Once upon a time a polar bear with an American flag tattoo came into the library looking for gold. “Bullion!” He Screamed. “Give me all your Bullion!” His voice reverberated off of the books like fingernails shot at a blackboard from a cannon. The polar bear filled the foyer of the James K. Polk Memorial Library completely. His empty stare and enormous frame made him look like a methadone addict who had a patriotic accident in a tattoo parlor that specializes in bear arms.

Uncharacteristically confused, Eliza the stereotypically mild mannered librarian with impeccable hygiene stammered something about her unfortunate lack of golden coins and seemed immediately to return to her Jane Austen. She was scared. But Jane Austen prepares one for just about anything. The clinched fist of the tattooed bear arm slammed on to the reference desk with the authority and greed of a polar politician. “I’m not kidding. Give me the freaking Bullion.”

Being quick witted and pun-happy, always in a mild mannered manner of course, Eliza asked the brazen bear if he wanted Bullion or Bouillon. Oblivious to homophones the allegiant armed gold seeker thought she was making fun of him and not the English language. He bit the monitor off the computer and spit it across the library floor. Eliza knew this bear wanted gold and not soup.

Buried deep beneath the floor of the Polk Memorial Library was the city of Gold that had escaped the quest of Coronado. The Aztec city had been underneath an Indian reservation until 1995 when in an ironic sesquicentennial nod to Polk’s Manifest Destiny New Mexico used eminent domain to seize a Pueblo burial ground for memorial and literary purposes. The bear knew this. Eliza did not. The bear did not know that Eliza did not know. If this were Jane Austen this next part would take place through a series of letters.

“Stop messing around”

“I’m not messing around. There is no Gold Bullion in the Polk Memorial Libarary Mr. Bear Sir”

“Don’t call me sir”

“What should I call you then”

“Reginald”

The bears name was not Reginald.

“Well Reginald, I’m going to have to ask you to leave unless you can use your Library voice.

He speaks in the best library voice of a polar bear “I smell Bullion”

Eliza mentally avoids several puns “ I don’t know what to tell you”

“Tell me it’s mine”

“It’s yours”

This was all the permission the bear needed to start digging. He lifted huge parts of the floor out instantaneously with his uneatable bear claws. He knew if their were still Bullion it would be buried deep. Not Reginald was a naturalized U.S. Citizen and had been working in the construction business outside Albuquerque since he came here from Antarctica during the Carter Administration. His digging skills were well honed. After less than a minute he was 40 feet beneath the books.

Shocked at this bears lack of manners Eliza did what any Jane Austen loving Librarian would do. She shot the polar bear in the face.

When the police came to clean up the bi-polar polar bear Eliza claimed self-defense. She served 30 years in the New Mexico State Penitentiary for bear-slaughter. Besides joining the Arian Nation, she writes a lot of passionate letters and serves as the prisons librarian. The bullion is still buried beneath the old reference desk of the Polk Memorial Library where there now stands a statute of the mentally ill polar bear with the American Flag tattoo with a simple inscription: Not Named Reginald.