FIRST PERSON; Internet Rage
By SANDRA KOPPEL
Published: September 2, 2001
ANYONE who uses the free Internet access at the city's public libraries knows homicidal ferocity. The majestic lions in front of the main library may suggest Old World civility, but not the crowd waiting outside one recent morning. The atmosphere has the nervousness of a horse race.
There's a keyhole in the tall bronze door on the left, and there seems to be movement behind it. The bronze doors part. We eye one another. The crowd closes in.
The first person squeezes through to the next obstacle, the revolving doors. Then it's a free-for-all. Old and young alike send the doors spinning. I'm in shape from swimming laps, and I take the marble stairs two at a time. It's 10 a.m. on a Thursday. The vaulted ceiling, the remodeled Rose Reading Room, the very wooden chairs in front of the computers -- all beg people to slow down. But they've been usurped by the Internet.
I pass a couple of wheezing bodies on the way to the sign-in desk. Darwin was right. I flash my picture ID and sit down. You only get 30 minutes per session. By 10:19 the second wave is breathing over our shoulders. The commandant from the desk marches down the aisles: ''Your sessions will end in five minutes. Your sessions will end in five minutes.'' So much for that love letter, that job opportunity, that porn site. It's 10:25. At 10:30 there's a universal scrape of chairs.
The bloodthirsty advance. The vanquished retreat to the Hudson Park branch on Leroy Street in Greenwich Village. The atmosphere is small-town, quaint, but I have seen fisticuffs threatened. There are three computers. No ID check, no commandant. Fraud runs rampant. A white-haired man has shamelessly signed up with false names, securing two half-hour sessions in a row. I and a militant-looking woman turn him in. I'm in time for the 11 a.m. session.
In comes the guy who accused me of reading his mail over his shoulder. I was only hovering. ''I don't care about your mail, sir,'' I said, in a tone that stunned me. Since when do I sound like a street tough? He's from Albany, he told me one day. He wants to be a model. ''It's hard here,'' he said. It's the city. I continue typing, no room for sentiment. At 11:30 a fight almost breaks out. I flee.
Next stop: the Jefferson Market branch on the Avenue of the Americas at high noon. There's exposed brick in the basement, low-ceilings, like an appealing grotto. Three computers. Calm, except for the fellow who almost shoved me down the narrow spiral staircase. The librarian's in charge of the sign-ins.
She's on the phone. Somebody comes out of somewhere and snags the next two sessions for him and his girlfriend. A man I recognize from Hudson Park is merrily typing on the one-hour computer. I feel murderous. ''Do you want to sign up for 1?'' the librarian asks innocently.
I bolt to the Donnell branch on 53rd. It's 12:30. There's a rabbit hutch busyness here. Six computers upstairs and three down. A sign-up sheet hangs on the wall on the first floor. You stand in line to sign up and start. ''About a half an hour,'' a guy says, in the mood to talk. Not I. I rush upstairs. Advance reservations are required. All stations are occupied. I check the sign-up sheet. Internet rage comes over me.
I have to get out of Midtown. Out in the air, racing down to Hamilton Fish Park on the Lower East Side, my head clears. For a minute I think of gambling with AOL at home, using the Internet at will in the solitude of my studio apartment.
Instead I find myself racing faster down the crowded sidewalk. I should be able to make it for the 1:30 slot. The last time there was that suspiciously mild-looking older woman who tried to overstay her time. Somewhere a clock tones 1:15. Blood sugar level drops, intensity level rises. The next intersection of Internet and public library has astonishing promise.