12:20pm:
I arrive at the New York Public Library in all its cavernous, intimidating glory and proceed to look for the reference room, aka "the room with all the answers". Not too surprisingly, that room has a line snaking out of it thirty people long and when I approach the counter in an attempt to ask if this is the "right" line, the Man at the Desk, the Master of the Line waves me back as if I were a gate crasher jumping the ropes at a celebrity wedding.
"You see the end of that line?" he asks me. "Yes, but..." "That's where you go." I wait for the cheers from those already lined up but fortunately they're on my side; all they want to know is if they're in the right line. The people in front look slightly happier than those in back who are just hoping someone else gets behind them. That's where I come in.
12:45pm:
I'm first in line! The Line Master gestures me forward. For some reason, I feel like Oliver about to ask for a second bowl of gruel. "How do I find articles by specific authors?" I ask, and he lifts a bony hand and points… back to the end of the line, right by the entry doors I passed thirty minutes ago on my way here. "Back there. Computers. Use this." He hands me a pencil that's not even a whole number 2 but more like a fraction. It has no eraser. That's O.K, I think. I'm getting closer. Soon, it will all be worth it.
12:46pm:
The Library computers are so ancient they look fake, like the computers on a Star Trek episode before the Enterprise upgraded its technology. Touching the sticky keyboard makes one think not twice but six times. In order to spare my fingerpads the Ebola virus or whatever else might be stuck on the smudged keys, I decide to type with my knuckles. Looking like a smartly dressed Neanderthal, I enter "M-e-h-l-m-a-n". Several catalogue numbers appear and I jot enough numbers down that I feel like I’ve covered all the possibilities. I ask the guy next to me, "What do I do now?". He answers "Give 'em to the guy. He gets you the articles." "What guy?" Yes, you guessed it. The Master of the very same thirty-person line I was, only minutes ago, at the head of.
4:30pm:
Hours later, seated at a wooden table that could seat sixteen in some Hamptons French farmhouse-style kitchen, I'm beginning to feel faint. My research has expanded to the point that I have now looked in every periodical going back to immediately after Mehlman's birth. The chances of him having written an article before he was 10 years old are slim I realize, but I am obsessed. He's written plenty of items, all amusing, but none seem to have that naïf-in-New York City, pre-LA quality that I'd heard about.
Almost everyone else who was at my table has gone, having found what they came for. Each time one of my tablemates stands to leave, I feel a pang of jealousy and a strange sense of abandonment. "I thought we were in this together! What do you mean you're leaving?" I think. My jealousy springs from the knowledge that soon they'll be breathing air that doesn't feel like it's been strained through a sock.
In four hours I've only found one article by Mehlman specifically about New York (a practical guide to summer shares). But I'm tired, the wooden seat is getting hard, and I don't want to be the last one who gets to slam her books shut, shelve them and depart. I'll take it! I'll copy it here and pore over it at home. I tip one open side of the big green book atop the other, resulting in a soft slam. My companions look up at me briefly, jealously. "Yes!" I exude silently. "I'm done. I get to go home!"
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