by Stephen King
Wayne Stukey on that long ago beach saying: There's something in you that’s like biting on tinfoil.
Quietly, Lucy said: “You’ll be fine.”
He jumped. “Huh?”
“I said you’ll be fine. Won’t he, Leo?”
“Oh yes,” Leo said, bobbing his head. His eyes never left the audience, as if he was not able to comprehend its size. “Fine.”
You don’t understand, you numb fucking broad, Larry thought. You’re holding my hand and you don’t understand that I could make a bad decision and wind up killing both of you. I’m well on my way to killing Judge Farris and he’s seconding my fucking nomination. What a Polish firedrill this turned out to be. A little sound escaped his throat.
“Did you say something?” Lucy asked.
“No.”
Then Stu was walking across the stage to the podium, his red sweater and bluejeans very bright and clear in the harsh glow of the emergency lights, which were running from a Honda generator that Brad Kitchner and part of his crew from the power station had set up. The applause started somewhere in the middle of the hall, Larry was never sure where, and a cynical part of him was always convinced that it had been a plant arranged by Glen Bateman, their resident expert in the art/craft of crowd management. At any rate, it didn’t really matter. The first solitary spats swelled to a thunder of applause. On the stage, Stu paused by the podium, looking comically amazed. The applause was joined by cheers and shrill whistles.
Then the entire audience rose to its feet, the applause swelling to a sound like heavy rain, and people were shouting “Bravo! Bravo!" Stu held up his hands, but they wouldn’t stop; if anything, the sound redoubled in intensity. Larry glanced sideways at Lucy and saw she was applauding strenuously, her eyes fixed on Stu, her mouth curved in a trembling but triumphant smile. She was crying. On his other side Leo was also applauding, bringing his hands together again and again with so much force that Larry thought they would fall off if Leo kept on much longer. In the extremity of his joy, Leo’s carefully won-back vocabulary had deserted him, the way English will sometimes desert a man or woman who has learned it as his or her second tongue. He could only hoot loudly and enthusiastically.
Brad and Ralph had also run a PA from the generator and now Stu blew into the mike and then spoke: “Ladies and gentlemen—”
But the applause rolled on.
“Ladies and gentlemen, if you’ll take your seats—”
But they were not ready to take their seats. The applause roared on and on, and Larry looked down because his own hands hurt, and he saw that he was applauding as frantically as' the rest.
“Ladies and gentlemen—”
The applause thundered and echoed. Overhead, a family of barnswallows that had taken up residence in this fine and private place after the plague struck now flew about crazily, swooping and diving, mad to get away to someplace where people weren’t.
We’re applauding ourselves, Larry thought. We’re applauding the fact that we’re here, alive, together. Maybe we’re saying hello to the group self again, I don’t know. Hello, Boulder. Finally. Good to be here, great to be alive.
“Ladies and gentlemen, if you’d take your seats, please.”
The applause began to taper off little by little. Now you could hear ladies—and some men, too—sniffling. Noses were honked. Conversations were whispered. There was that rustling auditorium sound of people taking their seats.
“I’m glad you’re all here,” Stu said. “I’m glad to be here myself.” There was a whine of feedback from the PA and Stu muttered, “Goddam thing,” which was clearly picked up and broadcast. There was a ripple of laughter and Stu colored. “Guess we’re all going to have to get used to this stuff again,” he said, and that set off another burst of applause.
When that had run itself out, Stu said: “For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Stuart Redman, originally from Arnette, Texas, although that seems a far way down the road from where I am now, lemme tell you.” He cleared his throat, feedback whine briefly, and he took a wary step back from the mike. “I’m also pretty nervous up here, so bear with me—”
“We will, Stu!” Harry Dunbarton yelled exuberantly, and there was appreciative laughter. It’s like a camp meeting, Larry thought. Next they’ll be singing hymns. If Mother Abagail was here, I bet we would be already.
“Last time I had so many people looking at me was when our little consolidated high school made it to the football playoffs, and then they had twenty-one other guys to look at too, not to mention some girls in those little tiny skirts.”
A hearty burst of laughter.
Lucy whispered in Larry’s ear, “What was he worried about? He’s a natural!”
Larry nodded.
“But if you’ll bear with me, I’ll get through it somehow,” Stu said.
More applause. This crowd would applaud Nixon’s resignation speech and ask him to encore on the piano, Larry thought.
“First off, I should explain about the ad hoc committee and how I happen to be up here at all,” Stu said. “There are seven of us who got together and planned for this meeting so we could get organized somehow. There’s a lot of things to do, and I’d like to introduce each member of our committee to you now, and I hope you saved some applause for them, because they all pitched together to work out the agenda you’ve got in your hands right now. First, Miss Frances Goldsmith. Stand up, Frannie, and let em see what you look like with a dress on.”
Fran stood up. She was wearing a pretty kelly-green dress and a modest string of pearls that might have cost two thousand dollars in the old days. She was roundly applauded, the applause accompanied by some goodnatured wolf whistles.
Fran sat down, blushing furiously, and before the applause could die away entirely, Stu went on: “Mr. Glen Bateman, from Woodsville, New Hampshire.”
Glen stood, and they applauded him. He waved to the crowd and they roared their approval.
Stu introduced Larry second-to-last and he stood up, aware that Lucy was smiling up at him, and then that was lost in the warm comber of applause that washed over him. Once, he thought, in another world, there would have been concerts, and this kind of applause would have been reserved for the show-closer, a little nothing tune called “Baby, Can You Dig Your Man?” This was better. He only stood for a second, but it seemed much longer. He knew he would not decline his nomination.
Stu introduced Nick last, and he got the longest, loudest applause.
When it died away, Stu said: “This wasn’t on the agenda, but I wonder if we could start by singing the National Anthem. I guess you folks remember the words.”
There was that ruffling, shuffling sound of people getting to their feet. Another pause as everyone waited for someone else to start.
Then a girl’s sweet voice rose in the air, solo for only the first three syllables: “Oh, say can—” It was Frannie’s voice, but for a moment it seemed to Larry to be underlaid by another voice, his own, and the place was not Boulder but upstate Vermont and the day was July 4, the Republic was 204 years old, and Rita lay dead in the tent behind him, her mouth filled with green puke and a bottle of pills in her stiffening hand.
A chill of gooseflesh passed over him and suddenly he felt that they were being watched, watched by something that could, in the words of that old song by The Who, see for miles and miles and miles. For just a moment he felt an urge to run from this place, just run and never stop. This was no game they were playing here. This was serious business; killing business. Maybe worse.
Then other voices joined in. “—can you see, by the dawn’s early light,” and Lucy was singing, holding his hand, crying again, and others were crying, most of them were crying, crying for what was lost and bitter, the runaway American dream, chrome-wheeled, fuel-injected, and stepping out over the line, and suddenly his memory was not of Rita, dead in the tent, but of he and his mother at Yankee Stadium—it was September 29, the Yankees were only a game and a half out of first place, and all thi
ngs were still possible, there were 55,000 people in the stadium, all standing, the players in the field with their caps over their hearts, Catfish on the mound, Thurman Munson behind the plate in his gear (“—by the twilight’s last gleaming—”), and the light-standards were on in the purple gloaming, moths and night-fliers banging softly against them, and New York was around them, teeming, city of night and light.
Larry joined the singing too, and when it was done and the applause rolled out once more, he was crying a bit himself. Rita was gone. Alice Underwood was gone. New York was gone. America was gone. Even if they could defeat the dark man, whatever they might make would never be the same.
Sweating freely under the bright emergency lights, Stu called the first items: reading and ratification of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The singing of the anthem had also affected him deeply, and he wasn’t alone. Half the audience, more, was in tears.
No one asked for an actual reading of either document—which would have been their right under the parliamentary process—for which Stu was profoundly grateful. He wasn’t much of a reader. The “reading” section of each item was approved by the Free Zone citizens. Glen Bateman rose and moved that they accept both documents as governing Free Zone law.
A voice in the back said, “Second that!”
“Moved and seconded,” Stu said. “Those in favor say aye.”
“A YE!” to the rooftops. Kojak, who had been sleeping by Glen’s chair, looked up, blinked, and then laid his muzzle on his paws again. A moment later he looked up again as the crowd gave themselves a thunderous round of applause.
That preliminary taken care of, Stu felt tension worm into his muscles. Now, he thought, we’ll see if there are any nasty surprises waiting for us.
“The third item on your agenda reads,” he began, and then he had to clear his throat again. Feedback whined at him, making him sweat even more. Fran was looking calmly up at him, nodding for him to go on. “It reads, ‘To see if the Free Zone will nominate and elect a slate of seven Free Zone representatives.’ That means—”
“Mr. Chairman? Mr. Chairman!”
Stu looked up from his jotted notes and felt a real jolt of fear, accompanied by something like a premonition. It was Harold Lauder. Harold was dressed in a suit and a tie, his hair was neatly combed, and he was standing halfway up the middle aisle. Once Glen had said he thought the opposition might coalesce around Harold. But so soon? He hoped not. For just a moment he thought wildly of not recognizing Harold—but both Nick and Glen had warned him of the dangers inherent in making any part of this look like a railroad job. He wondered if he had been wrong about Harold turning over a new leaf. It looked as if he was going to find out right here.
“Chair recognizes Harold Lauder.”
Heads turned, necks craned to see Harold better.
“I’d like to move that we accept the slate of ad hoc committee members in toto as the Permanent Committee. If they’ll serve, that is.” Harold sat down.
There was a moment of silence. Stu thought crazily: Toto? Toto? Wasn’t that the dog in The Wizard of Oz?
Then the applause swelled out again, filling the room, and dozens of cries of “I second!” rang out. Harold was sitting placidly in his seat again, smiling and talking to the people who were thumping him on the back.
Stu brought his gavel down half a dozen times for order.
He planned this, Stu thought. These people are going to elect us, but it’s Harold they’ll remember. Still, he got to the root of the thing in a way none of us thought of, not even Glen. It was pretty damn near a stroke of genius. So why should he be so upset? Was he jealous, maybe?
“There’s a motion on the floor,” he blared into the mike, ignoring the feedback whine this time. “Motion on the floor, folks!” He pounded the gavel and they quieted to a low babble. “It’s been moved and seconded that we accept the ad hoc committee just as it stands as the Permanent Free Zone Committee. Before we go to a discussion of the motion or a vote, I ought to ask if anyone now serving on the committee has an objection or would like to step down.”
Silence from the floor.
“Very well,” Stu said. “Discussion of the motion?”
“I don’t think we need any, Stu,” Dick Ellis said. “It’s a grand idea. Let’s vote!”
Applause greeted this, and Stu needed no further urging. Charlie Impening was waving his hand to be recognized, but Stu ignored him —a good case of selective perception, Glen Bateman would have said—and called the question.
“Those in favor of Harold Lauder’s motion please signify by saying aye.”
"AYE!!” They bellowed, sending the barnswallows into another frenzy.
“Opposed?”
But no one was, not even Charlie Impening—at least, vocally. There was not a nay in the chamber. So Stu pushed on to the next item of business, feeling slightly dazed, as if someone—namely, Harold Lauder—had crept up behind him and clopped him one on the head with a large sledgehammer made out of Silly Putty.
“Let’s get off and push them awhile, want to?” Fran asked. She sounded tired.
“Sure.” He got off his bike and walked along beside her. “You okay, Fran? The baby bothering?”
“No, I’m just tired. It’s quarter of one in the morning, or hadn’t you noticed?”
‘‘Yeah, it’s late,” Stu agreed, and they pushed their bikes side by side in companionable silence. The meeting had gone on until an hour ago, most of the discussion centering on the search-party for Mother Abagail. The other items had all passed with a minimum of discussion, although Judge Farris had provided a fascinating piece of information that explained why there were so relatively few bodies in Boulder. According to the last four issues of the Camera, Boulder’s daily newspaper, a wild rumor had swept the community, a rumor that the superflu had originated in the Boulder Air Testing facility on Broadway. Spokesmen for the center—the few that were still on their feet—protested that it was utter nonsense, and anyone who doubted it was free to tour the facility, where they would find nothing more dangerous than air pollution indicators and wind-vectoring devices. In spite of this, the rumor persisted, probably fed by the hysterical temper of those terrible days in late June. The Air Testing Center had been either bombed or burned, and much of Boulder’s population had fled.
Both the Burial Committee and the Power Committee had been passed with an amendment from Harold Lauder—who had seemed almost awesomely prepared for the meeting—to the effect that each committee be increased by two for each increase of one hundred in the total Free Zone population.
The discussion of Mother Abagail’s disappearance had covered far-reaching and sometimes comical ground. One man stated ominously that he had seen lights in the sky the night before Mother Abagail’s disappearance and that the Prophet Isaiah had confirmed the existence of flying saucers ... so they’d better put that in their collective pipe and smoke it, hadn’t they? Judge Farris rose in turn to point out that the previous gentleman had mistaken Isaiah for Ezekiel, that the exact reference was not to flying saucers but to “a wheel within a wheel,” and that the Judge himself was of the opinion that the only flying saucers yet proven were those that sometimes flew during marital spats.
Person after person rose to protest the charge that Mother Abagail had laid upon herself, that of pride. They spoke of her courtesy and her ability to put a person at ease with just a word or a sentence. Ralph Brentner, who looked awed by the size of the crowd and was nearly tongue-tied—but determined to speak his piece—rose and spoke in that vein for nearly five minutes, adding at the end that he had not known a finer woman since his mother had died. When he sat down, he seemed very near tears. When taken together, the discussion reminded Stu uncomfortably of what you hear about the dead when there’s a “viewing” at the mortuary the night before the dear departed is lowered into the ground. It told him that in their hearts, they had already come halfway to giving her up. If she did return now, Abby Freemantle would find herself we
lcomed, still sought after, still listened to . . . but she would also find, Stu thought, that her position was subtly changed. If a showdown between her and the Free Zone Committee came, it was no longer a foregone conclusion that she would win, veto power or not. She had gone away and the community had continued to exist. The community would not forget that, as they had already half-forgotten the power of the dreams that had brought them together.
After the meeting, more than two dozen people had sat for a while on the lawn behind Chautauqua Hall; the rain had stopped, the clouds were tattering, and the evening was pleasantly cool. Stu and Frannie had sat with Larry, Lucy, Leo, and Harold.
“You dam near knocked us out of the ballpark this evening,” Larry told Harold. He nudged Frannie with an elbow. “I told you he was acehigh, didn’t I?”
Harold had merely smiled and shrugged. “A couple of ideas, that’s all. You seven have started things moving again. You should at least have the privilege of seeing it through to the end of the beginning.” Now, fifteen minutes after the two of them had left that impromptu gathering, Stu repeated: “You sure you’re feeling okay?” “Yes. My legs are a little tired, that’s all.”
“You want to take it easy.”
She smiled wanly and nodded.
“Something giving you the blues, honey?”
She shook her head no, but he thought he saw tears in her eyes. “What is it? Tell me.”
“It’s over, and I finally realized it, that’s all. Less than six hundred people singing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner.’ It just kind of hit me all at once. The Ferris wheel isn’t going around and around at Coney Island tonight. No one’s having a nightcap at the Space Needle in Seattle. Know what I mean?”