2019-06-21 - How to Rent Your Body to Science

8:15 in the am. The weather is grey, damp, and as miserable as the PNW promises it to be on all the warnings in the travel brochures.

Sitting on the raised stone porch, sitting with his back to the building, is a man that doesn't appear to be entirely destitute by virtue that he's shaved at least recently. Jeans, work grade boots, hoodie up under a worn leather moto jacket. His knees are pulled up and he's writing in a small notebook looking very, very overtired, and to some implacably familiar.

Harper Price, head librarian of the esteemed Gray Harbor Public Library, pulls into the practically empty, if small, library parking-lot in her blue Prius promptly at 8:30. She opens her car door, reaches in for her heavy leather satchel, which she then swings across her torso; then she tips back inside the car, lifting one leg slightly off the ground as she grabs her insulated mug from the cup holder inside. She straightens, shuts her car door with a quiet /thunk/ and doesn't lock it -- small town bad habit -- before using her free hand to sort through her keys as she approaches the double glass doors of the library entrance in the drizzly morning. a good thirty minutes before she's due (never overdue!) to open the place. The dark-haired librarian is in her typical attire (outfit, not pb: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/493073859203768881/ ).

As she nears the doors, she spies the handsome, young man sitting on the front steps of Her library and smiles winningly at him as she approaches. "Waiting for the library?" Her voice is cheerful and optimistic. The weather doesn't seem to bother her one bit. No, she's quite certain she hasn't met this dark-haired man, so she waves her mug in a cheerful little wave, hands full, "I'm Harper Price. Librarian-at-large." She doesn't tout the -Head- Librarian title: no need to sound stuffy. She looks Iggy (and his bedraggled notebook) up and down once in a non-invasive sort of way that suggests she believes she can measure the book-preferences of the man from a thorough look-over. Notebook, pencil, no laptop. Inventory completed. It may be surprising she doesn't tell him to stand up and turn around once for her. She adds, offering her as-yet un-sipped-from mug of black tea toward the man she's never even met lurking beneath the eaves. "You look like you could use this more than I do, and that's saying something." Insulting much? That smile still tilts her lips, however. No harm, no foul?

Ignacio is armed and dangerous with a black and yellow Bic mechanical pencil. Whiskey brown eyes look up at the voice, but didn't look up at the sound of someone approaching oddly enough. The New Yorker answers the question of waiting for the library with a small correction, "Godot." Oh, he's a funny one. His voice sounds dry and tired as he looks but it hasn't made an impact on his sense of humor, or that lopsided, half-smile that pulls up the right side of his face. "Nah, I'm fine. I appreciate it."

He watches, curious at the distraction from the previous thoughts that kept occupancy in his head. The pencil rolls in his fingers idly at the greeting. Glib humor still in tact he offers, "Ignacio deSantos. Damp." He looks around at teh porch he's sitting on and in a gesture of feeling he owes some sort of explaination says, "Storm was bad. Wanted to make sure your porch didn't wash away."

"Nothing to be done." Harper easily answers the 'Waiting for...' reference with the first line of the play, her brown eyes twinkling at the literary reference from Iggy. She takes in everything from his demeanor to that quirky, lopsided almost-smile, then draws back the mug to the curve of her arm, her nimble fingers finally singling out the master-lock key on her key-ring. She twists two separate lockbolts and swings one of the two glass doors partly open, holding it there with the back of one foot. "Technically we don't open until nine, but I have a soft place in my heart for anyone who waits in the drizzle to see My books. Just give me a moment to disarm the alarm."

With that she's kicking the door open, clearly expecting Iggy to wait for a bit more on the stoop as she moves inside to a spot near the circulation desk, which is in a central but forward part of the large, almost circular space, to press a series of buttons on a keypad out of sight. She drops her heavy-looking satchel to the floor beside an empty chair there behind the four sided reception , information, and check-out area and swings quickly back toward the entrance, hitting the switches for a bank of lights so the place is illuminated and inviting. If he's waited outside as requested, Harper pushes one of the glass doors open with her back, opening it fully to flourish with a hand and doesn't quite sing 'Be Our Guest', though she intimates it. "Ignacio de Santos, damp," she echoes with a half smile of her own. "Welcome to Gray Harbor," here she makes an assumption. "And even more so, welcome to the Public Library." As if it were some grandiose version of the Beauty and the Beast library waiting for him to discover his most hoped-for of secrets and dreams. Her laughter is whisked away on a breath by the breeze. "So thoughtful of you to save My porch."

Ignacio quips back tired, but hey the distraction's good. "I see you met em. He owe you money too?" His head shakes as if to commiserate over a shared slight of fiction. As she's opening the door hand presses to cold, flat concrete to push himself up after she steps inside to do battle with the alarm code. How long that takes vs. how long he sat there finishing his thought on page is his own business it seems.

He comes in, eyes scanning the place for content, not exits. The formal welcome is met with an earnest laugh offering in return, "Kudos. Your library looks less haunted than half the houses, the infrastructure, and the museum apparently."

Gesturing with the notepad to the door first, it gets slid in his back pocket, "Well ya know you left it outside. heard everything else washed away. Could be looters trying to take it. Never know." Because looters run off with the edifice of a building apparently. Still it's worth looking around at and the man takes his time doing so though the pace is slow and the steps few keeping himself in a tight radius. "So you all, uh, really know everyone around here seems." Small towns. Weeeeeird. "Back home I can go two blocks and not recognize anyone. This is kinda crazy."

(Library Desc currently in revision to something like the following.) For now, think of the space inside as mainly the ground level with some hints at special and rare collections upstairs by appointment. There's a door that says 'Staff Only' that looks as if it leads to a stairway to a possible basement. Circulation desk in the front center about fifteen paces from the double front doors. Non-fiction via Dewey Decimal along the right wall. Fiction by genre and author in rows of tall shelves in the near-center, 'the stacks'. Dismally old computers along the back wall of the room. A noteworthy section just in front of the Non-Fiction entitled 'LOCAL' that sports both historical and informational books about Gray Harbor as well as books by local authors of the past and present. Childrens' and YA books to the left. And periodicals between that section and the front entrance. The place is a juxtaposition of old and new. Old: A slightly musty smell likely from the age of the building and the frequent rain, the 1970s colors and aged decor. New: a bright, open, and cheery air to the place, fliers on the corkboards by the front doors that announce all sorts of community activities and an upcoming Summer Read-In for kids ages 10-18. Comfortable, padded, reading chairs in addition to the more traditional chairs and tables spread around the entire place. Harper looks absolutely in her element in this place. And it's quite apparent from her expression that she loves her job and the library itself.

When Iggy asks about related debts, "I try not to keep tabs. Too much counting involved." She rolls her eyes faintly at the potential numerical task. As to the relative hauntedness of the library, she answers quite seriously, "Thankfully /much/ less so. Mostly you'll be haunted here by high-schoolers who've put off their term papers, a few elderly gentlemen who get disgruntled if the newspapers get folded incorrectly, and the archaic computers whose reticent speed sucks at a soul's will to live." And she's not joking. "The wi-fi is faster, though." Interesting. Slow computers. Adequate wi-fi.

Harper doesn't try to hide the fact that she's trying to get a glimpse of what is written on that pad of paper as Iggy speaks. "Things inside got washed away, too," she bemoans quietly. "But we do what we can." She laughs that ready laugh that seems to wander away halfway through while watching Iggy take in the place. "It's a small town, Mr. de Santos. Peoples' heads are in your business even when you lock the door." A little half shrug in a what-can-you-do sort of motion. "Where's 'back home', then? And are you visiting long?" Harper isn't shy about asking the invasive questions. Of course from her they usually sound cheerful and welcoming rather than rude and nosy. To most folks. "We're all a little Crazy, Mr. deSantos. 'Some of are able to sublimate. Others can adjust.'" The Stan Freberg quote is far more obscure and Harper doesn't seem to expect Iggy to recognize it. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXmCIFKRrTY )

Ignacio nods slowly and offers odd insight for interior things being washed away. "Like a metaphor for life. Maybe it's the library's way of forgetting." He pauses and shakes his head, "This..." He searches fighting for the words he wants, hand with curled fingers vaguely waving in a circle, "guy I knew back home would say it's a way to bring people t'gether. Spirit of the city or something does it so the land and the people can reconnect and heal... then again the guy did a shit ton of mushrooms so take that at face value." That grin goes wide up one side, in a bemused Stallone sort of way. "See, now you're talkin my people." On how long he's visiting for he shrugs, "New York." As if one couldn't tell with the way it sounds like he's sitting on his R's. "Figuring out as much as anyone else where I wanna go. Maybe work on a project while I figure it out. Stayin with my brother. Don't even ask me why he's here. He ain't given me an answer that makes any damn sense to me yet."

The phrase 'the library's way of forgetting' seems to catch at and then steals Harper's attention for nearly a dozen seconds before she's refocusing on Iggy. Then he's speaking of the spirit of the city and bringing people together and her brows sketch upward with interested amusement. "The library? The floods? Or the hauntings?" Another ready, warm roll of laughter from Miss Price's throat as the person quoted is then connected with 'shroom-usage. "Sometimes the altered-mind is brilliant. Sometimes it's amusing. Sometimes it needs treatment." And then the handsome New Yorker lights up the early morning library with a grin. She can't help but return the expression, the relentlessly gracious librarian. "New York, of /course/. State, City, or both?" She notches a little mental inventory of the accent she was hearing.

"This is a -- sometimes incongruous town in which to figure out one's path," offers Miss Price, the pause audible. "Lots of dead-ends and turn-arounds." A brother he is staying with is mentioned. "Is your brother new to Gray Harbor, also?" Certainly Harper would be familiar with not one but a /second/ handsome Spaniard in Gray Harbor. Annnd Iggy answers the question about his brother before she finishes inquiring. Harper remembers to let the door slide closed and tests both of them without pressing the bars to make sure she's completely unlocked them; then she leads the way toward the more central part of the room, nearing the main circulation desk. "What sort of project? Anything I can help with?"

Ignacio watches her move around like a cup of coffee breaking up the haze of morning in the gloom outside. He blinks refocusing when she reiterates the list of creepy shit. "Wait are the hauntings legit real?" He blinks not quite expecting that. For a guy that seems to take things in stride he doesn't stop himself from being animated about it. "I'll trade you." Trade? He walks over with a slow saunter from limp more than attitude, "Yes and yes. Queens. Technically. And yeah. he is." The pencil is tucked behind his ear as he comes to a lean on her counter. "Dunno how long he's been here. A lil bit. I lost track of time." Lower eyelids tuck up and heasks withthe subtlty of a baseball through a church window. "So why's the town feel weird? What's the history on this place? Burial grounds and presumptuous settlers? Tequilla and a oujia board at a bachelorette party gone wrong?"

Harper settles so that her lower back is leaning against the patron-side of the desk, right next to Iggy but facing the opposite direction as he is. "All depends what you believe in, Mr. de Santos. And how crazy you believe your local librarian is, I suppose." She smiles, good-natured yet sincere. "Gray Harbor is a long way from Queens. A different world, I'd hazard to guess. How long have you been here, and what do you think so far?" She listens to the tall, dark outsider ask about the feel of the town, holds his gaze for an almost uncomfortable amount of time, at least for some people. For Harper, long silences happen more often than not.

Finally she lifts a hand to point over at the noteworthy section marked 'Local'. "All sorts of interesting stories about the town's sordid and interesting history. About founding families and generations of stories. All --" She draws the pointing hand back and wiggles the fingers of it at Iggy. "-- available for you to read here or to check out. Of course the latter would require a library card." She leans a little in toward the man and murmur-whispers. "I know people. I'm pretty sure that can be arranged." Getting him a library card, that is.

Then the librarian is laughing and straightening her posture once again, though still leaning back against the counter. "I'm sure 'all of the above' should be marked. And more. Tell me, are you a student of local history? Is that what brought you and your brother to our little town?" She lifts the hand of the wiggling fingers and tucks an errant strand of dark hair behind her ear. The man should be left alone to do whatever he was waiting in the drizzle to do at the library, but Harper shows no sign of considering that fact for the time being, smiling a little up into Iggy's eyes, a question lingering behind her own sparkling brown gaze.

Ignacio loosely laces his fingers together watching the enigmatic and energetic librarian start her day in the way only those that really love their job can do. That quirky half-grin slowly warms back up on his face, "A week." Just one week?

It's not even 8:30am. No one is here but that doesn't keep him from looking left, then right on the sly for eavesdroppers making a great game of this either way. He drops his voice, because that's how these things are done. Presentation people! Leaning forward over the counter in conspiracy til his breastbone brushes the top of folded fists he confides, "I'm on an undercover investigation. Top secret. I can be honest with you caaaaaause you won't believe me anyways." Those dark eyes drift slowly back to the door, and that smile relaxed in his own amusement spinning such a fantastically bullshit lie as if the short story were its own gift here in this temple of lore keepers. His eyebrows pop up in a waggle. "Buuuuut," That voice has such genuine sincerity in it that he might be missing his calling for the theatre other than his body language doesn't seem the sort to do something so rehearsed. "If you could talk to your people about hooking me up with some passable ID to get me past book security over there so I can peruse some of it without getting body tackled by the grammar police? I'd be very, /very/ obliged." Because conspiracy spies are supposed to sound like this right?

One rhetorical almost-question is left unanswered along with a hazarded guess and what he thinks so far. But Harper does get the tidbit of 'how long' at least. Always doing her research, Harper. "One week," she echoes, lifting a fingertip to absently tap it at her lips. "Well, if you spend any significant amount of time, say... two weeks? ... here, you'll probably have it all down pat." She has confidence in him, the words suggest. (She's been right beside him on /his/ side of the counter, just facing the opposite direction.)

"Undercover, you say," she muses in an equally quiet tone. "Mr. de Santos, you would be surprised to learn what I believe." A little pause, a measuring sweep of her brown eyes once more. Harper positively lives for stories, both fiction and non. She awaits what he is so joyfully about to say with the look of one with bated breath.

"I promise you," she begins softly. "I will let neither hell nor fury stop you from perusing the Local book selection in /this/ library." The library is her own little one-horse town, and she its sheriff. Then just as quietly, as if she were telling him how beautiful his dark eyes are, she adds, "If you'd like a /card/, all I'd need is a driver's license and proof of residency -- you know, an official, postmarked letter with your name and address on it. Then I can hook you /right up/. Free of charge and just between the two of us." And the computer system. "What did you say you did for a living before moving to Gray Harbor, Mr. de Santos?" She doesn't yet budge from where she leans, perhaps waiting to see if he chooses to pull such items out, or instead to read her his most private notepad scribblings as if they were poetry.

Ignacio watches, and while his eyes are tired and have not seen adaquate sleep in a couple days he is no less enjoying picking up on the exitement for excitement's sake off of her. Were he to know there were forces that let him do such he might react differently. RIght now he chals this up to good intuition and people skills.

Hoarse, but willing to carry their charade in metaphor to Mt. Doom and back again he muses, "I think you already got it. " He nods to her computer. "Look it up." He seems certain of this if not outright bemused. Could be he's tired or that he loves the game as much as his companion , but he might be able to watch her scrutinize him for the next hour and be damn surprised that there are suddenly other people showing up. He side nods his head to the computer and asks, "Seriously. Lemme know?" A laugh comes from him and he pauses. What do I do for a living... other than not die, or get caught by foreign editors trying to redact information due to teh people?" The game has not stopped apparently. "According to my father? Eh I don't have a real job. Used to do a few things I was very good at until I found a way to be spectacularly bad at it."

Harper takes it all in from sleep-deprived eyes to capricious demeanor to hoarse tone, not backing down. Not letting up. She'll play. She -should- be doing morning-opening tasks, but the drizzly morning brought a tall, dark Spaniard to the stoop of Her library well over thirty minutes before it was even due to open. Clearly this conversation is what she is meant to be focused upon right now. He tips his head toward the computer on the other side of her desk and she pushes away from the counter to circle around it to the official side. She confirms the spelling of both his first and last name, fingers tap-tapping deftly over the keyboard.

Clearly a list of some kind shows up on her screen because her brows crinkle in an amusing sort of way and then she looks back at him abruptly. "/This/ is you," she states and queries all at once. "Spelunking for Claustrophobic. Beekeeping .... How to Rent Your Body ..." She stops the list that goes on, not finishing the titles, some whimsical combination of delight and disbelief catching spark behind those brown eyes. "Produce a driver's license, please." As if she'd just pulled him over in a 25 mph zone for going 53. And then he uses the e-word and she lifts one hand to rest on a hip, regarding him up and down as far as the counter will allow, all over again. Is there a little tremble to the hand she holds out presumptuously? An author? A newly -local- author? In Her library? She's all business except for that bright gaze: a gaze that chooses most often to believe rather than to disbelief holds the man hostage.

Ignacio holds up a finger in defense, "To /Science/. It's not a how to start your own brothel out of your bathtub though... this has promise." His hand finds his ass to fish out his wallet. Like the smartass he is he informslike the very good concerned citizen he is, "I can't produce em. That's forgery." Har har. He flips the bifold open ignoring the receipts, shows his still NY driver's license with his ID on there. Funny enough in the line of tall tales this actually checks out. Might the rest? Who the hell knows.

The question pulls that delighted glint of mischief up from the tired depths of his eyes. He needed this. Well he needed some answers too, but there is something delightfully calming to the soul to find a foothold in anything that feels normal, or at least like reality isn't smacking you around like the ping pong ball of some crazy malevolent god-cat. "Haven't got mail sent here yet buuuut I'm workin on it."

That finger briefly holds Harper's full attention. Then her lips quirk upward in amusement, though delight wins out as she responds either to the play on words or the actual driver's license that she leans partway across the counter to scrutinize as it is held out while still in the man's billfold. She looks at the picture. Up at Iggy. Repeats. Someone get the smelling salts. Harper may swoon. His commentary about his own books draws quiet laughter from the slender librarian in the sweater and skirt.

Instead of swooning, however, she takes that trembling hand and turns it as if to offer a handshake. "The Gray Harbor Public Library welcomes you, Mr. de Santos. And I, for one, do look forward to your production of that proof of residence. At your earliest convenience, of course." One might think Harper is flirting, if one didn't know Harper just about all the time. Still, there remains a bit of that starstruck aspect to her demeanor. "Are you working on another book? And may I put your books in the 'Local' section once all the paperwork is completed?" Perhaps that strong wash of Glimmer to her allows her to sense a bit of Iggy's good spirits, or they just ricochet back through her. "I'm quite delighted to make your acquaintance. Please. Call me Harper." He hasn't called her anything. Not once this entire time. But that makes the welcome no less gracious and warm.

Ignacio could easily argue something like names aren't important when the person you are talking to is the only person in the world. The truth is that's just accurate given the total populace of the locale, but presentation! He shakes her hand but pauses before letting it go when she asks to move his books to the local section. he looks quizzical to the point of considering 'won't that be dangerous?' or in this case, "Won't that make the end table wobble funny?" Hilarious. "I mean yeah that is now very technically true. I'm down." It's the invention of a great mind to picture this easy going man getting overly worked up over anything really.

At the question of working on a book there's a fleeting moment where the show stops and he admits, "Ya know, Harper, I never intended to actually be an author of anything in the first place? All of that came out as a total accident. God's own truth." He looks around and shrugs looking back to her taking his wallet back, "Might be headed that way though. Sorta lets me know when I did a thing if that makes sense." Resuming the 'show' again i their playful banter he winks assuring, "Mr. deSantos is my dad. He's kinda an asshole... or ya know other spies. Last names Very en vogue."

The librarian is nodding: could be to either the jest about the self-derogatory use for his books to prop up tables or about his being 'down'. Or both. "Marvelous," she replies, her expression matching the word. "If you'd like, I could set up a signing for you. Unless you prefer your anonymity, of course." An arch of a brow here as Harper does tend toward discretion regarding the library and its patrons'' privacy. "I suspect I know what I'll be reading this weekend." A compliment of sorts.

And there he actually addresses her by name, earning himself another winning smile. As if they were old friends already. "You accidentally fell on a pen and paper, or perhaps a keyboard?" she inquires with an amused little up-tipping of her brows. Not the usual use for that euphemism, but this is a library, after all. .No need to be scandalous. She retrieves her hand and settles back to her heels as Iggy pulls back his wallet. "You're an author, Mr. de Santos. You are under no obligation to make sense." Harper should be paying a fee to do her job today, rather than the other way around. "And what would you have me call you then? A code name?" If they're talking spy-craft.

Ignacio wrinkles his nose in a genuine laugh, "That... is new." Kudos lorekeeper. Well played. "Uhhh, started as a project my doctor had me do and, ya know, it seemed a better choice than losing my mind and being bored as shit, so I just started putting stuff down and was just on-line a while. Someone sent stuff in for me and they were like well we want to kill a tree in your name. So everything on-line had to come down and I was like well.. fuck it. Work's done. Why not. And... it sorta happened." His hands god up in that 'I got nothin' gesture. Truth, lady. It's all there is. "Sooooo, if I bring back my proof of residency is this so you can send me mail order stalkers in the form of Bed Bath and Beyond coupons by the thousands or a formality?"

Having been a long damn two days he rubs his face with his hand and extends it out, fingers spread in teh 'I have an idea', wait for it' universal gesture. "I'll make you a deal cause I do gota be gettin back. Find me what /you/ would reccommend to read on teh most interesting part of this weird lil town and we'll discuss it when I finish it, and in return you can ask me whatever questions you want from whatever you grab. You get 5. I'm not a genie, but I got limits and can only be so honest for so long." He nods thoughtfully looking back to her, "The truth hurts, buuuut the company don't so I'll make the exception for you as a favour to your favour. Deal?"

Harper enjoys the laughter, even letting several moments pass after statement and then explanation, before she seems to stir herself to speak. "It's the way we library-sorts prove to the city that we're loaning out books to the actual people paying taxes. And, of course, also our way of hunting you down with shotguns if books don't come back. But no Bed, Bath, OR Beyonds, scout's honor." She holds two fingers up in proof. "That would be like Social Security giving out your digits in exchange for crypto-currency. Or something equally shady." She dips her chin once as if to confirm her own words.

"That is a challenge I will readily accept." He never did answer what she should call him, so she just uses his last name without the mister. "A game of questions sounds appealing. One for one, of equal depth, of course." Stakes laid and bets held. "Deal. Mail yourself something and bring it in next time. In the meanwhile, make yourself comfortable, enjoy whatever portions of the library appeal, and I'll be here all day if you have any questions or need assistance." She smiles after the man as he walks away, then busies herself doing all the things she should have done for the last thirty minutes to open the library at 9 am. Mr. Jones will be so upset if his newspapers aren't already set out for him.