Journal of a UFO Investigator by David Halperin Read Free Book Online Page A

arrow of the dial above the sliding doors jerked its poky way along the ring of gold-colored numbers. If it didn’t come soon, I’d go insane.
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    Julian Arcturus Margulies, sitting at his desk, seemed unsurprised to see me.
    â€œThat’s the remarkable thing about rare books, isn’t it?” he said. “You fall under their spell, you just can’t stay away.”
    â€œ Julian .”
    â€œYou don’t have to be so alarmed. Your nice new briefcase isn’t lost. You left it here next to my desk. I called after you, but you were in such a hurry, you just didn’t hear—”
    So that was what I’d had the sensation of missing. I no longer cared about that briefcase. “ Julian!”
    â€œYes?” He peered at me with an expression of kind attention.
    â€œDid they close early today? Or what?”
    â€œOf course not. Why should they close early?”
    â€œ The library is empty .”
    â€œWhat are you talking about?”
    â€œNobody’s here! I went down to the ground floor, to the Newspaper Room, and there was nobody. Not in the reading rooms! Not anywhere!”
    He looked puzzled. Only for a moment. “Oh, that ,” he said. “That happens sometimes. It’ll be all right.” He walked around the desk and put his hand on my shoulder. “Danny, you’ve got to stay calm. Are you listening to me?”
    I nodded.
    â€œYou know the elevator you just got off?” He pointed down the hall. I nodded again. “Go back there. When you get in, push the button for the basement. The one marked ‘B.’ As in boy . Not ‘G,’ this time; the floor below it. Have you got that?”
    â€œI think so,” I said.
    â€œWhen the doors open, walk out and turn to your left. Go about fifty feet, and you’ll see a small door to the outside. To Nineteenth Street. It’s below street level, though. Are you listening?”
    â€œUh-huh.”
    â€œGo out that door. Climb to the sidewalk. Directly up the slope. It’s icy, but I think you can make it. You’ve got that?”
    â€œUh-huh.”
    â€œThen go around to Vine Street, to the front entrance. Come in again. It’ll be all right.”
    I started off toward the elevator. “Danny!” he called.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œDon’t forget your briefcase.”
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    I pressed “B.” I rode down to the basement. I forced myself, faint with dread, down the dimly lit hallway. On either side of me boxes were stacked nearly to the ceiling, such that I could barely make my way through the passage. The door was where Julian had said it would be.
    I slipped more than once, getting up that slope.
    At first, when I reached the sidewalk, it was the library all over again. Nineteenth Street was empty, still, silent. But then I began to feel the rush of traffic, to hear the honking of a taxicab. I saw I’d wandered into the street and leaped back to the sidewalk. I leaned against a building, catching my breath. A man in earmuffs and a thick overcoat marched past, glaring.
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    It was a few minutes past four when I walked back through the library’s entrance hall. Filled, as usual, with people. I wasn’t ready for the Newspaper Room. I walked into the general reading room on the second floor and sat down at one of the long tables. I opened my briefcase. I pulled out Bender’s Flying Saucers and the Three Men and the three Jewish calendars. I began flipping through the calendars, mostly looking at the pictures.
    My eye fell upon Saturday, December 22, 1962. My thirteenth birthday, by the Jewish calendar. The day that should have been my bar mitzvah—
    When I should have proclaimed myself a man.
    Only my mother was too sick, so we couldn’t—
    I stopped leafing. I thought of all the things over the years that we couldn’t do, I couldn’t do, because she was too sick. She couldn’t go outdoors; needed rest,