Four Past Midnight (90 page)

“I won't,” Naomi said as she got out with the top of the bag wrapped tightly in one hand. “Believe me, I won't.”

Twenty minutes after they took off from Des Moines, Naomi tore herself away from the view—she had been tracing Route 79 and marvelling at the toy cars bustling back and forth along it—and turned to Sam. What she saw frightened her. He had fallen asleep with his head resting against one of the windows, but there was no peace on his face; he looked like a man suffering some deep and private pain.

Tears trickled slowly from beneath his closed lids and ran down his face.

She leaned forward to shake him awake and heard him say in a trembling little-boy's voice: “Am I in trouble, sir?”

The Navajo arrowed its way into the clouds now massing over western Iowa and began to buck, but Naomi barely noticed. Her hand paused just above Sam's shoulder for a moment, then withdrew.

Whoever it was,
Naomi thought,
he's found him again, I think. I think he's with him now. I'm sorry, Sam ... but I can't wake you. Not now. Right now I think you're where you're supposed to be ... where you have to be. I'm sorry, but dream on. And remember what you dreamed when you wake up. Remember.

In his dream, Sam Peebles watched as Little Red Riding Hood set off from a gingerbread house with a covered basket over one arm; she was bound for Gramma's house, where the wolf was waiting to eat her from the feet up. It would finish by scalping her and then eating her brains out of her skull with a long wooden spoon.

Except none of that was right, because Little Red Riding Hood was a boy in this dream and the gingerbread house was the two-story duplex in St. Louis where he had lived with his mother after Dad died and there was no food in the covered basket. There was a book in the basket,
The Black Arrow
by Robert Louis Stevenson, and he
had
read it, every word, and he was not bound for Gramma's house but for the Briggs Avenue Branch of the St. Louis Public Library, and he had to hurry because his book was already four days overdue.

This was a watching dream.

He watched as Little White Walking Sam waited at the corner of Dunbar Street and Johnstown Avenue for the light to change. He watched as he scampered across the street with the book in his hand ... the basket was gone now. He watched as Little White Walking Sam went into the Dunbar Street News and then he was inside, too, smelling the old mingled smells of camphor, candy, and pipe tobacco, watching as Little White Walking Sam approached the counter with a nickel package of Bull's Eye red licorice—his favorite. He watched as the little boy carefully removed the dollar bill his mother had tucked into the card-pocket in the back of
The Black Arrow.
He watched as the clerk took the dollar and returned ninety-five cents ... more than enough to pay the fine. He watched as Little White Walking Sam left the store and paused on the street outside long enough to put the change in his pocket and tear open the package of licorice with his teeth. He watched as Little White Walking Sam went on his way—only three blocks to the Library now—munching the long red whips of candy as he went.

He tried to scream at the boy.

But the boy walked on, eating his red licorice; now he was on Briggs Avenue and the Library, a great pile of red brick, loomed ahead.

At this point Sam—Big White Plane-Riding Sam—tried to pull himself out of the dream. He sensed that Naomi and Stan Soames and
the world of real things
were just outside this hellish egg of nightmare in which he found himself. He could hear the drone of the Navajo's engine behind the sounds of the dream: the traffic on Briggs Avenue, the brisk
brrrinnng!-brrrinnng!
of some kid's bike-bell, the birds squabbling in the rich leaves of the midsummer elms. He closed his dreaming eyes and
yearned
toward that world outside the shell, the world of real things. And more: he sensed he could reach it, that he could hammer through the shell—

No,
Dave said.
No, Sam, don't do that. You mustn't do that. If you want to save Sarah from Ardelia, forget about breaking out of this dream. There's only one coincidence in this business, but it's a killer: once you had a Library Policeman, too. And you have to get that memory back.

He opened his eyes—not his outer eyes but the inside ones; the dreaming eyes.

Now Little White Walking Sam is on the concrete path which approaches the east side of the Public Library, the concrete path which leads to the Children's Wing. He moves in a kind of portentous slow motion, each step the soft swish of a pendulum in the glass throat of a grandfather clock, and everything is clear: the tiny sparks of mica and quartz gleaming in the concrete walk; the cheerful roses which border the concrete walk; the thick drift of green bushes along the side of the building; the climbing ivy on the red brick wall; the strange and somehow frightening Latin motto,
Fuimus, non sumus,
carved in a brief semicircle over the green doors with their thick panes of wire-reinforced glass.

And the Library Policeman standing by the steps is clear, too.

He is not pale. He is flushed. There are pimples on his forehead, red and flaring. He is not tall but of medium height with extremely broad shoulders. He is wearing not a trenchcoat but an overcoat, and that's very odd because this is a summer day, a hot St. Louis summer day. His eyes might be silver; Little White Walking Sam cannot see what color they are, because the Library Policeman is wearing little round black glasses—blind man's glasses.

But Little White Walking Sam doesn't hear. Little White Walking Sam isn't afraid. It is, after all, bright daylight, and the city is full of strange—and sometimes amusing—people. He has lived all his life in St. Louis, and he's not afraid of it. That is about to change.

He approaches the man, and as he draws closer he notices the scar: a tiny white thread which starts high on the left cheek, dips beneath the left eye, and peters out on the bridge of the nose.

Hello there, son, the man in the round black glasses says.

Hello,
says Little White Walking Sam.

Do you mind telling me thomething about the book you have before you go inthide?
the man asks. His voice is soft and polite, not a bit threatening. A faint lisp clips lightly along the top of his speech, turning some of his s-sounds into diphthongs.
I work for the Library, you thee.

It's called
The Black Arrow, Little White Walking Sam says politely,
and it's by Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson. He's dead. He died of toober-clue-rosis. It was very good. There were some great battles.

The boy waits for the man in the little round black glasses to step aside and let him go in, but the man in the little round black glasses does not stand aside. The man only bends down to look at him more closely. Grandpa, what little round black eyes you have.

One other quethion,
the man says.
Is your book overdue?

Now Little White Walking Sam is more afraid.

The man in the black glasses and the overcoat extends a hand. For a moment Sam almost runs. But he is a kid; this man is an adult. This man works for the Library. This man is a policeman. Suddenly this man—this scary man with his scar and his round black glasses—is all Authority. One cannot run from Authority; it is everywhere.

Sam timidly approaches the man. He begins to lift his hand—the one holding the package of red licorice, which is now almost empty—and then tries to pull it back at the last second. He is too late. The man seizes it. The package of Bull's Eye licorice falls to the walk. Little White Walking Sam will never eat red licorice again.

The man pulls Sam toward him, reels him in the way a fisherman would reel in a trout. The hand clamped over Sam's is very strong. It hurts. Sam begins to cry. The sun is still out, the grass is still green, but suddenly the whole world seems distant, no more than a cruel mirage in which he was for a little while allowed to believe.

He can smell Sen-Sen on the man's breath.
Am I in trouble, sir?
he asks, hoping with every fiber of his being that the man will say no.

Yes, the man says.
Yes, you are. In a Lot of trouble. And if you want to get out of trouble, son, you have to do ecthactly as I thay. Do you underthand?

Sam cannot reply. He has never been so afraid. He can only look up at the man with wide, streaming eyes.

The man shakes him.
Do you underthand or not?

Ye
—
yes!
Sam gasps. He feels an almost irresistible heaviness in his bladder.

Let me tell you exthactly who I am,
the man says, breathing little puffs of Sen-Sen into Sam's face.
I am the Briggth Avenue Library Cop, and I am in charge of punishing boyth and girlth who bring their books back late.

Little White Walking Sam begins to cry harder.
I've got the money!
he manages through his sobs.
I've got ninety-five cents! You can have it! You can have it all!

He tries to pull the change out of his pocket. At the same moment the Library Cop looks around and his broad face suddenly seems sharp, suddenly the face of a fox or wolf who has successfully broken into the chicken house but now smells danger.

Come on
, he says, and jerks Little White Walking Sam off the path and into the thick bushes which grow along the side of the library.
When the poleethman tellth you to come, you COME!
It is dark in here; dark and mysterious. The air smells of pungent juniper berries. The ground is dark with mulch. Sam is crying very loudly now.

Thut up!
the Library Policeman grunts, and gives Sam a hard shake. The bones in Sam's hand grind together painfully. His head wobbles on his neck. They have reached a little clearing in the jungle of bushes now, a cove where the junipers have been smashed flat and the ferns broken off, and Sam understands that this is more than a place the Library Cop knows; it is a place he has
made
.

No!
Sam weeps.
I'll pay the fine! I'll pay it, mister, but please don't hurt me!

The Library Policeman spins Little White Walking Sam around.

Still sobbing, but terrified that his mother may find out he has done something bad enough to merit this sort of treatment, Little White Walking Sam does as the Library Cop tells him. The red bricks are cool, cool in the shade of the bushes which lie against this side of the building in a tangled, untidy heap. He sees a narrow window at ground level. It looks down into the Library's boiler room. Bare bulbs shaded with rounds of tin like Chinese coolie hats hang over the giant boiler; the duct-pipes throw weird octopus-tangles of shadow. He sees a janitor standing at the far wall, his back to the window, reading dials and making notes on a clipboard.

The Library Cop seizes Sam's pants and pulls them down. His underpants come with them. He jerks as the cool air strikes his bum.

Thdeady
, the Library Policeman pants.
Don't move
.
Once you pay the fine, son, it's over
...
and no one needth to know.

Something heavy and hot presses itself against his bottom. Little White Walking Sam jerks again.

Thdeady
, the Library Policeman says. He is panting harder now; Sam feels hot blurts of breath on his left shoulder and smells Sen-Sen. He is lost in terror now, but terror isn't all that he feels: there is shame, as well. He has been dragged into the shadows, is being forced to submit to this grotesque, unknown punishment, because he has been late returning
The Black Arrow.
If he had only known that fines could run this high—!

The heavy thing jabs into his bottom, thrusting his buttocks apart. A horrible, tearing pain laces upward from Little White Walking Sam's vitals. There has never been pain like this, never in the world.

He drops
The Black Arrow
and shoves his wrist sideways into his mouth, gagging his own cries.

Thdeady
, the Library Wolf pants, and now his hands descend on Sam's shoulders and he is rocking back and forth, in and out, back and forth, in and out.
Thdeady
...
thdeaady
...
oooh! Thdeeeaaaaaaddyyyyy
—

Gasping and rocking, the Library Cop pounds what feels like a huge hot bar of steel in and out of Sam's bum; Sam stares with wide eyes into the Library basement, which is in another universe, an
orderly
universe where gruesome things like this don't ever happen. He watches the janitor nod, tuck his clipboard under his arm, and walk toward the door at the far end of the room. If the janitor turned his head just a little and raised his eyes slightly, he would see a face peering in the window at him, the pallid, wide-eyed face of a little boy with red licorice on his lips. Part of Sam wants the janitor to do just that—to rescue him the way the woodcutter rescued Little Red Riding Hood—but most of him knows the janitor would only turn away, disgusted, at the sight of another bad little boy submitting to his just punishment at the hands of the Briggs Avenue Library Cop.