I learned that the babies threw up a lot and yelled and cried, and after they left the library smelled like shit and dirty diapers. The babies who came with their parents to the library, for the programs there, were loud and smelled, but for some reason they did not bother me.
Carol did not like babies at all.
“You think the Vikings were savages? Wait until you see these kids.”
“It is a common myth that the Vikings were savages,” I said. “They actually had very well-developed agriculture.”
Carol took off her glasses and cleaned them on the sleeve of her blouse.
“Either way. Get ready.”
The parents and their children did not come in like other people of the library. They did not “trickle,” like a stream that moves very slowly. They came all at once like a flood. I did not know where they all came from.
“See?” Carol said. She was smiling a big fake smile to all the people coming in.
The strollers were sometimes big and looked like they came from the future. Most of them were not very nice. This is because the people who came to our library didn’t have a lot of money. Carol said that the other library had “higher-end clientele,” but that rich parents were usually way more annoying.
“They want to protect their kids from everything. These parents just want to survive.”
My job was to show the parents where to go during the Sunday Bunny Reading Hour, and also to clean up any messes. It was not very hard to do that. There was a sign at the front, and another sign once you got past the detectors that went off if you ever tried to steal a book without checking it out first. The parents were usually loud. The regulars who came to do their crossword puzzles and to play chess or read books shook their heads at the loud parents.
I also had to check to see that the right people were going in and that the wrong people were not allowed inside. People had to sign up for the Bunny Hour, but people were always coming without signing up.
Sometimes we had to tell them they couldn’t come in, since too many people in the Rumpus Room, which was upstairs on the second floor, was a Fire Hazard. Carol said if one or two people and their children came in over the limit, then it was okay.
“But no more than that.”
I stood at the front of the Rumpus Room and waved and pointed to the door. “Hello, have a nice day, hi there, howdy, góðan dag!” I said.
Most of the parents did not even act like I was there. They just walked by holding crying babies. All of the people looked very tired, and all of them were women and girls who I thought couldn’t be parents because they were so young.
“The walking good-luck charm,” a voice said, and it was a man and also someone I recognized. He held on to a baby with one arm so the baby looked like it was growing out of his shoulder. “You’re Gert’s sister, right? Zelda? Remember me?”
“I remember,” I said. “We played poker together.”
The baby spit up some yellow stuff. Hendo saw me looking at the baby.
“Shit. Easy, little man,” he said, and wiped the yellow spit with a napkin.
I was surprised that I remembered his name, since names were something I was not very good at. Not as bad as Marxy, who had to write the names down on cards he kept with him, and when he couldn’t remember the name of someone important he would pull the card out and then read it and get the name. Except when situations are special. When we first met, he remembered my name and I remembered his. That was how we knew we were in love the first time.
Hendo held up the baby and said his name was Artem.
“My grandfather was this old-school Russian dude. Doesn’t Artem look old-school?”
I wasn’t sure what that meant.
Artem and I had a standoff with our eyes. Then he smiled and spit again. He was wearing a small basketball jersey and didn’t have very much hair, but the hair he did have was very light-colored brown, almost blond, and his eyes were blue.
“Almost a year old,” Hendo said.
“Is he your baby?”
“I mean, I’m the dad, yeah.”
We did not say anything for a while. People with strollers pushed past. Artem looked at me again and made a baby noise and then he stuck out his hand. It was a very small hand.
Hendo laughed. “I think he wants your finger.”
“Why?” I asked.
“I don’t know. He’s into this phase where he just likes to hold things. Watch.”
Hendo stuck out his finger and put it in front of Artem, who took his small fingers and wrapped them all around Hendo’s one finger, which was gargantuan.
“See?”
I stuck my finger out and Artem held on to it. The feeling was weird. The baby did not have a tight grip, but it felt like Artem was holding on as tight as he could.
“Whoa,” I said.
“Right?”
Artem pulled my finger and because I was way more powerful than him I didn’t try to stop him, since I didn’t know how to stop him with the right power. Out of nowhere he put my finger in his mouth.
His mouth was wet around my finger. Inside his mouth the tongue poked.
“Whoa,” I said again.
“Think he likes you,” Hendo said.
A woman came up to us. “You know where her finger’s been?” she asked.
She was very skinny and had a lot of makeup on. She smelled like smoke and did not look happy that I was playing with Artem. She grabbed the baby away from Hendo. My finger left his mouth.
Artem clapped his hands together.
“Relax. You see the hand sanitizers everywhere? It’s like a hospital in here.”
“I don’t want a stranger’s finger in my baby’s mouth.” She turned and asked Hendo who I was.
“Zelda,” Hendo said. “You work here, right?”
I nodded. “I am contributing to the tribe. Since Gert is not in school anymore.”
The Rumpus Room was almost full. The woman with the bunny ears, who read to everyone and sang during Sunday Bunny Reading Hour, had taken out her little guitar.
“It’s starting,” I said.
“Cool,” Hendo said. The woman took the baby past him inside the Rumpus Room. Hendo took a deep breath. “And away we go,” he said.
* * *
While all the parents and children listened to the Bunny Lady playing guitar, I went around and started reshelving books. I could do that whenever I didn’t have anything else to do.
I was surprised that Hendo had remembered me. I had almost forgotten about him, but now I remembered the way we played poker and how he made me feel like part of his tribe. I pushed the cart and thought about the woman who was Artem’s mother and how she seemed like a fuck-dick, and how someone as cool as Hendo should have a girlfriend or a wife who was just as cool.
He and the woman and Artem were in the corner of the Rumpus Room. I could see them from the window in the door. Hendo bounced Artem on his knee while the woman chewed gum and did not act like she cared very much about the songs. All she did was look at her phone. But Hendo sang along and lifted Artem up when the Sunday Bunny woman raised her arms, and the other parents all raised their arms too.
After a while he handed Artem back to the woman. He came out. Since I had parked my cart in front of the door I had to move it quickly and spilled some books.