20 minutes in a Toronto Public Library

For more than a year living in this neighbourhood, I had only admired the beauty and elegance of my local library building from the outside.

Why didn’t I come here the last summer when it was so hot and humid and I had to take a cold shower every half an hour in my apartment with no AC or fan? Why didn’t I use this magnificent space to get out of my little apartment to do my remote work? I didn’t even use it as a toilet refuge during those seven days that they shut off the water and drain pipes in my building. Why?

Built in 1911–1913, Bloor and Gladstone library is an award winning work of architecture with history and character. Before reading its history I thought it might be a repurposed church or cathedral, with high ceiling, tall windows and a modern extension to an old building.

I started with high hopes this morning, thinking I am so glad that I finally discovered a great place to work, to write, to read and to enjoy my time outside my comfort zone. A creative and free work space from which I can go home and have lunch and come back again.

I found an empty desk in the old building in the middle of the CD/DVD section and put my laptop on the desk and got connected to the Toronto Public Library free wifi. I was ready to work. I wanted to be more productive, away from my living space. Without the distraction of all the food in the kitchen and my comfortable sofa.

A middle age man was using a library PC at a desk on my left side with a headset on. A woman was using the copy machine next to him and another woman was talking on the phone at the far end, in front of one of those tall windows .

There were few rows of low DVD shelves between me and her. She was facing the window and I could see the back of her head and the top part of her shopping cart full of her belongings. A giant stack of plastic bags.

I figured this was a downtown neighbourhood full of poor people and a public place like this could be their heaven during the day, air conditioned from 9 AM to 8:30 PM. If I were poor or homeless I would use this space every single day.

Another woman came in with a very large suitcase and a few plastic bags on top. She parked her suitcase on the corner and came back and sat at the desk behind me to use a library PC. A young man came in with a cell phone in his hand and headphones in his ears. Almost everybody looked broke or borderline homeless there.

I could not ignore the woman’s phone conversation. She had this sweet sexy voice and talked in a very calm and consistent tone. It was like she was recording something. I could not recognize her language. At first I thought this was a short urgent telephone conversation in a public library and she will hang up soon.

I have very sensitive ears. I can pick up the slightest noise from 200 meters. It didn’t take long before all the noise and their echos got me. The gentleman on my left side had decided to watch a music video. I could see a saxophone player on the screen. He had a headset on so I couldn’t hear the music but I could hear the sound of his fingers tapping on the back of his plastic chair, something that he couldn’t hear. TAP TAP TAP.

Then I heard the sound of newly arrived woman’s keyboard. A keyboard can be unbelievably loud in a big space with a high ceiling. There was more copying. Another man’s phone rang and he started talking too.

Then she said “don’t have sex with any girl!” I thought I might have heard it wrong or the woman might have been speaking English all the time. So I paid closer attention. No she sure was talking in a foreign language. Then she said it again. “Maximillian! Don’t have sex!” in that sweet sexy commanding voice. I tried not to imagine her saying “NO!” during the sex that brought Maximillian to this world.

I had assumed she was talking to her teenage son. Trying to teach him a lesson before it was too late. Something that her mom probably didn’t do for her or didn’t do it properly. But the question was why only this part in English?

More tapping on the keyboard, more tapping on the back of the plastic chair, more conversations. I could not stand it. I had to get out. And I did.

I looked at my cellphone when I was exiting the library. I had been there for less than 20 minutes. There was less noise on the street or at least I felt that way.

The woman’s voice was still in my head. “Maximillian! Maximillian! Do not have sex!”

Maybe there was no such a phrase in her own language. There is no way of convincing a teenage boy not to have sex. It does not make any sense whatsoever. There is no such concept. So why should we have a sentence for it? It’s like saying “Don’t eat food!” to a very hungry person. Or more like saying “Don’t fall on the ground!” to a falling apple.

Imagine trying to convey the concept of a teenage boy suppressing his sexual impulse to a person in 5000 years ago. I mean when he has the chance and there is a girl willing to sleep with him.

Maybe he was some sort of Odysseus on a journey back home and his mom was trying to protect him from the sirens.

I decided to go back in the afternoon and write this story in the library. “I am not gonna give up on this grand space so easily.” I told myself.

This time I tried the other side of the building, the new extension. A modern glass and metal architecture with some book shelves, a row of library PCs, a row of empty desks, some comfy chairs here and there and no sweet sexy “don’t have sex!” conversation this time.

An old man was sleeping on one of the chairs. A deep sleep. While I was writing, two security guards came and stood there talking to each other. Then they went and came back with a young man. I guessed he was a library staff. At first I thought they wanted to ask him to leave. But then I realized that they were worried he might be dead.

I knew that he was not dead. I had heard him coughing badly earlier. The female security guard tapped on the seat to wake him up.

“Sir? Sir?”

“Haaa?”

“Are you alright?”

“I am starving.”

“I will get you something to eat. OK?”

“Thank you.”

He wasn’t dead. They left with a sense of relief.

The guard came back with a small sandwich and a cup of coffee.

He sat. He ate his sandwich, drank his coffee, stayed for a little longer and then left. He won’t be hungry for a few hours.