Joyland(25)

In the spring of 1992, Tom was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

He was dead six months later. When he called and told me he was sick, his usual ratchetjaw delivery slowed by the wrecking ball swinging back and forth in his head, I was stunned and depressed, the way almost anyone would be, I suppose, when he hears that a guy who should be in the very prime of life is instead approaching the finish line. You want to ask how a thing like that can be fair. Weren't there supposed to be a few more good things for Tom, like a couple of grandchildren and maybe that long-dreamed-of vacation in Maui?

During my time at J oyland, I once heard Pops Allen talk about burning the lot. In the Talk, that means to blatantly cheat the rubes at what's supposed to be a straight game. I thought of that for the first time in years when Tom called with his bad news.

But the mind defends itself as long as it can. After the first shock of such news dissipates, maybe you think, Okay, it's bad, I get that, but it's not the final word; there still might be a chance.

Even if ninety-five percent of the people who draw this particular card go down, there's still that lucky five percent. Also, doctors misdiagnose shit all the time. Barring those things, there's the occasional miracle.



86

STEPHEN KING

You think that, and then you get the follow-up call. The woman who makes the follow-up call was once a beautiful young girl who ran around Joyland in a flippy green dress and a silly Sherwood Forest hat, toting a big old Speed Graphic camera, and the conies she braced hardly ever said no. How could they say no to that blazing red hair and eager smile?

How could anyone say no to Erin Cook?

Well, God said no. God burned Tom Kennedy's lot, and He burned hers in the process. When I picked up the phone at five-thirty on a gorgeous October afternoon in Westchester, that girl had become a woman whose voice, blurry with the tears, sounded old and tired to death. "Tom died at two this afternoon. It was very peaceful. He couldn't talk, but he was aware.

He . . . Dev, he squeezed my hand when I said goodbye."

I said, "I wish I could have been there."

"Yes." Her voice wavered, then firmed. "Yes, that would have been good."

You think Okay, I get it, I'm prepared for the worst, but you hold out that small hope, see, and that's what f*cks you up.

That's what kills you.

I talked to her, I told her how much I loved her and how much I had loved Tom, I told her yes, I'd be at the funeral, and if there was anything I could do before then, she should call.

Day or night. Then I hung up the phone and lowered my head and bawled my goddam eyes out.

The end of my first love doesn't measure up to the death of one old friend and the bereavement of the other, but it followed the same pattern. Exactly the same. And if it seemed like the end of the world to me-first causing those suicidal ideations (silly and halfhearted though they may have been) and then a seismic





Joyland

shift in the previously unquestioned course of my life-you have to understand I had no scale by which to judge it. That's called being young.

?

As June wore on, I started to understand that my relationship with Wendy was as sick as William Blake's rose, but I refused to believe it was mortally sick, even when the signs became increasingly clear.

Letters, for instance. During my first week at Mrs. Shoplaw's, I wrote Wendy four long ones, even though I was run off my feet at Joyland and came drag-assing into my second-floor room each night with my head full of new information and new experiences, feeling like a kid dropped into a challenging college course (call it The Advanced Physics of Fun) halfway through the semester. What I got in return was a single postcard with Boston Common on the front and a very peculiar collaborative message on the back. At the top, written in a hand I didn't recognize, was this: Well\11\::1 wrt?es ?he co..rcl whtle R,ell\11\te clrtves ?he bu.s! Below, in a hand I did recognize, Wendyor Wenny, if you like; I hated it, myself-had written breezily: Whee! We ts so..lesgtrls off oil\ o.. vell\?u.re ?o Co..pe Cod.! H's o.. po..r?:;,! Hoopste ?u..z.tl<! l>oll\1: worr:;, I held. ?he wheel whtle R,ell\ wro?e her po..r?. Hope

:;,ou.r good.. W.

Hoopsie muzik? Hope your good? No love, no do you miss me, just hope your good? And although, judging by the bumps and jags and inkblots, the card had been written while on the move in Renee's car (Wendy didn't have one), they both sounded either stoned or drunk on their asses. The following week I sent 88

STEPHEN KING

four more letters, plus an Erin-photo of me wearing the fur.

From Wendy, nothing in reply.

You start to worry, then you start to get it, then you know.

Maybe you don't want to, maybe you think that lovers as well as doctors misdiagnose shit all the time, but in your heart you know.

Twice I tried calling her. The same grumpy girl answered both times. I imagined her wearing harlequin glasses, an anklelength granny dress, and no lipstick. Not there, she said the first time. Out with Ren. Not there and not likely to be there in the future, Grumpy Girl said the second time. Moved.

"Moved where?" I asked, alarmed. This was in the parlor of Maison Shoplaw, where there was a long-distance honor sheet beside the phone. My fingers were holding the big old-fashioned receiver so tightly they had gone numb. Wendy was going to college on a patchwork magic carpet of scholarships, loans, and work-study employment, the same as me. She couldn't afford a place on her own. Not without help, she couldn't.