MYTHOLOGY: HERMES

by Steve Katz

The Head Librarian said he was a whiz. Hermes was the swiftest page in the stacks, who could remove a book for you almost before the request was in. And could he ever read. He finished a volume quicker than most people learned how to swim. Back in the old days they used to call him Hermes because he was like quicksilver, and one of the reasons was that he didn't eat. He didn't eat so much his girl friend got fat worrying about the leftovers, and it got so that Hermes could circle her forty-three times walking from his house to hers, whereas in the old days he could circle her only forty-three times, too, seeing how she got wider but also walked slower. Most living creatures on the face of the earth were no match for Hermes. They dropped dead of exhaustion, including the fabled Winne mucca centipede. Some people knew that he could outrun Swift Old Death, because Hermes was so old, but so was his girl friend, and she couldn't run at all. Some day maybe all the best stories of Hermes can be told, but you can t keep up with them they happen so fast. There is at least one that most deserves the telling, a story the Head Librarian likes to recount, and that story is the one we'll tell, as soon as we get around to it. Hermes' girl friend was as slow as he was fast, and that was why she couldn't get him fed, but it wasn't her fault, because the only chance the girl had was when he fell asleep and he could get a good night's sleep in the blink of an eye, while the girl friend had hardly begun to stir the pudding, and she liked to lick the spoon. For all everybody knew Hermes could have eaten just the same, quicker than anyone else could see. The grub in and out so quick it never had a chance to change color; he just skimmed off the nutrition and left the rest on the table. That probably explains why everyone got slower while Hermes is always quicker. He can steal something, use it up, and return it in better-than- new condition between the time the owner decides to use it and goes to the closet to get it. He once stole a whole church picnic, hustled it over to feed a batch of Orientals, and got it back clean and empty so quick the church elders believed they must have already eaten it themselves. They rubbed their stomachs, packed up, and went home to watch the war on color TV.

The best story is still the one the Head Librarian tells, which we are coming to eventually. It was because of him, you remember, that automation never came to our library. That was the time they got up for us one of the slickest, quickest, prettiest IBM automatic book retrievers that ever read a book spine. It had blinking lights and buttons and I don't know what all, and it made the noise of a sweetheart. Hermes didn't care one bit. He just warmed up by running from here to Bogalusa, to Winnipeg, and back here, while most of us were eating breakfast. They brought down from the university one of the smartest men you ever wanted to see, one of those young, fresh ones with soft hair on his cheeks and two pair of glasses. You could see that there were the names of more books in his head than people who swim for pleasure. Everybody turned out, and they threw up a huge grandstand, and they sold lime juice in plastic cups. It was something. The professor with that bland academic sneer on his face looked at Hermes, who wasn't much to see, and signaled he was ready to begin. They plugged in their IBM beauty till it puckered up and started to blink like an army division looking for its contact lenses in an olympic-sized chlorinated pool. The pretty lady, whom we'll call the operator, signaled GO. It wasn't even a contest. Hermes took one look at the professor coming to the counter, disappeared, and reappeared almost immediately with seven books, just as the professor handed the request card to the operator (who wasn't a bad twist herself). Six of the books were those six written on the card, but when the professor saw the seventh his face turned yellow and then bright orange, his tongue went dry, and his eyeballs whirled in their sockets.

"This is absolutely remarkable, commendable, and straight-A work," he snorted. "This book is one I've had an interlibrary urgent search-and-find slip on for two years now." He reached over to shake Hermes' hand but grabbed only a slim puff of wind. Hermes' girl was bobbing up and down in a wobbly celebration. Everyone cheered, but no one was surprised, because everyone knew that Hermes could outrun even Swift Old Death, running him so fast through our town that he'd have to quit, and sit down on the outskirts, panting, and more often than no pass the people by. But the best story is the one the Head Librarian tells, which we'll come to presently, if not now, one which she tells to children from the porch of the huge old building that used to be the library, which faces our brand new blinker and hummer called The Information Central, that no one ever enters. It's the story of the great library fire, and how it happened, though no one knows how it began, but things have never been the same. It was Hermes, who is as quick with his nose as he is with his feet, who first smelled the smoke, and he speeded through the stacks to find the fire extinguishers, but the one on the first floor was empty, and on the second, and the third the same. The flames followed Hermes like a blaze through dry brush. On the seventh floor he found the only full one and spun around with the foam spewing to hit the Head Librarian flush. Well, I guess this story isn't so good, the usual silly slapstick from here on, and it's not worth telling again, and it has been so long since I rose up and told a story that I forgot. Goodby.