Outside, Big Todd went in for a dab. I didn’t want a dab. I wanted a hug. Big Todd had proven himself to be a powerful member of the tribe.
“All right, all right,” Big Todd said. When we stopped hugging he touched my shoulder and got a very serious look. “Hey, that thing you said, about debt? What did you mean?”
I told him the definition of debt that he had taught me: when someone owes someone, or a company, something.
“With banks and businesses and in modern times, it usually means money,” Big Todd said.
We walked to his car.
“It’s none of my business, not really, but you can talk to me about stuff. Okay?”
I told him I knew that, and that even though he was not in my tribe, he was in a neighboring tribe that was very close to my tribe and which my tribe respected very much.
* * *
When Big Todd dropped me off, Gert came out to meet me. AK47 high-fived me and said she was proud of me. Then Gert did something he had never done before: he waved to Big Todd, who was standing outside of his car parked in front of the building.
“Hey,” Gert said. “What are you doing tonight?”
“Uh,” Big Todd said.
“We’re going to dinner. To celebrate. Why don’t you and your guy come with us.”
AK47 and I looked at Gert.
“Yeah?” Big Todd said.
“Sure.”
Once Big Todd was gone, we asked Gert what the shit was going on.
“What?” Gert said. “Stop looking at me like that.”
“You don’t like gay people,” I said.
Gert said that wasn’t true. And AK47 said it’s kind of true, and Gert shrugged and said that was the old Gert. Me and AK47 looked at each other again while Gert walked back to the apartment. He asked if we were coming.
“Well, fuck me,” AK47 said. “Excuse my French.”
* * *
The restaurant we went to was fancy and Gert dressed nicely and so did me and AK47. I had never seen Gert so happy. It made me feel like we were getting close as a tribe. They asked me to tell them about the interview, and when I did Big Todd said that I impressed the librarian, even though she said there weren’t any jobs at first.
“She cleaned house,” Big Todd said.
Noah, Big Todd’s boyfriend, was funny and didn’t talk very much, and I was worried that Gert would call them faggots or make fun of them for being gay. But Gert said he looked fit and asked if he played football ever, and Big Todd’s boyfriend said he had.
“What position?”
“Corner,” he said. “You?”
“Wide receiver.”
“You got the build for it. What happened?”
“He hurt his knee,” I said.
“ACL?”
Gert put down his lemon water. “Yeah. Tore it to shit.”
They talked about football for a while, while Big Todd and AK47 talked about how the government was talking about not giving the Community Center as much money next year to help make programs for people they called disadvantaged.
During dinner Gert’s phone buzzed. Gert looked down and shut it off, turning it upside down so he couldn’t see the screen anymore. AK47 was looking at him but pretending not to. Then she looked at me and smiled, because even though being nice to Noah and Big Todd and talking about football and the government wasn’t one of the RULES FOR GERT, it was like he had added a rule to the RULES, one that said he should be nice to people like Big Todd and Noah and not say fuck-dick things about gay people.
chapter fifteen
We had to reschedule our time with Dr. Laird, since I now had to work at the same time as our Thursday meeting. Dr. Laird’s secretary, Hanna, was at first not very happy, since we had to give more than a day’s notice before canceling the appointment, and her entire schedule for the next month had me and Gert coming in Thursdays. Then Dr. Laird came on the phone and said it was all right by him.
“This is huge,” he said when I told him why I couldn’t come in. “And at a library. How cool is that?”
“Very cool,” I said.
Normally changing my schedule would make me nervous, but in order to perform in the world, as Dr. Laird said, I had to become okay with schedule changes, since not everything works according to the same schedules.
Gert and AK47 and Big Todd had warned me that the library might schedule me to work a different day every week, and that it might mean my schedule would be changing a lot. But I told them I was up to the challenge and would defeat it by counting to ten whenever I felt nervous about not knowing what was going to happen next.
Thursday morning, on my first day of work, I told Gert that I would go myself, by bus.
“What’s the difference? My morning’s free,” Gert said. “And what about our rules? We need to make sure you know where you’re going.”
“I am going to take the bus there, and also take it back.” I showed the bus schedule. “It will take less than one hour.”
“A ride would take fifteen,” Gert said.
“Dummy, she wants to go herself. To her first day of work.” AK47 elbowed him. “Hint hint, nudge nudge.”
“What about the rules?” Gert asked.
“I am making new rules,” I said back.
I had also made my own lunch—a tuna fish sandwich with mustard and mayonnaise and tomato slices. I made sure to put the tomato slices between the tuna fish and the mayonnaise, so that the tomato slices wouldn’t get the bread wet. I also packed a water bottle, which I could refill at work. AK47 made sure that I dressed properly. That was the only help I allowed.
She gave me a hug and said she knew I would do great. “Just listen to the instructions, and don’t be afraid to write them down.”
“Got it,” I said.
“And if you need anything, just call,” Gert said. “Okay? And call when you’re done with work and heading home.”
“She’s fine,” AK47 said.
“I’m fine,” I said. “But I will call.”
* * *
The library is a very heroic place to work because librarians help people get stronger brains. They also help people who are homeless by giving them food in cans that other people put into the cardboard box by the door.
Being a librarian is mostly about knowing where books go, so that you can answer questions for the people trying to find them. Also people leave books on the tables. If you know where to bring the books, you do not need to go to the computer, which is the hardest part of being a librarian, and was something that I did not get to do right away.
The first thing I learned to do was to go around and pick up books and put them on a cart. If people left garbage, I took that too. Carol was the most important person who worked there. The library had four other women, and two men. But Carol was the leader of their tribe.
Even though Carol acted partly like a fuck-dick during our interview, she was actually really nice when nobody was around and it was just the two of us. I knew that she had to be a fuck-dick in the interview because you have to prove yourself worthy of being a librarian.
You cannot just be a librarian without overcoming obstacles.