Chapter Five #2
I wince. If he were alive.
“Yes,” I say. “That was part of why I liked him initially. I remember meeting him and thinking that I’d like to be his friend.”
She tilts her head. “You mentioned you two didn’t have anything in common. And he was in a different stage of life, and considerably older. I wonder, do you recall why you thought you’d like to be his friend?”
I look at her. I can’t think of an answer.
“Um. I don’t know. I guess I thought he was… nice? He made me feel like I was interesting.”
I pause. That’s a narcissistic reason to want to be friends with someone.
She says, “It’s normal to seek out validation from other people, especially when you’re young. Can I ask, as the person you are now, what motivates you to become friends with someone?”
I think of my friends. “I guess the first thing that comes to mind is having things in common—like shared experiences, interests, or senses of humor. But to be honest, I think the main thing for me is that I feel like I’m on the same page as them.
Like we’re on the same wavelength. Do you know what I mean?
Sometimes I’ll meet someone and feel like we get each other.
Does that make sense? I have to feel understood, and like I understand them, to really want to become friends with someone.
And then on top of that, I also have to, you know, trust them and enjoy being around them. ”
She hums. “Yes. That makes sense. And so, I take from that, you can meet someone whom you think positively of, and have good things to say about, and still not be well matched as friends. Right?”
I sit up straighter. “Right.”
“Okay. Now, I want you to reflect a bit more on the relationship you had with Ben, by asking again, if you met Ben today, as the person you are now, do you think you would want to be friends?”
I clench my toes in my shoes.
Ben and I didn’t have similar interests. We didn’t like the same TV shows or music. I was interested in school. I liked reading. He was working. He liked fishing. Video games.
I picture the two of us standing next to each other. Him in his anorak. Me with my ponytail.
Would I want to be friends with a twenty-eight-year-old man dating an eighteen-year-old girl?
I look at her. “No,” I say quietly.
“I don’t really like guys our age,” I told my old friend Haley.
We were drinking vodka sugar-free Red Bulls around her coffee table. She lived in a basement apartment next to our college with three other girls. We met in our first-year Women’s Studies class.
The table had an ashtray shaped like cupped hands, half a gram of weed, and tarot cards on it.
It was covered in people’s signatures and little notes, like the end pages in a yearbook.
Haley was wearing a bedazzled push-up bra, and she’d bonded wispy fake eyelashes to her eyelids. I was taking pictures of her.
“And Ben doesn’t really look that much older,” she said while posing for the photo. “I couldn’t tell he was twenty-eight. Plus, you’re pretty mature for your age.”
She had just ended things with a guy she’d been seeing, so we were taking hot pictures of her to post for him to see.
I told her, “Look happier. You want him to think you’re having fun.”
She smiled wide with teeth.
Later that night, Haley made out with a stranger at the bar while I drank four vodka Diet Cokes, swayed in a crowd of damp people, and texted Ben: Wish you were here.
Come save me.
Ben was waiting outside the bar after last call. He was chatting with the bouncer at the door. He paid for Haley’s cab home, and he and I walked to his place.
He said, “I’ll always come save you, dove.”
“I hate to say it, but it is kind of weird that you let people watch porn in the library,” Hodan says. She puts both her hands up as if I’ll arrest her for saying so.
I’d invited her and her partner Ada over. I wanted company in Joy’s absence, and I hadn’t seen them in a while. The four of us hang out regularly, and Ada and Joy have been friends for over a decade. She and Hodan were already dating when Joy and I met.
They brought Korean food, and we’re watching a movie titled But I’m a Cheerleader.
I say, “Don’t get me started, Hodan.”
She’d seen the article in the newspaper and asked me about it.
She says, “Well, I mean, come on. No one wants to witness some guy cranking his hog at the library.”
Ada chokes on her tteokbokki. “Oh my God. Why did you phrase it like that?”
“He wasn’t cranking anything.” I laugh. “He was just watching porn. And believe me, if the rules were based on what I prefer to witness people do, he’d be given the boot. I’d spend my days just watching polite people silently read. But that’s not how it works, tragically.”
“Wait, I thought that’s what you did. Don’t librarians just sit around and read all day?” Ada ribs.
I roll my eyes.
“You could make a case that it’s sexual harassment, though, couldn’t you?” Hodan asks. She’s opening a few bottles of beer with the church key she keeps on her carabiner. “I think it could be considered an indecent act.”
“You’d know better than me,” I say. She’s a lawyer. “I don’t know. I didn’t make up the policy. I’m just a lowly librarian, following the rules.”
“Do you think it’s a good policy, though? Would you make that rule if you were in charge?”
She hands me a beer. I say, “If I were in charge, the entire system would be overhauled. The root cause of why we have so many people watching porn and behaving badly in our libraries is because of the erosion of our social services—”
“Oh no, here we go,” Hodan says while I climb on my soapbox.
I continue, “Our health care system has been gutted, and there’s widespread disregard for mental illness, poverty, and humanity in general.
It’s hard to pluck one policy out of that wider context and say whether I support it.
I know some libraries don’t let people watch porn.
Not every public library system has the same policy we do. But do I support censorship?”
“I bet she doesn’t.” Hodan nudges Ada.
“No, I don’t,” I continue. “And that’s a core value of librarianship. Because, let me ask you a question. What is porn?”
“What do you mean ‘what is porn’?” Ada asks.
“I mean what’s the definition of ‘porn’?
Because I’d argue it’s a difficult word to define.
Some people would consider a lot of Baroque and Renaissance art pornographic.
Flashing an ankle is porn to some folks.
There are some religious groups who think the Twilight books are porn.
What makes something pornographic depends on cultural context, subjective sensibilities—”
“What porn was this guy watching?” Hodan asks.
I sip my beer. “A lesbian threesome from the seventies.”
She throws her head back. “Is there any mistaking that for Baroque art?”
“Okay. Let’s think about it another way.” I lean forward. “Do you think porn should only be accessible to people who can afford home internet, or people who own devices? Should poor people never be able to see porn? Porn is privileged content, only for those who can afford it?”
“I don’t think that specifically, no, but I don’t see why anyone would need access to porn—”
“So, you think libraries should only allow people access to things they need. We should burn all the comic books and romance novels?”
“No, but I think porn is a little different from comic books and romance novels—”
“Then you haven’t read much romance,” I say.
She laughs.
“And this stuff snowballs, right?” Ada says. “Today it’s porn, but tomorrow it’s someone asking you to burn Heather Has Two Mommies or I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, right?”
I nod. “Yes. It’s censorship. Most of the books in this room would be banned.”
The room we’re in is surrounded by bookshelves.
Joy and I have amassed a large home library.
I studied English literature before getting my master’s in library science.
Joy was a women’s studies major—so our shelves are full of feminist theory, classics, and literary criticism.
Joy also collects a large number of old picture books and fairy tales.
We both like to read queer fiction, poetry, and memoirs.
If I hadn’t read these books, or studied what I did, I’d be a different person.
It’s hard to question things, or expand the way you think, without being exposed to new information or different perspectives.
I wonder who I’d be if I didn’t have access to the books and information I’ve read, and I wonder who I’d be if I had more information when I was younger.
Hodan crosses her legs on the couch and looks around. “I just love your place. There’s such a warm, cozy ambiance here.”
“Thank you. That’s nice of you to say.” I sense she’s tired of hearing me preach about libraries.
Ada nods with her mouth full. “It feels like a retreat. It’s a tranquil escape.”
Joy collects art from thrift stores; she likes oil paintings of flowers and fruit, and I like anything that features grumpy-looking women.
Our cats have beds in every room. There’s two in this room in front of the fireplace.
Lou and Toulouse are sleeping in them now.
Joy likes to dry flowers by hanging them upside down with twine from the windows, and she collects rocks and crystals.
All the windowsills have pebbles lining them.
She’s worried that kids will visit and find the place boring, so she’s strung rainbow fabric triangle garland around the house, collected children’s books, and filled baskets full of peculiar stuffed animals.
In this room, we have a stuffed octopus and a snail.
“I feel like we haven’t seen you in forever.” Hodan sips her beer.
They don’t know about my mental breakdown.
“Have you guys been busy? What’s been going on?”
“Yeah. We’ve been really busy,” I say. “Things have been hectic with work and family stuff. What about you two? What have you been up to?”