public property

Yesterday, some guy's computer was stolen right in front of me. Actually, right in front of a handful of people, all also using their computers.

The scene was the adult reading room at the Mulberry Street library, where I've been happily camping out for the last couple of months, when I seriously need to work. The victim? A guy, let's call him Joe Computer, who left the adult reading room and his laptop behind, for over a half hour, having asked the young Asian-American fellow across from him to keep an eye on it.

After some time, a heavy-set woman with denim capri pants and a vest came over and pointed at Joe Computer's chair:
.

Woman: "Do you know where he went?" she asked.

Us : "Um, no."

Woman: "Well, I'm with him, and I don't know why he just left our computer out like this." "Could you tell him when he gets back that Cynthia took it upstairs?"

Us/me : "Um, ok."

Of course, you know how this story ends. Joe Computer returns, looks at the guy who he asked to keep an eye out, and asks where his computer has gone:

Very sad Asian-American fellow laptop user guy: "Your friend, um, Cynthia, took it upstairs?"

Joe Computer: "Oh, shit."

Cynthia (as we shall call her) stole Joe Computer's computer. Just like that. In front of all of us. And it was the perfect con, because none of us wanted to appear paranoid freakazoids, and ask for proof of her friendship with Joe Computer. Neither did we want to say anything to the librarian, because if they did turn out to be friends, we would have been those jerks. There was also the weird added element of whether or not it was credible that an African-American woman (Cynthia) was friends with the African-American Joe Computer. (It was.) SO, in the end, I felt a little bit like a racist, indifferent, gullible New York idiot. An idiot who could have protected Joe Computer's computer.

Needless to say, I am still very upset about this episode because a) I like the Mulberry Street library and now I feel it is weirdly unsafe, and b) because my basic sense of human decency, and my radar for trusting people, has been violated and compromised. And I feel like I could have saved that laptop if I had just raised an eyebrow.

Anyway. I'm at a new public library in Hell's Kitchen and it is pretty old school and on the ground floor, which I like.