Lend me an ear

I start off the day in the control room. When my boss Kenneth gets there to take over I head over to the other building to open the front door of the museum's offices.

No sooner have I lugged open the enormous bronze doors and plopped down behind the reception desk when one of the curators comes striding in with a middle aged woman following close behind. He tells me I should call someone in curatorial (other than himself, apparently) to help this woman, that she says she has a piece of artwork to donate to the museum.

I look at her; she has flaming orange hair pulled up into a wild knot on the top of her head and is clutching a clear garbage bag filled with other clear garbage bags. The curator disappears and I’m suddenly left alone with her.

"What if I die?" she immediately hisses at me. "What if I die? Where does this art go then? Who's going to take care of this art? I need someone to help me now. I need to talk to SOMEBODY RIGHT NOW about this art."

I’m a little taken aback. I haven’t had my coffee yet.

“Let me get this straight; you have some art you’d like to donate…”

“Well I don’t have it WITH me, what you think I’m an idiot, I could get hit by a bus out there and then what, no, I’m not stupid, I’d die and it would be gone just like that! It should be in the museum, here!”

"Okay, let me just see if there's someone here who can help you... " I try a few extensions with little confidence in the possibility of finding someone able or willing to help this woman.

"Well, no one's answering up there.” I glance at the computer clock; it’s barely nine o’clock. “It's pretty early yet though. They might be in later, or I can give you a number to call... "

"I don’t want a goddam number! Aren't you listening to me? I need to talk to somebody NOW! What if I die? THIS is what's important! I was just down at the mayor's office and they told me to come here! I'm not taking any chances. What if this was a Van Gogh I was donating? You’d listen to me then! Get me somebody NOW!"

She is screeching hysterically at this point; her voice echoes and reverberates off the faux-marble walls of the lobby.

"Miss, please, I'm trying to... "

"You're NOT trying! I NEED... "

"EXCUSE me!" I shout. "If you don't listen to me, I can't help you. I'm TRYING to get someone for you to talk to."

"I AM listening!" She screams, then leans across my desk, spitting with rage. "You know, if I was Van Gogh you wouldn't talk to me that way!"

"Actually, if you were Van Gogh and you were screaming at me like that, yes, I would talk to you this way!"

She paces around the room, still yelling. I dial Kenneth and quietly ask if he'll please come over here. I very rarely ask for any help; he doesn’t ask what’s going on but says he’s on his way.

"I learned everything from watching the masters! Looking at Van Gogh and, and, that other, you know... the triangle, the circle. You know what's the most important thing, right? RIGHT?"

"No, what's the most important thing?" I ask, suddenly weary.

"THE ART!" She screams. "THE ART!"

I manage to smile. "Yeah, I agreee."

Kenneth appears in the doorway. He looks at her, looks at me, looks at her.

"How can I help you today?" he asks her with a big smile. He holds the door open for her. She looks at him, looks at me, and leaves without another word. He follows her out, watches her stagger across the street, swinging her bag angrily at the statue of Abraham Lincoln, but missing by a mile.

The Basketball Sheik

I step away from my desk and look out through the glass doors at the park across the street. A turbaned man carrying a basket ball is doing what looks like a flamenco dance at the foot of the Abraham Lincoln statue. He's a regular here at the museum; the other guards have dubbed him the Basketball Sheik. Although he always wears the turban and robes, he’s white and seems pretty much insane, although he's a member of the museum. Perhaps someone buys him a yearly membership, no one seems to know. He always wants to take his basketball into the galleries and throws a fuss when we tell him he has to check it at the front desk. Once inside he spends his time obsessively writing notes on a tiny memo pad in cramped handwriting. Every once in a while he'll throw a fit or start touching things and we have to talk to him; he inevitably gets very hostile and occasionally we have to throw him out. No one's ever had a normal conversation with him, He's been seen carrying canvases through the park, so it's assumed he's some kind of painter. As I watch him, he stops dancing and starts dribbling his basketball. He makes as if he's going to take a shot at a basket and lobs the ball up at the Lincoln statue. It hits Honest Abe square in the forehead and flies right back into his hands. I hear a whoop of triumph before I head back to my desk, letting Venus keep her eye on him for a while.