Four Past Midnight

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!'

2

Before he was able to get away, Sam consumed a total of six drinks, all of them free, and ended his triumphant evening by puking on his own WELCOME mat shortly after Craig Jones let him out in front of his house on Kelton Avenue. When his stomach vapor-locked, Sam had been trying to get his housekey in the lock of his front door - it was a job, because there appeared to be three locks and four keys - and there was just no time to get rid of it in the bushes at the side of the stoop. So when he finally succeeded in getting the door open, he simply picked the WELCOME mat up (carefully, holding it by the sides so the gunk would pool in the middle) and tossed it over the side.

He got a cup of coffee to stay down, but the phone rang twice while he was drinking it. More

congratulations. The second call was from Elmer Baskin, who hadn't even been there. He felt a little like Judy Garland in A Star Is Born, but it was hard to enjoy the feeling while his stomach was still treading water and his head was beginning to punish him for his overindulgence.

Sam put on the answering machine in the living room to field any further calls, then went upstairs to his bedroom, unplugged the phone by the bed, took two aspirin, stripped, and lay down.

Consciousness began to fade fast - he was tired as well as bombed - but before sleep took him, he had time to think: I owe most of it to Naomi ... and to that unpleasant woman at the Library. Horst. Borscht. Whatever her name was. Maybe I ought to give her a bonus, too.

He heard the telephone start to ring downstairs, and then the answering machine cut in.

Good boy, Sam thought sleepily. Do your duty - I mean, after all, isn't that what I pay you to do?

Then he was in blackness, and knew no more until ten o'clock Saturday morning.

3

He returned to the land of the living with a sour stomach and a slight headache, but it could have been a lot worse. He was sorry about the WELCOME mat, but glad he'd offloaded at least some of the booze before it could swell his head any worse than it already was. He stood in the shower for ten minutes, making only token washing motions, then dried off, dressed, and went downstairs with a towel draped over his head. The red message light on the telephone answering machine was blinking. The tape only rewound a short way when he pushed the PLAY MESSAGES button; apparently the call he'd heard just as he was drifting off had been the last.

Beep! 'Hello, Sam.' Sam paused in the act of removing the towel, frowning. It was a woman's voice, and he knew it. Whose? 'I heard your speech was a great success. I'm so glad for you.'

It was the Lortz woman, he realized.

Now how did she get my number? But that was what the telephone book was for, of course ... and he had written it on his library-card application as well, hadn't he? Yes. For no reason he could rightly tell, a small shiver shook its way up his back.

'Be sure to get your borrowed books back by the sixth of April,' she continued, and then, archly: 'Remember the Library Policeman.'

There was the click of the connection being broken. On Sam's answering machine, the ALL MESSAGES PLAYED lamp lit Up.

'You're a bit of a bitch, aren't you, lady?' Sam said to the empty house, and then went into the kitchen to make himself some toast.

4

When Naomi came in at ten o'clock on the Friday morning a week after Sam's triumphant debut as an afterdinner speaker, Sam handed her a long white envelope with her name written on the front.

'What's this?' Naomi asked suspiciously, taking off her cloak. It was raining hard outside, a driving, dismal early-spring rain.

'Open it and see.'

She did. It was a thank-you card. Taped inside was a portrait of Andrew Jackson.

'Twenty dollars!' She looked at him more suspiciously than ever. 'Why?'

'Because you saved my bacon when you sent me to the Library,' Sam said. 'The speech went over very well, Naomi. I guess it wouldn't be wrong to say I was a big hit. I would have put in fifty, if I'd thought you would take it.'

Now she understood, and was clearly pleased, but she tried to give the money back just the same. 'I'm really glad it worked, Sam, but I can't take th - '

'Yes you can,' he said, 'and you will. You'd take a commission if you worked for me as a salesperson, wouldn't you?'

'I don't, though. I could never sell anything. When I was in the Girl Scouts, my mother was the only person who ever bought cookies from me.'

'Naomi. My dear girl. No - don't start looking all nervous and cornered. I'm not going to make a pass at you. We went through all of that two years ago.'

'We certainly did.' Naomi agreed, but she still looked nervous and checked to make sure that she had a clear line of retreat to the door, should she need one.

'Do you realize I've sold two houses and written almost two hundred thousand dollars' worth of insurance since that damn speech? Most of it was common group coverage with a high top-off and a low commission rate, true, but it still adds up to the price of a new car. If you don't take that twenty, I'm going to feel like shit.'

'Sam, please!' she said, looking shocked. Naomi was a dedicated Baptist. She and her mother went to a little church in Proverbia which was almost as ramshackle as the house they lived in. He knew; he had been there once. But he was happy to see that she also looked pleased ... and a little more relaxed.

In the summer of 1988, Sam had dated Naomi twice. On the second date, he made a pass. It was as well behaved as a pass can be and still remain a pass, but a pass it was. Much good it had done him; Naomi, it turned out, was a good enough pass deflector to play in the Denver Broncos' defensive backfield. It wasn't that she didn't like him, she explained; it was just that she had decided the two of them could never get along 'that way.' Sam, bewildered, had asked her why not. Naomi only shook her head. Some things are hard to explain, Sam, but that doesn't make them less true. It could never work. Believe me, it just couldn't. And that had been all he could get out of her.

'I'm sorry I said the s-word, Naomi,' he told her now. He spoke humbly, although he doubted somehow that Naomi was even half as priggish as she liked to sound. 'What I mean to say is that if you don't take that twenty, I'll feel like caca-poopie.'

She tucked the bill into her purse and then endeavored to look at him with an expression of dignified primness. She almost made it ... but the corners of her lips quivered slightly.

'There. Satisfied?'

'Short of giving you fifty,' he said. 'Would you take fifty, Omes?'

'No,' she said. 'And please don't call me Omes. You know I don't like it.'

'I'm sorry.'

'Apology accepted. Now why don't we just drop the subject?'

'Okay,' Sam said agreeably.

'I heard several people say your speech was good. Craig Jones just raved about it. Do you really think that's the reason you've done more business?'

'Does a bear - ' Sam began, and then retraced his steps. 'Yes. I do. Things work that way sometimes. It's funny, but it's true. The old sales graph has really spiked this week. It'll drop back, of course, but I don't think it'll drop back all the way. If the new folks like the way I do business - and I like to think they will - there'll be a carry-over.'

Sam leaned back in his chair, laced his hands together behind his neck, and looked thoughtfully up at the ceiling.

'When Craig Jones called up and put me on the spot, I was ready to shoot him. No joke, Naomi.'

'Yes,' she said. 'You looked like a man coming down with a bad case of poison ivy.'

'Did I?' He laughed. 'Yeah, I suppose so. It's funny how things work out sometimes - purest luck. If there is a God, it makes you wonder sometimes if He tightened all the screws in the big machine before He set it going.'

He expected Naomi to scold him for his irreverence (it wouldn't be the first time), but she didn't take the gambit today. Instead she said, 'You're luckier than you know, if the books you got at the Library really did help You out. It usually doesn't open until five o'clock on Fridays. I meant to tell you that, but then I forgot.'

'Oh?'

'You must have found Mr Price catching up on his paperwork or something.'

'Price?' Sam asked. 'Don't you mean Mr Peckham? The newspaper-reading janitor?'

Naomi shook her head. 'The only Peckham I ever heard of around here was old Eddie Peckham, and he died years ago. I'm talking about Mr Price. The librarian.' She was looking at Sam as though he were the thickest man on earth ... or at least in Junction City, Iowa. 'Tall man? Thin? About fifty?'

'Nope,' Sam said. 'I got a lady named Lortz. Short, plump, somewhere around the age when women form lasting attachments to bright-green polyester.'

A rather strange mix of expressions crossed Naomi's face - surprise was followed by suspicion; suspicion was followed by a species of faintly exasperated amusement. That particular sequence of expressions almost always indicates the same thing: someone is coming to realize that his or her leg is being shaken vigorously. Under more ordinary circumstances Sam might have wondered about that, but he had done a land-office business all week long, and as a result he had a great deal of his own paperwork to catch up on. Half of his mind had already wandered off to examine it.

'Oh,' Naomi said and laughed. 'Miss Lortz, was it? That must have been fun.'

'She's peculiar, all right,' Sam said.

'You bet,' Naomi agreed. 'In fact she's absolutely-'

If she had finished what she had started to say she probably would have startled Sam Peebles a great deal, but luck - as he had just pointed out - plays an absurdly important part in human affairs, and luck now intervened.

The telephone rang.

It was Burt Iverson, the spiritual chief of Junction City's small legal tribe. He wanted to talk about a really huge insurance deal - the new medical center, comp-group coverage, still in the planning stages but you know how big this could be, Sam - and by the time Sam got back to Naomi, thoughts of Lortz had gone entirely out of his mind. He knew how big it could be, all right; it could land him behind the wheel of that Mercedes-Benz after all. And he really didn't like to think just how much of all this good fortune he might be able to trace back to that stupid little speech, if he really wanted to.

Naomi did think her leg was being pulled; she knew perfectly well who Ardelia Lortz was, and thought Sam must, too. After all, the woman had been at the center of the nastiest piece of business to occur in Junction City in the last twenty years ... maybe since World War II, when the Moggins boy had come home from the Pacific all funny in the head and had killed his whole family before sticking the barrel of his service pistol in his right ear and taking care of himself as well. Ira Moggins had done that before Naomi's time; it did not occur to her that l'affaire Ardelia had occurred long before Sam had come to Junction City.

At any rate, she had dismissed the whole thing from her mind and was trying to decide between Stouffer's lasagna and something from Lean Cuisine for supper by the time Sam put the telephone down. He dictated letters steadily until twelve o'clock, then asked Naomi if she would like to step down to McKenna's with him for a spot of lunch. Naomi declined, saying she had to get back to her mother, who had Failed Greatly over the course of the winter. No more was said about Ardelia Lortz.

That day.