These words came to me in an odd way. I have been to Baltimore, to attend a conference on disability services for college students, so I know a little about what it feels like to be in Baltimore.
I have never been to a library in Baltimore, so I know nothing about being in one there. It feels strange, sitting in this ‘knowledge of nothing’ bubble in the middle of a larger ‘little knowledge of something’ one.
In this small shelter of unknowing then, I found myself sitting at a round table in a library in Baltimore.
I looked closely at what was reading, but I could not make it out. What I did see clearly was a celebrity sitting at the table next to mine, reading a book whose title I could not make out either.
I won’t name him, but if you saw this man, you would recognize him immediately. As it happens, he and I are a month apart in age. His hair has touches of white, while mine is completely gray, but my face is much younger appearing. His looks as though he has aged much with every new character he assumes.
It’s funny. We sat at adult-sized tables, but we were sitting on those kiddie-sized chairs, the small wooden ones that are a middle size between dollhouse- and normal-sized furniture.
Yet we have no difficulty sitting at these high tables in our short chairs. Mine was painted red, his blue.
Sitting further around that table, to his left, was his wife. She is not a celebrity, which may be why their marriage has lasted all these years. And because she is not famous, no one would recognize her without her husband being by her side. This may be something she appreciates very much, this anonymity, and her husband may envy her for it for all I know.
At any rate, even though this man would be recognized almost anywhere in the world, I was the only person who knew who he was. No one bothered him. I was not about to. The two read so peacefully.
From time to time, he would reach his left hand toward his wife and would cover and squeeze her right hand. Their affection for each other was obvious. A few times they even paused in their reading to look at each other and smile.
This felt like the ideal marriage, and I envied them this radiating happiness that seemed to enclose them, to shield them from the outside world.
Thinking about that made my reading more difficult. I would scan the same passage over and over, repeating and repeating the action, but nothing would sink in. No message made it to my mind for more than a few moments before it disappeared.
And each time I distractedly looked over the next table, the celebrity and his wife would either be reading or smiling at each other. This scattered my concentration more and more.
Finally, the two closed their books and stood. I thought about saying something to them but decided not to. There was something about their love that was like a spell the magic of which I could not bring myself to burst.
So I watched them walk away, then through the doors into a very recognizable Baltimore evening.
After they’d disappeared, I went over to their table to look at the books they’d been reading. Hers was entitled The Highest Moment, his When the Devil Comes.
I shivered when I saw that second one.
This morning I flipped on CNN while I waited for my coffee to perk. The story was about Baltimore. Just after midnight, yesterday morning, there’d been a mass shooting at a block party there. Two people were killed, an 18-year-old woman, and a 20-year-old man, and 28 more were wounded.
Another mass shooting. Over and over, repeating and repeating. But I could not forget the perfect love I’d pictured there in Baltimore between that celebrity and his wife. A memorable role for him and for her, too, both shimmering while all about the outside world threatened to shatter them.
Lanning Lee 