It was the day of the library interview. Wednesdays are perfect because they are my reading days at the library already. But Big Todd told me that my interview was not at the library by the Community Center that I went to.
“It’s a bit off the beaten path,” he said, an expression that means a place that people did not go to and beat down with their feet to make a path.
“Oh,” I said, and Big Todd gave me a weird look.
“You’re okay with that? We can cancel if you want.”
“No,” I said. “Part of a hero’s legend is doing things that are off the beaten path.”
Big Todd smiled. “That’s what I’m talking about,” he said.
He drove me to the library and gave me bus schedules and directions, driving the exact way the buses would go. I followed along with my finger on the map, while reading the directions out loud.
“You look good, by the way,” Big Todd said. “Very professional.”
“Thanks. AK47 helped pick this out. And fancy underwear for Marxy.”
“Oh boy,” Big Todd said. “TMI on that one.”
He meant “too much information.” He laughed and I asked him if he wanted to know a secret. “If it’s about you and Marxy doing the dirty, please, no thank you.”
“It’s not. Gert and AK47 are back together.”
Big Todd looked over. “Yeah? Like officially?”
I shrugged. “She stayed over the last two nights. And they’ve been having sex.”
And then we both said “TMI” at the same time and laughed. “Well,” Big Todd said, “as long as they’re both happy and he treats her right, and you right, I’m okay with it.” He pointed ahead at a small building that looked like a red-brick house that had eaten a lot of glass windows and metal. “That’s it. Up there.”
Even though I didn’t have any work experience, Big Todd helped me make a résumé that made it look like I could be a good library worker. The library woman, whose name was Carol, chewed on the end of the pencil. Big Todd crossed his legs. He was nervous and kept making his legs bounce up and down.
We were sitting in an office with the glass windows. All around were shelves of books and people reading at tables. A giant fake palm tree was tall over everything. Big Todd said he would come with me for moral support, but also to answer any questions the woman at the library had. Normally he did not go with people applying for jobs. I was a special case, he said, but he did not say what made me special.
We sat quietly while Carol read the résumé. She flipped over the page to see if there was anything on the other side. Then she put it down on the table.
“We don’t have any available openings,” Carol said. “And we have a waiting list for graduate students in library sciences. They usually get the internships.”
Big Todd sat up. “On the phone they said—”
“I don’t know what they told you,” Carol said. She took her glasses off and put them back on. Big Todd was moving in his chair.
“I am a hard worker,” I said to Carol.
“I’m sure you are. But we don’t have any jobs. And being a patron is different from working here. More rules.”
The word patron means people who come to libraries. That was something I wrote in my cover letter: that I was an “avid patron of libraries” and knew how they worked and where all the books were.
“Can she maybe do some volunteer work and then transition into some paid shifts?” Big Todd asked.
Carol said that she didn’t expect to have any vacancies in the near future. I asked how did she know the future, and instead of getting angry, she laughed.
“Uh-huh. Tell me why you want to work here?”
“Everything is in the cover letter,” Big Todd said. We had worked on the cover letter for two hours before the interview, changing words until I sounded very smart.
“I wasn’t asking you. I was asking her.”
The question was one Big Todd had made me answer a hundred times before the interview. It was a question that people asked in every job interview. Big Todd had made a list of reasons why I was perfect for the library. He wrote all of it while I talked about what I liked about being there and reading. I had forgotten it at home.
Carol was waiting. She was treating me very seriously, which made me nervous but also like I was an adult and not someone who needed everything done for them. Big Todd cleared his throat and asked if I was okay.
I closed my eyes and counted to ten, not out loud, inside my head.
Big Todd poked me with his foot under the table.
“I forgot the paper with my answers about why I would be perfect to work in the library,” I said.
“Do you need to read the answers?” Carol asked.
“She just gets nervous,” Big Todd said.
“Just tell the truth,” Carol said. “The truth is what I want to hear.”
I told her that my brother and I had moved out from a bad place to live together. “He is very smart but didn’t do well in school. He got a scholarship to the college.”
I told her that Gert always worked so hard to make me safe, and that I wanted to help him now because he had a debt he needed to pay. I said that I went to the library by my house all the time, and that reading is very important and that I wanted to help others find books they wanted.
Carol put down my résumé. “Once or twice a week,” she said. “That’s the best I can do. And it’s probably not going to be permanent.”
“Does that mean I have the job?” I asked.
Carol said I had a trial period. If I did good, I could keep working. “We’ll get you the forms and figure out your schedule when you come in next time. How does that sound?”
We got up and shook hands. Big Todd told me to not go for a dab, since employers want employees to be professional. Dabs are not professional.
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.