The Clay Head Benediction Read online

patron unzips the bag that we intend to search” He says

  “Why?” I ask

  “It is our policy”

  “If you think there is something legitimately dangerous in my bag, wouldn’t it make sense to have someone more qualified that the Associate Director of the library here to supervise its unzipping?” I say, and the guard laughs a little bit, but Brian Folz gave him a sharp look, so the guard says sternly,

  “Unzip the bag, sir”

  “I would also invite you to call me by my first name. I am Luke” I say, as I extend my hand to the guard.

  He does not shake it. Instead, Brian Folz picks up my backpack and unzips it himself. Then, he reaches inside and removes the plastic bag of cat food

  “What is this?” He asks

  “It is cat food”

  “You eat that?” Asks the guard

  “No. Cats eat it. It is a type of food for cats” I say

  “Do you mind if I ask why it is in your bag?” Says Brian Folz

  “I intend to feed some cats with it” I say

  Brian Folz gives me a disgusted look and sets the small bag of cat food down on the table, then; he reaches inside and pulls out one of the two remaining clay heads.

  “I believe that we talked about this.” Brian Folz says

  “I also believe that. In fact, I think that it transcends the boundaries of belief, because I directly recall it happening two days ago. You were there, remember?” I say

  The guard reaches in and removes the second head. He holds it in his hand, and turns it around, looking at it closely.

  “You can have that if you want.” I say. The guard looks at Brian Folz, then sets it the head down on top of the bag. “No, seriously.” I say “I make those to give them away, for gifts. You can have it if you want it”

  Brian Folz reaches down and picks up the second head, and takes that one, and the one he was already holding and brusquely puts them back in the backpack. Then, he puts the small bag of cat food in the bag, and zips it closed. He holds the bag out to me. “Sir, I am afraid that I am going to have to ban you from this building. You have been warned about this type of behavior formally, and you chose to ignore it. At this point I do not have a choice but to ban you. If you try to return, we will pursue our legal options to keep you from returning”

  “I think you have a choice” I say

  “No, I do not have a choice. You were warned” He says

  “But you are the one that made the choice to warn me. “ I say

  “And you ignored that warning, and so you are now banned” he says, pushing the bag towards me.

  “Can I at least check out a few books to tide me over?” I ask

  “No, you cannot. You are prohibited from entering this building for any reason”

  “What if I had books that I needed to return?” I ask

  “You don’t. I checked” Brian Folz turns to the guard. “Miles, would you please escort this gentleman from the building and see that he doesn’t return?”

  So, the guard walks with me to the front door and down the front steps. As we walk, I unzip my bag, and reached inside. “Do you want one of these?” I ask, taking a head out.

  “I can’t take that” says the guard.

  “Well, if you do want one. I hid one upstairs in the science section behind the Physicians' Desk Reference, you can take that one” I say

  “Ok” says the guard

  So, then I have nothing to do. I walk around for a little while until I pass a street corner preacher who is reading aloud to no one in particular “The cow and the bear shall be neighbors, together their young shall rest; the lion shall eat hay like an ox.” So, I stand and gave him an audience for a while, and then walk on. Then, I sit on the picnic benches outside the library and wait for Ben, but Coats keeps coming out to smoke, and when he does, he watches me the whole time, so I decide to walk over to the Pitt art building and sit by the fountain. There is another person there, a heavy, short haired woman with a big overstuffed backpack who I have seen occasionally inside the library on the coldest days of the winter. She is walking around the fountain and talking loudly into a cell phone, and I sit there for a while and watch her, and keep an eye out for Ben. By the evening, with nothing to do, I start for home.

  As I walk home, I pass the alley where I left the cat food the day before. Something had eaten all of the food, so I pour out the little bit that I brought with me onto the same place and arrange it into an appetizing pile. Then I go home. At home, I sit and eat and think about maybe taking another job because now my books aren’t free, but Christmas time will come soon enough, and there will be temporary work at the post office, and plenty to do to keep my mind busy. So, I turn on the radio, and the music sounds like real music now. I can hear it again, and this makes me happy, so I sit down to make some heads.

  The heads are great, some of the best that I have ever made. In the past, it has taken me six hours to make a single decent one, but today, I make three great ones, and in time that passes without notice, and then it is dawn again, and I haven’t slept at all, and I don’t want to. So, I look for something to read, but there is nothing but the bad Graham Greene, so I decide to look through my notebooks with the notes on what I already read. I hadn’t remembered, but it seems that I had transcribed a big chunk of Seneca. There were a lot of other good things, too. At the bottom of one of the pages I wrote “When the convict ponders the light, Is it the same light that shines on you?” Then I feel bad for everything that I said about Neruda. Half of the worlds’ great musicians were terrible people, and their music is still fantastic. So, I decide to stop taking myself so seriously and plan to go the museum. So, I pack my backpack with more cat food and the new heads I go out to walk again.

  I get to the museum as it is opening and the building is empty except for the staff. I put my backpack in a locker, and I go to the gallery to look for the girl with the cart, but she isn’t there. So I go to look at Edwin Abbey’s painting of the Penance of Eleanor instead. As the shoeless Duchess of Gloucester looks at her husband and speaks the words of Shakespeare she is forever frozen in punishment for the crime of witchcraft, but I imagine her asking Neruda’s question instead. Now it is no crime to consult a sorceress. There, our timeless Shakespeare was wrong; like Neruda was wrong about Stalin, and all the old hippies were wrong when they thought that lying around stoned in the dirt would drum up a revolution. But CS Lewis, and JFK, and Aldous Huxley all died on the same day, and that is a fact that most of them knew, but a lot of us don’t, and the little signs that we all seek are rewarded with a three day shoeless penance like my friend in the painting. After a while, the ache in my legs reminded me that I had stood there too long, so I leave and get my backpack, and go back into the street.

  I go to the library and sit outside for a while hoping that Ben would come, but he doesn’t. So I walk back to the fountain by the Pitt art building. You can still see the walkway in front of the library from there, and it also lowers the chances of running into Coats. I would still like to talk to him, to see if I could give him something. One of the heads I made is even better than all of the others, and I think he might like it, if I can talk to him a bit, but right now, I do not have the energy. At the benches by the fountain, the same woman is there. She is on her telephone again, and when she sees me, she starts talking even louder. I sit there for an hour, and she talks the whole time. Then, she finally gets off the phone, and starts to walk around the fountain. When she passes me she says, “I’m trying to get my ride straightened out”

  “I am looking for my friend” I say

  “She knows you’re waiting?” She asks

  “I normally see him at the library every day” I say

  “Well, the library is over there”

  “I know”

  She stands there for a moment, so I say “Do you want something to drink? There is a pop machine in the building here, I can run
in”

  “You know what? I would, but I’m out of change” She says

  “I can buy it” I say

  “I don’t need nothing from nobody” she says as she pulls her backpack tighter across her broad shoulders.

  “No, No” I say “I am not expecting anything. I’m just offering. Since I’m offering, I’ll pay”

  “It don’t work like that” she says

  “This time it does…what do you like? Coke?”

  “You think they got Dr. Pepper in there?” She asks

  “I bet they do”

  So, I go in the art building, and buy two drinks. When I come out, the woman is sitting on the bench where I was, waiting for me. I hand her the drink, and we sit together in silence for a minute.

  “You sure you ain’t expecting something for this” she says

  “No”

  “Because I work. I can pay you back”

  “I don’t want you to pay me back. Actually, I was just hoping for some company” I say

  “Why? You lonely?” She says

  “Not normally, no. Normally, I have plenty of people to talk to”

  “You can have people to talk to and still be lonely” She says

  “That’s true” I say

  “What ‘cho doing hanging around here anyway? You look like someone from an office or something”

  “This is where I am” I say

  “Where you stay at?” She says

  “I have a place”

  “I stay with my cousin, but she’s at work”

  “Oh” I say

  “I had my own apartment, but my daughter got