Crazies

Crazy people, one of the staples of New York City, they are everywhere. Crazy New Yorkers, think cabbies with a death wish, homeless leading solo sticking-it-to-the-man protests, women walking miles in four-inch heels, men with tupees, but people never think of the man using the internet at the computer next to him or her viewing old lady porn. Such an innocent bystander may be trying to mind his or her own business, not ignoring, just not even noticing what the man is viewing, until he brings attention to himself, by coughing, mumbling or making other strange noises in response to the old lady porn. At first notice of the troubled soul, the IB might go into ignore mode until old-lady-porn-lover drops a Kleenex under her desk, which if he does, she continues ignoring the situation by averting her eyes from his Kleenex-fumbling near her legs to an inevitable first glance of crazy man’s computer displaying thumbnails of the old-lady-porn brings. Trying to quell my fears that this was not happening, that I was in fact hallucinating I took another glance and yes, that is an old lady seductively staring back at the mumbling stranger and me.

What to do in such a situation as this? I adjust my baseball cap to block the view, but he is still murmuring, coughing, enjoying. Has the librarian behind me noticed? At least not yet, or she has and doesn’t want to deal with it. And I can’t ask her.

With 32 minutes of internet time remaining at the 67th Street Branch of the New York Public Library, I click done, end now, and run, far, far away.