Joyland(38)

But mostly-this is weird, I have examined and re-examined my memories of those days to make sure it's a true memory, and it seems to be-it was because it had been our Doubting Thomas to see the ghost of Linda Gray. It had changed him in small but fundamental ways. I don't think Tom wanted to change

-I think he was happy just as he was-but I did.

I wanted to see her, too.

?





128


STEPHEN KING


During the second half of August, several of the old-timers

Pop Allen for one, Dottie Lassen for another-told me to pray for rain on Labor Day weekend. There was no rain, and by Saturday afternoon I understood what they meant. The conies came back in force for one final grand hurrah, and Joyland was tipsed to the gills. What made it worse was that half of the summer help was gone by then, headed back to their various schools. The ones who were left worked like dogs.

Some of us didn't just work like dogs, but as dogs-one dog in particular. I saw most of that holiday weekend through the mesh eyes of Howie the Happy Hound. On Sunday I climbed into that damned fur suit a dozen times. After my second-tolast turn of the day, I was three-quarters of the way down the Boulevard beneath Joyland Avenue when the world started to swim away from me in shades of gray. Shades of Linda Gray, I remember thinking.

I was driving one of the little electric service-carts with the fur pushed down to my waist so I could feel the air conditioning on my sweaty chest, and when I realized I was losing it, I had the good sense to pull over to the wall and take my foot off the rubber button that served as the accelerator. Fat Wally Schmidt, who ran the guess-your-weight shy, happened to be taking a break in the boneyard at the time. He saw me parked askew and slumped over the cart's steering bar. He got a pitcher of icewater out of the fridge, waddled down to me, and lifted my chin with one chubby hand.

"Hey greenie. You got another suit, or is that the only one that fits ya?"

"Theresh another one," I said. I sounded drunk. "Cossume shop. Ex'ra large."



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"Oh hey, that's good," he said, and dumped the pitcher over my head. My scream of surprise echoed up and down the Boulevard and brought several people running.

"What the f*ck, Fat Wally?"

He grinned. 'Wakes ya up, don't it? Damn right it does. Labor Day weekend, greenie. That means ya labor. No sleepin on the job. Thank yer lucky stars n bars it ain't a hunnert and ten out there."

If it had been a hunnert and ten, I wouldn't be telling this story; I would have died of a baked brain halfway through a Happy Howie Dance on the Wiggle-Waggle Story Stage. But Labor Day itself was actually cloudy, and featured a nice seabreeze. I got through it somehow.

Around four o'clock that Monday, as I was climbing into the spare fur for my final show of the summer, Tom Kennedy strolled into the costume shop. His dogtop and filthy sneakers were gone. He was wearing crisply pressed chinos (wherever were you keeping them, I wondered), a neatly tucked-in Ivy League shirt, and Bass Weejuns. Rosy-cheeked son of a bitch had even gotten a haircut. He looked every inch the up-and-coming college boy with his eye on the business world. You never would have guessed that he'd been dressed in filthy Levis only two days before, displaying at least an inch of ass-cleavage as he crawled under the Zipper with an oil-bucket and cursing Pop Allen, our fearless Team Beagle leader, every time he bumped his head on a strut.

"You on your way?" I asked.

"That's a big ten-four, good buddy. I'm taking the train to Philly at eight tomorrow morning. I've got a week at home, then it's back to the grind."





STEPHEN K I N G

"Good for you."

"Erin's got some stuff to finish up, but then she's meeting me in Wilmington tonight. I booked us a room at a nice little bed and breakfast."

I felt a dull throb of jealousy at that. "Good deal."

"She's the real thing," he said.

"I know."

"So are you, Dev. We'll stay in touch. People say that and don't mean it, but I do. We will stay in touch." He held out his hand.

I took it and shook it. "That's right, we will. You're okay, Tom, and Erin's the total package. You take care of her."

"No problem there." He grinned. "Come spring semester, she's transferring to Rutgers. I already taught her the Scarlet Knights fight song. You know, 'Upstream, Redteam, Redteam, Upstream-' "

"Sounds complex," I said.

He shook his finger at me. "Sarcasm will get you nowhere in this world, boy. Unless you're angling for a writing job at Mad magazine, that is."

Dottie Lassen called, "Maybe you could shorten up the farewells and keep the tears to a minimum? You've got a show to do, Jonesy. "

Tom turned to her and held out his arms. "Dottie, how I love you! How I'll miss you!"

She slapped her bottom to show just how much this moved her and turned away to a costume in need of repair.

Tom handed me a scrap of paper. "My home address, school address, phone numbers for both. I expect you to use them."

"I will."



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"You're really going to give up a year you could spend drinking beer and getting laid to scrape paint here at Joyland?"