This all occurred a little while after November 4th- last year now, I guess. I was working "late" at the library or at least until closing time on a Thursday (8 PM). As usual, I had the pounding headache that seems to come with working at a job where you have to stare at a computer screen for hours despite my best attempts to stave it off by avidly reading the library's rich assortment of comic books. Anyway, it was getting near closing time and I was wrapping up Watchmen for something like the eleven trillionth time when the lights started going out. This was normal. About a half hour before we completely shut down, all the computers are set to turn off automatically and my boss, Barry, begins to announce that the library is closing by going around and shouting it directly into people's ears in his "sandpaper-on-the-back-of-your-skull" voice. Those of you who have watched Ferris Bueller might have some idea of what I'm talking about. He has an intercom but personally I believe he just gets a kick out of annoying the fuck out of everyone the old fashioned way.
Shortly after he does this, the library tends to empty out except for a few diehard stragglers. Rarely does anyone actually walk in at this time unless they desperately need to use the bathroom. For this reason, I wasn't paying much attention to whether or not anyone was approaching the reference desk where I work. Thus my surprise when I first heard Obama Man speak.
"Do yu hav anee ten yea-uh caree-uhs?"
I looked up, puzzled. Before me stood a black gentleman, perhaps 7 feet tall, dressed in a long coat and holding a tattered suitcase of some sort. He wore a baseball cap with an Obama pin in it and a similar icon adorned his coat and his suitcase. This alone was not remarkable. His face however, was truly unique. I don't think I've ever looked into the eyes of anyone with more good-natured simplicity than he. He radiated fundamental innocence one might expect from the stare of a baby; curious, a bit confused, but completely trusting in the person he was looking at. Still trying to decipher what he said, I asked him to repeat it.
"Do yu hav anee ten yea-uh caree-uhs?"
This didn't help much, and I asked a few more questions about what exactly he wanted before Barry leaned in and intervened. It turned out the man had wanted to know about some sort of ten year careers that would make him wealthy enough to retire. Barry gave him a slightly sarcastic response about dot-coms and Silicon Valley, and the rich executives there.
Obama Man looked stunned. A little taken aback, he bowed slightly to Barry. He paused, and said:
"That is the most intelligent respons I hav recieved all day"
Then he made his fingers into a V and held up to Barry and said in his deep, African accent:
"PEACE, Obama"
Then he turned to me and made his fingers into a V again and said:
"PEACE, Obama"
And he bowed slightly and reverentially. Finally he turned to a small girl that had been returning the bathroom key to the reference desk and was standing beside him. Once more he made the sign of the V and said, in a slightly softer tone:
"PEACE, Obama"
Then he left and and never came back.