You may have wondered about us during your weekend visits to the local library's book drop. Made conspicuous by our empty bags and expressions of undue seriousness, we line up to the right of the silver slot you use so blithely. We cast an envious eye on the ease with which you borrow and return, borrow and return. We are that species located midway between bibliophile and, truth be told, misanthrope. We are the patrons of public-library book sales.

At a glance we appear somewhat twisted, forgoing the Saturday sun for a chance to stockpile books for less than a buck. Despite all the time we spend with words, we use precious few as we step in line -- a queue distinguished not by its length, but by the misplaced intensity and desperation of those in it. Ours is the promise of the scratch ticket: we believe that what our lives lack can be purchased for a dollar or two among the stacks.

What motivates us? Oh, how satisfying it would be to say that we scour weekly town papers, mark calendars, and shuffle schedules all in pitched pursuit of an elusive title -- say, an out-of-print collection of short stories by Richard Yates or an early novel by Nabokov. I wish I could confess a mercenary motive, such as finding a cheap first edition of Salinger only to hawk it on eBay, or even a love of reading.

But something more knotted lies at the heart of our quest. We are junkies of the thrill of possibility -- and a bargain. We believed C.S. Lewis when he said that the most intense joy lies in the wanting, not in the having.

Before sale day arrives, we imagine the town library selling its leather-bound, multi-volume Oxford English Dictionary -- for a pittance. We fancy that the bags of books lining the library foyer throughout the year hold collections that will complement and enlarge our own. We look at books as bricks; yet so consumed are we with the drive to build that we forget about design.

Those of you who've waited hours for tickets on a damp Saturday morning know well that thrill of finally stepping forward at 10 a.m. to claim your prize. The local-library book sale provides no such pleasure. Instead, it traps one in drama of a different order.

Before the doors open, a handful of us -- those who learned sales ago to show up early -- size up the competition. With sidelong glances, we try to identify potential rivals. Perfect posture? Nonfiction with, perhaps, a yen for military history. Toting a canvas bag from the local farmers' market and sipping tea? Gardens and cookbooks. A couple with bags full of bags, talking library layout and genre strategy? Dealers, a type more odious than the dilettante, that ill-shaven young man reading Rilke elegies, swilling Dunkin' Donuts coffee, and checking his watch too often. If we sense no overlap in taste with our own, we are sweetness and light; detecting a doppelgänger, though, turns neighbor into nemesis.

The first step inside the library should undo our pre-sale anxieties, particularly since we enter through the children's wing. But Pooh, Charlotte, and Horton offer no peace. Instead, their innocence mocks our frantic efforts to circumnavigate the final obstacle to the stacks: the octogenarian volunteer sweetly asking us if we are Friends of the Library and checking off our names on a faintly printed list. Now understand: we're here to bum-rush the show, and what we want to say is, Yes, I'm a member; yes, I've paid my dues; no, I do not want or need a T-shirt, bumper-sticker, button, bookmark, or mug. But the woman's grandmotherly demeanor disarms; we politely murmur our replies with a faint smile and -- finally -- move on.

To the untrained eye, what follows might suggest joyous abandon: the lightness of step, the "nice" whispered under one's breath as thumb and index finger pinch a book's spine, the this-section-is-all-mine whistling. But step in the path of one of these methodical book hounds and you'll have good reason to doubt the civilizing effect of the written word. Nothing unmoors this specimen more than failing to progress alphabetically through the shelves of fiction. Disregard "A-D" to start at "E" while he's on "C," and you're met with unbridled scorn. Worse, despite hearing your "Excuse me," he will not move his considerable frame to let you pass. Only one thing makes the inevitable rubbing of asses tolerable: the satisfaction of trumping his pettiness. We are, indeed, a twisted lot.

And yet this intransigent ass and I will unite against the most repellent among us: the dealers. Those accursed cormorants. They grab by the armful, filling bags that hockey goalies would envy. Glutted, they retreat to a vacant corner to winnow the wheat from the chaff. What they buy for a quarter they'll sell next week at a 1000 percent mark-up. And they call themselves "Friends of the Library." Doubtless our disgust with dealers derives from glimpsing in them a potential -- and feared -- version of ourselves.

But despite occasional acquisitiveness and peevishness, we're a harmless lot. Sure, some of us might resort to mild violence to secure a copy of Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet, but chances are it's a gift for a friend -- and a bit of a coup at 50 cents.

Ron Fletcher, who can be reached at ronfletcher@bchigh.edu, continues to resist the temptation to take his goalie bag to book sales.

Issue Date: August 31 - September 6, 2001