Sam Peebles thought of the pleading hands plastered against the obdurate, imprisoning glass, the screaming, agonized mouth, and suddenly found that more than difficult to believe. He found it impossible to believe.
And Peyton Place. What about that? He guessed that most of the adults who used the Library had forgotten about it. Did he really believe that some of their children - the ones young enough to use the Children's Library - had rediscovered that old relic?
I don't believe that one, either.
He had no wish to incur a second dose of Ardelia Lortz's anger - the first had been enough, and he'd had a feeling her dial hadn't been turned up to anything near full volume - but these thoughts were strong enough to cause him to turn around.
She was gone.
The library doors stood shut, a vertical slot of mouth in that brooding granite face.
Sam stood where he was a moment longer, then hurried down to where his car was parked at the curb.
CHAPTER 3
Sam's Speech
It was a rousing success.
He began with his own adaptations of two anecdotes from the 'Easing Them In' section of The Speaker's Companion - one was about a farmer who tried to wholesale his own produce and the other was about selling frozen dinners to Eskimos - and used a third in the middle (which really was pretty arid). He found another good one in the subsection titled 'Finishing Them Off,' started to pencil it in, then remembered Ardelia Lortz and Best Loved Poems of the American People. You're apt to find your listeners will remember a well-chosen verse even if they forget everything else, she had said, and Sam found a good short poem in the 'Inspiration' section, just as she had told him he might.
He looked down on the upturned faces of his fellow Rotarians and said: 'I've tried to give you some of the reasons why I live and work in a small town like Junction City, and I hope they make at least some sense. If they don't, I'm in a lot of trouble.'
A rumble of good-natured laughter (and a whiff of mixed Scotch and bourbon) greeted this.
Sam was sweating freely, but he actually felt pretty good, and he had begun to believe he was going to get out of this unscathed. The microphone had produced feedback whine only once, no one had walked out, no one had thrown food, and there had only been a few catcalls - good-natured ones, at that.
'I think a poet named Spencer Michael Free summed up the things I've been trying to say better than I ever could. You see, almost everything we have to sell in our small-town businesses can be sold cheaper in bigcity shopping centers and suburban malls. Those places like to boast that you can get just about all the goods and services you'd ever need right there, and park for free in the bargain. And I guess they're almost right. But there is still one thing the small-town business has to offer that the malls and shopping centers don't, and that's the thing Mr Free talks about in his poem. It isn't a very long one, but it says a lot. It goes like this.
''Tis the human touch in this world that counts.
The touch of your hand and mine,
Which means far more to the fainting heart Than shelter and bread and wine;
For shelter is gone when the night is o'er, And bread lasts only a day,
But the touch of the hand and the sound of a voice
Sing on in the soul always.'
Sam looked up at them from his text, and for the second time that day was surprised to find that he meant every word he had just said. He found that his heart was suddenly full of happiness and simple gratitude. It was good just to find out you still had a heart, that the ordinary routine of ordinary days hadn't worn it away, but it was even better to find it could still speak through your mouth.
'We small-town businessmen and businesswomen offer that human touch. On the one hand, it isn't much ... but on the other, it's just about everything. I know that it keeps me coming back for more. I want to wish our originally scheduled speaker, The Amazing Joe, a speedy recovery; I want to thank Craig Jones for asking me to sub for him; and I want to thank all of you for listening so patiently to my boring little talk. So ... thanks very much.'
The applause started even before he finished his last sentence; it swelled while he gathered up the few pages of text which Naomi had typed and which he had spent the afternoon amending; it rose to a crescendo as he sat down, bemused by the reaction.
Well, it's just the booze, he told himself. They would have applauded you if you'd told them about how you managed to quit smoking after you found Jesus at a Tupperware party.
Then they started to rise to their feet and he thought he must have spoken too long if they were that anxious to get out. But they went on applauding, and then he saw Craig Jones was flapping his hands at him. After a moment Sam understood. Craig wanted him to stand up and take a bow.
He twirled a forefinger around his ear: You're nuts!
Craig shook his head emphatically and began elevating his hands so energetically that he looked like a revival preacher encouraging the faithful to sing louder.
So Sam stood up and was amazed when they actually cheered him.
After a few moments, Craig approached the lectern. The cheers at last died down when he tapped the microphone a few times, producing a sound like a giant fist wrapped in cotton knocking on a coffin.
'I think we'll all agree,' he said, 'that Sam's speech more than made up for the price of the rubber chicken.'
This brought another hearty burst of applause.
Craig turned toward Sam and said, 'If I'd known you had that in you, Sammy, I would have booked you in the first place!'
This produced more clapping and whistling. Before it died out, Craig Jones had seized Sam's hand and began pumping it briskly up and down.
'That was great!' Craig said. 'Where'd you copy it from, Sam?'
'I didn't,' Sam said. His cheeks felt warm, and although he'd only had one gin and tonic - a weak one - before getting up to speak, he felt a little drunk. 'It's mine. I got a couple of books from the Library, and they helped.'
Other Rotarians were crowding around now; Sam's hand was shaken again and again. He started to feel like the town pump during a summer drought.
'Great!' someone shouted in his ear. Sam turned toward the voice and saw it belonged to Frank Stephens, who had filled in when the trucking-union official was indicted for malfeasance. 'We shoulda had it on tape, we coulda sold it to the goddam JayCees! Damn, that was a good talk, Sam!'
'Oughtta take it on the road!' Rudy Pearlman said. His round face was red and sweating. 'I dam near cried! Honest to God! Where'd you find that pome?'
'At the Library,' Sam said. He still felt dazed ... but his relief at having actually finished in one piece was being supplanted by a kind of cautious delight. He thought he would have to give Naomi a bonus. 'It was in a book called -' But before he could tell Rudy what the book had been called, Bruce Engalls had grasped him by the elbow and was guiding him toward the bar. 'Best damned speech I've heard at this foolish club in two years!' Bruce was exclaiming. 'Maybe five! Who needs a goddam acrobat, anyway? Let me buy you a drink, Sam. Hell, let me buy you two!'