Nothing Before Something

Nothing Before Something

A Novel

Red Wassenich

Copyright © 2011 by Red Wassenich

Published by Red Wassenich on Smashwords

The Arkansas jokes are from the internet. They are on many sites. It is impossible to know who wrote them.

The author may be contacted at:

redwassenich@gmail.com

* * * * * *

Faith, the least exclusive club on earth, has the craftiest doormen.

- David Mitchell

* * * * * *

Slow, slow day at the library of the Texas Museum of Natural History. I was idly trying to open Webster’s Third to whatever word popped into my mind. Open and blindly point at a page. Ocelot got pleochroism. Idle innocent. Dentifrice curry.

I was the only one on duty on a predictably hot but highly unusual rainy August Austin afternoon. The library desk clerk had called in saying she didn’t have enough money for the bus to get to work, and the guy who worked the stacks had taken a vacation day. The other public services librarian had been laid off the week before in the latest round of budget crud, and the skeleton technical services and administrative staff were in their burrows in back. The library was mainly for the museum scientists—who at this time of year were in large part off chasing butterflies in Turkmenistan or unearthing petrified pollen in Wyoming—but we were open to the general public Tuesday through Thursday in the afternoons. So far none had come in. Where was the intellectual curiosity? Between a library and a dinosaur skeleton, which would you choose?

Finally, I heard the front door open. A woman held an open umbrella in front of herself, spinning it slowly to shed the water. It was bright yellow with the image of a half lemon, the ribs cleverly forming the sections. She closed it and put it in the umbrella stand that was actually a basket used by Hindu snake charmers. In the storage area of the museum, they had about twenty of these, and a pal of mine in Anthropology gave us one that he deemed unworthy.

She was around fifty, simply but elegantly dressed in a pastel summer frock and espadrilles. Salt-and-pepper hair sharply cut. She had that been-around-the-block air that appeals.

May I help you?"

I had an appointment to view some of the manuscript collection.

Oh, really? I hadn’t heard. I’m afraid the material hasn’t been pulled.

She handed me her copy of the four-page bureaucratic masterpiece that our fearless director had spent three months crafting that in essence said Who are you? What do you want?

I looked at the last page and saw the approval signature of the budget victim. Oh, last week was her last week. I reassured myself, Yes, that is proper English. They didn’t let me know about this. But let’s live dangerously. I’ll go fetch the stuff. Woof.

She smiled and said, Good boy. Her crow’s-feet were perfect.

She wanted to see our collection of manuscripts and notes by Dr. Philo Hartwig. Our archival collection is largely that of the hundreds of scientists who have worked at the museum over the decades. The guide to such things simply gives a name and the linear feet we have; nothing really on the contents. That’s where the fun lies for the researchers. Hartwig, whose name rang a distant bell for me, had 3.2 linear feet in eight manuscript boxes, which I wheeled into the reading room on a book truck and presented to the woman. I began my spiel on the handling rules: All paper must be kept flat, only pencils can be used to take notes, photos must be handled by the edges, cotton gloves must be worn at all times. She showed me she had already donned a pair while I was fetching. Have fun, I said. Let me know if I can help. I’ll be napping over at that desk.

Sweet dreams.

I started a memo to Gretel Tuber, the library director, proposing I write a grant to improve our access to the manuscript collection by adding some descriptive info beyond bulk. I made a side bet with myself that she would create an ad hoc committee that would, after ten meetings, say, Sure, and that Tuber would ponder this for a couple of months and OK it, accompanied by a half dozen pages of stipulations. Why do I try?

After that I skimmed over the visiting researcher’s request form. Her name was Piper Curry. Remember, I told myself, don’t call her dentifrice. She was a researcher from something called the Foundation for Science in Society in Washington, writing an article on Philo Hartwig’s early works. I searched the web for Hartwig. He was the current head of the Rational Christian Coalition, a group that, among other activities, fights for creationism to be taught in schools. He had been a noted primate researcher at the museum until 2000, ten years ago, specializing in craniometry before leaving under mutual agreement. I had heard of the Rational Christian Coalition, but didn’t really know much as I tend to ignore such morons as irrelevant.

I had peeked into the reading room a couple of times and Curry was absorbed in her work. At 4:30 I stuck my head in. Wanted to let you know we close in a half hour. Having any luck?

She spun in her chair and stared at me with scary eyes. What?!! I recoiled and she shook her head. No, no. I’m sorry. I am just running into walls with this and I get too involved.

It’s OK. I get frustrated at my job too. All these clamoring hordes in here drive me crazy.

She politely imitated a small laugh. I really should ask you for help. I know librarians know things that humans don’t. Can I tell you what I’m trying to find, or at least as much as I know?

Please do. Strangely enough, that’s our job and people rarely take advantage of us.

Do you know who Hartwig was and is? I nodded and waggled my hand in that universal sign of sort of. What I’m trying to hunt down is a paper—or at least the notes for it—that he is said to have written on evolution and brain structure that was supposedly quite radical. It was never published. The problem is, that’s about all I really know. I guess he wrote it while he worked here since he stopped doing hardcore science when he went off to run the Rational Christian Coalition. Do you know what that is?

I started to sneer my disdain for such groups but figured I should maintain the librarians’ credo of helping all equally in case she was on their side. I didn’t know what the Foundation for Science in Society was. I prayed she wasn’t one of those fundamentalists. I did the nod and waggle again.

She pointed at the manuscript boxes. I just did a very quick scan of this archive and nothing jumped out. I guess I’m going to have to come back and plow through it carefully. So if you have any ideas on better ways to approach this, I would love to hear them.

I thought for a minute. Not many, I’m afraid. I don’t know anything to speak of about Hartwig, but I am friends with one of the biologists here who has been around a few decades, so she must have known Hartwig. I could ask if she has any ideas.

She looked a little concerned. May I ask who it is?

Uh, sure. Why not? Dr. Cora Mumford. She does taxonomy of marsupials, so not a primatologist, but I can’t imagine she didn’t know Hartwig.

She looked a bit relieved and nodded. Yes, that would be great. Thank you so much. Oh, my name is Piper Curry. She offered her hand, laughed, removed the gloves—revealing no ring—and shook mine. She had skin. Your name is Gunther Temple, although your name tag is upside down so maybe I should call you Elpmet Rehtnug.

At least once a week I absentmindedly put my name tag on upside down. It was a joke amongst the staff. I do it that way on purpose so I can look down and remember who I am. Incidentally, Elpmet Rehtnug is the Turkish ambassador to Andorra. Nice to meet you, Ms. Curry.

Piper, please.

Did I already say she had lovely crow’s-feet, my favorite part of the female body? Well, I don’t know what kind of schedule you’re on, but I have a regular lunch date on Fridays with some of the staff, including Dr. Mumford, so I could pick her brain then. In the meantime, if the library stays this slow I can leaf through this 3.2 linear feet and see if I spot anything.

Oh, really? You’d do that? That would be too perfect. I have other obligations the rest of the week, probably including having to travel out of town. How about if I come back next Monday?

I sighed. We’re only open to the public Tuesday through Thursday afternoons. But, I tell you what, in the unlikely event I find any smoking manuscripts I could let you know. Your application form has your phone and e-mail.

She shook her head appreciatively. Librarians are the park rangers of our culture. Friendly, dedicated, knowledgeable, underappreciated . . . and cute uniforms.

I looked at my slightly frayed gray Dickies work pants and unironed dress shirt. I don’t get to wear the helmet until I’m promoted.

She took my hand again. Thanks, Gunther, You’re a peach. See you Tuesday, if not sooner.

I’m a peach.

No, you’re not. At best you’re canned pineapple. Packed in syrup. Funny bulge in the can. Destined for a leaf of iceberg lettuce with a scoop of cottage cheese and a maraschino cherry on top. The Luby’s cafeteria in Durant, Oklahoma. Your remains will be uncovered during an autopsy in the stomach of a typewriter repairman after he’s found hanging in the garage of his duplex, where he’s been for six days.

I could have sworn this lady called me a peach. Darn, I misremembered, I guess.

A lady, huh? Tell me more. This is so rare. My friend Tosh leaned forward.

Nothing really. A nice, interesting, handsome creature who actually likes librarians came in today looking for an obscure bit of info. We actually achieved banter. She said I was a peach.

Cool. Did you ask her out? What’s she look like? Does she have a sister or daughter or mother or a female pet? Tosh was the embodiment of the endangered Austin slacker. Goofy, jovial, lived on almost nothing, having inherited his grandmother’s old funky house in a now-gentrified inner city neighborhood and working occasional temp jobs. He was in his mid fifties but had retained his personality from about thirty years ago, in a good way.

No date, but she’s coming back next week and I’m doing some research for her. Further contact assured. About fifty. Nice mileage. Classy without snobby. She’s a deaf and dumb orphan who owns a liquor store. This latter was Tosh’s favorite W.C. Fields gag, the definition of the perfect wife.

Sounds like your cup of tea. You do like them a bit over the hill. What’s she do?

Don’t really know. Maybe a journalist. She’s working on an article about some numbnut who used to be a scientist at the museum but now runs some wacko outfit called the Rational Christian Coalition.

Ugh. Is it Philo Hartwig? He’s a piece of work . . . or shit.

That’s him. You follow that stuff, don’t you? She’s looking for some unpublished thing he wrote a while back on evolution that had some far-out ideas. Know anything?

Nope. Tosh ordered us another round of gin and tonics. "He was on Fox a couple of nights ago accusing the New York schools of forcing godlessness on our children by teaching evolution and not creationism. I got to admit he can spread a shellac of logic over the crap he peddles. ‘I used to be a godless scientist, but I saw the limits of atheistic reasoning.’ Plus he makes it sound so hopeful. It’s