Smackdown at the Danbury Library

I have quite a few posts on here about the antics of the rude, ignorant, or mentally imbalanced people of Chicago. It's only fair to include the misbehaviors of the people of Connecticut when they put on such a spectacular display as this one.

Last month I was back in my home town visiting family. Like every trip to Connecticut, I spend a day or two at the Danbury Library with rolls and rolls of the local newspaper on microfilm, printing out birth and marriage announcements and obituaries for my massive genealogy project. I planned on being at the Library when they opened at 9:00, but ran into a couple snafus and didn't get there until 9:45.

The automatic doors by the parking lot didn't open, so I walked around to the front entrance at the corner of Main and West Streets. There I saw one guy, maybe 35, in ragged clothes, sitting infront of the entrance, reading the newspaper, and a woman, maybe 60, standing a few feet away, pacing in unsettlingly close circles. The guy looks up from his paper and says to me, "They're not open yet." I look at the schedule on the window and see they don't open until 10:00. So I stand awkwardly with these people, waiting for someone to unlock the door.

A few more people show up and nestled into a waiting spot. One guy, an Asian man of about 40 with no teeth, recognized the first guy sitting against the door, and they struck up a friendly conversation. "Hey, man, what's happening?" and all of that. The Asian guy was very difficult to understand, between his accent and lack of teeth, but I was getting the gist of their conversation. Then an old man, maybe 75, in a light blue plaid shirt, mesh baseball cap, and pants hitched up his waist comes shuffling towards the library. He had a raspy, monotone voice very similar to Bob Einstein's (aka Super Dave Osborne, aka brother of Albert Brooks) and pale blue eyes that were utterly expressionless. From 10 feet away from the entrance, he starts yelling in that raspy voice:

"What is this? You! Go home! Get out of here! What is this, the Viet Cong? Jesus, what's wrong with this country where people like you can get in? Go back to Vietnam! Get outta here! You're lucky I wasn't in Vietnam! I would have blown you up! Nuked the lot of you! I would have cut you up into little pieces and thrown you in the ocean!"

The toothless Asian man just grinned wickedly, and gave the old man a taunting nod. The old guy continued to rant, and finally the Asian guy said:

"You want to cut me? Want to cut me here?" -- he gestures to his throat -- "or here?" -- he gestures to his balls.

"Hey, knock that off, there's a GIRL present!" the old guy yells.

I realize I'm the only person he could be talking about. I made a face at him that said I wasn't the least bit interested in him defending my honor. At this point I notice there's a black guy in Army fatigues also waiting for the library to open, and he gives me a sympathetic smile. The Asian guy keeps grinning with amusement, reaches into a pocket on the leg of his cargo pants, and says:

"Here, you want to cut me? Here! Take it!"

He pulls out something that looks like a gardening tool or a bottle-opener, and gestures it towards the old man. The Army guy is galvanized and looks ready to take down either guy in a heartbeat. Then on perfect cue, an old lady in a floral shirt and stretchy pants comes from inside the library and unlocks the front door. The Asian guy re-pockets his weapon, the old man starts muttering to himself, and everyone else breathes a sigh of relief and quietly enters the library.

Inside the library, I sat down at a table and drafted a list of which microfilm rolls I will need based on the dates on my retrieve list. The old man shuffles up to me and starts talking absently:

"I just want you to know that's not the first time I've seen that guy. He's been getting on my nerves for a long time now, but I've been following him. I've been following him everywhere for the past few months, keeping very close tabs on him."

Normally I'm too chicken to say anything to people, let alone crazy people, but somehow I came out with a sarcastic: "Was it worth the effort?"

He stammered a bit but came back with: "Did you see him pull a knife on me? Did you see that thing?"

Now I'm enjoying this, so I said, "Yeah. It looked like a gardening tool."

"Oh, no," he said, "That was a very dangerous weapon. I don't expect you to know things like that, but I'm an expert on this sort of thing."

And then he shuffled away, continuing to mutter to himself about the Viet Cong.