Steinbeck’s Ghost (8 page)

Between the vans and the building, the sidewalk was filled with people milling about and talking in small clusters. In the dusky blue evening, the crowd looked to Travis like a school of sardines, hundreds of individuals moving as one.

Spots of intense white light punctuated the little plaza, where reporters interviewed citizens.

Hubbub, Travis thought. It’s a hubbub, a brouhaha. He loved these words; they sounded like what they were.

He spotted the Save Our Library banner and pulled his parents toward it. Miss Babb, Hil and his parents, Jack, and all the others were there.

Miss Babb, of course, had a plan. She’d applied for a slot on the agenda for the Save Our Library committee. Three of its members would be allowed to speak for two minutes each. There were so many people who wanted to speak to night, the time limit was absolute.

“I just found this out now,” Miss Babb said. Everyone huddled around her and her clipboard as if this were the big game and there was only time to draw up one last trick play. “As committee chair, I’ve made an executive decision. I’m hoping that the following members will speak on our behalf. I’m just another whiny librarian, so I’m leaving myself out. I want
readers
to speak. Jack, will you briefly describe the committee, what we’ve done, how much money? Constancia, will you speak about the literacy program and career counseling?”

Miss Babb looked up from her notes. She looked at Travis.

If this were a book, Travis thought, he would have said, “Gulp.”

“And Travis, I’d like you to talk about the library’s books and how they make you feel connected. What you said at the first meeting. But be brief, okay?”

Gulp.

Miss Babb looked around the huddle.

“Any objections?” No one spoke. “Any seconds?”

“Second,” Hil yelled.

“The motion is carried. Excellent, everyone.”

Travis expected silence then, but another sound reached him, low at first, moving up through his legs and into his chest. He felt it before he heard it. It grew louder with every pulse, moving in from around him, closing in on him.

“Save our library, save our library, save our library …” The chant grew louder and louder, and soon took over the plaza. The reporters stopped yakking to watch.

“Save our library …”

It was a sound—not the words or their meanings, but the volume and breath of it—that Travis had never heard before. This wasn’t the sound of a hundred people chanting. This was the sound of a strange animal’s roar. Everyone here was one small part of a bigger creature, and that creature was growling and singing at the same time.

“Save our library …”

Travis was chanting, too, they were all chanting. The sound came from inside him, and from outside him, and it flowed through him.

Everyone smiled while they chanted.

A few sharp, staticky words from portable loudspeakers outside the chamber doors shattered the chant. The chant drifted off in waves, like the tide going out.

“ … in an orderly fashion, please. Slowly, please. The first two rows are reserved for to night’s speakers. Orderly, please, don’t push, please …” And slowly, because there was no other way to fit this many people into the squat, round building, they all squeezed in.

On the far side of the chamber, nine men and women sat behind a curved table, each with a glass of water and a microphone in front of them. They talked in whispers to one another, occasionally waving to someone in the audience. Travis half expected the council members—a silly thought, he knew—to be dressed like British judges, in black robes and powdered wigs. But these were just people. Citizens of Salinas, like everyone else.

The room was filled to overflowing, and the fire marshall, the only one there in uniform, escorted handfuls of people away from the crowded exits. He assured them that they’d be able to hear from outside; loudspeakers had been set up. News camera lights heated the chamber, but the open doors allowed a breeze.

Travis shut his eyes and listened to the babble of voices. There was no meaning in any of the words, just sound bouncing off the walls. Argle- bargle.

It required much pounding of the mayor’s gavel to quiet the assembly.

Travis had forgotten to be nervous until everyone was quiet and the meeting started. He made up, rather quickly, for his forgotten nerves. What on earth was he going to say?

He turned from his front row seat to the back of the room. His parents and Miss Babb and Hil all waved at the same moment, and when Travis saw them his breath caught. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, so he just went ahead and laughed.

The Save Our Library committee was second on the agenda, after three speakers from the library’s administration, each of whom received substantial applause.

Jack followed, describing the Save Our Library committee. When he announced how much they’d raised so far, over ten thousand dollars, and how they raised it, there was an immense crash of clapping and whooping and shouting.

After Hil’s mom spoke, several people in the audience were wiping tears from their eyes.

Travis stood before the microphone. He feared he would never utter another word as long as he lived. But then …

“I once,” he said slowly, “got a book from the library that had green marker all over the pages, and I loved that.”

And he talked, talked about the green marker and thinking about who had scribbled in the book and who else had read it before he had. He talked about feeling connected.

Or at least he thought he talked about those things. He didn’t really hear himself speaking. For a long time after the meeting he tried and tried to remember what he had said, but couldn’t. He couldn’t remember the faces of the city council members, couldn’t see or hear the crowd around him. All a big blank.

His turn at the microphone must have gone okay, though, because people were applauding—he heard Hil whistle through his fingers—and he was sitting down and felt instantly relaxed. and exhausted.

The parade of speakers continued for an hour and a half. Everyone was in favor of saving the library, of course. Travis realized you’d have to be an idiot to show up tonight and say, “Gee, I think they should close the library, libraries are stupid.”

The cheering only got louder as the night moved on.

There was a brief recess. The council, the mayor said, would convene, then return with their decision on the matter before them. “The matter before them” was whether or not the city council would call for an election on a sales-tax increase in support of the library.

The chamber was hot and stuffy, airless; the evening breeze that trickled into the room only proved how hot and stuffy the chamber was. But no one left during the recess, and Travis understood why. He felt that he, too, had to stay, wanted to stay, because if he left, something bad might happen, some trick might get pulled. No, he was in it for as long as it took.

Miss Babb wriggled her way to Travis and Jack and Constancia, thanked them all. She grabbed Travis by both shoulders.

“You,” she said. “You were great. You know why I picked you. Because you
get
it. You
know
how important this is.”

The intense chatter of the room stopped when the city council filed into the chamber. The silence in the chamber, Travis saw on their faces, terrified them. They looked like white mice dropped into a box of snakes.

The mayor, Kara Schleunes, was a tall, elegant woman, about Miss Babb’s age—Travis could only guess this, he still couldn’t tell with adults. She wore a prim gray business suit, a flowing emerald scarf, and she seemed to be holding her face perfectly still, determined not to give away any emotion.

“Thank you, everyone,” the mayor was saying into her microphone. “Please be seated. Please take your seats.”

No one sat down.

“Very well,” she said. “Before the council records the votes, I’d like to say a few things. It’s a privilege to have so many of you here to night, and to know that so many of
us
”—she hit that word hard, paused, looked about—“care so deeply about our library. I only wish we lived in a different world.”

If this were a book, Travis thought, he would have to write that his heart sank.

The voting proceeded from left to right.

The first vote was cast by council member Hidalgo.

“Council member Hidalgo votes a resounding yes,” she said, loud and proud, with no hesitation.

The chamber erupted with yelling, whistles, hooting, stamping. The mayor’s gavel restored order.

Before his vote, council member Tristes spoke briefly.

“In light of the city’s fiscal crisis, and given that a similar measure was declined by the voters last March, a second election seems unlikely to succeed. Given that such an election would cost the city even more money it does not have, I must regretfully vote no.”

Travis had never heard booing like this before. The gavel pounded and pounded against the booing.

The voting continued, more quickly now.

No, yes, no, yes, no, no. Mayor Schleunes was the last to vote, and she voted no, as Travis expected she would, but she seemed to say no with a good deal of regret in her voice.

The vote was official, six to three against the library.

The booing was loud, but the gavel was louder.

“Pursuant to the council’s recommendations”—the mayor stayed seated, but did look at the crowd—“it is with great sorrow that our final decision has been made. The library will close March first of next year. Thank you for your time, ladies and gentlemen. This meeting is adjourned.”

The booing and hissing rose like a wave and crashed against the walls of the chamber. Travis sat stunned within the great noise, stunned and emptied, everything sucked out of him, unable to move or think at all. The noise rose and rose, overflowing the room, overwhelming the last shreds of silence. Travis thought the noise was so loud it might drown him and everyone else in the chamber.

The fire marshall appeared in front of the city council’s table, flanked on either side by two policemen. He carried a bullhorn that squeaked and popped when he turned it on.

“By order of the fire marshall,” the bullhorn squawked, “I order this crowd to disperse. Please, exit the building at once, in an orderly fashion.”

He kept repeating these words, and he and the policemen moved forward into the crowd, herding them into the cool night.

Travis allowed himself to be pushed away from Jack and Constancia, pushed away from where he’d seen Miss Babb and Hil and his parents get pushed to. He didn’t know where he wanted to go, but he knew he wanted to be alone. If he was alone he might be able to do what he really wanted to do, which was get down on his knees and pound really hard against the sidewalk. He wanted to break something. All he could do was pound on his leg with his fist.

The booing stopped, but the talk could not be stopped. He would be okay, Travis knew that, he just needed a little time to himself, to gather himself. He drifted toward one of the news vans in the street.

“Why so glum, chum?”

Miss Babb was standing right behind him. Travis turned; he knew his face showed nothing but confusion.

“We lost,” he said.

And he pounded on his leg again with his fist, as hard as he could, and looked away from Miss Babb. He thought for a second he might cry he was so frustrated, so he took a big gulp of air. When he finally looked back at Miss Babb, he found she was smiling.

“But we lost,” he said, his hands shaking in front of him.

“Who says?”

“They did. They voted,” he said.

Didn’t she get it?

“Okay,” she said. “
They
say we lost. But this is just the beginning. We’re probably going to lose a whole bunch more before it’s over. But we will win. The only way we can lose is if we stop trying. That’s how you lose. Look, we’re all ready to go. More mailings, more publicity, all set up. More meetings, more walking our feet off . And the reading, too. We’ve got a plan, Stan, ain’t no time for mopin’. ”

Miss Babb turned and looked over the crowd.

It seemed to Travis that the crowd was listening to her. The first despair seemed to have left the people- thronged plaza. The voice of the crowd—all those voices making the one voice of the crowd- creature—had changed. It was no longer hushed and low, the crowd voice, it was high and sharp. It was alive again.

“Besides,” Miss Babb said. “How can you say we lost? Look at all these people. Did you see the city council? They were scared. I’m sorry to disappoint you. I know it would be easier to accept a loss and go home. But we didn’t lose.”

“You’re right,” he said. And she was. He knew it.

“Good, we’ve got a lot of work to do. We’ve got a reading to put together. And you’ve still got to find Ernest. Oster, I mean. You know he can help us.”

They walked into the crowd. Travis could see Hil entertaining the committee members. What ever he was telling them, they were laughing.

“You know what’s wrong with city government? ” Miss Babb said. “No cookies. .I mean., jeez.”