111. I was not the only one. . . .
I was not the only one present who’d suffered from Leonard’s penchant for hoarding library books. The seed of larceny Kemp had planted in me grew among us all until, half in jest, we began casting about for the means of accomplishing a heist. We had darkness and a window, two of the necessities, but we also needed a container and some rope. The container part solved itself when I tripped over Leonard’s wastebasket, woven of reeds in an African design; it even had an integrally plaited handle. But we got hung up on finding a rope to let it down with. Ted Kemp suggested we get a blanket and tear it into strips, but Julia and Selva agreed this would be unforgivable; I said that Kemp and I could take our pants off and tie the legs, but the two women voted that down also. Kemp’s belt and Julia’s bra together would have reached to the second floor, so we could’ve relayed them, but we decided that would attract attention. Of course we could simply have carried them down the stairs, but you don’t think of the simplest way of doing something when you’ve been smoking marijuana.
“We could put rubber bands around them so they wouldn’t fly open and toss them down one at a time,” Selva suggested. “Someone on the ground could catch them so they wouldn’t get damaged.”
This plan seemed workable until we began a search for rubber bands. The few we found were thin and old; Leonard was apparently not a rubber-band person. We were at a loss until I happened to look down. We were standing on a braided rug.
“Look at this old rug! It’s falling apart already. If we’d unwind this, we’d have rope enough to reach all the way to O Street.”
“You can’t do that, Jonas,” said Julia. “We are these people’s guests. You can’t eat their food and steal their books and destroy their furniture.”
“But it’s old! We can wind it all back up and leave it in its place. Leonard’s so oblivious, he won’t even notice we touched it for another twenty years.”
“Leonard may forget to zip himself occasionally, but there’s a mind in there. I wouldn’t count on his not noticing,” Selva said. “Think of something else, Jonas.”
“I can’t,” I said angrily. “This is perfect. I’m sticking with it.”
Ted Kemp bent down and pulled at the rug. “This really is falling apart,” he said. “There’s dirt under it, too.”
“Ooh,” Julia said. “Lots of dirt. Might be bugs, even.”
Selva bent to look as, for a second time, I touched her waist. “I wonder how long that’s been there,” she said quietly. “It belongs in a museum.”
“It belongs in the trash,” I said. “You can get a better one at Pier One Imports for fifteen dollars.”
“Someone made this,” Selva said. “You can’t judge by how it looks, Jonas.”
“Someone made everything,” I said. “Unless it grew, like dustmice under the bed.”
“Wow, man, that’s pretty profound,” Ted Kemp said earnestly. “You’ve been giving me lots of insights tonight.”
“If it came from Jonas, you’ll forget it in the morning,” Julia told him. “Either that or you’ll wish you could.”
“Let’s quit beating up on Jonas,” Selva said. “How will we get these books?”
“The rug,” Kemp said. “Let’s put it to a vote.”
“No, no,” said Julia. “We have to do it by consensus.”
“We have to vote on whether to do it by consensus,” I said with a grin.
“Not acceptable,” Selva said, laughing. “We have to decide that by consensus, too.”
We agreed by consensus to put it to a vote, then deadlocked two to two. To my astonishment—I wouldn’t have thought of it—Ted Kemp began to tickle Julia’s ribs. Rather than simply knocking him down, as she would’ve done with me, Julia giggled like a schoolgirl and squirmed to get away. Selva gave me a sidelong look. “Don’t get any ideas, Jonas,” she said to me. “Julia, hold out. Hit him with a paperweight or something.”
“I c-can’t,” she said, laughing. “Oh, stop, I’m going to f-f-fart. I’m going to be sick. Really.”
“Change your vote?” Kemp insisted.
“OK, OK, I’m changing.”
“Yaay!” Kemp said enthusiastically, holding up her hand. “Rugropes win! Rugropes forever!”
I lifted the rug and began pulling it apart, while Selva used a piece of cardboard as a broom; I looped the braid between Kemp’s and Julia’s arms. “This thing stinks,” Julia said. “It hasn’t been cleaned in a hundred years, I bet.”
“Maybe literally,” I said. “How would you clean it?”
“Hang it on a clothesline and beat it with a mop handle. Didn’t you have to do that when you were a boy, Jonas?”
“Pop and I were never big on housecleaning,” I replied. “I doubt if my mother was, either. Don’t remember pounding rugs, anyway.”
“How old were you when she left, Jonas?” Selva asked me.
“Nine, maybe. Somewhere in there.” The rug uncoiled into sixty feet of braid, enough to reach the ground and back again. Selva finished sweeping and dumped half a pound of grit out the window. “Looks like we’re ready,” I said. “Somebody take that stuff out of the wastebasket and put it on a chair.”
“Who’s somebody?” Selva said. “Do it yourself, Jonas.”
While Julia and Kemp shuffled in their harness of braided rags, I emptied the African basket and tied the braid to its handle. Since we had extra, I tied the other end as well. “Better double it, just in case,” I explained. “This old cloth is probably none too strong.”
“It isn’t as old as you think,” Julia said. “There’s nylons in it.”
“Now comes the fun part,” I said. “Which books are we going to take?”
“I’m not participating,” Selva said. “This is bad, what you’re doing.”
“Come on!” I insisted. “You have to take two at least.”
“Only overdue library books, then,” Selva said. “That way we’ll be returning, not stealing.”
Because we were stoned, we needed a long time to choose our books; in the end, we piled up more than the basket would hold. Meanwhile we’d forgotten to close the window, and it was the cold air that finally got us moving. “Who’s driving?” I asked. “My ride left hours ago.”
“You can ride with us,” Selva said. “We all came in Julia’s station wagon.”
“That’s great,” I said, grinning. “I thought I’d never get another ride in Julia’s wagon.”
“That’s our Jonas,” Julia said grumpily. “Faster than the speed of Freud.”
“Are we playing this Friday, by the way?”
“No,” Julia said. “Our audience is on vacation. I’m having Shabbas with my parents.”
Julia and Ted Kemp, the catchers, left; Selva and I remained to lower the books. As we waited by Strange’s desk, in the icy breeze from the open window, I stared hard at her; she did not look away. “Jonas, I go with someone,” she said, almost shyly.
“It’s the new age,” I argued, moving closer. “No man can say he owns a woman now. You’re a free human being.”
“That sounds a lot like what I know,” she replied. “But coming from you, it’s horse puckey.” Then I took her in my arms and kissed her. A kiss took place. We kissed.
My black hat got in the way. Selva’s lips were yielding and cold. I poured my young manhood, all my passion and tenderness and desire into my kiss, believing the fire in my heart could leap across to hers, till in the end she looked aside as if in shame. Outside the window, far below, the clearing of throats reminded us that we had other business. We moved apart, unspeaking, and sent down the books in two loads, one armful for Kemp and one for Julia. I reeled the basket in and untied the rope. “Now we have to coil it,” I said hoarsely, a lump in my throat.
Selva helped me form the oval. We lay the rope down in a tight coil, approximating as best we could the shape it held before; the final, wandering loose end we hid under Leonard’s desk. Then we replaced the papers in his basket, closed the window, and took a minute to even up the rows of books. His study did not look undisturbed, exactly, but at least it didn’t look hit with a hurricane. We backed away from it warily, our hands touching as we collided at the door. There was more spark in that touch than there had been in our kiss; I took her hand in mine, and we walked side by side as far as the narrow stairs.
Once we reached the second-floor landing, we joined hands again. The house was dark, but enough starlight leaked in so that, with our marijuana-dilated pupils, we could see something of the rooms. We heard mixed breathing coming from a bedroom, and glanced inside. Barbara Justman lay prone in the center of a double bed, with her husband on her left side and Lewis Rey on her right; Leonard’s left hand held her right breast, while Rey’s right arm lay heavily across her hips. The two men looked asleep, but Barbara Justman’s eyes glittered as we passed.
Breathless, we hurried down the remaining flight of stairs; I waited by the door while Selva quickly found our jackets. Then we were outside. “Did you see that!” I whispered hysterically. Selva’s hand covered her mouth, her wide eyes expressing shock and laughter. Down the block, a car started; we raced down the concrete steps, arriving at the curb just as Julia drove up, and piled into the rear seat from the curbside door, one after the other. Julia trounced the footfeed, pulling quickly around the corner toward 27th Street. At 27th, she stopped the car and turned to look at Selva; the two women screamed as one, letting off steam.
“Did you see that!” Selva repeated. “The three of them! Oh, I can’t believe it!”
“Like puppies!” Julia howled. “They were curled together like puppies!”
“I wonder if they both— You know.” Ted Kemp, unlike the women, seemed embarrassed. The rest of us whooped.
“Of course they did,” Selva said, laughing. “I wonder if they get together like this often.”
“I wish I’d had some kind of infra-red camera,” Julia said. “I’d never need to think about my grades again.”
As suddenly as it had burst out, our laughter collapsed back into silence. “Better turn on your lights,” I said to Julia. “Somebody might think we stole something.” She drove north on 27th to O, then turned west toward downtown Lincoln. A few cars still cruised O Street, the last teenagers reluctant to go home. “Let’s go to my place and divide up the loot,” I suggested.
“Oh, no!” Selva said. “We’re taking these to the library. They’re going straight into the book drop where they belong.”
I protested. “Then Barbara will soon know all about it. She’ll check them out again, and we’ll be right back where we started.”
“The two of them don’t operate that way,” Selva reassured me. “When it comes to his research, Leonard is on his own.”
Julia parked behind the Administration Building in a space reserved for the Chancellor, and we got out and carried books to the big silver bin that served as an after-hours depository. I put the David Jones books in with a feeling of loss, certain I’d never see any of them again, while Selva kept a suspicious eye on me to make sure that I actually released them down the chute. “I could use some breakfast now,” Julia said once we’d all returned to the car. “Anyway I think I’d like to try a piece of toast.”
“Not me,” Selva said. “Take me home, please.”
“Me, too,” I said, yawning hugely. “I think I’m ready to go home too.”
“As you wish,” Julia said, showing me a disgusted eyebrow in the rear-view mirror. She drove to the big house on F Street and pulled into the narrow driveway behind a tangerine Volvo with Massachusetts license plates. Selva opened the door on her side and got out of the car; I got out also. “You want us to stick around?” Julia asked Selva.
“Nah,” Selva replied, glancing at me. “If I need to get rid of this guy, I’ll get rid of him.”
Julia and Kemp drove off, leaving us standing on either side of the driveway. “Now what do you want to do?” I asked Selva.
“I know one thing,” she said. “You’re not coming up to our apartment.”
We stood for a few moments more while I scuffed my toe in the dirt. “How about going for a ride?” I suggested finally.
“Where?”
“My home town.” I glanced up and grinned. “Palemon, Nebraska. It’s only 250 miles.”
“What will we do there?”
“I don’t know. Drive Main Street. Turn around and come back.” It sounded sufficiently preposterous. “Shall we take my pickup?”
“We’ll take the Volvo,” she said. “That truck of yours is junk. We’ll go to my town, too. Is there anything you need to get?”
“No,” I said.
“Me neither,” she said. “It’s not locked. Get in.”
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