The Incident Report Read Online Free Page A

underwear, which she brings to work, close-up shots of scantily concealed genitals, snugly held in place for the camera by the latest in pastel stretchy briefs. She pins these to the bulletin board above her workspace. At any hour of the day she can look up from her dull labours into an array of anatomical possibilities.

INCIDENT REPORT 27
    I wheeled my cumbersome cart back past the circulation desk and through to the children’s area. There was just one title I’d still not located: Junior Adventures in Science: Animals in Danger of Extinction . J 333.954 Mac.
    Not every hold on the list can be filled. Certain patrons languish in disappointment when their desires go unmet, others move on with a shrug. I crouched in front of the shelves. The time was 10:30 AM . The books, I discovered, were in a state of shameful disorder—the biography of a basketball hero, haplessly wedged between Kitchen Chemistry Experiments and Easy Origami .
    I found The Big Goodbye: Animals Threatened by Extinction , and another volume titled Too Late: Animals You’ll Never Meet , but the exact book requested was nowhere to be seen. I wheeled my cart back to the circulation desk.
    As I unloaded the books I’d collected, a folded sheet of paper caught my eye. Someone had left a page of their notes on my cart, no doubt inadvertently, while I was searching the shelves. Or perhaps it was a mislaid document? I unfolded it and read.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  You know who I mean. The young librarian with the freckled hands. She’s got soft, chestnut hair. She takes children into that room with the accordion door and tells them stories. She also sits behind the reference desk and answers questions. Have you noticed how many men come to talk with her? No, not you. You’re blind. Blind, and drunk on your own power. Well, open your eyes wider. Have you at least listened? It doesn’t matter how drunk or ugly they are, she speaks with them. She’s too young to know danger. Ah you, what do you know anyway? That I’m Rigoletto and that it’s my job to make you laugh. Me, poor old hunchback, with no right to happiness. You think that’s funny, eh? Laugh, laugh, get on with your laughter at my expense. This time, I won’t let any harm come to her. You don’t think I’m capable of protecting my own daughter, do you? You’ll see pretty soon, what I’m capable of. If one of those men should so much as touch a hair on her head. It’s not me who’s going to be doing any more suffering. I’ve got my Gilda back, my gorgeous daughter with the freckled hands. She’s been restored to me, and nobody’s taking her, see?
    I dropped the paper. I did not intend to; it slipped. Quickly I snatched it up from the floor. I carried itdown to the basement where I closed myself in the bathroom and stared at my hands. They were as they had always been—slim, pale and covered in freckles. I washed my face with cold water and returned upstairs.

INCIDENT REPORT 28
    The time was 3:15. A male patron in adult nonfiction started removing books from the shelves. He stacked the volumes on the floor. By 3:45 his biblio-towers obstructed access to a substantial portion of the 700s, and he was apprehended. He’d emptied an entire bay of books.
    Our Branch Head, Irene Frenkel, approached him with her usual calm demeanor, and suggested he might wish to have a look through the items he’d selected, before removing more. The patron ignored her advice. He added another several volumes to one of his wobbling towers.
    â€œSir, I must ask you to stop what you are doing,” Irene insisted.
    â€œWhy should I?” he retorted. “Is it written somewhere in your Rules and Regulations that a person can only consult a certain number of books at one time? If there’s a limit, you show me where it’s written down.”
    Irene, as recommended in the Manual of Conduct for Encounters with