Duma Key(208)

ii

Wireman stayed that night, and the next. We ate rare steaks, drank green tea in the afternoon, and talked about anything but old times. Then I took him to the airport, where he'd fly to Houston. There he planned to rent a car and drive south. See some of the country, he said.

I offered to go with him as far as security, and he shook his head. "You shouldn't have to watch as Wireman removes his shoes for a business school graduate," he said. "This is where we say adi s, Edgar."

"Wireman- " I said, and could say no more. My throat was filled with tears.

He pulled me into his arms and kissed me firmly on both cheeks. "Listen, Edgar. It's time for Act Three. Do you understand me?"

"Yes," I said.

"Come down to Mexico when you're ready. And if you want to."

"I'll think about it."

"You do that. Con Dios, mi amigo; siempre con Dios. "

"And you, Wireman. And you."

I watched him walk away with his tote-bag slung over one shoulder. I had a sudden brilliant memory of his voice the night Emery had attacked me in Big Pink, of Wireman shouting cojudo de puta madre just before driving the candlestick into the dead thing's face. He had been magnificent. I willed him to turn back one final time... and he did. Must have caught a thought, my mother would have said. Or had an intuition. That's what Nan Melda would have said.

He saw me still standing there and his face lit in a grin. "Do the day, Edgar!" he cried. People turned to look, startled.

"And let the day do you!" I called back.

He saluted me, laughing, then walked into the jetway. And of course I did eventually come south to his little town, but although he's always alive for me in his sayings I never think of them in anything but the present tense I never saw the man himself again. He died of a heart attack two months later, in Tamazunchale's open-air market, while dickering for fresh tomatoes. I thought there would be time, but we always think stuff like that, don't we? We fool ourselves so much we could do it for a living.

iii

Back at the place on Aster Lane, my easel stood in the living room, where the light was good. The canvas on it was covered with a piece of toweling. Beside it, on the table with my oil paints, were several aerial photos of Duma Key, but I'd hardly glanced at them; I saw Duma in my dreams, and still do.

I tossed the towel on the couch. In the foreground of my painting my last painting stood Big Pink, rendered so realistically I could almost hear the shells grating beneath it with each incoming wave.

Propped against one of the pilings, the perfect surreal touch, were two red-headed dolls, sitting side by side. On the left was Reba. On the right was Fancy, the one Kamen had fetched from Minnesota. The one that had been Illy's idea. The Gulf, usually so blue during my time on Duma Key, I had painted a dull and ominous green. Overhead, the sky was filled with black clouds; they massed to the top of the canvas and out of sight.

My right arm began to itch, and that remembered sensation of power began to flow first into me and then through me. I could see my picture almost with the eye of a god... or a goddess. I could give this up, but it would not be easy.

When I made pictures, I fell in love with the world.

When I made pictures, I felt whole.

I painted awhile, then put the brush aside. I mixed brown and yellow together with the ball of my thumb, then skimmed it over the painted beach... oh so lightly... and a haze of sand lifted, as if on the first hesitant puff of air.

On Duma Key, beneath the black sky of an inriding June storm, a wind began to rise.

How to Draw a Picture (XII)

Know when you're finished, and when you are, put your pencil or your paintbrush down. All the rest is only life.

February 2006-June 2007

Afterthoughts

I have taken liberties with the geography of Florida's west coast, and with its history, as well. Although Dave Davis was real, and did indeed disappear, he is used here fictionally.

And no one in Florida calls out-of-season storms "Alices" except me.

I want to thank my wife, the novelist Tabitha King, who read this book in an early draft and suggested valuable changes; the Sweet Owen cookie-tin was only one of them.

I want to thank Russ Dorr, my old medical friend, who patiently explained both Broca's area and the physics of contracoup injuries.

I also want to thank Chuck Verrill, who edited the book with his usual combination of gentleness and ruthlessness.

Teddy Rosenbaum, my friend and copy-editor: muchas gracias.

And you, my old friend Constant Reader; always you.

Stephen King

Bangor, Maine