What I Found on the Floor of the Benjamin Branch Library ( Brad Barkley)
My mother used to drop me off at the Benjamin Branch Library in Greensboro, NC and leave me there for the afternoon. I’d start out on one of those gray, wheeled stools in the stacks, a book open in front of me, trying to sit the way you’re supposed to. But before long I’d drift down to the carpeted floor, hidden behind tall gray shelves, my back against the brick wall, a small pile of books beside me. I didn’t think of it as reading so much as settling in. The hours would pass without my noticing. I don’t remember all of the books I read back then, but I remember the feeling when one finally hit me, really got to me. It was A Separate Peace, by John Knowles. I was probably a little young for it, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was the sense, as I read, that something true was there beneath the surface of things. The boys in that book said one thing, did another, felt something else entirely. Their friendships were not what they looked like. Their motives were not what they claime...
