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The librarian who just arrived steps away to help a student. The other glares at Alex.

“May I use your phone, please?” Alex asks politely. No use offending him.

The librarian draws himself up, postures. He sneers while he talks, pushes the words out with his tongue like he’s disgusted. “No, you can not use the phone. You can go to Circulation and take care of your holds.” Then he turns his back. Wonderful. Technology is wonderful. Super-fast com-puters, CD-ROMs, lasers, bar codes, and now library robots.

“You can go to hell,” says Alex, in as polite a tone as he can muster, and makes a mental note to refuse library personnel access to his Division phones. We’ll screen everyone when they ask to use the phone. “Do you work in the library?” If they say yes, we’ll tell them to go back over there. “Try Circulation,” we’ll tell them.

He considers holding class in front of the main desk at the Reference section, but decides against it, then sends his students away and leaves a note canceling his other classes. He phones his Division Director from a payphone in the lobby and tells her he will try again tomorrow. Then he goes to the Student Union to study for awhile.

But he can’t study. He knows the cat has found his stamp collection and is rifling through the pages, chewing up the most valuable ones and vomiting on the rest. He knows he’s knocked over the expensive vase his rich Aunt gave him a few years ago. I just know he’s spraying the whole house with rancid cat urine, raiding the refrigerator and dancing with the stereo up way too loud. There will be an eviction notice on the door when I get home. I’ll have to make my way past fire engines and yellow crime scene tape with big black letters that say, CAUTION: CRIME SCENE–DO NOT ENTER. The cat will be in the back of an ambulance hacking on a furball and the police will question and eventually arrest me for crimi-nal negligence and cruelty to animals.

“You didn’t leave that cat any food ya know,” they’ll say. “He tried to heat up a box of lasagna on the stove top and damned near burned the whole complex down.” Torrents of water from the fire hoses will run out his front door and carry charred bits and pieces of his life away.

“He shit on the floor,” he’ll say. “And they wouldn’t give me the key to the room.”

The cops will drag him off as the cat-woman and her animal advocates scream and jeer and mug for the TV cameras, carrying signs with snappy slogans like, “Cats are people, too!” and “Kitten-Slayers, NO!” and “Make love, not fur coats,” and “Down with negligent pet owners!” They’ll inter-view his rich aunt and an ex–girlfriend and every-one will say they saw it coming. “There’s always been something about him didn’t seem quite right. We all knew it was a matter of time. That poor cat.” That’s what they’ll say.

Studying is useless. He’s tired from the night before and worn out from wrangling for the room. Alex surrenders and trudges home, watch-ing and listening for cars along the parts of the road where there’s no sidewalk and the blacktop is the only route past thick brush and trees. Every-one’s in a hurry. He tends to have one near-death experience daily while he’s walking, two if he’s driving. Last year he opted to forego the expense of a parking permit and brave the road on foot. The walks seem to do him good.

At the complex there’s not a fire engine in sight. Good news. His door looks normal, no crime scene tape, no notes. He unlocks the door. The cat’s on the rug in front of the antique chair.

“Meow.”