirty marble fountain statues are of Poseidon at the back and Neptune at the front. I moved fast towards Poseidon and refuge. There were dead leaves and trash piled high.

My friends and I sometimes used the fountains in the sweltering summer to cool off. Regular people thought the fountains were broken, but we knew how to turn them on and off. The fountain's spigot was in a deep and wide water gully at the library's back wall. When I turned the fountain on, I had seen the decrepit coal room doors into the subbasement of the library on the other end of the gulley. There was a rusted latch and damaged black steel doors holding it closed. I took no notice at the time.

Now, it was my lifeline. I jumped down into the deep gulley and, on hands and knees, crawled to the coal doors. 

I pulled back the rusted latch and slid the metal doors open. I jumped into the black hole and pulled the doors closed behind me. I maneuvered my hand through the largest rust hole and inched the bolt back across as if no one had entered. 

Bronte told me later that he felt guilty about abandoning me. So, he hid in the east side park trees across from the mouth of the alley, watching for me. He saw me come out running fast. He saw Aryan #2 and Mycroft come out shortly after and chase me into the park. He followed them.

At the center of the park, the two men circled the library and fountains, wondering which direction I had taken. Finally, they ran down a path going to the west end of the park.

Bronte knew where I had to be hiding. I had told him about the coal chute doors long ago.

On my second day hiding in the coal room under the library, I woke up and found a pile of food and a flip phone that had been shoved through the holes in the rusted metal doors. The rusted hole was enlarged so that wrapped food packages could be dropped down to me.  My friends placed ivy, leaves, and trash over the holes.

They shoved newspapers through the hole. It chilled my bones to learn that I was a person of interest in the police investigation about murders during a drug robbery. They had my name from facial recognition of my alleyway camera shot. The local food missions where we had dinner from time to time identified me as a homeless person living in the park.

I was Homer John Steinbeck, the accomplice cop-killer.  

Within a week, my friends told me that the police raided the grotto. Food deliveries would be difficult.

The newspapers said that Sergeant Orwell was severely wounded but survived and was being promoted and dubbed as a hero. But I knew the truth.

In my first week of hiding, I found a broken halogen flashlight and expired batteries in a service closet in the caretaker’s station in the basement, a floor above my coal room. I fixed the light and began exploring the library.

I crawled around the floor of the main reading room, not wanting to be seen from the outside. The tall floor-to-ceiling arched windows, six on each side, stretched the entire length of the once-grand room. 

There were no security systems. Nothing inside was locked. There was a fancy computer at the book covered checkout station in the main hallway.

I found a dusty unused caretaker’s efficiency apartment in the basement. Rectangular dirty windows lined the top of the walls of the room. I forced them open and cleaned them off so that I could see the stars at night through the iron bars. The apartment had a bathroom with a magnificent iron tub. I had to clean the place up, but finally, I could have a steaming hot bath regularly. I was in heaven.

Quickly I learned that no one ever entered the subbasement, and the place, built with brick and iron over 100 years ago, was soundproof. No one could see my reading light.

Soon, I had a sleeping bag and blankets in the coal room.  

I found a forgotten broom closet in the library’s entry floor men’s room. The doors blended in perfectly with the paneling on the wall and hadn’t been opened in decades. I told my friends about those spots. They came to the public reading room during the day and left bundles for me. 

Above the reading room, on the second floor, was an identical room. It was full of computer workstations for scanning the mountain of books that lined the walls.

After a month or more, and the manhunt for me slipped out of the headlines, and I grew bored. My friends said the police were still handing out $20 bills to get people to look for me.  I should stay put.

Each night, I explored everywhere in the library and found great things. I discovered an alcove with more dusty boxes of books. I began opening a few. I pulled out a signed hardback version of The Autobiography of Malcolm X. It was signed by Malcolm X! What was such a treasure doing hidden away? I wiped it off and put it on the checkout counter desk under a stack of other books waiting to be processed.

To keep my mind active, I began scanning for at least two hours each night. The drapes in this room were heavy and always pulled closed at night. I could use the lamps at the workstations.

Second, I resolved to attack the forgotten boxes around my coal room door down in the subbasement. I would see if more valuable books were lost in the dust. 

My efforts were rewarded. I found wonderful book treasures and put them all on the checkout desk.

Time flew by. My nighttime library work gave me purpose. I searched through dusty boxes; I almost forgot why I was hiding.  

While enjoying a Thanksgiving turkey meal, I read in the newspapers that the police were still seeking me, but as a witness and not a suspect. But, with Orwell as a part of the plot, that was no comfort.

I spent a warm winter busy with my library routines.

In the spring, nearly a year after the murderous affair, the DEA had a press conference to announce a major drug ring demise. The local police of Gotham, a large network of doctors, and local gangs were all under arrest. The previously knighted hero of the affair, Lieutenant George Orwell, was a part of it and was now in jail.

Mycroft and Aryan #2 were, in fact, undercover DEA agents!  

I was no longer a wanted man. And yet, I made no plans to emerge from my bibliothèque cocoon.  

My friends were leaving me with more clothing and supplies than ever. I was surprised because I hadn’t asked for these things.  

At month 14, I saw that the caretaker’s room had been renovated, painted, and furnished to my shock. For me, that meant that the library had finally hired a caretaker.  

Reality slapped me. My library life was over.

I packed quickly and waited for the night to leave. On the night of my departure, I decided to take a sad last walk around.  

As I entered the main hallway, I froze. It was 11 pm, and Mrs. Diebücher was there at the checkout desk, working under a green-covered legal lamp casually stamping and recording books.

She looked up at me over her reading glasses and sat back in her old chair (it used to squeak, but I fixed it some months ago). She smiled.

Mrs. Diebücher told me the entire staff began searching for who was placing valuable books on her desk.  

She said, “We hid a camera at my station and caught you.”

She told me that they searched the building to find out how I got in and out and found nothing.

“We then assumed you had to be living in the library. But there was no sign that.”

The scanning team on the second floor was overjoyed to be far ahead of schedule, and the

library was cleaner than it had been in years.

“By chance, we found bundled clothes hidden in a secret broom closet.  

The next day, the bundle was gone.  

Mrs. Diebücher said, “The entire library staff began leaving supplies for you,” she continued. Then, we went too far. We fixed up the caretaker’s room for you, and I realized too late that this would mean you were discovered. This was to be the first night of my vigil to finally meet you to urge you to stay.”  

She handed me a book. I was frozen in shock to one spot. But, somehow, I found my legs moving towards her to take the book.

It was a 1940’s copy of the Elves and the Shoemaker. I remember finding this book in one of the many dusty boxes many months ago.

She said that my book had a hand-written letter inside as well as an inscription. A certain Mary Westmacott who loved this library died in 1976, leaving everything to her granddaughter. The books were gifted to the library and forgotten.

She told me that the Elf book was valuable because it was signed by Mary Westmacott in 1943. She said that Mary Westmacott was a pen name for Agatha Christie. City officials agreed to auction the book and give the proceeds to me. 

In the same box with the Elf book, I found pristine copies of other first edition books from the 1890s through the 1950s. All were unused. Many were autographed by the authors. I put them all on the checkout desk.

Rare book sales revenues were in the millions because of me.

I was stunned. I told my part of the story to Mrs. Diebücher, and she held my trembling hands as I spoke of the murders, blood, and fear.  

She offered me the job of library caretaker. I accepted.  

“Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.” All's well that ends well – Shakespeare.