Green Light . . .

You’ve seen me. You won’t remember it, but if you ever visited the University you saw me as I made my way across the campus—or perhaps you caught a glimpse of me sitting in the safety of my office.

Maybe you were here to visit a son or daughter or sweetheart and, pointing me out to your companion, you asked him or her, “What does that fellow do?”

Perhaps they told you, in a manner suggesting they had a profound understanding of the inner workings of the University, that I was probably a professor of this or that subject; or, in a way that implied they had deeper more important truths to worry about, waved their hand in dismissal saying, “Him? Who knows? Probably nothing.”

It’s an attitude we understand.

There are, of course, those of us with easily recognized functions like the cooks and janitors, but for the majority of us it is not quite so straightforward. We are like the blood cells in the veins of some huge beast. We circulate the bits and pieces that keep the monster going without it becoming aware of how—or why—we do it. Or to be more precise, we are like the books and buildings you saw here and there around the campus. No longer used or even useful, but hoarded and preserved because we were, like embryonic gill slits, once necessary.

Like most of the staff my favorite time of year was Summer Term. If you came here then you may have noticed the town had a faraway feel to it; a calm, daydreaming quality as it relaxed after the bursting exhilaration of Spring Term’s graduations. When the weather was clear I would walk to work and enjoy the quiet solitude of the morning. Occasionally I would pass one or two students as they wandered blinking and yawning to class or library or coffee. It was hard for me to believe that in Fall and Winter Terms they would be part of the frantic herds you’d see racing about in a headlong, almost suicidal frenzy.

When I left the Central Campus and started up the long, few blocks leading to the Medical School traffic would pick up a little. On the right side of the street a cemetery glided by in shades of green and shadow, and on the left the dorms marched passed, empty for the summer and lifeless. Meanwhile, at the end of the street, the Main Hospital dominated everything and grew as I approached it until, like a giant termite hill, it towered over the workers flowing in and out of its base. And across the street the Old Observatory sat on its hill brooding and blind.

It was hard for me to walk quickly and it wasn’t too unusual for the traffic light to turn against me as I crossed the street. When this happened there was always some youngster who would honk or shout or both. Perhaps it’s just their youth that makes them so impatient, but eventually they learn. They would only be rushing to another stop light waiting to turn green.

My office was in the Medical Library which, like many of the smaller departments, seems to have grown like a fungus on and into the side of one of the major research buildings that radiate from the Main Hospital. Most of my days were spent making phone calls, running an occasional errand, and sitting in the stacks reading. That was not my job description—I’m not really sure I had one. It’s what I did.

When I first transferred to the Medical Library I dutifully filled out forms listing the issues of various journals the library had not received. One copy of the form was for our files, two copies were sent to my counterpart in the Graduate Library to be, in theory, acted upon, and the remaining copies—I think there were two—were thrown away. None of the issues I reported missing were ever replaced, and after a few years I started using the time for other, more rewarding pursuits.

No one seemed to notice.

One or two mornings each month I would gather up some of the completed volumes of a few journals and send them over to the bindery to be bound. When they came back they would be put in their asigned place in the stacks. Most likely they would sit there until, decades later, some bored staff member might happen to pick them up and flip through the pages.

Anyway, after a few years my routine had settled down to a comfortable, unhurried pattern. After two or three cups of coffee and perhaps throwing out some of the older papers on my desk, I would go back into the stacks and read. The Medical Library’s four levels of stacks extended into the adjoining research building and, regardless of which level you were on, had the subterranean feel you would expect to find in some long forgotten crypt. The air was cool and musty, and the dim light was almost seductive; and I would spend the hours happily following an argument concerning some minor, unremembered crisis across the years.

Sometimes as I sat turning the brittle pages of some old journal, I would feel I had been removed from the current world and isolated in another, more private universe. This feeling would grow as I sat there in the almost total silence, and, for reasons I could never explain, only be enhanced by the distant, muffled sound of a footstep or the disembodied voice of the public address system when it announced the Green Light was on.

Once in a while I would get bored with the passed excitement of those forgotten debates and run an errand. Every month or so one department or another would decide it was time to clean its offices, and, rather than disposing of its detritus completely, would donate several years worth of some journal to the library, and I had made it my job to go and get them. Occasionally one or two issues would fill in one of our incomplete volumes; but more often than not we had more than enough of that particular journal and it was simply stacked in the Duplicate Room. There it would set year after year in forgotten piles just off the lowest level of the stacks; its usefulness taken over by the younger issues upstairs, and yet, like the old observatory, not allowed to crumble completely away.

For the first several years I worked at the Medical Library I enjoyed going after these donations. By taking various tunnels, passageways, and halls you could walk to any room in over a dozen buildings without once stepping outside. In a way it was like a small, but very active city and I looked forward to the chance to do some exploring. Learning my around had taken some time, but had really not been all that difficult because each building had its own look and feel; and I soon learned to recognize one by its cold, clean undamaged lines, others by their beat up walls and stains, and still others by the way they smelled as surely as you would recognize the different streets of your hometown.

In the center of everything, and sometimes almost blending into the other buildings, sat the Main Hospital. It was a confusing maze of corridors, rooms, and wards jammed with a flowing, swirling stream of workers, patients, and visitors. Everywhere you looked you saw the signs of newly started or not quite finished repairs and remodeling projects. They tell me that right up to its destruction they were repainting some of the wards.

I cannot speak to that. For me, and some others, it is still the center of a thriving city.

Whatever its current state, its most distinctive feature was the lights.

In the ceiling of each intersection of the crowded, tunnel-like hallways was a row of colored lights blinking on and off in various combinations. Each color or group of colors was the code for a particular department, service, or individual and the Hospital used them as a paging device. On my way to and from the other buildings I would stop and watch the lights and try to figure out what the different combinations meant; but I was never able to break the code—except, of course, for the Green Light. To the Hospital the Green Light was the signal that an autopsy was being performed. I imagine that to the deceased’s family it meant the loss of a loved one, but to us in the Medical Library it was simply a procedure. An event to be announced so students could fulfill certain course requirements.

I used to enjoy watching the lights.

One morning during a recent Summer Term I let myself in through a little known door connecting the first level of stacks with a service corridor in the basement of an adjoining building. In any large, overly complex structure you will find these unseen little remnants of previous lifestyles or fashion. Often they have been added, used for a time, and then, as new memories and needs come to be, they vanish into the archives of passed generations. This door was, I think, originally installed as a fire exit, but I had gotten into the habit of using it to come and go unnoticed.

I made my way up to the third floor and found the offices were deserted. I wondered if I could have possibly misread my bedside clock and left for work an hour or two early. For some reason it didn’t occur to me to check a clock in one of the offices, and, shaking my head, I went to make the coffee. It had, over the years, somehow become one of my duties to take care of the large coffee pot that sat in an alcove next to my office. In fact, if I were ill or on vacation the rest of the staff would often forget to make it, and would spend half the morning wondering why it had not been done.

To my surprise the pot was already hissing and grumbling. Several mugs were missing or setting on the counter with the remains of that day’s first or second cup in them, and, even more disturbing, there was, up in the cabinet, a new container of coffee of a brand I would never buy. It was, I remembered, one that the new reference librarian had asked if we could try, and thinking they must have come in early to finish an important project, I called out, “Hello . . HELLO! Where are you?”

No one answered.

The lilac scent of the senior librarian’s perfume drifted through the alcove, but when I turned to greet her I only saw her teacup setting on a file cabinet. The pot’s rumbling was echoing strangely in the empty room and for a moment I considered turning it off. But the noise, however strange, seemed preferable to the tomb-like quiet it was interrupting and I left it alone.

In the Reading Room books and papers were scattered about the tables, and Dr. D.’s briefcase sat next to his usual chair. Walking over to his table I could see that the latest issue of JAMA was lying open on his reading stand. He often left his things overnight and there wasn’t a shelver alive foolish enough to disturb the books and journals on his table, but I didn’t understand why the night crew hadn’t picked up the rest of the room. I imagined it was a sign the new shelving supervisor had lost control of his department.

It had started raining since I had arrived and I watched the storm for a while through the large windows that lined three sides of the Reading Room. It was odd because I seemed to remember the morning as being bright and sunny. The water came down with an unhurried steadiness that seemed to imply it could go on forever if it were necessary. The buildings across the street were hidden by the storm, and the one or two cars that passed were nothing more than indistinct shapes gliding through the gray.

As I stood there watching the rain I kept feeling as if someone was walking up behind me. This feeling and the storm outside reminded of me of my grandfather’s death. It had rained all through the old man’s funeral and after the ceremony I had gone out to his workshop behind the garage. The saws and drills stood in their assigned positions and sawdust covered the floor where it had fallen several weeks before. As I walked around the room looking at the piles of wood and into drawers filled with carefully sorted screws and nails I got the feeling that if only I could turn around quickly enough I would see him hunched over his workbench softly whistling to himself as he worked.

I was remembering a soapbox racer he once helped me build when I noticed the Green Light was on. For a second or two its color reminded me I had wanted to paint the racer green, but he had overruled the idea by saying it wasn’t a proper color for a young man’s car. Then I realized there had been no announcement. No one had called to warn us. They always called first to give us time to make the announcement, that way even the students in the stacks would know when it came on. I went back to my office wondering why they hadn’t called.

As I approached my desk the phone did in fact begin to ring, but when I tried to answer it all I could hear was the faint voices you sometimes have to talk over when you get a bad connection. Sitting down I had the distinct feeling something was wrong, but the cause eluded me. Then I realized that my desk was clean. All of the papers and folders that usually cluttered its surface and made it look as if I was overwhelmed with work were gone. Even the coffee mug I had inherited from my predecessor was missing. The only thing on it was a slip of paper with a room number on it, and putting in my pocket I tried to remember which department was located there.

The total solitude made it feel as if it were still quite early, but I was sure that it must have been late enough for someone to be stirring. I looked up at the large clock that was mounted high on the wall to my left. Something was in my eye, however, and I couldn’t make the clock face come into focus. By squinting I was able to guess that the minute hand was pointing at the eight, but I still had no idea what the hour was. I rubbed my eyes and wiped the tears the rubbing had caused away. I looked up at the clock again and once again was unable to see it clearly.

I went to the reference librarians’ office and tried to read their clock. Then the one over the Circulation Desk. Then the one in the shelvers’ room. Then the one in the Reading Room.

All of them were blurs.

Finally I went in the Director’s office. Mounting a wall clock would have spoiled the oak paneling of his walls, and he had an ornate clock on the credenza behind his desk. Nothing. Every time I tried to look at it my eyes teared and the face became a meaningless blur. I picked it up and held it up in front of my face and strained to see the Roman numerals I knew were there.

I could not see the time.

Defeated I put the clock down and tried to make sense of what was happening. Nothing made sense and I did what I always did when my life had ceased to make sense. I went down into the stacks to read. The faintly musty air and deeply shadowed alcoves would, I hoped, somehow be more comforting than the brightly lighted offices and reading room. To my surprise, however, a feeling of restless urgency seemed to grow in me as I walked along the silent, dusty shelves, and I decided it was perhaps time for me to get out of the library for a while.

Out of habit I took one of the wooden book carts I used to pick up donations and let myself out through the door I had come in earlier. I always took a cart when I went wandering through the hospital complex. A middle aged man walking aimlessly through the halls for no reason would eventually attract notice, but a middle aged man pushing a cart through the halls was obviously part of the staff and became invisible. I didn’t bother to leave a note for the librarians because, if they even noticed I was gone, they would soon figure out where I had gone.

The building between the library and the Main Hospital always stinks. After you have been through it a time or two you can tell which floor you are on by the way it smells. As I walked along the basement hallway I could almost feel the cloying mixture of rat dung and cedar chips pressing against me, and I told myself to be thankful it wasn’t one of the other floors. Many of the doors to the small, anonymous labs I passed were open, but I didn’t see any of the young, almost interchangable research assistants that could sometimes be found working in them. It wasn’t too unusual, however, for that part of the building to be deserted, and I hardly noticed it as I hurried along toward fresher air.

In the short connecting passageway between buildings I slowed down again and took two or three deep breaths to rid my lungs of the smell of rats. As I passed the Radiation Lab I was surprised to see that it was empty. There was always four or five cancer patients sitting in the small lobby reading magazines or talking quietly to a loved one as they waited for their treatments. The lights were on and the door was propped open to let in a breeze, but the room was empty.

Just as I was about to leave the lab behind me I thought I saw a person out of the corner of my eye. The image had, however, seemed much clearer that it should have so close to the limits of my field of vision, and I backed up a step or two to take a closer look. The waiting room was still empty. But as I continued toward the hospital I kept remembering the shadowy form, like a reflection on a pane of glass, of an old woman sitting patiently.

Entering the Main Hospital I had to weave my cart through the stacks of bottles and cartons that are always cluttering up that section of the hall. As I approached the Pharmacy I decided to stop and see and old friend. We had worked together at the beginning of our careers, and had kept in touch as time and transfers had taken us through various departments. It had become a standing joke between us that our funerals would turn out to be just another transfer.

I parked my cart next to the door and went in. He could usually be found at his desk near the back, and it wasn’t until I got to the counter that I saw that the room was empty. After waiting a few minutes for someone to come out of the back I called his name once or twice.

No one answered.

Just as I was turning to leave the silence was interrupted by the ringing of the phone. It stopped in the middle of the third ring, but I could not see whoever had answered it.

While I had been in the Pharmacy someone had moved some cartons against my cart, and I had to clear a path before I could get it out. I cursed, and looked around but whoever had done was gone. Pulling my cart free I headed toward the elevators with my footsteps echoing in the lifeless quiet of the Hospital’s basement. I turned the corner into the elevator alcove just as the green arrow over the center elevator came on, and I congratulated myself for good timing. I got on and pushed the button for the main floor.

The main level of the hospital was always bustling with an almost frantic energy, and as the elevator slowed to a stop I got ready to quickly push my way out before the crowd could surge in and block my exit.

I left the car and looked both ways.

No one.

Once, a few months before this, I had to bring a friend to the Emergency Room in the middle of the night. Even at four o’clock in the morning there had been at least two dozen people sitting in the lobby lost in thought or reading a magazine or sleeping as the janitors joked loudly among themselves as they emptied waste baskets and mopped the floor. But now, in the middle of the day, there was no one.

I parked my cart against the wall, and went into the cafeteria. Inside I got the same feeling I had had in the reading room earlier that morning. The feeling of being in the middle of a crowd, but for some reason always looking in the one direction no one was standing. The several serving lines, and the hundreds of tables were all deserted. Scattered here and there on the tables were the remains of partially eaten meals, and in an ashtray not too far away a cigarette was burning itself out. At times I thought I could hear voices. They were like the ones you sometimes hear on the radio late at night. You can’t quite tune them out, but you can never make them clear enough to understand.

It was when I went back out into the hallway that I finally noticed the lights.

Instead of switching from one code to another like they usually did, only the green one was on. It burned with a steady reptilian coldness that seemed to hold me spellbound. In all the years I had been watching the lights they had never really meant anything to me. I knew, of course, that they had meanings, but even when I had announced in the library that the Green Light was on it had been an impersonal event. Perhaps a bit like being on vaction far from home and seeing a funeral procession go by. It may sadden you, but only in a distant, abstract way, and you quickly forget about it as you go about your life. Now, in a way I wasn’t sure I liked, it was different.

When I resumed my journey I left the cart where I had parked it.

I made my way over to one of the classroom buildings, and walked along occasionally looking into this room or that. Turning a corner I came across Dr C. He had made quite a name for himself in the Twenties, and along with Dr D had been a fixture in the library when I first transferred there. He nodded a greeting, and I said ‘Hello, Sir.’ I watched him enter the lecture hall and take his position behind the lecturn, and wondered why he was in this old building instead of the new one they had named for him.

I was beginning to tire by the time I got to the crossover to the next building, and I sat down on a bench next to a window. The rain had been replaced by a dense fog, and I couldn’t see anything passed the window sill. Here and there I could almost see a vague halo that might have been the lights from a classroom in a neighboring building. It was somehow comforting not to have to see the frenetic world out there.

I don’t know how long I sat there, but eventually I became aware of the sound of someone typing in one of the offices down the hall. At first I didn’t care who could be, in all likelyhood, filling out some form that may or may not ever be needed or seen again; but after a while the rhythmic clattering began to pull at me much like I imagine a light in the darkness pulls at a moth.

I got up and walk down the hall of that old building until I came to the office the typing was coming from. I took the paper that had been on my desk out of my pocket. This was the right room.

The door was ajar, and pushing it open another inch or two I could see the clerk as she removed a form from an ancient manual typewriter. She looked to be about twenty years younger than me, and her blouse or dress had that straight line shapelessness I have always associated with flappers and the Charleston. The movement of the door caught her eye, and she looked up sharply.

“Yes?” I stammered an apology and her reply had that edge you can hear in any University office. It spoke of unending routine being interrupted by what is just another, perhaps less appealing, aspect of the routine. “Please, come in and sit down. There is some paperwork that must be done when transferring.”

My routine hasn’t really changed. I spend most of my time in the stacks or in the Duplicate Room among the older volumes slowly turning their forgotten pages. Once in a while Dr C will ask me to find a him a book or a particular issue of some journal; and recently Dr D has started coming to the reading room. Occasionally I’ll remember my old friend in the Pharmacy, and think about going to see if he’s around, but the time isn’t right yet. It won’t be long though. Just a little while after you hear, “The Green Light is on.”