Four Past Midnight

by Stephen King

  "Two dollars, please."

  He gave her two singles. She went over to a small desk where an aged, skeletal typewriter stood, and typed briefly on a bright-orange card. She brought it back to the checkout desk, signed her name at the bottom with a flourish, and then pushed it across to him.

  "Check and make sure all the information's correct, please."

  Sam did so. "It's all fine." Her first name, he noted, was Ardelia. A pretty name, and rather unusual.

  She took his new library card back--the first one he'd owned since college, now that he thought about it, and he had used that one precious little--and placed it under the microfilm recorder beside a card she took from the pocket of each book. "You can only keep these out for a week, because they're from Special Reference. That's a category I invented myself for books which are in great demand."

  "Helps for the beginning speaker are in great demand?"

  "Those, and books on things like plumbing repair, simple magic tricks, social etiquette ... You'd be surprised what books people call for in a pinch. But I know."

  "I'll bet you do."

  "I've been in the business a long, long time, Sam. And they're not renewable, so be sure to get them back by April sixth." She raised her head, and the light caught in her eyes. Sam almost dismissed what he saw there as a twinkle ... but that wasn't what it was. It was a shine. A flat, hard shine. For just a moment Ardelia Lortz looked as if she had a nickel in each eye.

  "Or?" he asked, and his smile suddenly didn't feel like a smite--it felt like a mask.

  "Or else I'll have to send the Library Policeman after you," she said.

  4

  For a moment their gazes locked, and Sam thought he saw the real Ardelia Lortz, and there was nothing charming or soft or spinster-librarian about that woman at all.

  This woman might actually be dangerous, he thought, and then dismissed it, a little embarrassed. The gloomy day--and perhaps the pressure of the impending speech--was getting to him. She's about as dangerous as a canned peach ... and it isn't the gloomy day or the Rotarians tonight, either. It's those goddam posters.

  He had The Speaker's Companion and Best Loved Poems of the American People under his arm and they were almost to the door before he realized she was showing him out. He planted his feet firmly and stopped. She looked at him, surprised.

  "Can I ask you something, Ms. Lortz?"

  "Of course, Sam. That's what I'm here for--to answer questions."

  "It's about the Children's Library," he said, "and the posters. Some of them surprised me. Shocked me, almost." He expected that to come out sounding like something a Baptist preacher might say about an issue of Playboy glimpsed beneath the other magazines on a parishioner's coffee table, but it didn't come out that way at all. Because, he thought, it's not just a conventional sentiment. I really was shocked. No almost about it.

  "Posters?" she asked, frowning, and then her brow cleared. She laughed. "Oh! You must mean the Library Policeman ... and Simple Simon, of course."

  "Simple Simon?"

  "You know the poster that says NEVER TAKE RIDES FROM STRANGERS? That's what the kids call the little boy in the picture. The one who is yelling. They call him Simple Simon--I suppose they feel contempt for him because he did such a foolish thing. I think that's very healthy, don't you?"

  "He's not yelling," Sam said slowly. "He's screaming.".

  She shrugged. "Yelling, screaming, what's the difference? We don't hear much of either in here. The children are very good--very respectful."

  "I'll bet," Sam said. They were back in the foyer again now, and he glanced at the sign on the easel, the sign which didn't say SILENCE IS GOLDEN

  or PLEASE TRY TO BE QUIET

  but just offered that one inarguable imperative: SILENCE!

  "Besides--it's all a matter of interpretation, isn't it?"

  "I suppose," Sam said. He felt that he was being maneuvered--and very efficiently--into a place where he would not have a moral leg to stand on, and the field of dialectic would belong to Ardelia Lortz. She gave him the impression that she was used to doing this, and that made him feel stubborn. "But they struck me as extreme, those posters."

  "Did they?" she asked politely. They had halted by the outer door now.

  "Yes. Scary." He gathered himself and said what he really believed. "Not appropriate to a place where small children gather."

  He found he still did not sound prissy or self-righteous, at least to himself, and this was a relief.

  She was smiling, and the smile irritated him. "You're not the first person who ever expressed that opinion, Sam. Childless adults aren't frequent visitors to the Children's Library, but they do come in from time to time--uncles, aunts, some single mother's boyfriend who got stuck with pick-up duty ... or people like you, Sam, who are looking for me."

  People in a pinch, her cool blue-gray eyes said. People who come for help and then, once they HAVE been helped, stay to criticize the way we run things here at the Junction City Public Library. The way I run things at the Junction City Public Library.

  "I guess you think I was wrong to put my two cents in," Sam said good-naturedly. He didn't feel good-natured, all of a sudden he didn't feel good-natured at all, but it was another trick of the trade, one he now wrapped around himself like a protective cloak.

  "Not at all. It's just that you don't understand. We had a poll last summer, Sam--it was part of the annual Summer Reading Program. We call our program Junction City's Summer Sizzlers, and each child gets one vote for every book he or she reads. It's one of the strategies we've developed over the years to encourage children to read. That is one of our most important responsibilities, you see."

  We know what we're doing, her steady gaze told him. And I'm being very polite, aren't I? Considering that you, who have never been here in your life before, have presumed to poke your head in once and start shotgunning criticisms.

  Sam began to feel very much in the wrong. That dialectical battlefield did not belong to the Lortz woman yet--at least not entirely--but he recognized the fact that he was in retreat.

  "According to the poll, last summer's favorite movie among the children was A Nightmare on Elm Street, Part 5. Their favorite rock group is called Guns n' Roses--the runner-up was something named Ozzy Osbourne, who, I understand, has a reputation for biting the heads off live animals during his concerts. Their favorite novel was a paperback original called Swan Song. It's a horror novel by a man named Robert McCammon. We can't keep it in stock, Sam. They read each new copy to rags in weeks. I had a copy put in Vinabind, but of course it was stolen. By one of the bad children."

  Her lips pursed in a thin line.

  "Runner-up was a horror novel about incest and infanticide called Flowers in the Attic. That one was the champ for five years running. Several of them even mentioned Peyton Place!"

  She looked at him sternly.

  "I myself have never seen any of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies. I have never heard an Ozzy Osbourne record and have no desire to do so, nor to read a novel by Robert McCammon, Stephen King, or V. C. Andrews. Do you see what I'm getting at, Sam?"

  "I suppose. You're saying it wouldn't be fair to ..." He needed a word, groped for it, and found it. "... to usurp the children's tastes."

  She smiled radiantly--everything but the eyes, which seemed to have nickels in them again.

  "That's part of it, but that's not all of it. The posters in the Children's Library--both the nice, uncontroversial ones and the ones which put you off--came to us from the Iowa Library Association. The ILA is a member of the Midwest Library Association, and that is, in turn, a member of The National Library Association, which gets the majority of its funding from tax money. From John Q. Public--which is to say from me. And you."

  Sam shifted from one foot to the other. He didn't want to spend the afternoon listening to a lecture on How Your Library Works for You, but hadn't he invited it? He supposed so. The only thing he was absolutely sure of was that he was liking Ardelia Lo
rtz less and less all the time.

  "The Iowa Library Association sends us a sheet every other month, with reproductions of about forty posters," Ms. Lortz continued relentlessly. "We can pick any five free; extras cost three dollars each. I see you're getting restless, Sam, but you do deserve an explanation, and we are finally reaching the nub of the matter."

  "Me? I'm not restless," Sam said restlessly.

  She smiled at him, revealing teeth too even to be anything but dentures. "We have a Children's Library Committee," she said. "Who is on it? Why, children, of course! Nine of them. Four high-school students, three middle-school students, and two grammar-school students. Each child has to have an overall B average in his schoolwork to qualify. They pick some of the new books we order, they picked the new drapes and tables when we redecorated last fall ... and, of course, they pick the posters. That is, as one of our younger Committeemen once put it, 'the funnest part.' Now do you understand?"

  "Yes," Sam said. "The kids picked out Little Red Riding Hood, and Simple Simon, and the Library Policeman. They like them because they're scary."

  "Correct!" she beamed.

  Suddenly he'd had enough. It was something about the Library. Not the posters, not the librarian, exactly, but the Library itself. Suddenly the Library was like an aggravating, infuriating splinter jammed deep in one buttock. Whatever it was, it was ... enough.

  "Ms. Lortz, do you keep a videotape of A Nightmare on Elm Street, Part 5, in the Children's Library? Or a selection of albums by Guns n' Roses and Ozzy Osbourne?"

  "Sam, you miss the point," she began patiently.

  "What about Peyton Place? Do you keep a copy of that in the Children's Library just because some of the kids have read it?"

  Even as he was speaking, he thought, Does ANYBODY still read that old thing?

  "No," she said, and he saw that an ill-tempered flush was rising in her cheeks. This was not a woman who was used to having her judgments called into question. "But we do keep stories about housebreaking, parental abuse, and burglary. I am speaking, of course, of 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears,' 'Hansel and Gretel,' and 'Jack and the Beanstalk.' I expected a man such as yourself to be a little more understanding, Sam."

  A man you helped out in a pinch is what you mean, Sam thought, but what the hell, lady--isn't that what the town pays you to do?

  Then he got hold of himself. He didn't know exactly what she meant by "a man such as himself," wasn't sure he wanted to know, but he did understand that this discussion was on the edge of getting out of hand--of becoming an argument. He had come in here to find a little tenderizer to sprinkle over his speech, not to get in a hassle about the Children's Library with the head librarian.

  "I apologize if I've said anything to offend you," he said, "and I really ought to be going."

  "Yes," she said. "I think you ought." Your apology is not accepted, her eyes telegraphed. It is not accepted at all.

  "I suppose," he said, "that I'm a little nervous about my speaking debut. And I was up late last night working on this." He smiled his old good-natured Sam Peebles smile and hoisted the briefcase.

  She stood down--a little--but her eyes were still snapping. "That's understandable. We are here to serve, and, of course, we're always interested in constructive criticism from the taxpayers." She accented the word constructive ever so slightly, to let him know, he supposed, that his had been anything but.

  Now that it was over, he had an urge--almost a need--to make it all over, to smooth it down like the coverlet on a well-made bed. And this was also part of the businessman's habit, he supposed ... or the businessman's protective coloration. An odd thought occurred to him--that what he should really talk about tonight was his encounter with Ardelia Lortz. It said more about the small-town heart and spirit than his whole written speech. Not all of it was flattering, but it surely wasn't dry. And it would offer a sound rarely heard during Friday-night Rotary speeches: the unmistakable ring of truth.

  "Well, we got a little feisty there for a second or two," he heard himself saying, and saw his hand go out. "I expect I overstepped my bounds. I hope there are no hard feelings."

  She touched his hand. It was a brief, token touch. Cool, smooth flesh. Unpleasant, somehow. Like shaking hands with an umbrella stand. "None at all," she said, but her eyes continued to tell a different story.

  "Well then ... I'll be getting along."

  "Yes. Remember--one week on those, Sam." She lifted a finger. Pointed a well-manicured nail at the books he was holding. And smiled. Sam found something extremely disturbing about that smile, but he could not for the life of him have said exactly what it was. "I wouldn't want to have to send the Library Cop after you."

  "No," Sam agreed. "I wouldn't want that, either."

  "That's right," said Ardelia Lortz, still smiling. "You wouldn't."

  5

  Halfway down the walk, the face of that screaming child (Simple Simon, the kids call him Simple Simon I think that's very healthy, don't you)

  recurred to him, and with it came a thought--one simple enough and practical enough to stop him in his tracks. It was this: given a chance to pick such a poster, a jury of kids might very well do so ... but would any Library Association, whether from Iowa, the Midwest, or the country as a whole, actually send one out?

  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 THREE

  SAM'S SPEECH

  1

  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 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 big-city 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 alway."

  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.