Neverworld Wake(20)

He scowled, wiping the streaming rain off his face. “Her name’s Shirley.”

“And?”

“And she takes me with her to her chemotherapy treatment in Providence. Then we go back to her crappy apartment by a Stop and Shop and watch Night of the Living Dead. I cook her shrimp jambalaya and make a tuna salad for her cat named Canary. She thinks I’m a runaway from Mississippi. Sometimes my name is James. Sometimes it’s Jesus. She undresses in front of me and asks me to touch her. She’s religious. Thinks I’m some kind of savior from a different planet because I know so much about her. We talk all night. Now would you please go find your own disturbin’ experience to get lost in? This one is mine.”

At that moment, the brown Pontiac rounded the bend. Probably because I was there, or because Kip had a fake smile on his face, quite different from his usual laid-back, lounging-porch-cat demeanor, the car slowed for a second—revealing a plain-faced woman, brown hair, white T-shirt, radio blaring the Cure’s “Close to Me”—then accelerated away.

Kip ran after her, waving. “Hold on! Wait for me! Shirley!”

The car tore around the bend, vanishing.

“Look what you did!” he wailed.

“I’m sorry.”

Shaking his head, he took off over the bridge. He tried flagging down the next car, a red pickup truck, then a van, but no one stopped.

“Leave me alone!” he shouted as he took off jogging down the road.

I let him go. I understood. He looked forward to Shirley because for some reason she made him forget he was in the Neverworld. It was probably only for a minute. But that was a priceless minute in a century of worthless ones.



* * *



—

After I’d learned where Kip went, I followed the others.

I had to. If I had any hope of ever making it out of here alive, I had to make sure I didn’t lose them completely, that they didn’t fall into some psychological rabbit hole from which they’d never be able to emerge.

I also needed a mission. I couldn’t sit through His Girl Friday one more time. I couldn’t watch my mom tell my dad with only a look that she didn’t like the seats he’d chosen because they were too near the screen. Then, two seconds later: the bearded homeless man dropped the can of Old Milwaukee on the floor, muttering, “Shit, man,” and the old woman behind him left to go report him as the man in the Brooklyn Book Drop T-shirt stuffed a handful of popcorn into his mouth (dropping three kernels in his lap). This symphony of normality played the same way every time. I knew every word, stutter, quip, throat clear, sniff, cough, scratch, and burp, like the stage manager who’d watched the same performance a million times from the wings.

Then there was the fact that my parents seemed so happy together it made me feel even more alone.

I followed Whitley and Cannon next.

They snapped back to the wake three minutes before the rest of us.

When I sprinted into Wincroft, they were already gone. They left no note. The only evidence was red brake lights retreating down the drive. Yet their cars remained in front of the house. This meant that they left in some other car, and together, which suggested that whatever wounds their words had left from the fight, they’d already healed, like the skin of superheroes.

That didn’t surprise me. They never stayed angry at each other for long.

Checking E.S.S. Burt’s classic car garage, I noticed wet tire marks on the floor. I went into his office, read through his insurance forms, and was able to figure out that the missing vehicle was a maroon 1982 Rolls-Royce Silver Spur.

For the next few wakes, I tried to catch up to them.

It seemed impossible. They hadn’t driven to the highway or any of the obvious coastal roads, so where did they disappear to, and so swiftly? Only countless wakes later, when I turned down an unmarked, narrow dirt drive, did I see the black wood sign painted in elegant Victorian script.

DAVY JONES’S LOCKER. Another mile and there was a second sign: MEMBERS ONLY.

I pulled into the parking lot. Davy Jones’s appeared to be some kind of exclusive marina crowded with yachts. There was a white clubhouse and an outdoor tiki bar. Tanned crewmen in blue polo shirts strode purposefully along the docks, wielding umbrellas and iPads.

Parked directly in front of me was one maroon 1982 Rolls-Royce Silver Spur.

Almost immediately I spotted Whitley and Cannon.

They were speaking to a group of retirees, three couples in their sixties or seventies, the women with short dyed hair and lean bodies like little bits of punctuation. The men were fat and bald. They were laughing. In fact, Wit and Cannon were laughing so much as I slipped out of my truck, keeping the umbrella low so they wouldn’t spot me, I couldn’t help gaping, incredulous at their all-too-convincing impression of being totally normal—like two people with tomorrows.

They seemed to be waiting for something.

Apparently it was an invitation to board the super-yacht the Last Hurrah, docked beside them. Because not a minute later, they were stepping with phony wonder up the teak steps, past the helicopter landing pad, and vanishing inside.

Bewildered, I strolled up to the boat. The uniformed crew were preparing for departure.

“Where you headed?”

“Bermuda.”

Minutes later, the yacht cast off. That night, like all other recent nights, Wit and Cannon never returned to Wincroft to vote. By the next wake they were already gone.