George - 4/14/2000

There’s a man at the library. A man I call George. When I’m browsing the stacks, looking for a book, I’ll see him casually napping at one of the study booths. He wears a long grey coat, a warm-looking hat, and thick, old-looking glasses. He strikes me as an aged bohemian. Or perhaps just a vagrant. But then, he is probably both.

I think about saying hello to him sometimes, and striking up a conversation. Perhaps he can tell me stories about sleeping under bridges, eating out of dumpsters, panhandling. I would like to know about this man, this man I think of as George. George is an individual human being, with a story of his own, and I would like to hear it someday.

I wonder what he sees when he looks at me. Does he see himself in me, thirty or forty years ago? Does he see some young upstart, trying to imitate the past? Or does he see a human being, with a story to tell, just like him?

I also wonder where he goes when the library closes. Does he have someplace to sleep? Is he homeless? Is he a squatter in an abandoned building? I worry a little. Perhaps I’m selfish, for I do nothing to help his situation, but it would hurt me not to see him when I visit the library.

Perhaps I will say something to him one day. Perhaps we will converse, and exchange stories. I am afraid he will think me ungrateful, to be in the situation I am, and somehow, inside, long for the situation he is in.

I would like to hear his stories.


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