Steinbeck’s Ghost by Lewis Buzbee Page B

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