At the Library

I have recently spent a lot of time at the public library, because my AP Language and Composition teacher has been loading us with reading, and I'm going through books so fast, I can hardly keep up. Throughout my time at the library I have seen some very strange people.

Once I saw a mother and her son, who was about 15 I would say. He seemed to be using the computer to do a project, and she was looking at random things online while waiting for him to finish. He I was sitting next to her trying to browse the online library catalog for books by Susan Sontag, while she loudly complains about her financial troubles to her son. Her son seemed to be a little irritated about this, so he didn't say much to her. But still she kept talking, she loudly said how she was going to get a job... 'eventually.' Now that sounds like real motivation to me. (Sarcasm). At first I felt bad for her because she was having financial problems, but after I was sitting next to her, and smelling the stench of her last cigarette on her clothes, and the surrounding area, I didn't feel so bad. Who I really feel bad for is her son, who is obviously working hard on his school work, while his mother goes and blows all their money on cigarettes, and has no immediate intention to get a job. I'm just afraid that this boy will get caught in this cycle and not be able to end it.

The same day I saw a little gangster boy. He was about 10 or 11, white, dark blonde hair, and was obviously trying to rock the baggy rebel look. It was not working, the effect was somewhat comical. He was playing some sort of violent game on the computer, and listening to some terrible rap music, which I could clearly hear  from his headphones. He kept looking around, self-consciously, as if to make sure it was know that he was only at the library because he wanted to play gangsta games on the computer while wearing his gangsta clothes and listenin' to gangsta music.

One day when I was walking into the library, a very large man was wandering around near the front. I'm not very good at judging height, but he was over 6 feet tall, that's all I can be sure of. He was a little chunky, but not obese, and he had these huge meaty hands, he looked really powerful. I walked in and had to walk past him so I said "excuse me" he seemed startled and a little scared of me, (I'm 5'4", just to let you know), he immediately reminded me of Lenny in Of Mice and Men, not like he had a mental illness, but he was just so large, and so much like a teddy bear. I watched him for awhile, he was really gentle with everything, and seemed to be easily scared by anything, a little boy ran past him, and he nearly jumped out of his boots.