For all that I prefer being alone, I do reasonably well in crowds. My look is hostile and grungy enough that people don’t want to engage with me, but my frame is small enough that I don’t seem like an open threat. I have a method- one that involves looking directly ahead of me, past the faces of those nearby, and pushing apologetically through as though I have business somewhere ahead and the crowd is just an inconvenience. For the most part, people are happy to let me pass. Nobody wants to be alone in a crowd and nobody wants to be alone with me.
I try not to think about it too much.
‘It’s not so much ‘The Library of Forbidden Books’ that is interesting. Outside of a few old and rare tomes in their collection, the books on display are trivial to obtain online or in any number of other libraries or bookstores. No, the real actions takes place in the parking lot and in the sidewalks surrounding ‘The Library.’ This is where ‘The Ongoing Culture War’ is fought- a constant protests and sometimes skirmish that consists of a half-dozen or more factions, each protesting the availability of a book in ‘The Library of Forbidden Books.’
For instance, the more conservative parties take umbrage at the inclusion of sexual education books for children, even those that have been roundly approved by doctors and psychologists as age appropriate. The liberal leaning factions counter-protest for these books and, as an aside, have petitioned the library to remove children’s books that champion the so-called traditional family: straight, middle-class, gender-conforming, and (let’s be honest here), white.
Then there are a number of smaller factions that represent the gray areas that most of us don’t want to acknowledge for complexity’s sake. There are those protesting the impingement of free speech by all parties, arguing that all books should be available and adding, in fine print, that maybe has to include those books that sexualize minors. There is a party devoted to ‘sensible’ age ranges, meaning these books should be available but just leave the kids out of it, right? There are the progressive conservatives that agree family models should be (so-called) traditional but maybe they ease up on the racial stuff and also women can win bread too- in this economy, don’t they have to? Then there are those people that arrive at ‘The Ongoing Culture War’ to, as they say, ‘stir shit.’ One particularly effective shit-stirrer nearly united the fractured parties in an effort to simply burn the library down and be done with it, but was stopped at the last moment by undercover police (who seemed to make up nearly half the crowd).
A local donut shop has made a name for itself by sponsoring a time-out on Saturday mornings. They deliver free donuts to the center of ‘The Ongoing Culture War,’ the presence of which usually calms the crowd and facilitates a half hour of cautious, but amiable interaction between people who, moments before, were all but threatening violence toward each other. For this half hour, the crowd sets aside the many complicated signs they wave about to really broadcast the nuances of their opinions, and they eat donuts together in near-silence.
Dan Leder, owner of Ledership Donuts, refuses to speak of this phenomenon and seems, at all times, to be under ulcer-inducing stress to not broadcast any opinions of his own. A step in the wrong direction could prove disastrous.’
It is stressful. Without anything to insinuate my own opinion on the library or on the state of the country, I worry that my nearness to one faction or another may be taken as agreement. Stopping to read a sign seems to signal skepticism. Even my far-looking tactic of navigating the crowd makes it seem like I’m ignoring those near me or endorsing those ahead.
It isn’t until I turn to leave, though, that the vitriol comes on thick. Something heavy enough to hurt, but dull enough not to count as true assault, bounces off the back of my head and when I turn to see who threw it I find that a few of the fringe factions have registered my leaving as abandonment of their incompatible causes. I make the mistake of apologizing.
“I was just visiting!”
“This isn’t a zoo, man!” Someone shouts.
“Take a fucking stand.” Someone else says.
I grimace and do my best sorry, have to go face, dodging several more projectiles which, on closer inspection, are rocks wrapped carefully in cloth so as not to be injurious. Each has the word ‘shame’ sharpied across the surface.
I return to the camper to find that someone has, rightfully I guess, pointed out that it is a gas-guzzler. A real fossil-fuel hedonist. They’ve pointed this out in spray paint on the side of the van and someone else has, in a different color, rebutted them, suggesting that the camper was very clearly a second-hand buy and a renovation and therefore is helping the earth and that most electricity for cars is generated using a measure of fossil fuels anyway. Someone else has painted a sad face under this.
A new shame rock bounces lightly off the camper’s side. I pick it up as a souvenir and get on my way.
-traveler
