Free Elect Mr. Robinson for a Better World: A Novel by Donald Antrim Page A

societies, yard sales, bake sales (including one to raise money for the failing library system), babysitting services, papier-mâché workshops, housepainting, handgun seminars, car repair, and lawn work. A printed handbill announced that night’s big town meeting out at Terry Heinemann’s Clam Castle. Another poster, elegantly hand-lettered in purple Magic Marker and rubber-cemented with scissor-cut crayon renderings of famous storybook characters, detailed the library’s Saturday morning Mother and Child Story Time program.
    It was six-thirty. Story Time was scheduled to begin in an hour. It warmed my heart to see programs like this being offered. I’d managed to save the binding and a few index pages of The Egyptian Book of the Dead; if I waited a bit, I could drop them off on my way home, then stay on at the library and witness this vital childcare service in action. I crossed the street and hid behind a car fitted with a wide-angle passenger-side rearview mirror perfectly angled for personal grooming. My hair was matted. I finger-combed it, using spit for styling. There wasn’t much I could do without a proper bath. Saliva did at least remove a layer of thicker grit plastered like a fright mask on my face, but my nails were mechanic’s nails, my arms the arms of a dirt farmer.
    At seven, Rita Henderson, our volunteer head librarian, arrived in her Buick. She unlocked the library and went inside—my cue to tuck in my shirt and shuffle out of concealment. At first I was afraid to confront Rita. I loitered awhile in Young Adult. It’s my business, after all, as an educator, to keep abreast of school-age literature. I have to say that I was shocked by the number of YA volumes dealing with death in one form or another: the loss of a sibling, a parent, a friend, a pet; cancer, addiction, war. And the fiction! Title after title featuring orphans.
    “Why, Pete Robinson, is that you?”
    “Oh, Rita, hi.” Time to approach the checkout desk. I watched Rita raise her eyes to take in my face and arms splotchy with leaf and scum. I’d sustained scratches on my knees and ankles; dried blood discolored socks and shoes. What a mess. I felt that hot-under-the-collar tingle that accompanies lying to an authority figure, when I said, “Say there, Rita, I just had a little accident with a library book.”
    “Oh dear.”
    “Yeah, well, here it is,” removing the destroyed tome from the knapsack and placing it gently on the counter. She stared at its sad dust jacket swaddling bent boards and unglued, water-bloated paper shreds. The spine was collapsed, ink was running—it was pathetic. I went on, “I was doing my morning mowing and hedge trimming, you know. I honestly have no idea how the book managed to get into those weeds.”
    “You defaced this with a hedge trimmer?”
    “Mower, actually. Yes, it was, I believe, I’m sure in fact, the mower.”
    She gave me a look. “Hmn.”
    “A riding mower. That’s why the damage is so bad. Those things have monster blades.”
    “Indeed.”
    Now other people filed into the library, mothers bringing their kids to Story Time. They looked me over and stopped. There was Sheila Moody with her son, Steven, a sensitive boy who’d attended kindergarten two years before. And there was little Susy Jordan, cradling in her baby-fat arms the same ragged plastic doll she’d toted through first grade. What a sweetheart. I called to Susy’s mother, “Good morning, Jenny.” And I said, “Hello, Steven. Hello, Susy. Hey, it’s story time, isn’t it?”
    “Answer the man,” Jenny Jordan instructed her daughter.
    “Yes.”
    “And what is today’s story?”
    “Don’t know.”
    “Today we’ve scheduled The Legend of Pocahontas, ” Rita Henderson said.
    “Ah. Our national lore. That’s fine.”
    Rita told the mothers and children, “Mr. Robinson here has been having lawn troubles.” Well, you could feel their skepticism. I grinned deliberately stupidly and exclaimed, “Ran over