The Secret Identity of Ron the Ripper ("LOST" ROGUES WEEK DAY 5)

The time has come to tell the tale.

Some years back, on an otherwise normal day, I decided to fill my water bottle from our drinking fountain. The fountain is located at the far end of our reference/computer hall—a narrow passage where our reference books are shelved, near our three public-access computers, which are in turn in close proximity to not only the fountain but also our most-unfortunately-placed public restroom beneath the stairs. So I walked from our front room, through the children's room and was about to enter the reference hall when an unsettling and familiar odor hit my nose.

Oh, dear Lord, no!

I rounded the corner of the hall and nearly ran headlong into Ron the Ripper. Ron looked guilty and amused at the same time, but Ron always looks guilty and amused so this was nothing too suspicious. What was suspicious was that Ron and his Unobstructed Doors aide were coming from the direction of our restroom beneath the stairs. And following along behind them was the thick, yet invisible cloud of ass-stench I'd detected seconds before.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no, please, no.

Hesitantly, I passed them by and waded through the fumes toward the restroom. There could be no doubt that Ron had befouled our restroom, but the actual degree of befoulment was what had me worried.

Please, please, please, I prayed, please, let him at least have flushed!

Alas, the answer to my prayer was "No." What I found within the bowl of our toilet was yet more evidence on a mounting pile, one which would prove that two of our most notorious rogues were actually one and the same person. Ron the Ripper, you see, had a secret identity. Ron the Ripper was none other than... the Serial Shitter.

I first became aware of the Serial Shitter shortly after I took my job with the "liberry" in 2001. The Serial Shitter, I was told, was an anonymous soul who frequently had foul, unholy and always unflushed poo-festivals in our restroom and did so with such frequency and apparent glee that it had to have been done on purpose. About twice a month, usually while cleaning up at the end of the day, one of the staff would discover the Serial Shitter's "calling card" plastered all around the inside of our toilet. For you see, it was apparently the Serial Shitter's fondest joy to park his keister on our bowl and vent his bowels so explosively that the resulting spray barely even reached the water but instead splattered onto the interior wall of the bowl like turd-stucco. And because the Serial Shitter never EVER flushed, this turd-stucco would sit there, sometimes for hours, would dry and then would NOT come off without a big ass toilet-brush, a liberal amount of Clorox Cleanup, ten minutes of effort and complete privacy so as not to soil the sensitive ears of our patrons with the streams of cursing spewed forth by whoever had to clean it up. Son of a bitch, we hated the Serial Shitter!

And, oh, the stench! Sweet merciful Krishna on a bicycle, the stench could be terrible! The trouble was, it was also stealth stench, rarely reaching the circ-desk. If we didn't go back near the restroom for a while, we might not know of the turd stucco's existence. However, we soon learned that when our usual computer addicts began making for the door, something foul was afoot.

It took us a long time to start piecing together the clues as to the true identity of the Serial Shitter. We really really wanted to know who it was, so we could finally have someone one of us could grab by the shirt collar and scream "FLUSH, DAMN YOU, FLUSH!" while another of us soaked them in a glossy coat of Lysol.

After cleaning up the Serial Shitter's mess for the fourth time one month, I decided to put an end to the mystery and put on my detective cap. The Shitter's fecal hobby was definitely the result of an unhinged mind, so I began suspecting our more unhinged patrons. Unfortunately, that's a sizable portion of our patron population.

I considered that it might be Mr. B-Natural, a man who was, back then, pretty much dedicated to doing things he thought would annoy the library staff, such as sneaking in coffee, signing his name upside down on the computer sign in sheet and generally being the grumpiest old man in all the world. This didn't seem to be his style though, since he always made certain we knew when he was trying to annoy us.

Mr. Big Stupid was another suspect. He was often on the computers and looked to be the kind of man who could tear up a toilet, but I could never place him at the scene during any of the Shitter-Event-Horizons.

The Untalented Mr. Ripley, Mr. B-Natural's arch-enemy, was also on the computers quite a bit in those days, but as strange as he was I just couldn't picture his skinny butt having the capacity for the sheer volume of material we were seeing.

I even briefly suspected Chester the (potential) Molester, but while he did spend time near the computers it was only time spent between opportunities to cruise the children's room.

The more I thought about it, though, the more it seemed that the only person who was in house on the same days as and before the incidents occurred was Ron the Ripper. It fit his personality too, for Ron enjoyed doing everything with gusto, be it ripping pages from our magazines, to caveman grunting to, most likely, taking a shit. Our next move, I determined, was to keep watch on the toilet when we knew he was in house, make sure it was spotless and then do a quick recheck after he used it to prove he was the Shitter. If we could catch him in the act of leaving that shit behind, we could force his Unobstructed Doors aide to pay attention, do his job and actually make Ron flush the toilet.

Alas, the confrontation was never to come. The particular aide Ron was with the day they barely escaped quit his job, or quit Ron, soon after. Ron was notorious for burning out aides and this guy was just one in a long line. Subsequent aides didn't bring Ron to the "liberry" very often and we had no more incidents of serial shitting for many months. In fact, we saw Ron almost none at all for many months (further cementing the proof). The next time I saw him, he had lost a lot of weight and seemed on a much more even mental keel. I think his overseers must have found the magic combination of meds to mellow him out. The mischievous gleam that had been ever-present in his eye was replaced by something much more akin to what you see in Malcolm McDowell's eyes at the end of A Clockwork Orange.

Oh, we've had restroom incidents akin to the Serial Shitter since—some so horrifically impressive that we were led to question our original theories about his identity—but by and large the Serial Shitter is no more.

Footnotes from the Quattuorvirate of Lameness IV: Mrs. Quaalude ("LOST" ROGUES WEEK DAY 4)

The patron known as Mrs. Quaalude is actually one of the nicest people you'd ever care do deal with and is certainly not a "rogue" per se. She is however a difficult person to deal with in that everything takes three times as long to explain to her due to her brain seeming to be in a fog. I don't know that Mrs. Quaalude is necessarily medicated, but it would sure explain a few things. Not only does it take longer for her to understand things being said to her, it takes her a long time to communicate to others because her speech is very... very... slow... and... her... voice... so... very... very... low... and... tranquil... like...a slower... female version... of the... Hal 9000. You can feel yourself... getting... drowsy, just talking to her... as though the condition is... psychically... contagious.

While Mrs. Quaalude does check out the occasional book, her real claim to infame is as a computer patron. She used to come in weekly to check her email or otherwise surf the net, but for a very long time she needed assistance doing so with nearly every aspect of it. Often that assistance came in the form of her daughter, who would roll her eyes and explain to her mother, for the umpteenth time, over the course of 15 minutes, how to find H0tmail. A few months later, though, her daughter went all goth-chick on us, which meant that while she would come to the library she was way too cool to hang with mom anymore, so it was up to the "liberry" staff to help Mrs. Quaalude navigate the mysteries of the web. To Mrs. Quaalude's credit, our lessons did eventually take and by the time she stopped showing up as often she rarely needed help at all.

I know for a fact I've had several noteworthy and frustrating experiences with Mrs. Quaalude, but because I failed to write them down, (or perhaps because of her psychically contagious brain fog), I cannot relate them here even from memory.

Footnotes from the Quattuorvirate of Lameness III: Narcoleptic Nelson ("LOST" ROGUES WEEK DAY 4)

Much like his name suggests, Narcoleptic Nelson was a genuine narcoleptic. At any given point in the day, his head might nod forward and he would find himself asleep. This no doubt caused problems for him while walking and driving, but we only ever witnessed him nodding off while he was using our patron computers. Each week, on the same day, Narcoleptic Nelson would arrive to use a computer and the staff would begin making wagers as to how long it would take the man to surrender to the sweet grasp of Morpheus. It usually took no longer than 10 minutes.

Narcoleptic Nelson's computer sleeping habits were really not a problem for us otherwise. No, the only hassles we endured as a result were usually doled out by other patrons, who didn't appreciate having to wait to use a computer that was currently occupied by someone who was fast asleep. The usual complainant in such cases was our old friend Parka, however, a person whose happiness in life we couldn't have cared less about. Our point to him was twofold: A) while we don't encourage it, we technically have no policies against sleeping in the library; and B) we give each of our patrons half an hour on the computer and if they choose to use their time asleep it's all the same to us. Parka was not amused. We were.

Narcoleptic Nelson has not been seen in quite some time. I hope this means he's off being the subject of an intensive sleep study, rather than the less-pleasant notion that he crashed his car on the way there.

Footnotes from the Quattuorvirate of Lameness II: T-Shirt Man ("LOST" ROGUES WEEK DAY 3)

A similar character to Sad Sack, T-Shirt Man basically fulfilled exactly the same patron role—that of a quiet, loner, oddball, given to behaving himself at all time—albeit wearing a white T-shirt, year round.

But why?

For a long time I suspected that T-Shirt Man chose to wear only white T-shirts because he couldn't afford any other kind of shirt. However, in this day and age, t-shirts come in a wide variety of styles and colors, all for pretty much the same price. This guy could choose a different color for every day, but he sticks with white. This has lead me to theorize that T-Shirt Man, much like his fellow patron, Fatty Manchild, must have spent a goodly number of years in a coma following a period of arrested fashion development.

T-Shirt Man's fashion arrest may have come after viewing the classic biker gang flick, The Wild One. In this theory, T-Shirt Man went to see The Wild One and really thought the look sported by the young Marlon Brando—white ringer t-shirt stretched over his frame, biker jacket, hat, angst in eyes—was super keen. Unable to find himself a proper ringer T-shirt, biker jacket or hat, though, T-Shirt Man settled for plain ol' white and began sporting the look as best he could manage. Then, following a tragic 15 mph moped accident, T-Shirt Man was sent into a coma and awoke 30 years later to find himself in a world he hadn't made, fashion sense forever frozen that moment in his youth. And his vanilla, white-clad, "Mild" One saga continues to this day during his rare visits to the "liberry."

(T-Shirt man also disinguishes himself from Sad Sack by his ability to use a computer, no doubt prowling ebay for bulk deals on more of his namesake.)

Footnotes from the Quattuorvirate of Lameness I: Sad Sack ("LOST" ROGUES WEEK DAY 3)

There are four patrons who I had great hopes would one day expose themselves as rogues, or at least rise to the position of benign irritants. Alas, they have not yet managed and remain footnote characters with little story potential. They have become the Quattuorvirate of Lameness. Their first member is Sad Sack...

Sad Sack was named because he looks exactly like the old comic character of the same name, albeit with about 30 years and 30 pounds under his belt. He's too young to have been in WWII himself, but perhaps there is still a connection to the original character.

Poor Sad Sack. After he was finally discharged from the Army (still at the rank of private) and was able to escape the gaze of the irate Sgt. Circle, he quickly found that he was incapable of maneuvering the perils of life without the rigidity of military structure. He wound up going off the rails and became a drifter, traveling from state to state. Eventually he made his way to West Virginia, where he remembered he was far too lazy to try and hike over all those mountains. So he put down stakes, married himself local gal and eventually produced a son who grew up to resemble his father in both look and manner.

The son went on to haunt the streets of small towns, doing odd jobs and occasionally inquiring at the local "liberry" about obscure medical conditions he thought he might have.

Sad Sack Jr. is today a rare sight.

Red Alert ("LOST" ROGUES WEEK DAY 2)

The man known as Red Alert exists in every library across the globe. He's that guy; the one who, perhaps, used to be smooth with the ladies, back when he was in his 20s; the one who, perhaps, is recently divorced and therefore eager to begin distributing some of that smooth stylin' once again, no matter how inappropriate; the one who, perhaps, doesn't realize that what had been smooth stylin' in 1976 has now become an 8-mile stretch of poorly patched, pothole-speckled road, abandoned by all except similar creatures of his ilk and which sounds really creepy coming out of the face of a 53 year old man, particularly when aimed at girls half his age.

Yep. That guy.

In the late days of last century and the early days of this one, Red Alert enjoyed distributing his particular brand of "smoothness" to certain female members of our staff, i.e. the very married Mrs. B, the then unmarried Mrs. C, and our former weekend warrior Miss. D. At the height of Red Alert's notoriety, Mrs. C and Miss D were both less than half his age. Mrs. B was closer to his age, but, again, very married. This mattered not to Red Alert, who seemed to fancy himself quite the ladies man, and he would spend increasing amounts of time trying to chat with them whenever he could. And let me be clear, Red Alert was never exactly offensive or lurid in his words with them, so there was nothing Mrs. A could kick him out about. However, it was evident from his manner that he was on a fishing expedition; he knew he wasn't necessarily going to catch any fish but he could enjoy the scenery while he tried. He seemed to enjoy the raport he clearly thought he had with the ladies—a raport which they quickly began to discourage by becoming intensely busy with official "liberry" projects whenever he came around.

And that's how Red Alert attained his monicker, because "Red Alert!" was the warning call that used to ring out from the staff whenever we saw him coming. As soon as the warning was sounded, there followed a sudden exodus of Mrs. B and Mrs. C, if there were other staff members who could run the circ-desk. If not, it was basically a coin toss as to who would be left behind to deal with him and who would escape to the safety of Mrs. A's office.

Early on, Red Alert used to arrive in his distinctive hooptymobile, but I imagine he eventually noticed that that the only female staff-member this tended to net him was our sexagenarian "liberry" ass. Mrs. J. I deduce this because soon Red Alert began arriving exclusively on foot. Unfortunately for him, we were quite vigilant and as soon as we spied him prowling up the gravity hill we'd shout "Red Alert!" and the ladies would head for the bunker.

Miss D, however, was not to be spared. She was the lone weekend warrior "liberry" ass., after all, and had nowhere to escape whenever he lurked by on a Saturday. Thus, she was the first of the staff to get officially asked out by Red Alert. Quite wisely, she turned him down, but that didn't put him off his game. He was a regular weekend visitor.

I've often wondered if Red Alert was half the reason I was hired in the first place. Mrs. J, the usual defensive shield, only worked in the early half of the day and Red Alert learned that he could pin down at least one of his quarry if he arrived in the afternoons. Once I was on staff, though, both Mrs. C and Mrs. B could go to ground and wait him out, leaving me at the desk to disappoint him. Red Alert didn't hang around to talk to me, other than occasionally dropping skin-crawling little phrases, such as, "Only us roosters here, today, eh?"

In such cases, he would stroll on past the circ-desk and head upstairs to the periodicals to leaf through the daily newspapers. Unfortunately, Mrs. A's office is right by the periodicals section, which trapped the ladies in that office until Red Alert had finally moved on.

Months after I'd joined the staff, Red Alert came in one night after the ladies had gone home for the evening. He went upstairs to read papers for a bit, then left the building. Soon after, an attractive regular female patron in her mid-40s came downstairs to the circ-desk and asked if I knew the identity of the man who'd been upstairs reading newspapers. I said I did, adding, "What did he do?" I was fearful that he'd exposed himself to her or otherwise offended her, yet also hopeful, because if he had we could finally kick him out.

The lady smiled and said, "He hit on me. He asked me out."

"Oh, I'm sorry," I said.

"No, no. I told him I was married," she said. Then she smiled again. "It's just been a while since someone hit on me, like that. It was kind of nice to be noticed."

Score one for Red Alert, I guess.

Eventually, Red Alert left the area. The story that we heard was that there was some sort of incident at his place of employment. And while we never heard the details, we can certainly speculate.

The Old Devil Twins ("LOST" ROGUES WEEK DAY 1)

We've covered the The New Devil Twins and The New Devil Twins Auxiliary League of Neighborhood Kids, but I haven't really given mention to the original Devil Twins who inspired that next generation.

The Devil Twins (no relation to Mrs. Carol Satan) were two nine-year-old boys who were also, as their name suggests, twins. Not long after I joined the staff, they paid us a relatively tame visit, but I was warned about them after their departure. I was also warned about their mother, who I was told could be an extreme pain to deal with, particularly when it came to the behavior of the twins. The boys were notorious for loud, obnoxious behavior and for trashing our children's room. Their mother was, in turn, notorious for being blind to her children's antics and for defending them to the point of delusion.

The major incident, which was cited by Mrs. C and Mrs. B in their warning, was a visit months earlier during which the Devil Twins began loudly trashing the children's room right in front of their mother. Mrs. C said she kept waiting for Devil Mom to notice their antics and tell them to stop, but she made no effort to do so, preferring to sit in the children's room and read while the chaos bloomed around her. When Mrs. C fingally approached the boys and asked them to settle down, Devil Mom finally looked up and then flew into a rage. Mrs. C tried to explain to Devil Mom that her children were actively running around, knocking books from shelves and disturbing other patrons with their raised voices. Devil Mom countered that the only reason Mrs. C was pointing this out was because the boys were black.

"Wait... They're black?" I asked at this point in the telling of the story.

"That's what I said!" Mrs. B exclaimed. None of us had even realized the Devil Twins were of African-American descent. Sure, they were slightly darker than your average white boys, but their mom was white and they looked pretty Caucasian otherwise, so how were we to know? Turns out, Devil Mom was actually their adoptive mom, but we didn't know that until later. Even if we had known it, though, I would probably have guessed the kids were Brazilian.

Mrs. C had to assure the Devil Mom that our request that her boys stop tearing up the children's room had not been made due to any race-based motivation, but were made instead due to our concern that her boys were tearing up the children's room. Devil Mom evidently didn't buy this, for she gathered up her boys, swore she would never again set foot in the building again and stormed out.

Devil Mom's memory must have been pretty short, because she returned within weeks, twins in tow. She kept her race-baiting to a minimum thereafter, but her children's antics grew no better.

Now, most people would probably chalk their rambunctious behavior up to the childish exuberance of a pair of energetic nine year-olds, but not me. As far as I'm concerned, they were evil geniuses in the making, for I witnessed them working their mischief as a team. During a visit in late October of 2002, I noted how one Devil Twin kept Devil Mom occupied in the children's room, allowing the other to repeatedly sneak up to the Halloween candy basket we kept at the circ-desk, taking candy from it, then rushing back to tag out, allowing the other brother his turn at the basket. I watched them do this until each and every piece was gone. I didn't intervene, figuring Devil Mom had pretty much baked that casserole of deception all on her own. After they left, it took me ten minutes to find where they'd stashed all the wrappers, deep in the children's magazine display.

A more amusing encounter with them happened one evening when Devil Mom signed the twins up to use the internet. Because they were under 12, our policy stated that Devil Mom would need to stay with them at all times to keep an eye on their computing. Unfortunately, the only two computers I had were the one in the children's room and the little computer by the stairs in our computer/reference hall, which meant she had to keep going back and forth between the two, checking up on them. After about 20 minutes, I heard a sharp cry from the computer hall, followed by the sound of rolly chairs rolling and feet stomping in the direction of the circ-desk.

Devil Mom rushed up, eyes wide and said, "I think I'm going to need your help. I'm afraid there's some," looks left and right, then whispers, "pornography... on the screen." This wasn't exactly surprising, as in those days we didn't have filtering software and were regularly dealing with pornographic email pop ups.

I followed Devil Mom back to the computer hall to find her kid's screen was turned off. She covered her child's eyes and pressed the power switch. When the monitor warmed up, there on the screen was a topless Jennifer Aniston.

"Ah," I said.

Devil Mom explained that her son claimed he was only looking for a Garfield the Cat website and had typed that into a search engine when Jennifer suddenly appeared. Devil Mom, having no computer skills, had no idea how to get rid of Jennifer, so she'd switched off the screen and run for help. I closed down the browser, rebooted the computer to clear the history and logged it back on for them.

Minutes after I returned to the circ-desk there came another sharp cry from the computer hall. I headed on back before being asked to find Jennifer and "the girls" staring perkily out of the screen once again and Devil Mom's hand clapped tightly around the kid's eyes. Yeah, that first time might have been an accident, but the kid was clearly a quick study. Mom decided it was time to leave.

From what I understand, the Devil Family left the area not too long after that. It took us a while to realize we hadn't seen them recently, what with being too busy enjoying all the books that were remaining on the shelves and the sound of quiet. However, nature being abhorant of a vacuum, and all, we were soon sent a new set of Devil Twins to plug the hole. Their adventures continue.

"Lost" Rogues Week

When I first set up the Tales from the "Liberry" Rogues Gallery, most of the initial Rogues I included were patrons with whom I had already had encounters or whom I knew I would one day be able to relate stories about. Granted, some of them had not beheaved at all badly at the time, but I could sense their inner-potential toward roguishness and stocked them in advance. In most cases, they rose to the challenge. Others, however, disappeared forever the moment I added them to the list, or had disappeared prior even to the composition of the list and never returned as I hoped they might. I've told tales about most of them anyway, but there are a few loose ends left to be tied up, not to mention long hinted-at secret-identities that, as yet, remain secret.

That being the case, let's cover and uncover those "lost" inactive rogues and unchronicled sundry others.