Meeting Metody

[zippyknowsbest]

It was a busy day at the New York Public Library, as indeed most of them had been since the economy started to tank. Zippy scowled as she worked through a pile of books sitting on the reference desk counter, which some patron had abandoned there without so much as a 'I decided not to get these, could you put them back?' People. Bureaucracy.Library

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[zippyknowsbest]

Zippy didn't notice or chose not to notice the young man's blush, busy consulting the libraries map. "21 Astor Place, huh? Swank. I know someone else who lives there," she said without any judgment attached.

"...mmkay, you are literally a hop-skip-and-jump from the Ottendorfer Branch," she informed him, and gestured accordingly as she explained directions. "From your front door? Walk east-ish down 8th Street a block and a half til you hit 2nd Avenue, and boom, the Ottendorfer is right there. They have a nice German language section," she threw in apropos of nothing, and still nowhere near making the connection between Hans and this shy young man.

"Okay--" she turned the force of attention back on the call slip she'd been filling out, like it was an enemy ready to be trounced. "Here's the deal, this is how it works: either via the phone or the computer.... or in person if you don't mind waiting... you can put in requests for these titles and have any that aren't already at Ottendorfer schlepped there by the fine massive coordinated efforts of hundred of underpaid library pages. Then, bing, we notify you your books have arrived, you pick 'em up from Ottendorf, and those books are circ items so you can take 'em home, knock yourself out. Follow? Of course you're also welcome to hang out here and read in the Reading Room," she tacked on to tend of her shpiel.

[totheb0ne]

"Oh, really? Wh - oh - " He scrambled for his notebook, his question forgotten in his need to get the directions scribbled down. Later, he would print off a map of the area with the route highlighted in pink, and alternates in yellow, because if there was one thing he had a horror of, it was getting lost.

"German, really? Do you know if they have kids books? I'm learning it, but I kind of suck at basic grammar." He'll just keep the books hidden from Hans. Somewhere.

"I...guess the computer would be best. I can just request what I don't read today, and that way, no one has to haul around books I've already read."

[zippyknowsbest]

Zippy gave the young man a sympathetic smile at his scrambling for the notebook. "I can print you out the address, you can Mapquest it. I'm just saying, it's not that far from you. Ottendorfer's not too far from me, come to think of it. North for me, east for you...

"Ah, erlernen Sie Deutsches?" she asked with a smile, more wry this time. "Yes, they should have some kids' books in Deutsch. I can't promise a huge selection of kids' titles, but there should be something. And you can always request anything from any other library be sent there."

[totheb0ne]

"A printout would be great." Tangible relief rose from him. "I'm not so good with directions."

He twisted his face up in an oh-no grimace. "Y - ja, meine mann erler- wait, no, um - unterrich...te? mich und ich habe einer bucher, aber ich bin nicht so gut."

It was the longest statement he can manage, and oh, thank God German has about the same joining words as English does. Where would he be without 'und' and 'aber'? And memorized phrases. Lovely, lovely memorized phrases. He'd feel less happy about the sentance if he knew how thick his American accent was.

He grins. "I'll definitely keep that in mind."

[zippyknowsbest]

Zippy's warm smile edges towards polite confusion at his attempt at German, but she works it back towards encouraging.

"Well, like anything else, you get better with practice. Fahren Sie fort zu arbeiten," she reassures the young man. She turned back to the computer and tapped a few buttons to generate a print-out of Ottendorfer's hours and location. Astor Place was indeed visible on the map, just two blocks westward.

Zippy handed this over, then held up the call slip filled with titles. "When you're getting books here, you give the title and call number to one of the service desks; they'll have the books brought up to the reading room for you. If you want to start on some of these today, I can put in the request now for you, but just so's you know for the future."

[totheb0ne]

He gave her a sheepish smile, well aware of how bad he was. "My boyfriend lets me practice with him sometimes - he's German - but I think maybe he's a little too kind when it comes to my accent."

"May I have World Philosophies and the comic history, please? That should definitely be enough to keep me occupied through the day."

[zippyknowsbest]

"You certainly may," Zippy said with a smile, and looked back to the computer as she typed in the request. Takka-takka-takka, the process so automatic to her she barely needed to devote any attention to it, leaving her mind free to wander to other things...

German boyfriend. 21 Astor Place. This was twigging something in the "born researcher" part of her brain. Takka-takka-takka and--

She flicked a glance from the screen back to Metody, peered over the tops of her glasses at him.

"...stupid question but your German boyfriend wouldn't be named Hans, would he?"

Even as she said it she was rolling her eyes internally at herself. There were no doubt how many men of German extraction in New York?

[totheb0ne]

He fidgeted while she typed, picking up a paperclip that another patron had left and unbending it. He frowns at it, carefully twisting it into a hoop. He could never get them perfectly round and it always kind of bothered him that-

Metody looked up and smiled happily, bouncing a bit on his toes. "Yes, he is - Hans Varner. Do you guys know each other?"

[zippyknowsbest]

Zippy tapped her chin with her pen, thinking of the German man with his heavy burden of secrets and deserved guilt and unwanted immortality.... who had cleaned her apartment, on occasion...

"Yes," she said with a half-smile. "You could say that. He's mentioned you-- oh, shit, hold on, I can remember it--"

A grimace, Zippy squinting with one eye as she tried to recall details of a conversation some months gone. "...Theody?" she ventured, then frowned apologetically. "No, that's not right, I'm sorry, I give up."

[totheb0ne]

"It's Metody, actually - but you got a lot closer than most people." He grins, delighted that she didn't guess 'Matthew', and that Hans mentioned him. Not that it took much to delight Metody.

"And you must be - " there was a fractional pause as he tried to dredge up her name and didn't come up with anything more helpful than 'Zipper something'. That almost certainly wasn't probably it. " - the lady who's helping him with his volunteering." His smile grew a little uncertain. Volunteering, penance, a kind of rough healing - something like that.

Hans had told him that she'd slapped him. But Hans deserved it, didn't he?

[zippyknowsbest]

"That's right, Metody," Zippy said with rather more vehemence than the revelation deserved, smacking the top of the counter with her palm. Pleased, she added on, "Because he said it was Polish when I asked and there's the tie-in to Saint Methodius. Ha!"

That little issue resolved to her satisfaction, Zippy smiled at the younger man and offered her hand across the counter. "Yes, that'd be me. Mostly I just point him at people happy to take his money and/or give him manual labor to do. Zippy Levine. It's nice to meet you."

[totheb0ne]

He flinched a little at her energy and the slap to the counter, but continued to smile. "Oh, I didn't know there was a saint. My mother told me it means 'methodical'" It was moderately fitting, he supposed.

Oh, gosh! Her name really was Zipper! He'd have to tell Frankie; she had a collection of names worse than her own. Metody shook her hand politely, his hand only slightly warmer than it ought to have been, and trembling just a little.

"We're very grateful for the help. It can be so hard to know where to start, and - it's good for him to do the work."

[zippyknowsbest]

"Well, there was," Zippy said. "Had a brother named Cyril. They came up with an alphabet, and spread Byzantine Christianity to the Slavs."

Apparently the good of alphabets outweighed the bad of the latter statement in her mind, since she rattled this off without any particular distaste.

Zippy cocked her head just a fraction at Metody's words of thanks; could she therefore assume Metody knew all about Hans's... condition? Particular circumstances? History? Mmm.

"Yes, well. I'm happy to help," she said, leaving it neutral for now. "What I do, nu? Guide people to the resources they need." A little laugh.

[totheb0ne]

"Oh, that's a lovely person to be named after. An alphabet is a very clever and useful thing, after all." He looked enormously pleased by this. As for the Christianity thing, he's willing to just let it lay; he practices a brand of Christianity himself. Sometimes. Sort of. Ishish.

"And - thankyou for giving him an outlet for his urge to tidy things. He kind of drives me and the cats crazy at home, sometimes. Though I certainly appreciate him doing it."

[zippyknowsbest]

"Downright essential," Zippy said with a broad smile.

She waved her hand at the continuing thanks. "Pshh, that's doing me a favor as well, I'm going to complain? Though I can only imagine how spotless your place must be, oy."

Zippy propped her elbows on the counter and her chin in both hands and regarded Metody thoughtfully. "Are you-- looking for anything... specific, with all this?" she said, a touch cautiously.

[totheb0ne]

"He washes and vaccuumes the cats. He has a dust buster for them and everything." That is probably all he really needs to say on the topic.

Metody ducked his head a little, his voice dropping as his eyes skittered away and darted back to her. "I was looking stuff up in myths, but I realized that there is less common ground between - between what I know and what's here than I thought. And I realized that it sure is hard to research something when you don't even know the basics. So now I am trying to learn background."