Ink, Room, Rain

In our local public library, there's a room called the Typewriter Room. It's just what it sounds like - one table, one chair, one IBM Selectric typewriter. You have to tender some form of i.d. to gain access, but once you're in, you're in. IBM's electric typewriters were/are beautiful things: Gatling guns of ink and instant action. When you're on a roll, one will sound like a Gatling gun, too. I think, therefore, that the Typewriter Room is probably equipped with semi-soundproof walls.

A few days ago, I visited the typewriter room and, as I was tendering my i.d. to the svelte Typewriter Room maven, realized that I recognized her from the Poetry Workshop. I said "Hey, how are you?" She said she was good, but that this was her last day working for the library. "How come?" I asked. "Because," she said, "John Q. Public is largely comprised of creeps and tactless weirdos." I looked over at her young co-worker, a zaftig Chicana in hornrims reading a biography of Robert Lowell. It wasn't raining yet, but it would be soon.