Four Past Midnight - Stephen King [221]
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