“Thanks.” She handed him the check. “When the driver has unloaded the compressor, tell him to take this back to the office, and deposit it today.”
He looked at her but took the check. “Sure.”
Serenity next caught Joy and handed her the other check. “Janice is going to be here any minute. Don’t let her even get out of her car. Give her this and get her on her way. I don’t have time to talk to her right now.”
She marched through the main room and ignored the chaos as the nice people of Maddington fought over books that had always been free anyway as if they were designer dresses at a penny-a-dress sale. Serenity patted a little girl who was running with a stack of Seuss books as tall as her head.
“Read them all, dear,” she said.
Serenity then had to separate the garden club president and the Baptist minister’s wife who were fighting over a DVD of The Untouchables.
“Dears, this is too violent for either of you. You want, hmm…” She rummaged through a pile of books now on the floor and came up with one of Debra Webb’s steamiest romances and handed it to the garden club president, “this.” She dove into the pile again. “And you, dearie, you really need this.” She handed the Baptist minister’s wife a copy of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. “Now go on out.”
She found Doom throwing doors open. “When you finish with that, find every volunteer you can. Get them to stand by the front door. They can take everybody who comes in by the hand, help them find what they need and get them back out quickly.”
“Ms. Hammer, people are going crazy. This is crazier than Christmas Eve at Belk’s Department Store.”
“Great, isn’t it? And we really aren’t doing anything we haven’t always done. Books have always been free. But by reminding them that it’s their library, and their books, we’ve turned our polite customers into an enthusiastic mob.”
She looked at the chaos of people fighting over books. Then she put her fingers in her mouth and whistled. Heads popped up and froze, like groundhogs caught in the crosshairs.
“This, ladies and gentlemen, is what our library is going to be from now on. Welcome to the MAD.”
seventeen
howl
THE NEW COMPRESSOR CELEBRATED its birth with a satisfying cry and a blast of cold air. Serenity waved to Doom and Joy. “C’mon.”
She herded them outside and closed the front glass doors to keep the precious cool air inside the library. “Let the volunteers handle things for a bit. We need some fresh air.”
They walked to the bench out front with the statue of children reading.
Doom said, “We smell like wet dogs.”
“Victorious wet dogs, Miss Doom. Victorious big, wet dogs.”
They stood there in the hot breeze and watched the crowd. A couple of girls were bragging to each other about what they had snatched. One squealed. Behind them, their mothers were swapping books.
Serenity pointed. “That. Right there. That is what I want the MAD to be.”
Joy plopped down on the bench next to the statue. “A bunch of hot smelly women fighting over books?”
Serenity sat down on the other side of the bronze children.
“Yes—well, I mean no, we’ve fixed the AC so maybe the hot and smelly will fade. But a mob fighting for what we’ve got to offer? Yes. A place where people come for whatever they need? Yes. And we’re going to find a way to do it.”
Joy nodded. “This is the most fun I’ve had since I’ve been here. I had one woman come up to me and whisper that there was a book she’d wanted to get for years, but was afraid someone might see her checking it out and report her to her church.”
Doom said, “Another customer for Fifty Shades of Grey?”
“Worse. She wanted How to Join the Democratic Party.”
“They’ll not only kick you out of some churches around here for that,” said Serenity, “but burn you as a witch on the way out, and sell tickets. I hope you put the book in a plain brown wrapper.”
“Better. I swapped covers with a Ronald Reagan biography. But look, here’s the point: yesterday, she wouldn’t ask because she thought our library was what everybody had always told her a library should be: quiet, timid, and following a ton of rules. Today, the MAD was a place to help her grow.” Joy smiled. “Kind of like a police officer turning her body into art.”
Serenity smiled back. “I see you ditched your shirt for the tank top. The Quext art gallery on display for all to see.”
“It was hot. I’ll follow the rules and put my shirt back on as soon as I cool off.”
“Be who you are. We’re done timidly pretending so we don’t offend anyone. Hell, who knows? Maybe we’ll open a tattoo parlor on the side, to go with the tutoring areas and business incubators we’re going to have. I don’t just want a library anymore; I want a MAD. A no-rules knowledge center for a city built on books. For as long as we can. Show them what they could have.”
Doom ran to the slab beside the library. “Here’s where we planned our expansion. Are we going to do this?”
Serenity looked at the bright young face and said, “I hope so. I hope we can do more. Someday.”
Joy said, “Like maybe provide medical help? I don’t mean medical care or a clinic, but resources to help people connect with those things. A woman came in the other day and wanted to know about thyroids. She couldn’t afford to ask a doctor. I found her a book, but what if we had a real medical expert to get her started and point her to the clinics and doctors and any choices she could afford? And a legal expert, too.”
Doom waved out at the field. “Dream, ladies, dream. We’ll never do it unless we dream it first, without worrying about the how. We need a library where a guy with an idea can get help building a business plan and marketing and…” She waved her hand at the field. “Presto. Medical and legal clinics, there, maybe on the second floor above the stacks. And there, third floor is the business center. Work space for startups, and knowledge resources for everything they could need. What city can compete with Maddington for new jobs if we have all that?”
Doom said, “With maker spaces with three-D printers and fabrication centers so entrepreneurs can build prototypes without spending thousands of dollars on equipment, then walk next door and get real help in starting their business.”
Yes!” Joy said, “And you know what? It may be because I’m old and cranky, but I get tired of people dropping off their kids for hours at a time and expecting me to look after them. I mean, look at me. How desperate does a parent have to be to trust their kids to me?
“But they’re right, too. It’s like everything else. The library is the only place you can get a professional for free. So, if a woman can’t afford day care, she drops her kids at the library. We can complain all we want, but it’s going to happen. Might as well make it happen right.” She waved her hand. “Day care, fourth floor.”
Doom pointed her finger at the field and said, “Bam! Next time a woman comes in and says she needs to work but can’t find a job and nobody will watch her kids, we don’t have to send her away with a pamphlet. We’ll tell her to go to our clinic, and our business center, and our day care. Bam! One less unemployed woman in Maddington.
“And,” she continued, “one less business that’s underperforming because it can’t find employees. Knowledge. Better connections to knowledge will give us new businesses and jobs. You want knowledge, come to the library.”
Joy said, “Oh! And the fifth floor will be tutoring—”
Serenity held up her hand. “Dream, ladies, dream. But we’ve just gotten a one-time… gift. Just enough to get us through the week. And no more money coming behind it. But for now, let’s start with what we found works today. Doom, do you know any way we can have people check out their own books, like we’re doing right now? I don’t want our librarians spending their time checking out books, when they can be revolutionaries blowing up their city with knowledge.”