“Next in line!” the library clerk chirped.

Eleanor shuddered when the tall man in the gray trenchcoat stepped forward. He visited the central branch of the Glendale Public Library several days a week, emitting a vibe that Eleanor found unsettling. If forced to confront exactly why the man’s presence displeased and unsettled her, Eleanor knew she would come up blank and wordless. The library clerk was a simple creature who dutifully obeyed her instincts and carried a profound mistrust of the ability of words to sum up what natural intuitive power says.

“I’d like to renew these,” he said in murmuring words laced with bourbon. She could smell stale beef on him. Beef and potatoes and bourbon dripping from his pores. He slid the two books across the counter. Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West and Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano. Ordinarily, the man checked out a vast assortment of books: Hemingway, Bukowski, Didion, McCarthy. But lately he seemed stuck on the West and Lowry novels, renewing their enlistment to his shadowy cause time and again, as if searching for some elusive, hidden meaning in the text.

“How are you today?” Eleanor forced herself to smile as she scanned the barcode on the back of his library card. The user profile on the computer monitor told her that his name was Trace. He lived a few scant blocks from the library.

“I’m … okay.” The words were forced, belying the truth. He was far from okay. Eleanor noticed a slight tremble in his right hand; to mask the tremor Trace drummed his fingers on the wood countertop.

Eleanor swiftly scanned the books and handed them back to him. “Happy reading!”

Trace shoved Nathanael West and Malcolm Lowry into his canvas tote bag and sidled away from the counter. “You, too,” he said absently.

Further Reading: Intoxicate Me