| The Bridge 5 |
| 1 | FIVE I crossed the street, got directions from the drugstore to a place where I might find what I needed; followed can't-miss-its and Lake Roberts Road under Spanish-moss branches to the Gladys Hutchinson Memorial Library. Anything we need to know, we can learn it from a book. Reading, careful study, a little practice, and we're throwing knives expertly, overhauling engines, speaking Esperanto like natives. |
| 2 | Touch all the books of Nevil Shute, they're encoded holograms of a decent man: Trustee from the Toolroom, The Rainbow and the Rose. The writer printed the person he is on every page of his books, and we can read him into our own lives, if we want, in the privacy of libraries. The cool hush of the big room, books for walls, I could feel it trembling for the chance to teach me. I couldn't wait, now, to plunge into a copy of So You've Got A Million Dollars! Strangely enough, the title wasn't listed. |
| 3 | I looked in the card catalog under So, under Million. Nothing. In case it was What To Do When You Suddenly Become Rich, I checked What, Rich and Sudden, I tried a different reference. Your problem isn't that the volume you want is not in this library, said Books in Print, it's that it hasn't been printed. Not possible, I thought. If I've fallen rich, so have a lot of other people, and one of them must have written the book. |
| 4 | Not stocks and bonds and banks, those weren't what I needed to know, but what this is supposed to feel like, what opportunities beckoned, what little disasters growled near my ankles, what big ones like vultures might be diving for me this moment. Somebody show me what to do, please. No answer from the card catalog. "Excuse me, ma'am ..." I said. "Sir?" I smiled, asking her help. Not since fourth grade had I seen a date-stamper clamped to a wooden pencil, and here's one hi her hand this minute, today's date. |
| 5 | "I need a book on how to be a rich person. Not how to earn money. Something on what a person is supposed to do when they get a lot of money. Can you suggest. . . ?" Clearly she was used to strange requests. Perhaps the request wasn't strange . . . citrus kings, land baronesses, all-at-once millionaires abound in Florida. High cheekbones, hazel eyes, hair to her shoulders in waves the color of dark chocolate. |
| 6 | Businesslike, reserved with those she hasn't known for long. She looked at me as I asked, then up and to her left, the place we look when we're remembering old knowledge. Up and to the right (I learned it from a book) is where we look when we are searching for new. "I can't recall . . ." she said. "How about biographies of rich people? We have a lot of Kennedy books, a Rockefeller book, I know. The Rich and the Super Rich, we have." "Not exactly it, I don't think. |
| 7 | Something like How to Cope with Sudden Wealth?" She shook her head solemnly, thoughtfully. Are all thoughtful people beautiful? She touched an intercom on the desk and spoke softly into it. "Sara Jean? How to Cope with Sudden Wealth. Do we have a copy of that?" "Never heard of it. There's How I Made Millions in Real Estate, we've got three copies. . . ." I wasn't getting through. "I'll sit over here for a while and think about it. |
| 8 | Hard to believe. There's got to be this book somewhere." She looked at my bedroll, which at that moment happened to be in some rather spotty, dirty light, then again at me. "If you don't mind," she said quietly, "could you leave your laundry-bag on the floor? There's new upholstery everywhere . . ." "Yes, ma'am." Surely, I thought, in these shelves of books there must be one written about what I'm supposed to do now. |
| 9 | The only immediate advice I could think of without a book was that fools and their money are soon parted. When it comes to slipping a Fleet biplane down to land in a little bit of a hayfield, I was second to few; but at that moment in the Gladys Hutchinson Library I thought that when it comes to herding a fortune I might be second to none at all, I might be an unmatched disaster. Paperwork has always caught and torn in my mind, and I doubted that would suddenly go smooth with money. |
| 10 | Good, I thought. I know myself, and I know for sure- my weaknesses won't change and neither will my strengths. A minor thing like a bank account cannot possibly transform me from the casual, easygoing flyer I've always liked to be. After ten minutes submerged again in the card catalog, driven at the last to Luck-Good and even Luck-Bad, I gave up. Not believable! There was no such book as the one I needed! Lost in doubt, I walked outside into the sun, felt photons and beta-particles and cosmic rays bounce and ricochet at lightspeed, silently zing and whiz through the morning and through me. |
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