"The library," he said. "Come on."
It smelled just as it had when he was 17, standing among the aisles of
the biggest collection of books he'd ever seen. Sweet, dusty.
"Here," he said, crossing to the fiction section. The fiction section at
the library in town had fit into three spinner racks. Here, it occupied
its own corner of overstuffed bookcases. "Here," he said, running his
finger down the plastic Brodart wraps on the spines of the books, the
faded Dewey labels.
H, I, J, K... There it was, the edition he'd remembered from all those
years ago. *On the Road.*
"Come on," he said. "We've got it."
"You can't check that out," she said.
He pulled out his wallet as they drew up closer to the checkout
counter. He slid out the plastic ID holder, flipping past the health
card and the driver's license -- not a very good likeness of his face or
his name on either, and then produced a library card so tattered that it
looked like a pirate's map on parchment. He slid it delicately out of
the plastic sleeve, unbending the frayed corner, smoothing the feltlike
surface of the card, the furry type.
He slid the card and the book across the counter. Mimi and the librarian
-- a boy of possibly Mimi's age, who wore a mesh-back cap just like his
patrons, but at a certain angle that suggested urbane irony -- goggled
at it, as though Alan had slapped down a museum piece.
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