The Incident with a Cellphone in the Library...

'Twas a chilly day, the wind gusting off the Rocky Mountains like a frozen aluminum baseball bat swung forcefully into the genitals. But thick glass squelched the icy howling, the bitter chill a faint memory for those of us encamped in near-silent government documents section of the Denver Public Library (third floor, northwest corner.)

We poured over our books and weighty documents. You could taste the concentration.

And then he came, sat, and shuffled his personal items. Finally, he placed a call on his cellphone, using the phone's speaker function. He wore a fedora hat indoors...

[Hello? a tinny voice said.]

"Where are you?"

[Broadway and Alameda.]

We'll I'll be done soon, maybe you can pick me up at the library?

[Yeah, I'll pick you up at the library. Should we go to Wild Oats?"]

Yes, I think that would be best.

It went on like that, but not for long. It wasn't a loud conversation, nor was it particularly soft. The man with the fedora spoke calmly, as if he were sitting at his office desk, making a routine phone call to a colleague. Perfectly normal conversation.

One that provoked a dangerous amount of hostility.

The fedora man later gathered his items, stood, streched, and glanced over his surroundings -- only to meet my derisive glare, a glare as ICY AS THE MOUNTAIN WIND BLOWS!

He froze for a full sixty seconds when his eyes met my mine. This part is true -- a minute, maybe more. It was, to my recollection, the weirdest thing I'd ever done. To stare at a complete stranger for such a long time, the feat itself is unusual. Both of us were frozen in place and neither was willing to give even one inch. Sixty seconds, non merde! "What a strange thing I'm doing," I thought as I glared, frozen in my chair, like some paralyzed John Wayne wearing a stoic blue baseball cap emblazoned with the words "40-year-old Virgin."

Finally, the fedora man broke the trance.

"Read any good books lately?"

"I'm trying to," said I.

"I hope I'm not disturbing you."

"Your cell phone conversation disturbed me."

"It was a brief conversation," said he.

"There are plenty of places in this library where you could have made your call and not disturbed anyone. This is the quietest place in the library. You don't need to use your cell phone here."

(This classic Jedi mind trick failed to put the man into a hypnotic state, one that would have enabled me to make him jump from a balcony -- Ed.)

"People use their cell phones in this library all the time," he said. "I find it disturbing, which is why people come here, I guess."

"Yes, it is."

And then the fedora man disappeared amid the stacks. Lucky for him. I was a dangerous man at the moment. He could have been killed.

God help the next man who gets crosswise with me while wearing a fedora hat.