Librarians | Stozier

01

Stanley Uris always assumed he was an average person, an average teen. That is, as average as a teen could be. Maybe he wasn't, though. Teenagers in movies and books always seemed a bit too rebellious to relate to for him. His life didn't feel like a coming of age film.

Other than his OCD, Stanley was pretty stable, which is something he was proud of. He was afraid of instability, it was uncomfortable to think about. He liked structure. Without structure, there was no purpose, no meaning. Everything fell apart.

Stan woke up at 7:00 AM every morning. He would hit the snooze button on his alarm clock exactly 2 times on the alternating days when he didn't shower. After getting dressed and clean, he made his bed and walked to school on weekdays at 8:00. Usually, the number of steps he took would amount to about 2000, he made sure, as he didn't like when it was something abrasive, like 1973. At lunch he sat next to his friends, Bill and Eddie. Sometimes Mike would sit with them, mostly talking to Bill.

Every day after school, and from 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM on weekends, Stanley worked at the Derry Public Library. He sat behind a desk with 1 computer and 2 filing cabinets, and helped people check out by typing into a keyboard that had 74 keys. Stan read books almost constantly. If he wasn't reading about birds, he was reading about philosophy, now and then picking up a romance novel—which he never told anyone about.

At 5:23 PM, on Monday, October 12th, 1992, Stanley was shelving books in the mystery section. He was doing so peacefully, using his index finger to slide a thick, hard-cover book into a perfectly sized open strip between two others. He was always tempted to push books all the way back to the shelf wall, where they'd make an excellent clack against the wood. But, if he did that, rather than lining up all the spines perfectly to the edge, they'd be a mess. He digressed, pushing it only to the same length he set all of the rest. That was, until he was interrupted.

"Thanks a bunch, Mr. Ford. You can count on me."

He turned his head towards the noise, darting his squinted eyes to the front desk, where he saw a young man vigorously shaking the hand of Stan's boss. At first he ignored it, finger still on the spine of a rugged mystery novel, but something about the voice he heard seemed familiar. It was a little too enthusiastic to be a normal library-goer from his observations, so he turned his head back, finding the boy opening the front door to leave. His face was still obscured.

Stan watched him walk away with a sense of slight discomfort. He didn't really like when things went unanswered, which is why shelving books was the only reason he came into the mystery section. Grabbing the next book on the cart, he noticed how the previous book was pushed a bit too far towards the back, leaving a jarring centimeter-long gap between the spine and the edge of the shelf. He calmly took the book out and reset it.

At 6:00 PM, Stanley's watch beeped 12 times, telling him his shift was over. As the sky became dark, he rolled the book cart back to the lower level and clocked out. When he was walking to the communal coat rack at the front of the building, he ran into Mr. Ford, who was locking up.

"Good evening, Mr. Ford," Stan said politely as he grabbed his coat and backpack.

"Evenin', Stanley."

Mr. Ford was a middle-aged, balding man with a strong Texan accent. Stan didn't like making eye contact with the bald spot on the back of his head that was always grossly shiny. Though he knew it'd probably happen to him some day as well, seeing as it did to his father, he always figured he'd just wear a yarmulke over it. He wore them on occasion, but most of the time decided not to in attempt to avoid bullying from other kids at school.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure can." He crossed his arms.

Stan put his right arm, and then left, into his coat, the same way he did every time. "Who was that guy in here earlier? The one shaking your hand."

"Oh, Richie?" Mr. Ford let out a dry laugh as Stanley became stiff. "Just hired him. Startin' on Thursday." The way Mr. Ford said Thursday like Thursdy and the horrible realization that Richie "Trashmouth" Tozier was about to accompany Stan at his pleasantly quiet workplace made him extremely shaken up within the few seconds.

"Oh... Well, have a nice night, Mr. Ford. I should get going now." He opened the right side of the large industrial door set, and walked home, counting up his steps to 1927, a terrible number.