Dreamcatcher(42)

Henry, Jonesy, and Pete are listening closely to the Beav, who's telling them that when they get to Hole in the Wall they have to get down in The Gulch, because that's where the big ones always go, there's bushes down there that they like. 'Me and my Dad have seen about a billion deer in there,' he says. The zippers on his old motorcycle jacket jingle agreeably.

They argue about who's going to get the biggest deer and where is the best place to shoot one so you can bring it down with one shot and it won't suffer. ('Except my father says that animals don't suffer the way people do when they get hurt,' Jonesy tells them. 'He says God made them different that way so it would be okay for us to hunt them.') They laugh and squabble and argue over who is the most likely to blow lunch when it comes time to gut their kills, and The Retard Academy falls farther and farther behind. Ahead of them, on their side of the street, looms the square red brick building where Tracker Brothers used to do business.

'If anyone hurls, it won't be me,' Beaver boasts. 'I seen deerguts a thousand times and they don't bother me at all. I remember once - '

'Hey you guys,' Jonesy breaks in, suddenly excited. 'You want to see Tina Jean Schlossinger's pu**y?'

'Who's Tina Jean Sloppinger?' Pete asks, but he is already intrigued. Seeing any pu**y seems like a great idea to him; he is always looking at his Dad's Penthouse and Playboy magazines, which his Dad keeps out in his workshop, behind the big Craftsman toolbox. * is very interesting. It doesn't give him a boner and make him feel sexy the way bare tits do, but he guesses that's because he's still a kid.

And pu**y is interesting.

'Schlossinger,' Jonesy says, laughing. 'Schlossinger, Petesky. The Schlossingers live two blocks over from me, and - ' He stops sud?denly, struck by an important question which must be answered immediately. He turns to Henry. 'Are the Schlossingers Jews or Republicans?'

Now it's Henry laughing at Jonesy, but without any malice. 'Technically, I think it's possible to be both at the same time . . . or neither one.' Henry pronounces the word nyther instead of neether, which impresses Pete. It sounds smart as a motherf*cker, and he reminds himself to say it that way from now on  -  nyther, nyther, nyther, he tells himself . . . but knows somehow that he win forget, that he is one of those people condemned to say neether all his life.

'Never mind religion and politics,' Henry says, still laughing. 'If you've got a picture of Tina Jean Schlossinger showing her pu**y, I want to see it.'

The Beav, meanwhile, has become visibly excited  -  cheeks flushed, eyes bright, and he goes to stick a fresh toothpick in his mouth before the old one is even half finished. The zippers on his jacket, the one Beaver's older brother wore during his four or five years of Fonzie-worship, jingle faster.

'Is she blonde?' the Beav asks. 'Blonde, and in high school? Super good-looking? Got - ' He holds his hands out in front of his chest, and when Jonesy nods, grinning, Beaver turns to Pete and blurts: 'This year's Homecoming Queen up at the high school, ringmeat! Her picture was in the f**kin paper! Up on that float with Richie Grenadeau?'

'Yes, but the f**king Tigers lost the Homecoming game and Grenadeau ended up with a broken nose,' Henry says. 'First Derry High team ever to play a Class-A team from southern Maine and those fools - '

'Fuck the Tigers,' Pete breaks in. He has more interest in high school football than he does in the dreaded x, but not much. Anyway, he's got the girl placed now, remembers the newspaper photo of her standing on the flower-decked bed of a pulp truck next to the Tiger quarterback, both of them wearing tinfoil crowns, smiling, and waving to the crowd. The girl's hair fell around her face in big blowy Farrah Fawcett waves, and her gown was strapless, showing the tops of her br**sts.

For the first time in his life, Pete feels real lust  -  it is a meaty feeling, red and heavy, that stiffens his prick, dries up the spit in his mouth, and makes it hard for him to think. * is interesting; the idea of seeing local pu**y, Homecoming Queen pu**y . . . that is a lot more than exciting. That is, as the Derry News's film critic sometimes says about movies she especially likes, 'a must-see.'

'Where?' he asks Jonesy breathlessly. He is imagining seeing this girl, this Tina Jean Schlossinger, waiting on the corner for the school bus, just standing there giggling with her girlfriends, not having the slightest idea that the boy walking past has seen what is under her skirt or her jeans, that he knows if the hair on her pu**y is the same color as the hair on her head. Pete is on fire. 'Where is it?'

'There,' Jonesy says, and points at the red brick box that is Tracker Brothers old freight and storage depot. There is ivy crawling up the sides, but this has been a cold fall and most of the leaves have already died and turned black. Some of the windows are broken and the rest are bleary. Looking at the place gives Pete a little chin. Partly because the big kids, the high-school kids and even some that are beyond high school, play baseball in the vacant lot behind the building, and big kids like to beat up little kids, who knows why, it relieved the monotony or something. But this isn't the big deal, because baseball is over for the year and the big kids have probably moved on to Strawford Park, where they will play two-hand touch football until the snow flies. (Once the snow flies, they will beat each others' brains in playing hockey with old friction-taped sticks.) No, the big deal is that kids sometimes disappear in Derry, Derry is funny that way, and when they do disappear, they are often last seen in out-of-the-way places like the deserted Tracker Brothers depot. No one talks about this unpleasant fact, but everyone knows about it.