Come on, he says, and jerks Little White Walking Sam off the path and into the thick bushes which grow along the side of the Library. When the poleethman tellth you to come, you COME! It is dark in here; dark and mysterious. The air smells of pungent juniper berries. The ground is dark with mulch. Sam is crying very loudly now.
Thut up! the Library Policeman grunts, and gives Sam a hard shake. The bones in Sam’s hand grind together painfully. His head wobbles on his neck. They have reached a little clearing in the jungle of bushes now, a cove where the junipers have been smashed flat and the ferns broken off, and Sam understands that this is more than a place the Library Cop knows; it is a place he has made.
Thut up, or the fine will only be the beginning! I’ll have to call your mother and tell her what a bad bay you’ve been! Do you want that?
No! Sam weeps. I’ll pay the fine! I’ll pay it, mister, but please don’t hurt me!
The Library Policeman spins Little White Walking Sam around.
Put your hands up on the wall! Thpread your feet! Now! Quick!
Still sobbing, but terrified that his mother may find out he has done something bad enough to merit this sort of treatment, Little White Walking Sam does as the Library Cop tells him. The red bricks are cool, cool in the shade of the bushes which lie against this side of the building in a tangled, untidy heap. He sees a narrow window at ground level. It looks down into the Library’s boiler room. Bare bulbs shaded with rounds of tin like Chinese coolie hats hang over the giant boiler; the duct-pipes throw weird octopustangles of shadow. He sees a janitor standing at the far wall, his back to the window, reading dials and making notes on a clipboard.
The Library Cop seizes Sam’s pants and pulls them down. His underpants come with them. He jerks as the cool air strikes his bum.
Thdeady, the Library Policeman pants. Don’t move. Once you pay the fine, son, it’s over … and no one needth to know.
Something heavy and hot presses itself against his bottom. Little White Walking Sam jerks again.
Thdeady, the Library Policeman says. He is panting harder now; Sam feels hot blurts of breath on his left shoulder and smells Sen-Sen. He is lost in terror now, but terror isn’t all that he feels: there is shame, as well. He has been dragged into the shadows, is being forced to submit to this grotesque, unknown punishment, because he has been late returning The Black Arrow. If he had only known that fines could run this high -!
The heavy thing jabs into his bottom, thrusting his buttocks apart. A horrible, tearing pain laces upward from Little White Walking Sam’s vitals. There has never been pain like this, never in the world.
He drops The Black Arrow and shoves his wrist sideways into his mouth, gagging his own cries.
Thdeady, the Library Wolf pants, and now his hands descend on Sam’s shoulders and he is rocking back and forth, in and out, back and forth, in and out. Thdeady … thdeaady … oooh! Thdeeeaaaaaaddyyyyy Gasping and rocking, the Library Cop pounds what feels like a huge hot bar of steel in and out of Sam’s bum; Sam stares with wide eyes into the Library basement, which is in another universe, an orderly universe where gruesome things like this don’t ever happen. He watches the janitor nod, tuck his clipboard under his arm, and walk toward the door at the far end of the room. If the janitor turned his head just a little
and raised his eyes slightly, he would see a face peering in the window at him, the pallid, wide-eyed face of a little boy with red licorice on his lips. Part of Sam wants the janitor to do just that – to rescue him the way the woodcutter rescued Little Red Riding Hood – but most of him knows the janitor would only turn away, disgusted, at the sight of another bad little boy submitting to his just punishment at the hands of the Briggs Avenue Library Cop.
Thdeadeeeeeeeeeee! the Library Wolf whisper-screams as the janitor goes out the door and into the rest of his orderly universe without looking around. The Wolf thrusts even further forward and for one agonized second the pain becomes so bad Little White Walking Sam is sure his belly will explode, that whatever it is the Library Cop has stuck up his bottom will simply come raving out the front of him, pushing his guts ahead of it.
The Library Cop collapses against him in a smear of rancid sweat, panting harshly, and Sam slips to his knees under his weight. As he does, the massive object – no longer quite so massive – pulls out of him, but Sam can feel wetness all over his bottom. He is afraid to put his hands back there. He is afraid that when they come back he will discover he has become Little Red Bleeding Sam.
The Library Cop suddenly grasps Sam’s arm and pulls him around to face him. His face is redder than ever, flushed in puffy, hectic bands like warpaint across his cheeks and forehead.
Look at you! the Library Cop says. His face pulls together in a knot of contempt and disgust. Look at you with your panth down and your little dingle out! You liked it, didn’t you? YOU LIKED It!
Sam cannot reply. He can only weep. He pulls his underwear and his pants up together, as they were pulled down. He can feel mulch inside them, prickling his violated bottom, but he doesn’t care. He squirms backward from the Library Cop until his back is to the Library’s red brick wall. He can feel tough branches of ivy, like the bones of a large, fleshless hand, poking into his back. He doesn’t care about this, either. All he cares about is the shame and terror and the sense of worthlessness that now abide in him, and of these three the shame is the greatest. The shame is beyond comprehension.
Dirty boy! the Library Cop spits at him. Dirty little boy!
I really have to go home now, Little White Walking Sam says, and the words come out minced into segments by his hoarse sobs: Is my fine paid?
The Library Cop crawls toward Sam on his hands and knees, his little round black eyes peering into Sam’s face like the blind eyes of a mole, and this is somehow the final grotesquerie. Sam thinks, He is going to puntsh me again, and at this idea something in his mind, some overstressed strut or armature, gives way with a soggy snap he can almost hear. He does not cry or protest; he is now past that. He only looks at the Library Cop with silent apathy.
No, the Library Cop says. I’m letting you go, thatth all. I’m taking pity on you, but if you ever tell anyone …
ever … I’ll come back and do it again. I’ll do it until the fine is paid. And don’t you ever let me catch you around here again, son. Do you underthand?
Yes, Sam says. Of course he will come back and do it again if Sam tells. He will be in the closet late at night; under the bed; perched in a tree like some gigantic, misshapen crow. When Sam looks up into a troubled sky, he will see the Library Policeman’s twisted, contemptuous face in the clouds. He will be anywhere; he will be everywhere.
This thought makes Sam tired, and he closes his eyes against that lunatic mole-face, against everything.
The Library Cop grabs him, shakes him again. Yeth, what? he hisses. Yeth what, son?
Yes, I understand, Sam tells him without opening his eyes.
The Library Policeman withdraws his hand. Good, he says. You better not forget. When bad boys and girls forget, I kill them.
Little White Walking Sam sits against the wall with his eyes closed for a long time, waiting for the Library Cop to begin punishing him again, or to simply kill him. He wants to cry, but there are no tears. It will be years before he cries again, over anything. At last he opens his eyes and sees he is alone in the Library Cop’s den in the bushes. The Library Cop is gone. There is only Sam, and his copy of The Black Arrow, lying open on its spine.
Sam begins to crawl toward daylight on his hands and knees. Leaves tickle his sweaty, tear-streaked face, branches scrape his back and spank against his hurt bottom. He takes The Black Arrow with him, but he will not bring it into the Library. He will never go into the Library, any Library, ever again: this is the promise he makes to himself as he crawls away from the place of his punishment. He makes another promise, as well: nobody will ever find out about this terrible thing, because he intends to forget it ever happened. He senses he can do this. He can do it if he tries very, very hard, and he intends to start trying very, very hard right now.