There is a man who comes to the library every day. He always wears a button-down shirt tucked neatly into pressed slacks. His dirty, white paper-boy hat, carefully placed and removed from his head, hides thinning gray hair, combed over, acting as a second hat. His manner fits his appearance: a slight figure, small, quiet and precise. Like a fading picture, he appears washed-out and pale, his clothes so frequently washed they look as worn as his hair. Always seen sitting at the computer terminal, he spends exactly an hour and half browsing graphic t-shirts. A fact I find amusing, considering the most graphic shirt he owns is a steel blue button-down with gray plaid. I have seen him almost every week for the past four years; he is a part of the library regular club.

Becoming a part of the club requires consistent attendance and a distinctive appearance. You must show up to the library often, be very recognizable and, every time, you must do the exact same thing. The four years I’ve been a part of the library regular club has been quiet; although many of us recognize the regulars, we have never spoken to each other. A slight nod or glance are the only demonstrations of acknowledgment exchanged. Since we have all been frequenting the library for quite some time now, we strictly uphold the “silence is golden” rule. We give dirty looks to other computer terminal users when their music is too loud, or when they answer a call while inside.

The Faded Man has been in the library every time I have, which is to say quite often. Each member of the club as their own “shift,” a time of day they routinely visit and stay at the library. My “shift” and the Faded Man’s just happen to collide. In addition to Faded Man, there is the Confused Woman, who has a large poof of hair surrounding a round face with perpetually wide open eyes. She visited daily last April (when she first appeared), spending hours on the computer listening to loud latino music. At first she did not know library etiquette and played Prince Royce loudly from her computer speakers. Faded Man and I shot her dirty looks at first, but stopped after it became apparent that a) she did not know the gravity of the silent rule and b) she didn’t speak any English. We then started giving the librarians please-intervene-now looks, but stopped after one of the librarians plopped a pair of headphones next to her terminal.

After taking my yearly summer hiatus of library visits, I saw her last week for the first time since June. She had bleached her hair blonde, and grew to revere the “silence is golden rule.” She sat next to another member of the library regulars: Blue Hair, whom I’ve seen very rarely as our shifts to not commonly coincide. Blue Hair, as his name suggests, has bright, blue hair and a brown moustache. He is too old to be a high school student, yet too young to be out of college. He prefers to spend his mid-mornings folded into the small, green swivel chairs of the computers, his gangly body dwarfing the computer portal. He bikes to library and leaves his incredibly expensive bicycle (painted an alarming shade of neon green) locked up outside.

I am the focused student, sitting at the computer terminal from 2:50 pm to 6:30 pm. There is a stack of textbooks to my left, my homework to my right. I sit at the terminal and write all my assigned essays, silently working to finish all my homework in my allotted time. However, I am the most talkative library regular. I talk to the librarians most days; they all know me on a first name basis because I check out books so often. They have all typed my name into the library database hundreds of times. Ms. Harvey asks me about how pole vaulting  and recommends books recently translated into Spanish to improve my reading comprehension. Ms. Donahue places holds on books she knows I will enjoy, and Ms. Jacobson always gives me school advice as her daughter graduated from my high school not long ago.

I feel oddly at home at the library, where I am writing this now.