The Carroll Gardens branch of the Brooklyn Public Library is noisy. It is essentially one large room, the size of a small gymnasium. Sounds echo throughout the space.
It’s a rainy day, and the tiled floor squeaks from the soles of shoes.
Against the wall near the exit is a Snapple vending machine. The brand’s logo—an anthropomorphized sun with licks of flame billowing around it like the petals of a daffodil—issues an expansive, dimpled smile, its fleshy lower lip protruding. A sign covers the machine: “out of order.” Nonetheless, the machine is plugged in, and issues a loud, pulsating hum.
Another source of noise is the librarian behind the checkout counter. 40ish, with straight brown hair hanging haphazardly down to his upper back, he converses loudly yet unintelligibly with a male patron. After several minutes, the patron leaves.
The children’s section is cordoned off by an arrangement of bookshelves. Unlike the hard, sickly white tiled floors of the rest of the library, the children’s section is covered with a thin, rough light-blue carpet. Scattered on the carpet are three colorful wire-and-bead toys. There are no children today, until a man, 30ish, walks in with a baby boy, about a year old. Hoisting him into the air by the armpits, the man stares into the baby’s face, and they smile at one another.
The man sits the baby in front of one of the wire-and-bead sets, and together they play, making clattering sounds as they slide beads across thin, looping yellow wires.
Adjacent to the children’s section, an older boy, perhaps 9 or 10, plays as well—in his case, an online first person shooter game on one of the library computers. He blasts away at robots with a heavy machine gun.
A dark-skinned man, possibly Native American, 40ish, wearing a grungy checkered black-and-blue flannel sweater, stands up from a desk, loudly clattering a pair of crutches on the tiles. He has thick black hair and a rough, unshaven face. He struggles toward the exit. There is a short flight of stairs between the doors that mark the entrance to the library proper and the doors that exit the actual building. The man transfers one of his crutches to his left hand, holding both under his left arm. He uses his right arm to prop himself against the railing as he struggles down the staircase. A jarring clattering of metal doors, and he is gone.
Minutes later, the man hobbles back into the library. He leans at a sharp angle against one of the sensors near the entrance to the library.
Meanwhile, a woman, 30ish, wheeling an empty stroller, enters the library accompanied by a girl of about 4. The girl runs to the children’s section and hugs the man with the baby.
The man passes the baby to the woman as the girl selects a book from a shelf. The man takes the book, sits her on his lap, and reads to her.
10 feet away, the woman tries to breastfeed the baby. He turns his head away, and she gives up. Her shoulders slump, and her face droops in exhaustion.
The dark-skinned man, still leaning against the sensor, appears asleep on his feet.
A library employee walks up to him.
“Sir, are you okay?”
“Yeah,” he replies. He struggles back out of the library, the large metal doors clanging behind him.
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