Acclaim For the Work

of STEPHEN KING!

"Excellent, psychologically textured ... Stephen King is so

widely acknowledged as America's master of paranormal

terrors that you can forget his real genius is for the

everyday."

-New York Times Book Review

"King has written ... a novel that's as hauntingly touching

as it is just plain haunted ... one of his freshest and most

frightening works to date."

-Entertainment Weekly

"Extraordinarily vivid ... an impressive tour de force, a

sensitive character study that holds the reader rapt."

-Playboy

"Stephen King is superb."

-Time

"Mr. King makes palpable the longing and regret that arise

out of calamity, and deftly renders the kindness and pettiness

that can mark small-town life."

- Wall Street Journal

"King is a master at crafting a story and creating a sense of

place."

-USA Today

"A thoroughly compelling thriller."

-Esquire

"Don't start this one on a school night. .. You'll be up till dawn."

-People

"As brilliant a dark dream as has ever been dreamed in this

century."

-Palm Beach Post

"A great book. .. A landmark in American literature."

-Chicago Sun-Times

"Stephen King is an immensely talented storyteller of

seemingly inexhaustible gifts."

-Interview

"A rare blend of luminous prose, thought-provoking themes

and masterful storytelling."

-San Diego Union Tribune

"Not only immensely popular but immensely talented, a

modem-day counterpart to Twain, Hawthorne, Dickens."

-Publishers Weekly

"He's a master storyteller. Gather around the pages of his

literary campfire and he'll weave you a darn good yarn."

-Houston Chronicle

"King surpasses our expectations, leaves us spellbound and

hungry for the next twist of plot."

-Boston Globe

"Top shelf. You couldn't go wrong with a King book."

-Michael Connelly

"Stephen King is the Winslow Homer of blood."

-New Yorker

"King has invented genres, reinvented them, then stepped

outside what he himself has accomplished ... Stephen King,

like Mark Twain, is an American genius."

-Greg Iles

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writer. And I believe that he's never been given credit for

taking American literature and stretching its boundaries."

-Gloria Naylor

"To my mind, King is one of the most underestimated

novelists of our time."

-Mordechai Richler, Vancouver Sun

"King possesses an incredible sense of story ... [He is] a

gifted writer of intensely felt emotions, a soulful writer in

control of a spare prose that never gets in the way of the

story ... I, for one (of millions), wait impatiently to see where

this king of storytellers takes us next."

-Ridley Pearson

"An absorbing, constantly surprising novel filled with true

narrative magic."

-Washington Post

"It grabs you and holds you and won't let go ... a genuine

page turner."

-Chattanooga Times

"Blending philosophy with a plot that moves at supersonic

speed while showcasing deeply imagined characters ... an

impressive sensitivity to what has often loosely been called

the human condition."

-Newsday

"You surrender yourself. .. King engulfs you ... and carries

you away to 4AM page-turning."

-A.P. Wire

"Enthralling ... superb."

-Dallas Times Herald

"A spellbinder, a compulsive page-turner."

-Atlanta Journal

"Faultlessly paced ... continuously engrossing."

-Los Angeles Times

"A literary triumph ... Read this book."

-Milwaukee Journal

"Superbly crafted ... extraordinary."

-Booklist

"His writing has a lyricism, an evocative descriptive

sweep ... It's a gift."

-Columbia State

"Dazzlingly well written."

-The Indianapolis Star

"King is a terrific storyteller."

-San Francisco Chronicle

"By far the world's most popular author ... He never seems

to use up the magic."

-Chicago Tribune

I stashed my basket of dirty rags and Turtle Wax by the exit

door in the arcade. It was ten past noon, but right then food

wasn't what I was hungry for. I walked slowly along the track

and into Horror House.

I had to duck my head when I passed beneath the

Screaming Skull, even though it was now pulled up and

locked in its home position. My footfalls echoed on a wooden

floor painted to look like stone. I could hear my breathing. It

sounded harsh and dry. I was scared, okay? Tom had told me

to stay away from this place, but Tom didn't run my life any

more than Eddie Parks did.

Between the Dungeon and the Torture Chamber, the track

descended and described a double-S curve where the cars

picked up speed and whipped the riders back and forth.

Horror House was a dark ride, but when it was in operation,

this stretch was the only completely dark part. It had to be

where the girl's killer had cut her throat and dumped her

body. How quick he must have been, and how certain of

exactly what he was going to do!

I walked slowly down the double-S, thinking it would not be

beyond Eddie to hear me and shut off the overhead worklights as a joke. To leave me in here to feel my way past the murder site with only the sound of the wind and that one

slapping board to keep me company. And suppose ... just

suppose ... a young girl's hand reached out in that darkness

and took mine ... ?

SOME OTHER HARD CASE CRIME BOOKS

YOU WILL ENJOY:

FIFTY-TO-ONE byCharlesArdai

KILLING CASTRO by Lawrence Block

THE DEAD MAN'S BROTHER by Roger Zelazny

THE CUTIE by Donald E. Westlake

HOUSE DICK by E. Howard Hunt

CASINO MOON by Peter Blauner

FAKE I. D. by jason Starr

PASSPORT TO PERIL by Robert B. Parker

STOP THIS MAN! byPeterRabe

LOSERS LIVE LONGER by Russell Atwood

HONEY IN HIS MOUTH byLesterDent

QUARRY IN THE MIDDLE by Max Allan Collins

THE CORPSE WORE PASTIES byjonnyPorkpie

THE VALLEY OF FEAR byA.C. Doyle

ME M 0 R Y by Donald E. Westlake

NOBODY'S ANGEL byjackClark

MURDER IS MY BUSINESS by Brett Halliday

GETTING 0 F F by Lawrence Block

QUARRY'S EX byMaxAllanCollins

THE CONSUMMATA

by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins

CHOKE HOLD by Christa Faust

THE COMEDY IS FINISHED byDonaldE. Westlake

BLOOD ON THE MINK by Robert Silverberg

FALSE NEGATIVE byjosephKoenig

THE TWENTY-YEAR DEATH by Ariel S. Winter

THE COCKTAIL WAITRESS by james M. Cain

SEDUCTION OF THE INNOCENT by Max Allan Collins

WEB OF THE CITY by Harlan Ellison

JOYLAND

by Stephen King

HARD

CASE

o�a

A HARD CASE

r CRIME NOVEL

CRIME

A HARD CASE CRIME BOOK

(HCC-112)

First Hard Case Crime edition: June 2013

Published by

Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street

London

SE1 OUP

in collaboration with Winterfall LLC

Copyright© 2013 by Stephen King

Cover painting copyright© 2013 by Glen Orbik

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or

transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical

means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and

incidents either are the products of the author's imagination

or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual events

or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

ISBN 978-1-78116-264-4

Design direction by Max Phillips

www.maxphillips.net

Typeset by Swordsmith Productions

The name "Hard Case Crime" and the Hard Case Crime logo

are trademarks ofWinterfall LLC. Hard Case Crime books

are selected and edited by Charles Ardai.

Printed in the United States of America

Visit us on the web at www.HardCaseCrime.com

For Donald Westlake

•

I had a car, but on most days in that fall of 1973 I walked to

Joyland from M rs. Shoplaw's Beachside Accommodations in

the town of Heaven's Bay. It seemed like the right thing to do.

The only thing, actually. By early September, Heaven Beach

was almost completely deserted, which suited my mood. That

fall was the most beautiful of my life. Even forty years later I

can say that. And I was never so unhappy, I can say that, too.

People think first love is sweet, and never sweeter than when

that first bond snaps. You've heard a thousand pop and country

songs that prove the point; some fool got his heart broke. Yet

that first broken heart is always the most painful, the slowest to

mend, and leaves the most visible scar. What's so sweet about

that?

•

Through September and right into October, the North Carolina

skies were clear and the air was warm even at seven in the

morning, when I left my second-floor apartment by the outside

stairs. If I started with a light jacket on, I was wearing it tied

around my waist before I'd finished half of the three miles

between the town and the amusement park.

I'd make Betty's Bakery my first stop, grabbing a couple of

still-warm croissants. My shadow would walk with me on the

12

STEPHEN K I N G

sand, at least twenty feet long. Hopeful gulls, smelling the croissants in their waxed paper, would circle overhead. And when I walked back, usually around five (although sometimes I stayed

later-there was nothing waiting for me in Heaven's Bay, a

town that mostly went sleepybye when summer was over), my

shadow walked with me on the water. If the tide was in, it would

waver on the surface, seeming to do a slow hula.

Although I can't be completely sure, I think the boy and the

woman and their dog were there from the first time I took that

walk. The shore between the town and the cheerful, blinking

gimcrackery of Joyland was lined with summer homes, many of

them expensive, most of them clapped shut after Labor Day.

But not the biggest of them, the one that looked like a green

wooden castle. A boardwalk led from its wide back patio down

to where the seagrass gave way to fine white sand. At the end

of the boardwalk was a picnic table shaded by a bright green

beach umbrella. In its shade, the boy sat in his wheelchair,

wearing a baseball cap and covered from the waist down by

a blanket even in the late afternoons, when the temperature

lingered in the seventies. I thought he was five or so, surely no

older than seven. The dog, a Jack Russell terrier, either lay

beside him or sat at his feet. The woman sat on one of the picnic

table benches, sometimes reading a book, mostly just staring

out at the water. She was very beautiful.

Going or coming, I always waved to them, and the boy waved

back. She didn't, not at first. 1973 was the year of the OPEC oil

embargo, the year Richard Nixon announced he was not a crook,

the year Edward G. Robinson and Noel Coward died. It was

Devin Jones's lost year. I was a twenty-one year-old virgin with

literary aspirations. I possessed three pairs of bluejeans, four

Joy land

pairs ofJockey shorts, a clunker Ford (with a good radio), occasional suicidal ideations, and a broken heart.

Sweet, huh?

•

The heartbreaker was Wendy Keegan, and she didn't deserve

me. It's taken me most of my life to come to that conclusion,

but you know the old saw; better late than never. She was from

Portsmouth, New Hampshire; I was from South Berwick, Maine.

That made her practically the girl next door. We had begun

"going together" (as we used to say) during our freshman year

at U NH-we actually met at the Freshman Mixer, and how

sweet is that? Just like one of those pop songs.

We were inseparable for two years, went everywhere together and did everything together. Everything, that is, but "it."

We were both work-study kids with University jobs. Hers was

in the library; mine was in the Commons cafeteria. We were

offered the chance to hold onto those jobs during the summer

of 1972, and of course we did. The money wasn't great, but the

togetherness was priceless. I assumed that would also be the

deal during the summer of 1973, until Wendy announced that

her friend Renee had gotten them jobs working at Filene's, in

Boston.

"Where does that leave me?" I asked.

"You can always come down," she said. 'Til miss you like mad,

but really, Dev, we could probably use some time apart."

A phrase that is very often a death-knell. She may have seen

that idea on my face, because she stood on tiptoe and kissed

me. "Absence makes the heart grow fonder," she said. "Besides,

with my own place, maybe you can stay over." But she didn't

STEPHEN K I N G

quite look at me when she said that, and I never did stay over.

Too many roommates, she said. Too little time. Of course such

problems can be overcome, but somehow we never did, which

should have told me something; in retrospect, it tells me a lot.

Several times we had been very close to "it," but "it" just never

quite happened. She always drew back, and I never pressed her.

God help me, I was being gallant. I have wondered often since

what would have changed (for good or for ill) had I not been.

What I know now is that gallant young men rarely get pussy.

Put it on a sampler and hang it in your kitchen .

•

The prospect of another summer mopping cafeteria floors and

loading elderly Commons dishwashers with dirty plates didn't

hold much charm for me, not with Wendy seventy miles south,

enjoying the bright lights of Boston, but it was steady work,

which I needed, and I didn't have any other prospects. Then, in

late February, one literally came down the dish-line to me on

the conveyor belt.

Someone had been reading Carolina Living while he or she

snarfed up that day's blue plate luncheon special, which happened to be Mexicali Burgers and Caramba Fries. He or she had left the magazine on the tray, and I picked it up along with

the dishes. I almost tossed it in the trash, then didn't. Free

reading material was, after all, free reading material. (I was a

work-study kid, remember. ) I stuck it in my back pocket and

forgot about it until I got back to my dorm room. There it flopped

onto the floor, open to the classified section at the back, while I

was changing my pants.

Whoever had been reading the magazine had circled several

joy land

15

job possibilities . . . although in the end, he or she must have

decided none of them was quite right; otheiWise Carolina Living

wouldn't have come riding down the conveyor belt. Near the

bottom of the page was an ad that caught my eye even though it

hadn't been circled. In boldface type, the first line read: WORK

CLOSE TO HEAVEN! What English major could read that and

not hang in for the pitch? And what glum twenty-one-year-old,

beset with the growing fear that he might be losing his girlfriend, would not be attracted by the idea of working in a place called Joyland?

There was a telephone number, and on a whim , I called it. A

week later, a job application landed in my dormitory mailbox.

The attached letter stated that if I wanted full-time summer

employment (which I did) , I'd be doing many different jobs,

most but not all custodial. I would have to possess a valid driver's

license, and I would need to interview. I could do that on the

upcoming spring break instead of going home to Maine for the

week. Only I'd been planning to spend at least some of that

week with Wendy. We might even get around to "it."

"Go for the interview," Wendy said when I told her. She

didn't even hesitate. "It'll be an adventure."

"Being with you would be an adventure," I said.

"There'll be plenty of time for that next year." She stood on

tiptoe and kissed me (she always stood on tiptoe) . Was she

seeing the other guy, even then? Probably not, but I'll bet she'd

noticed him, because he was in her Advanced Sociology course.

Renee St. Claire would have known, and probably would have

told me if I'd asked-telling stuff was Renee's specialty, I bet

she wore the priest out when she did the old confession bitbut some things you don't want to know. Like why the girl you

16

STEPHEN K I N G

loved with all your heart kept saying no to you, but tumbled

into bed with the new guy at almost the first opportunity. I'm

not sure anybody ever gets completely over their first love, and

that still rankles. Part of me still wants to know what was wrong

with me. What I was lacking. I'm in my sixties now, my hair is

gray and I'm a prostate cancer survivor, but I still want to know

why I wasn't good enough for Wendy Keegan .

•

I took a train called the Southerner from Boston to North

Carolina (not much of an adventure, but cheap), and a bus from

Wilmington to Heaven's Bay. My interview was with Fred Dean,

who was-among many other functions-Joyland's employment officer. After fifteen minutes of Q-and-A, plus a look at my driver's license and my Red Cross life-saving certificate,

he handed me a plastic badge on a lanyard. It bore the word

VISITOR, that day's date, and a cartoon picture of a grinning,

blue-eyed German Shepherd who bore a passing resemblance

to the famous cartoon sleuth, Scooby-Doo.

"Take a walk around," Dean said. "Ride the Carolina Spin, if

you like. Most of the rides aren't up and running yet, but that

one is. Tell Lane I said okay. What I gave you is a day-pass, but

I want you back here by . . . " He looked at his watch. "Let's say

one o'clock. Tell me then if you want the job. I've got five spots

left, but they're all basically the same-as Happy Helpers."

"Thank you, sir."

He nodded, smiling. "Don't know how you'll feel about this

place, but it suits me fine. It's a little old and a little rickety, but

I find that charming. I tried Disney for a while; didn't like it. It's

too . . . I don't know . . . "

Joy land

17

"Too corporate?" I ventured.

"Exactly. Too corporate. Too buffed and shiny. So I came

back to Joyland a few years ago. Haven't regretted it. We fly a

bit more by the seat of our pants here-the place has a little of

the old-time carny flavor. Go on, look around. See what you

think. More important, see how you feel."

"Can I ask one question first?"

"Of course."

I fingered my day pass. "Who's the dog?"

His smile became a grin. "That's Howie the Happy Hound,

Joyland's mascot. Bradley Easterbrook built Joyland, and the

original Howie was his dog. Long dead now, but you'll still see a

lot of him, if you work here this summer."

I did . . . and I didn't. An easy riddle, but the explanation will

have to wait awhile.

•

Joyland was an indie, not as big as a Six Flags park, and nowhere near as big as Disney World, but it was large enough to be impressive, especially with Joyland Avenue, the main drag,

and Hound Dog Way, the secondary drag, almost empty and

looking eight lanes wide. I heard the whine of power-saws and

saw plenty of workmen-the largest crew swarming over the

Thunderball, one of Joyland's two coasters-but there were no

customers, because the park didn't open until May fifteenth. A

few of the food concessions were doing business to take care of

the workers' lunch needs, though, and an old lady in front of a

star-studded tell-your-fortune kiosk was staring at me suspiciously. With one exception, everything else was shut up tight.

The exception of the Carolina Spin. It was a hundred and

STEPHEN K I N G

seventy feet tall (this I found out later), and turning very slowly.

Out in front stood a tightly muscled guy in faded jeans, balding

suede boots splotched with grease, and a strap-style tee shirt.

He wore a derby hat tilted on his coal-black hair. A filterless

cigarette was parked behind one ear. He looked like a cartoon

carnival barker from an old-time newspaper strip. There was

an open toolbox and a big portable radio on an orange crate

beside him. The Faces were singing "Stay with Me." The guy

was bopping to the beat, hands in his back pockets, hips moving

side to side. I had a thought, absurd but perfectly clear: When I

grow up, I want to look just like this guy.

He pointed to the pass. "Freddy Dean sent you, right? Told

you everything else was closed, but you could take a ride on the

big wheel."

"Yes, sir."

"A ride on the Spin means you're in. He likes the chosen few

to get the aerial view. You gonna take the job?"

"I think so."

He stuck out his hand. "''m Lane Hardy. Welcome aboard,

kid."

I shook with him. "Devin Jones."

"Pleased to meet you."

He started up the inclined walk leading to the gently turning

ride, grabbed a long lever that looked like a stick shift, and edged

it back. The wheel came to a slow stop with one of the gaily

painted cabins (the image of Howie the Happy Hound on each)

swaying at the passenger loading dock.

"Climb aboard, Jonesy. I'm going to send you up where the

air is rare and the view is much more than fair."

I climbed into the cabin and closed the door. Lane gave it a

Joyland

19

shake to make sure it was latched, dropped the safety bar, then

returned to his rudimentary controls. "Ready for takeoff, cap'n ?"

"I guess so."

"Amazement awaits." He gave me a wink and advanced the

control stick. The wheel began to turn again and all at once he

was looking up at me. So was the old lady by the fortune-telling

booth. Her neck was craned and she was shading her eyes. I

waved to her. She didn't wave back.

Then I was above everything but the convoluted dips and

twists of the Thunderball, rising into the chilly early spring air,

and feeling-stupid but true-that I was leaving all my cares

and worries down below.

Joyland wasn't a theme park, which allowed it to have a little

bit of everything. There was a secondary roller coaster called

the Delirium Shaker and a water slide (Captain N emo's Splash

& Crash). On the far western side of the park was a special

annex for the little ones called the Wiggle-Waggle Village. There

was also a concert hall where most of the acts-this I also

learned later-were either B-list C&W or the kind of rockers

who peaked in the fifties or sixties. I remember that Johnny

Otis and Big Joe Turner did a show there together. I had to ask

Brenda Rafferty, the head accountant who was also a kind of

den mother to the Hollywood Girls, who they were. Bren thought

I was dense; I thought she was old; we were both probably right.

Lane Hardy took me all the way to the top and then stopped

the wheel. I sat in the swaying car, gripping the safety bar, and

looking out at a brand-new world. To the west was the North

Carolina flatland, looking incredibly green to a New England

kid who was used to thinking of March as nothing but true

spring's cold and muddy precursor. To the east was the ocean, a

20

STEPHEN K I N G

deep metallic blue until it broke in creamy-white pulses on the

beach where I would tote my abused heart up and down a few

months hence. Directly below me was the good-natured jumble

of Joyland-the big rides and small ones, the concert hall and

concessions, the souvenir shops and the Happy Hound Shuttle,

which took customers to the adjacent motels and, of course,

the beach. To the north was Heaven's Bay. From high above

the park (upstairs, where the air is rare), the town looked like a

nestle of children's blocks from which four church steeples

rose at the major points of the compass.

The wheel began to move again. I came down feeling like a

kid in a Rudyard Kipling story, riding on the nose of an elephant.

Lane Hardy brought me to a stop, but didn't bother to unlatch

the car's door for me; I was, after all, almost an employee.

"How'd you like it?"

"Great," I said.

"Yeah, it ain't bad for a grandma ride." He reset his derby so

it slanted the other way and cast an appraising eye over me.

"How tall are you? Six-three?"

"Six-four."

"Uh-huh. Let's see how you like ridin all six-four of you on

the Spin in the middle of July, wearin the fur and singin 'Happy

Birthday' to some spoiled-rotten little snothole with cotton candy

in one hand and a meltin Kollie Kone in the other."

"Wearing what fur?"

But he was headed back to his machinery and didn't answer.

Maybe he couldn't hear me over his radio, which was now blasting

"Crocodile Rock." Or maybe he just wanted my future occupation as one of Joyland's cadre of Happy Hounds to come as a surprise.

Joy land

21

•

I had over an hour to kill before meeting with Fred Dean again,

so I strolled up Hound Dog Way toward a lunch-wagon that

looked like it was doing a pretty good business. Not everything

at Joyland was canine-themed, but plenty of stuff was, including

this particular eatery, which was called Pup-A-Licious. I was on

a ridiculously tight budget for this little job-hunting expedition,

but I thought I could afford a couple of bucks for a chili-dog

and a paper cup of French fries.

When I reached the palm-reading concession, Madame Fortuna planted herself in my path. Except that's not quite right, because she was only Fortuna between May fifteenth and Labor

Day. During those sixteen weeks, she dressed in long skirts,

gauzy, layered blouses, and shawls decorated with various cabalistic symbols. Gold hoops hung from her ears, so heavy they dragged the lobes down, and she talked in a thick Romany accent

that made her sound like a character from a 1930s fright-flick,

the kind featuring mist-shrouded castles and howling wolves.

During the rest of the year she was a widow from Brooklyn

who collected Hummel figures and liked movies (especially the

weepy-ass kind where some chick gets cancer and dies beautifully). Today she was smartly put together in a black pantsuit and low heels. A rose-pink scarf around her throat added a

touch of color. As Fortuna, she sported masses of wild gray

locks, but that was a wig, and still stored under its own glass

dome in her little Heaven's Bay house. Her actual hair was a

cropped cap of dyed black. The Love Story fan from Brooklyn

and Fortuna the Seer only came together in one respect: both

fancied themselves psychic.

"There is a shadow over you, young man," she announced.

22

STEPHEN K I N G

I looked down and saw she was absolutely right. I was standing

in the shadow of the Carolina Spin. We both were.

"Not that, stupidnik. Over your future. You will have a hunger."

I had a bad one already, but a Pup-A-Licious footlong would

soon take care of it. "That's very interesting, Mrs . . . urn . . . "

"Rosalind Gold," she said, holding out her hand. "But you

can call me Rozzie. Everyone does. But during the season . . . " She

fell into character, which meant she sounded like Bela Lugosi

with breasts. "Doorink the season, I am . . . Fortuna! "

I shook with her. I f she'd been in costume as well as i n character, half a dozen gold bangles would have clattered on her wrist. "Very nice to meet you." And, trying on the same accent:

"I am . . . Devin!"

She wasn't amused. "An Irish name?"

"Right."

"The Irish are full of sorrow, and many have the sight. I don't

know if you do, but you will meet someone who does."

Actually, I was full of happiness . . . along with that surpassing

desire to put a Pup-A-Licious pup, preferably loaded with chili,

down my throat. This was feeling like an adventure. I told myself

I'd probably feel less that way when I was swabbing out toilets

at the end of a busy day, or cleaning puke from the seats of the

Whirly Cups, but just then everything seemed perfect.

"Are you practicing your act?"

She drew herself up to her full height, which might have been

five-two. "Is no act, my lad." She said ect for act. "Jews are the

most psychically sensitive race on earth. This is a thing everyone

knows." She dropped the accent. "Also, Joyland beats hanging

out a palmistry shingle on Second Avenue. Sorrowful or not, I

like you. You give off good vibrations."

Joy land

23

"One of my very favorite Beach Boys songs."

"But you are on the edge of great sorrow." She paused, doing

the old emphasis thing. "And, perhaps, danger."

"Do you see a beautiful woman with dark hair in my future?"

Wendy was a beautiful woman with dark hair.

"No," Rozzie said, and what came next stopped me dead.

"She is in your past."

Ohh-kay.

I walked around her in the direction of Pup-A-Licious, being

careful not to touch her. She was a charlatan, I didn't have a

single doubt about that, but touching her just then still seemed

like a lousy idea.

No good. She walked with me. "In your future is a little girl

and a little boy. The boy has a dog."

"A Happy Hound, I bet. Probably named Howie."

She ignored this latest attempt at levity. "The girl wears a

red hat and carries a doll. One of these children has the sight. I

don't know which. It is hidden from me."

I hardly heard that part of her spiel. I was thinking of the

previous pronouncement, made in a flat Brooklyn accent: She

is in your past.

Madame Fortuna got a lot of stuff wrong, I found out, but

she did seem to have a genuine psychic touch, and on the day I

interviewed for a summer at Joyland, she was hitting on all

cylinders.

•

I got the job. Mr. Dean was especially pleased by my Red Cross

life-saving certificate, obtained at the YMCA the summer I

turned sixteen. That was what I called my Boredom Summer.

STEPHEN K I N G

In the years since, I've discovered there's a lot to be said for

boredom.

I told Mr. Dean when my finals ended, and promised him

that I'd be at J oyland two days later, ready for team assignment

and training. We shook hands and he welcomed me aboard. I

had a moment when I wondered if he was going to encourage

me to do the Happy Hound Bark with him, or something equivalent, but he just wished me a good day and walked out of the office with me, a little man with sharp eyes and a lithe stride.

Standing on the little cement-block porch of the employment

office, listening to the pound of the surf and smelling the damp

salt air, I felt excited all over again, and hungry for summer to

begin.

"You're in the amusement business now, young Mr. Jones,"

my new boss said. "Not the carny business-not exactly, not

the way we run things today-but not so far removed from it,

either. Do you know what that means, to be in the amusement

business?"

"No, sir, not exactly."

His eyes were solemn, but there was a ghost of a grin on his

mouth. "It means the rubes have to leave with smiles on their

faces-and by the way, if I ever hear you call the customers

rubes, you're going to be out the door so fast you won't know

what hit you. I can say it, because I've been in the amusement

business since I was old enough to shave. They're rubes-no

different from the redneck Okies and Arkies that rubbernecked

their way through every carny I worked for after World War II.

The people who come to J oyland may wear better clothes and

drive Fords and Volkswagen microbuses instead of Farmall

pickups, but the place turns em into rubes with their mouths

Joyland

25

hung open. If it doesn't, it's not doing its job . But to you,

they're the conies. When they hear it, they think Coney Island.

We know better. They're rabbits, Mr. Jones, nice plump funloving rabbits, hopping from ride to ride and shy to shy instead of from hole to hole."

He dropped me a wink and gave my shoulder a squeeze.

"The conies have to leave happy, or this place dries up and

blows away. I've seen it happen, and when it does, it happens fast.

It's an amusement park, young Mr. Jones, so pet the conies and

give their ears only the gentlest of tugs. In a word, amuse them."

"Okay," I said . . . although I didn't know how much customer

amusement I'd be providing by polishing the Devil Wagons

(J oyland's version of Dodgem cars) or running a street-sweeper

down Hound Dog Way after the gates closed.

"And don't you dare leave me in the lurch. Be here on the

agreed-upon date, and five minutes before the agreed-upon

time."

"Okay."

"There are two important showbiz rules, kiddo: always know

where your wallet is . . . and show up ."

•

When I walked out beneath the big arch with WELCOME TO

JOYLAND written on it in neon letters (now off) and into the

mostly empty parking lot, Lane Hardy was leaning against one

of the shuttered ticket booths, smoking the cigarette previously

parked behind his ear.

"Can't smoke on the grounds anymore," he said. "New rule.

Mr. Easterbrook says we're the first park in America to have it,

but we won't be the last. Get the job?"

26

STEPHEN KING

"I did."

"Congratulations. Did Freddy give you the carny spiel?"

"Sort of, yeah."

"Tell you about petting the conies?"

"Yeah."

"He can be a pain in the banana, but he's old-time showbiz,

seen it all, most of it twice, and he's not wrong. I think you'll

do okay. You've got a carny look about you, kid." He waved a

hand at the park with its landmarks rising against the blameless

blue sky: the Thunderball, the Delirium Shaker, the convoluted twists and turns of Captain Nemo's water slide, and-of course-the Carolina Spin. "Who knows, this place might be

your future."

"Maybe," I said, although I already knew what my future

was going to be: writing novels and the kind of short stories

they publish in The New Yorker. I had it all planned out. Of

course, I also had marriage to Wendy Keegan all planned out,

and how we'd wait until we were in our thirties to have a couple

of kids. When you're twenty-one, life is a roadmap. It's only

when you get to be twenty-five or so that you begin to suspect

you've been looking at the map upside down, and not until you're

forty are you entirely sure. By the time you're sixty, take it from

me, you're fucking lost.

"Did Rozzie Gold give you her usual bundle of Fortuna

horseshit?"

"Urn . . . "

Lane chuckled. "Why do I even ask? Just remember, kid,

that ninety percent of everything she says really is horseshit.

The other ten . . . let's just say she's told folks some stuff that

rocked them back on their heels."

Joyland

"What about you?" I asked. "Any revelations that rocked you

back on your heels?"

He grinned. "The day I let Rozzie read my palm is the day

I go back on the road, ride-jacking the tornado-and-chittlins

circuit. Mrs. Hardy's boy doesn't mess with Ouija boards and

crystal balls."

Do you see a beautiful woman with dark hair in my future?

I'd asked.

No. She is in your past.

He was looking at me closely. "What's up? You swallow a

fly?"

"It's nothing," I said.

"Come on, son. Did she feed you truth or horseshit? Live or

Memorex? Tell your daddy."

"Definitely horseshit." I looked at my watch. 'Tve got a bus

to catch at five, if I'm going to make the train to Boston at

seven. I better get moving."

"Ah, you got plenty of time. Where you staying this summer?"

"I hadn't even thought about it."

"You might want to stop at Mrs. Shoplaw's on your way to the

bus station. Plenty of people in Heaven's Bay rent to summer

help, but she's the best. She's housed a lot of Happy Helpers

over the years. Her place is easy to find; it's where Main Street

ends at the beach. Great big rambler painted gray. You'll see the

sign hanging from the porch. Can't miss it, because it's made

out of shells and some're always falling off. MRS. SHOPLAW's

BEACHSIDE ACCOMMODATIONS. Tell her I sent you ."

"Okay, I will. Thanks."

"If you rent there, you can walk down here on the beach if

you want to save your gas money for something more important,

z8

STEPHEN KING

like stepping out on your day off. That beach walk makes a

pretty way to start the morning. Good luck, kid. Look forward

to working with you." He held out his hand. I shook it and

thanked him again.

Since he'd put the idea in my head, I decided to take the

beach walk back to town. It would save me twenty minutes

waiting for a taxi I couldn't really afford. I had almost reached

the wooden stairs going down to the sand when he called after

me.

"Hey, Jonesy! Want to know something Rozzie won't tell you?"

"Sure," lsaid.

"We've got a spook palace called Horror House. The old

Roz-ola won't go within fifty yards of it. She hates the pop-ups

and the torture chamber and the recorded voices, but the real

reason is that she's afraid it really might be haunted."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. And she ain't the only one. Half a dozen folks who

work here claim to have seen her."

"Are you serious?" But this was just one of the questions you

ask when you're flabbergasted. I could see he was.

"''d tell you the story, but break-time's over for me. I've got

some power-poles to replace on the Devil Wagons, and the

safety inspection guys are coming to look at the Thunderball

around three. What a pain in the ass those guys are. Ask Shoplaw.

When it comes to Joyland, Emmalina Shoplaw knows more than

I do. You could say she's a student of the place. Compared to her,

I'm a newbie."

"This isn't a joke? A little rubber chicken you toss at all the

new hires?"

"Do I look like I'm joking?"

joy land

zg

He didn't, but he did look like he was having a good time.

He even dropped me a wink. "What's a self-respecting amusement park without a ghost? Maybe you'll see her yourself. The rubes never do, that's for sure. Now hurry along, kiddo. Nail

down a room before you catch the bus back to Wilmington.

You'll thank me later."

•

With a name like Emmalina Shoplaw, it was hard not to picture

a rosy-cheeked landlady out of a Charles Dickens novel, one

who went everywhere at a bosomy bustle and said things like

Lor' save us. She'd serve tea and scones while a supporting cast

of kind-hearted eccentrics looked on approvingly; she might

even pinch my cheek as we sat roasting chestnuts over a crackling fire.

But we rarely get what we imagine in this world, and the gal

who answered my ring was tall, fiftyish, flat-chested, and as

pale as a frosted windowpane. She carried an old-fashioned

beanbag ashtray in one hand and a smoldering cigarette in the

other. Her mousy brown hair had been done up in fat coils that

covered her ears. They made her look like an aging version of a

princess in a Grimm's fairy tale. I explained why I was there.

"Going to work at Joyland, huh? Well, I guess you better

come in. Do you have references?"

"Not apartment references, no-I live in a dorm. But I've got

a work reference from my boss at the Commons. The Commons

is the food-service cafeteria at UNH where I-"

"I know what a Commons is. I was born at night, but it wasn't

last night." She showed me into the front parlor, a house-long

room stuffed with mismatched furniture and dominated by a

30

STEPHEN KING

big table-model TV. She pointed at it. "Color. My renters are

welcome to use it-and the parlor-until ten on weeknights

and midnight on the weekends. Sometimes I join the kids for a

movie or the Saturday afternoon baseball. We have pizza or I

make popcorn. It's jolly."

jolly, I thought. As in jolly good. And it sounded jolly good.

"Tell me, Mr. Jones, do you drink and get noisy? I consider

that sort of behavior antisocial, although many don't."

"No, ma'am." I drank a little, but rarely got noisy. Usually

after a beer or two, I just got sleepy.

"Asking if you use drugs would be pointless, you'd say no

whether you do or not, wouldn't you? But of course that sort of

thing always reveals itself in time, and when it does, I invite my

renters to find fresh accommos. Not even pot, are we clear on

that?"

"Yes.''

She peered at me. "You don't look like a pothead."

"I'm not."

"I have space for four boarders, and only one of those places

is currently taken. Miss Ackerley. She's a librarian. All my rents

are single rooms, but they're far nicer than what you'd find at a

motel. The one I'm thinking of for you is on the second floor. It

has its own bathroom and shower, which those on the third

floor do not. There's an outside staircase, too, which is convenient

if you have a lady-friend. I have nothing against lady-friends,

being both a lady and quite friendly myself. Do you have a ladyfriend, Mr. Jones?"

"Yes, but she's working in Boston this summer."

"Well, perhaps you'll meet someone. You know what the

song says-love is all around."

Joyland

31

I only smiled at that. In the spring of '73, the concept of

loving anyone other than Wendy Keegan seemed utterly foreign to me.

"You'll have a car, I imagine. There are just two parking

spaces out back for four tenants, so every summer it's first

come, first served. You're first come, and I think you'll do. If I

find you don't, it's down the road you'll go. Does that strike you

as fair?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Good, because that's the way it is. I'll need the usual: first

month, last month, damage deposit." She named a figure that

also seemed fair. Nevertheless, it was going to make a shambles

of my First New Hampshire Trust account.

"Will you take a check?"

"Will it bounce?"

"No, ma'am, not quite."

She threw back her head and laughed. "Then I'll take it,

assuming you still want the room once you've seen it. " She

stubbed out her cigarette and rose. "By the way, no smoking

upstairs-it's a matter of insurance. And no smoking in here,

once there are tenants in residence. That's a matter of common

politeness. Do you know that old man Easterbrook is instituting

a no-smoking policy at the park?"

"I heard that. He'll probably lose business."

"He might at first. Then he might gain some. I'd put my money

on Brad. He's a shrewd guy, carny-from-carny." I thought to ask

her what that meant, exactly, but she had already moved on.

"Shall we have a peek at the room?"

A peek at the second floor room was enough to convince me

it would be fine. The bed was big, which was good, and the

32

STEPHEN KING

window looked out on the ocean, which was even better. The

bathroom was something of a joke, so tiny that when I sat on

the commode my feet would be in the shower, but college students with only crumbs in their financial cupboards can't be too picky. And the view was the clincher. I doubted if the rich

folks had a better one from their summer places along Heaven's

Row. I pictured bringing Wendy here, the two of us admiring

the view, and then . . .in that big bed with the steady, sleepy beat

of the surf outside . . .

"It." Finally, "it."

"I want it," I said, and felt my cheeks heat up. It wasn't just

the room I was talking about.

"I know you do. It's all over your darn face." As if she knew

what I was thinking, and maybe she did. She grinned-a big

wide one that made her almost Dickensian in spite of her flat

bosom and pale skin. "Your own little nest. Not the Palace of

Versailles, but your own. Not like having a dorm room, is it?

Even a single?"

"No," I admitted. I was thinking I'd have to talk my dad into

putting another five hundred bucks into my bank account, to

keep me covered until I started getting paychecks. He'd grouse

but come through. I just hoped I wouldn't have to play the

Dead Mom card. She had been gone almost four years, but Dad

carried half a dozen pictures of her in his wallet, and still wore

his wedding ring.

"Your own job and your own place," she said, sounding a bit

dreamy. "That's good stuff, Devin. Do you mind me calling you

Devin?"

"Make it Dev."

"All right, I will." She looked around the little room with its

Joyland

33

sharply sloping roof-it was under an eave-and sighed. "The

thrill doesn't last long, but while it does, it's a fine thing. That

sense of independence. I think you'll fit in here. You've got a

carny look about you."

"You're the second person to tell me that." Then I thought of

my conversation with Lane Hardy in the parking lot. "Third,

actually."

"And I bet I know who the other two were. Anything else I

can show you? The bathroom's not much, I know, but it beats

having to take a dump in a dormitory bathroom while a couple

of guys at the sinks fart and tell lies about the girls they made

out with last night."

I burst into roars of laughter, and Mrs. Emmalina Shoplaw

joined me.

•

We descended by way of the outside stairs. "How's Lane Hardy?"

she asked when we got to the bottom. "Still wearing that stupid

beanie of his?"

"It looked like a derby to me."

She shrugged. "Beanie, derby, what's the cliff?"

"He's fine, but he told me something . . . "

She was giving me a head-cocked look. Almost smiling, but

not quite.

"He told me the Joyland funhouse-Horror House, he called

it-is haunted. I asked him if he was pulling my leg, and he said

he wasn't. He said you knew about it."

"Did he, now."

"Yes. He says that when it comes to Joyland, you know more

than he does."

34

STEPHEN KING

"Well," she said, reaching into the pocket of her slacks and

bringing out a pack of Winstons, "I know a fair amount. My

husband was chief of engineering down there until he took a

heart attack and died. When it turned out his life insurance was

lousy-and borrowed against to the hilt in the bargain-I started

renting out the top two stories of this place. What else was I

going to do? We just had the one kid, and now she's up in New

York, working for an ad agency." She lit her cigarette, inhaled,

and chuffed it back out as laughter. "Working on losing her

southern accent, too, but that's another story. This overgrown

monstrosity of a house was Howie's playtoy, and I never begrudged him. At least it's paid off. And I like staying connected to the park, because it makes me feel like I'm still connected to

him. Can you understand that?"

"Sure."

She considered me through a rising raft of cigarette smoke,

smiled, and shook her head. "Nah-you're being kind, but you're

a little too young."

"I lost my Mom four years ago. My dad's still grieving. He

says there's a reason wife and life sound almost the same. I've

got school, at least, and my girlfriend. Dad's knocking around a

house just north of Kittery that's way too big for him. He knows

he should sell it and get a smaller one closer to where he

works-we both know-but he stays. So yeah, I know what you

mean."

''I'm sorry for your loss," Mrs. Shoplaw said. "Some day I'll

open my mouth too wide and fall right in. That bus of yours, is

it the five-ten?"

"Yes.''

"Well, come on in the kitchen. I'll make you a toasted cheese

Joyland

35

and microwave you a bowl of tomato soup. You've got time.

And I'll tell you the sad story of the J oyland ghost while you eat,

if you want to hear it."

"Is it really a ghost story?"

''I've never been in that damn funhouse, so I don't know for

sure. But it's a murder story. That much I am sure of."

•

The soup was just Campbell's out of the can, but the toasted

cheese was Muenster-my favorite-and tasted heavenly. She

poured me a glass of milk and insisted I drink it. I was, Mrs.

Shoplaw said, a growing boy. She sat down opposite me with

her own bowl of soup but no sandwich ("I have to watch my

girlish figure") and told me the tale. Some of it she'd gotten

from the newspapers and TV reports. The juicier bits came

from her Joyland contacts, of whom she had many.

"It was four years ago, which I guess would make it around

the same time your mother died. Do you know what always

comes first to my mind when I think about it? The guy's shirt.

And the gloves. Thinking about those things gives me the creeps.

Because it means he planned it."

"You might be kind of starting in the middle," I said.

Mrs. Shoplaw laughed. "Yeah, I suppose I am. The name of

your supposed ghost is Linda Gray, and she was from Florence.

That's over South Carolina way. She and her boyfriend-if that's

what he was; the cops checked her background pretty closely

and found no trace of him-spent her last night on earth at the

Luna Inn, half a mile south of here along the beach. They

entered Joyland around eleven o'clock the next day. He bought

them day passes, using cash. They rode some rides and then

STEPHEN K I N G

had a late lunch at Rock Lobster, the seafood place down by

the concert hall. That was just past one o'clock. As for the time

of death, you probably know how they establish it . . . contents of

the stomach and so on . . . "

"Yeah." My sandwich was gone, and I turned my attention

to the soup. The story wasn't hurting my appetite any. I was

twenty-one, remember, and although I would have told you

different, down deep I was convinced I was never going to die.

Not even my mother's death had been able to shake that core

belief.

"He fed her, then he took her on the Carolina Spin-a slow

ride, you know, easy on the digestion-and then he took her

into Horror House. They went in together, but only he came

out. About halfway along the course of the ride, which takes

about nine minutes, he cut her throat and threw her out beside

the monorail track the cars run on. Threw her out like a piece

of trash. He must have known there'd be a mess, because he

was wearing two shirts, and he'd put on a pair of yellow workgloves. They found the top shirt-the one that would have caught most of the blood-about a hundred yards farther along

from the body. The gloves a little farther along still."

I could see it: first the body, still warm and pulsing, then the

shirt, then the gloves. The killer, meanwhile, sits tight and finishes the ride. Mrs. Shoplaw was right, it was creepy.

"When the ride ended, the son of a bee just got out and

walked away. He mopped up the car-that shirt they found was

soaking-but he didn't get quite all of the blood. One of the

Helpers spotted some on the seat before the next ride started

and cleaned it up. Didn't think twice about it, either. Blood on

amusement park rides isn't unusual; mostly it's some kid who

Joyland

37

gets overexcited and has a nose-gusher. You'll find out for yourself. Just make sure you wear your own gloves when you do the cleanup, in case of diseases. They have em at all the first-aid

stations, and there are first-aid stations all over the park."

"Nobody noticed that he got off the ride without his date?"

"Nope. This was mid-July, the very height of the season, and

the place was a swarming madhouse. They didn't find the body

until one o'clock the next morning, long after the park was

closed and the Horror House work-lights were turned on. For

the graveyard shift, you know. You'll get your chance to experience that; all the Happy Helper crews get cleanup duty one week a month, and you want to catch up on your sleep ahead of

time, because that swing-shift's a booger."

"People rode past her until the park closed and didn't see

her?"

"If they did, they thought it was just part of the show. But

probably the body went unnoticed. Remember, Horror House

is a dark ride. The only one in Joyland, as it happens. Other

parks have more."

A dark ride. That struck a shivery chord, but it wasn't strong

enough to keep me from finishing my soup . "What about a

description of him? Maybe from whoever served them at the

restaurant?"

"They had better than that. They had pictures. You want to

believe the police made sure they got on TV and printed in the

newspapers."

"How did that happen?"

"The Hollywood Girls," Mrs. Shoplaw said. "There are always

half a dozen working the park when it's going full-blast. There's

never been anything close to a coach joint at Joyland, but old

STEPHEN KING

man Easterbrook didn't spend all those years in rolling carnies

for nothing. He knows people like a little dash of sex appeal to

go with the rides and the corndogs. There's one Hollywood Girl

on each Helper team. You'll get yours, and you and the rest of

the guys on your team will be expected to keep a big-brotherly

eye out in case anyone bothers her. They run around in these

short green dresses and green high heels and cutie-pie green

hats that always make me think of Robin Hood and his Merry

Men. Only they're the Merry Chicks. They tote Speed Graphic

cameras, like the kind you see in old movies, and they take pictures of the rubes." She paused. "Although I'd advise you against calling the customers that yourself."

"Already been warned by Mr. Dean," I said.

"Figures. Anyhow, the Hollywood Girls are told to concentrate

on family groups and dating couples who look over twenty-one.

Kids younger than that usually aren't interested in souvenir

photos; they'd rather spend their money on food and arcade

games. So the deal is, the girls snap first, then approach." She

did a breathy little Marilyn Monroe voice. " 'Hello, welcome to

Joyland, I'm Karen! If you'd like a copy of the picture I just took,

give me your name and check at the Hollywood Photo Booth

on Hound Dog Way as you exit the park.' Like that.

"One of them took a picture of Linda Gray and her boyfriend

at the Annie Oakley Shootin' Gallery, but when she approached,

the guy gave her the brushoff. A hard brushoff. She told the

cops later that he looked like he would've taken her camera and

broken it, if he thought he could get away with it. Said his eyes

gave her chills. Hard and gray, she said." Mrs. Shoplaw smiled

and shrugged. "Only it turned out he was wearing sunglasses.

You know how some girls like to dramatize."

Joy land

39

As a matter of fact, I did. Wendy's friend Renee could turn a

routine trip to the dentist into a horror-movie scenario.

"That was the best picture, but not the only one. The cops

went through all the Hollywood Girl snaps from that day and

found the Gray girl and her friend in the background of at least

four others. In the best of those, they're standing in line for

the Whirly Cups, and he's got his hand on her keister. Pretty

chummy for someone none of her family or friends had ever

seen before."

"Too bad there aren't closed-circuit TV cameras," I said.

"My lady-friend got a job at Filene's in Boston this summer,

and she says they've got a few of those cameras, and are putting

in more. To foil shoplifters."

"A day will come when they have em everywhere," she said.

"Just like in that science fiction book about the Thought Police.

I don't look forward to it, either. But they'll never have them

in rides like Horror House. Not even infrared ones that see in

the dark."

"No?"

"Nope. There's no Tunnel of Love at Joyland, but Horror

House is most definitely the Tunnel of Grope. My husband told

me once that a day when the graveyard shift cleanup crew didn't

find at least three pairs of panties beside the track was a slow day,

indeed.

"But they did have that one great photo of the guy at the

shooting gallery. A portrait, almost. It ran in the papers and on

TV for a week. Him snuggled up to her hip to hip, showing her

how to hold the rifle, the way the guys always do. Everyone in

both Carolinas must have seen it. She's smiling, but he looks

dead serious."

STEPHEN KING

"With his gloves and knife in his pockets the whole time," I

said. Marveling at the idea.

"Razor."

"Huh?"

"He used a straight razor or something like it, that's what the

medical examiner figured. Anyway, they had those photos, including the one great one, and you know what? You can't make his face out in any of them."

"Because of the sunglasses."

"For starters. Also a goatee that covered his chin, and a

baseball cap, the kind with a long bill, that shaded what little of

his face the sunglasses and goatee didn't cover. Could have

been anyone. Could have been you, except you're dark-haired

instead of blond and don't have a bird's head tattooed on one of

your hands. This guy did. An eagle or maybe a hawk. It showed

up very clearly in the Shootin' Gallery pic. They ran a blowup

of the tat in the paper for five days running, hoping someone

would recognize it. Nobody did."

"No leads at the inn where they stayed the night before?"

"Uh-uh. He showed a South Carolina driver's license when

he checked in, but it was stolen a year before. No one even saw

her. She must have waited in the car. She was a Jane Doe for

almost a week, but the police released a full-face sketch. Made

her look like she was just sleeping, not dead with her throat cut.

Someone-a friend she went to nursing school with, I think it

was-saw it and recognized it. She told the girl's parents. I can't

imagine how they must have felt, coming up here in their car

and hoping against hope that when they got to the morgue, it

would turn out to be someone else's well-loved child." She

shook her head slowly. "Kids are such a risk, Dev. Did that ever

cross your mind?"

Joyland

"I guess so."

"Which means it hasn't. Me . . . I think if they turned back that

sheet and it was my daughter lying there, I'd lose my mind."

"You don't think Linda Gray really haunts the funhouse, do

you?"

"I can't answer that, because I hold no opinion on the afterlife, pro or con. My feeling is I'll find that stuff out when I get there, and that's good enough for me. All I know is that lots of

people who work at J oyland claim to have seen her standing

beside the track, wearing what she had on when they found

her: blue skirt and blue sleeveless blouse. None of them would

have seen those colors in the photos they released to the public,

because the Speed Graphics the Hollywood Girls use only shoot

black-and-white. Easier and cheaper to develop, I guess."

"Maybe the color of her clothes was mentioned in the articles."

She shrugged. "Might have been; I don't remember. But several people have also mentioned that the girl they saw standing by the track was wearing a blue Alice band, and that wasn't in

the news stories. They held it back for almost a year, hoping to

use it on a likely suspect if they came up with one."

"Lane said the rubes never see her."

"No, she only shows up after hours. It's mostly Happy Helpers

on the graveyard shift who see her, but I know at least one

safety inspector from Raleigh who claims he did, because I had

a drink with him at the Sand Dollar. Guy said she was just

standing there on his ride-through. He thought it was a new

pop-up until she raised her hands to him, like this."

Mrs. Shoplaw held her hands out with the palms upturned, a

supplicatory gesture.

"He said it felt like the temperature dropped twenty degrees.

42

STEPHEN KING

A cold pocket, he called it. When he turned and looked back,

she was gone."

I thought of Lane, in his tight jeans, scuffed boots, and tilted

tuff-boy derby. Truth or horseshit? he'd asked. Live or Merrwrex?

I thought the ghost of Linda Gray was almost certainly horseshit,

but I hoped it wasn't. I hoped I would see her. It would be a

great story to tell Wendy, and in those days, all my thoughts led

back to her. If I bought this shirt, would Wendy like it? If I

wrote a story about a young girl getting her first kiss while on a

horseback ride, would Wendy enjoy it? If I saw the ghost of a

murdered girl, would Wendy be fascinated? Maybe enough to

want to come down and see for herself?

"There was a follow-up story in the Charleston News and

Courier about six months after the murder," Mrs. Shoplaw said.

"Turns out that since 1961, there have been four similar murders in Georgia and the Carolinas. All young girls. One stabbed, three others with their throats cut. The reporter dug up at least

one cop who said all of them could have been killed by the guy

who murdered Linda Gray."

"Beware the Funhouse Killer!" I said in a deep announcertype voice.

"That's exactly what the paper called him. Hungry, weren't

you? You ate everything but the bowl. Now I think you'd better

write me that check and beat feet to the bus station, or you're

apt to be spending the night on my sofa."

Which looked comfortable enough, but I was anxious to get

back north. Two days left in spring break, and then I'd be back

at school with my arm around Wendy Keegan's waist.

I took out my checkbook, scribbled, and by so doing rented

a one-room apartment with a charming ocean view that Wendy

Keegan-my lady-friend-never got a chance to sample. That

Joyland

43

room was where I sat up some nights with my stereo turned

down low, playing Jimi Hendrix and the Doors, having those

occasional thoughts of suicide. They were sophomoric rather

than serious, just the fantasies of an over-imaginative young man

with a heart condition . . . or so I tell myself now, all these years

later, but who really knows?

When it comes to the past, everyone writes fiction .

•

I tried to reach Wendy from the bus station, but her stepmom

said she was out with Renee. When the bus got to Wilmington I

tried again, but she was still out with Renee. I asked Nadinethe stepmom-if she had any idea where they might have gone.

Nadine said she didn't. She sounded as if I were the most uninteresting caller she'd gotten all day. Maybe all year. Maybe in her life. I got along well enough with Wendy's dad, but Nadine

Keegan was never one of my biggest fans.

Finally-I was in Boston by then-I got Wendy. She sounded

sleepy, although it was only eleven o'clock, which is the shank

of the evening to most college students on spring break. I told

her I got the job.

"Hooray for you," she said. "Are you on your way home?"

"Yes, as soon as I get my car." And if it didn't have a flat tire.

In those days I was always running on baldies and it seemed

one of them was always going flat. A spare, you ask? Pretty

funny, senor. "I could spend the night in Portsmouth instead of

going straight home and see you tomorrow, if-"

"Wouldn't be a good idea. Renee's staying over, and that's

about all the company Nadine can take. You know how sensitive

she is about company."

Some company, maybe, but I thought Nadine and Renee

44

STEPHEN KING

had always gotten on like a house afire, drinking endless cups

of coffee and gossiping about their favorite movie stars as if

they were personal friends, but this didn't seem like the time to

say so.

"Ordinarily I'd love to talk to you, Dev, but I was getting ready

to turn in. Me n Ren had a busy day. Shopping and . . . things."

She didn't elaborate on the things part, and I found I didn't

care to ask about them. Another warning sign.

"Love you, Wendy."

"Love you, too." That sounded perfunctory rather than fervent.

She's just tired, I told myself.

I rolled north out of Boston with a distinct feeling of unease.

Something about the way she had sounded? That lack of enthusiasm? I didn't know. I wasn't sure I wanted to know. But I wondered. Sometimes even now, all these years later, I wonder.

She's nothing to me these days but a scar and a memory, someone

who hurt me as young women will hurt young men from time

to time. A young woman from another life. Still I can't help

wondering where she was that day. What those things were.

And if it was really Renee St. Clair she was with.

We could argue about what constitutes the creepiest line in

pop music, but for me it's early Beatles-John Lennon, actually-singing I'd rather see you dead, little girl, than to be with another man. I could tell you I never felt that way about Wendy

in the aftermath of the breakup, but it would be a lie. It was

never a constant thing, but did I think of her with a certain

malevolence in the aftermath of the breakup? Yes. There were

long and sleepless nights when I thought she deserved something bad-maybe really bad-to happen to her for the way she hurt me. It dismayed me to think that way, but sometimes

]oyland

45

I did. And then I would think about the man who went into

Horror House with his arm around Linda Gray and wearing

two shirts. The man with the bird on his hand and a straight

razor in his pocket.

•

In the spring of 1973-the last year of my childhood, when I

look back on it-I saw a future in which Wendy Keegan was

Wendy Jones . . . or perhaps Wendy Keegan-Jones, if she wanted

to be modern and keep her maiden name in the mix. There

would be a house on a lake in Maine or New Hampshire (maybe

western M assachusetts) filled with the clatter-and-yell of a

couple of little Keegan-Joneses, a house where I wrote books

that weren't exactly bestsellers but popular enough to keep

us comfortably and were-very important-well reviewed.

Wendy would pursue her dream of opening a small clothing

boutique (also well reviewed), and I would teach a few creative

writing seminars, the kind gifted students vie to get into. None

of this ever happened, of course, so it was fitting that the last

time we were together as a couple was in the office of Professor

George B. Nako, a man who never was.

In the fall of 1968, returning University of New Hampshire

students discovered Professor Nako's "office" under the stairs in

the basement of Hamilton Smith Hall. The space was papered

with fake diplomas, peculiar watercolors labeled Albanian Art,

and seating plans with such names as Elizabeth Taylor, Robert

Zimmerman, and Lyndon Beans Johnson penciled into the

squares. There were also posted themes from students who

never existed. One, I remember, was titled "Sex Stars of the

Orient." Another was called "The Early Poetry of Cthulhu: An

STEPHEN KING

Analysis." There were three standing ashtrays. A sign taped to

the underside of the stairs read: PROFESSOR NAKO SEZ : "THE

SMOKING LAMP IS ALWAYS LIT ! " There were a couple of ratty

easy chairs and an equally ratty sofa, very handy for students in

search of a comfy make-out spot.

The Wednesday before my last final was unseasonably hot

and humid. Around one in the afternoon, thunderheads began

to build up, and around four, when Wendy had agreed to meet

me in George B. Nako's underground "office," the skies opened

and it began to pour. I got there first. Wendy showed up five

minutes later, soaked to the skin but in high good humor.

Droplets of water sparkled in her hair. She threw herself into

my arms and wriggled against me, laughing. Thunder boomed;

the few hanging lights in the gloomy basement hallway flickered.

"Hug me hug me hug me," she said. "That rain is so cold."

I warmed her up and she warmed me up. Pretty soon we

were tangled together on the ratty sofa, my left hand curled

around her and cupping her braless breast, my right far enough

up her skirt to brush against silk and lace. She let that one stay

there for a minute or two, then sat up, moved away from me,

and fluffed her hair.

"Enough of that," she said primly. "What if Professor Nako

came in?"

"I don't think that's likely, do you?" I was smiling, but below

the belt I was feeling a familiar throb. Sometimes Wendy would

relieve that throb-she had become quite expert at what we used

to call a "through-the-pants job"-but I didn't think this was

going to be one of those days.

"One of his students, then," she said. "Begging for a last-chance

joyland

47

passing grade. 'Please, Professor Nako, please-please-please, I'll

do anything.' "

That wasn't likely, either, but the chances of being interrupted

were good, she was right about that. Students were always dropping by to put up new bogus themes or fresh works of Albanian art. The sofa was make-out friendly, but the locale wasn't. Once,

maybe, but not since the understairs nook had become a kind

of mythic reference-point for students in the College of Liberal

Arts.

"How was your sociology final?" I asked her.

"Okay. I doubt ifl aced it, but I know I passed it and that's good

enough for me. Especially since it's the last one." She stretched,

fingers touching the zig-zag of the stairs above us and lifting her

breasts most entrancingly. ''I'm out of here in . . . " She looked at

her watch. " . . . exactly one hour and ten minutes."

"You and Renee?" I had no great liking for Wendy's roommate,

but knew better than to say so. The one time I had, Wendy and

I had had a brief, bitter argument in which she accused me of

trying to manage her life.

"That is correct, sir. She'll drop me at my dad and stepmom's. And in one week, we're official Filene's employees!"

She made it sound as if the two of them had landed jobs as

pages at the White House, but I held my peace on that, too. I had

other concerns. "You're still coming up to Berwick on Saturday,

right?" The plan was for her to arrive in the morning, spend the

day, and stay over. She'd be in the guest bedroom, of course,

but that was only a dozen steps down the hall. Given the fact

that we might not see each other again until fall, I thought the

possibility of "it" happening was very strong. Of course, little

children believe in Santa Claus, and UNH freshmen sometimes

STEPHEN KING

went a whole semester believing that George B. Nako was a real

professor, teaching real English courses.

"Absoloodle." She looked around, saw no one, and slipped a

hand up my thigh. When it reached the crotch of my jeans, she

tugged gently on what she found there. "Come here, you."

So I got my through-the-pants job after all. It was one of her

better efforts, slow and rhythmic. The thunder rolled, and at

some point the sigh of the pouring rain became a hard, hollow

rattle as it turned to hail. At the end she squeezed, heightening

and prolonging the pleasure of my orgasm.

"Make sure to get good and wet when you go back to your

dorm, or the whole world will know exactly what we were doing

down here." She bounced to her feet. "I have to go, Dev. I've still

got some things to pack."

'Til pick you up at noon on Saturday. My dad's making his

famous chicken casserole for supper."

She once more said absoloodle; like standing on her tiptoes

to kiss me, it was a Wendy Keegan trademark. Only on Friday

night I got a call from her saying that Renee's plans had changed

and they were leaving for Boston two days early. ''I'm sorry, Dev,

but she's my ride."

"There's always the bus," I said, already knowing that wasn't

going to work.

"I promised, honey. And we have tickets for Pippin, at the

Imperial. Renee's dad got them for us, as a surprise." She paused.

"Be happy for me. You're going all the way to North Carolina,

and I'm happy for you."

"Happy," I said. "Roger-wilco."

"That's better." Her voice dropped, became confidential.

"Next time we're together, I'll make it up to you. Promise."

Joy land

49

That was a promise she never kept but one she never had to

break, either, because I never saw Wendy Keegan after that day

in Professor Nako's "office." There wasn't even a final phone

call filled with tears and accusations. That was on Tom Kennedy's

advice (we'll get to him shortly), and it was probably a good

thing. Wendy might have been expecting such a call, maybe

even wished for it. If so, she was disappointed.

I hope she was. All these years later, with those old fevers and

deliriums long in my past, I still hope she was.

Love leaves scars.

•

I never produced the books I dreamed of, those well-reviewed

almost-bestsellers, but I do make a pretty good living as a writer,

and I count my blessings; thousands are not so lucky. I've moved

steadily up the income ladder to where I am now, working at

Commercial Flight, a periodical you've probably never heard of.

A year after I took over as editor-in-chief, I found myself

back on the U N H campus. I was there to attend a two-day

symposium on the future of trade magazines in the twentyfirst century. During a break on the second day, I strolled over to Hamilton Smith Hall on a whim and peeked under the basement stairs. The themes, celebrity-studded seating charts, and Albanian artwork were gone. So were the chairs, the sofa, and

the standing ashtrays. And yet someone remembered. Scotchtaped to the underside of the stairs, where there had once been a sign proclaiming that the smoking lamp was always lit, I saw

a sheet of paper with a single typed line in print so small I had

to lean close and stand on tiptoe in order to read it:

Professor Nako now teaches at t.he Hogwa.rts School of Witchora.fl:. and Wizardry.

50

STEPHEN KING

Well, why not?

Why the fuck not?

As for Wendy, your guess is as good as mine. I suppose I could

use Coogle, that twenty-first century Magic 8-Ball, to chase

her down and find out if she ever realized her dream, the one

of owning the exclusive little boutique, but to what purpose?

Gone is gone. Over is over. And after my stint in Joyland (just

down the beach from a town called Heaven's Bay, let's not forget

that), my broken heart seemed a lot less important. Mike and

Annie Ross had a lot to do with that.

•

My dad and I ended up eating his famous chicken casserole

with no third party in attendance, which was probably all right

with Timothy Jones; although he tried to hide it out of respect

for me, I knew his feelings about Wendy were about the same

as mine about Wendy's friend Renee. At the time, I thought it

was because he was a bit jealous of Wendy's place in my life.

Now I think he saw her more clearly than I could. I can't say for

sure; we never talked about it. I'm not sure men know how to

talk about women in any meaningful way.

After the meal was eaten and the dishes washed, we sat on

the couch, drinking beer, eating popcorn, and watching a movie

starring Gene Hackman as a tough cop with a foot fetish. I

missed Wendy-probably at that moment listening to the Pippin

company sing "Spread a Little Sunshine"-but there are advantages to the two-guy scenario, such as being able to belch and fart without trying to cover it up.

The next day-my last at home-we went for a walk along the

disused railroad tracks that passed through the woods behind

Joy land

the house where I grew up. Mom's hard and fast rule had been

that my friends and I had to stay away from those tracks. The

last GS&WM freight had passed along them ten years before,

and weeds were growing up between the rusty ties, but that

made no difference to Mom. She was convinced that if we played

there, one last train (call it the Kid-Eating Special) would go

bulleting through and turn us all to paste. Only she was the one

who got hit by an unscheduled train-metastatic breast cancer

at the age of forty-seven. One mean fucking express.

'Til miss having you around this summer," my dad said.

'Til miss you, too."

"Oh! Before I forget." He reached into his breast pocket and

brought out a check. "Be sure to open an account and deposit it

first thing. Ask them to speed the clearance, if they can."

I looked at the amount: not the five hundred I'd asked for, but

a thousand. "Dad, can you afford this?"

"Yes. Mostly because you held onto your Commons job, and

that saved me having to try and make up the difference. Think

of it as a bonus."

I kissed his cheek, which was scratchy. He hadn't shaved that

morning. "Thanks."

"Kid, you're more welcome than you know." He took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his eyes matter-of-factly, without embarrassment. "Sorry about the waterworks. It's hard

when your kids go away. Someday you'll find that out for yourself,

but hopefully you'll have a good woman to keep you company

after they're gone."

I thought of Mrs. Shoplaw saying Kids are such a risk. "Dad,

are you going to be okay?"

He put the handkerchief back in his pocket and gave me a

52

STEPHEN KING

grin, sunny and unforced. "Call me once in a while, and I will

be. Also, don't let them put you to work climbing all over one of

their damned roller coasters."

That actually sounded sort of exciting, but I told him I wouldn't.

"And-" But I never heard what he meant to say next, advice or

admonition. He pointed. "Will you look at that!"

Fifty yards ahead of us, a doe had come out of the woods.

She stepped delicately over one rusty GS&WM track and onto

the railbed, where the weeds and goldenrod were so high they

brushed against her sides. She paused there, looking at us calmly,

ears cocked forward. What I remember about that moment was

the silence. No bird sang, no plane went droning overhead. If

my mother had been with us, she'd have had her camera and

would have been taking pictures like mad. Thinking of that

made me miss her in a way I hadn't in years.

I gave my father a quick, fierce hug. "I love you, Dad."

"I know," he said. "I know."

When I looked back, the deer was gone. A day later, so was I.

•

When I got back to the big gray house at the end of Main Street

in Heaven's Bay, the sign made of shells had been taken down

and put in storage, because Mrs. Shoplaw had a full house for

the summer. I blessed Lane Hardy for telling me to nail down a

place to live. Joyland's summer troops had arrived, and every

rooming house in town was full.

I shared the second floor with Tina Ackerley, the librarian.

Mrs. Shoplaw had rented the accommodations on the third floor

to a willowy redheaded art major named Erin Cook and a stocky

undergrad from Rutgers named Tom Kennedy. Erin, who had

Joyland

53

taken photography courses both in high school and at Bard, had

been hired as a Hollywood Girl. As for Tom and me . . .

"Happy Helpers," he said. "General employment, in other

words. That's what that guy Fred Dean checked on my application. You?"

"The same," I said. "I think it means we're janitors."

"I doubt it."

"Really? Why?"

"Because we're white," he said, and although we did our

share of clean-up chores, he turned out to be largely correct.

The custodial crew-twenty men and over thirty women who

dressed in coveralls with Howie the Happy Hound patches sewn

on the breast pockets-were all Haitians and Dominicans, and

almost surely undocumented. They lived in their own little village ten miles inland and were shuttled back and forth in a pair of retired school buses. Tom and I were making four dollars an

hour; Erin a little more. God knows what the cleaners were

making. They were exploited, of course, and saying that there

were undocumented workers all over the south who had it far

worse doesn't excuse it, nor does pointing out that it was forty

years ago. Although there was this: they never had to put on the

fur. Neither did Erin.

Tom and I did.

•

On the night before our first day at work, the three of us were

sitting in the parlor of Maison Shoplaw, getting to know each

other and speculating on the summer ahead. As we talked, the

moon rose over the Atlantic, as calmly beautiful as the doe my

father and I had seen standing on the old railroad tracks.

54

STEPHEN KING

"It's an amusement park, for God's ·sake," Erin said. "How

tough can it be?"

"Easy for you to say," Tom told her. "No one's going to expect you to hose down the Whirly Cups after every brat in Cub Scout Pack 18 loses his lunch halfway through the ride."

'Til pitch in where I have to," she said. "If it includes mopping up vomit as well as snapping pictures, so be it. I need this job. I've got grad school staring me in the face next year, and

I'm exactly two steps from broke."

"We all ought to try and get on the same team," Tom saidand, as it turned out, we did. All the work teams at Joyland had doggy names, and ours was Team Beagle.

Just then Emmalina Shoplaw entered the parlor, carrying a

tray with five champagne flutes on it Miss Ackerley, a beanpole with huge bespectacled eyes that gave her a Joyce Carol Oatesian look, walked beside her, bottle in hand. Tom Kennedy

brightened. "Do I spy French ginger ale? That looks just a leetle

too elegant to be supermarket plank."

"Champagne it is," Mrs. Shop law said, "although if you're

expecting Moet et Chandan, young Mr. Kennedy, you're in for

a disappointment This isn't Cold Duck, but it's not the highpriced spread, either."

"I can't speak for my new co-workers," Tom said, "but as someone who educated his palate on Apple Zapple, I don't think I'll be disappointed."

Mrs. Shoplaw smiled. "I always mark the beginning of summer

this way, for good luck. It seems to work. I haven't lost a seasonal hire yet. Each of you take a glass, please." We did as we were told. "Tina, will you pour?"

When the flutes were full, Mrs. Shoplaw raised hers and we

raised ours.

joyland

55

"Here is to Erin, Tom, and Devin," she said. "May they have

a wonderful summer, and wear the fur only when the temperature is below eighty degrees."

We clinked glasses and drank. Maybe not the high-priced

spread, but pretty damned good, and with enough left for us all

to have another swallow. This time it was Tom who offered the

toast. "Here's to Mrs. Shoplaw, who gives us shelter from the

storm!"

"Why, thank you, Tom, that's lovely. It won't get you a discount on the rent, though."

We drank. I set my glass down feeling just the tiniest bit

buzzy. "What is this about wearing the fur?" I asked.

Mrs. Shoplaw and Miss Ackerley looked at each other and

smiled. It was the librarian who answered, although it wasn't

really an answer at all. "You'll find out," she said.

"Don't stay up late, children," Mrs. Shoplaw advised. "You've

got an early call. Your career in show business awaits."

•

The call was early: seven AM, two hours before the park opened

its doors on another summer. The three of us walked down the

beach together. Tom talked most of the way. He always talked.

It would have been wearisome if he hadn't been so amusing

and relentlessly cheerful. I could see from the way Erin (walking

in the surf with her sneakers dangling from the fingers of her

left hand) looked at him that she was charmed and fascinated. I

envied Tom his ability to do that. He was heavyset and at least

three doors down from handsome, but he was energetic and

possessed of the gift of gab I sadly lacked. Remember the old

joke about the starlet who was so clueless she fucked the writer?

" Man, how much do you think the people who own those

S T E P H E N K I N G

places are worth?" he asked, waving an arm at the houses on

Beach Row. We were just passing the big green one that looked

like a castle, but there was no sign of the woman and the boy in

the wheelchair that day. Annie and Mike Ross came later.

"Millions, probably," Erin said. "It ain't the Hamptons, but as

my dad would say, it ain't cheeseburgers."

"The amusement park probably brings the property values

down a little," I said. I was looking at Joyland's three most distinctive landmarks, silhouetted against the blue morning sky: Thunderball, Delirium Shaker, Carolina Spin.

"Nah, you don't understand the rich-guy mindset," Tom said.

"It's like when they pass bums looking for handouts on the

street. They just erase em from their field of vision. Bums?

What bums? And that park, same deal-what park? People

who own these houses live, like, on another plane of existence." He stopped, shading his eyes and looking at the green Victorian that was going to play such a large part in my life

that fall, after Erin Cook and Tom Kennedy, by then a couple,

had gone back to school. "That one's gonna be mine. I'll be

expecting to take possession on . . . mmm . . . June first, 1987."

''I'll bring the champagne," Erin said, and we all laughed .

•

I saw Joyland's entire crew of summer hires in one place for

the first and last time that morning. We gathered in Surf Auditorium, the concert hall where all those B-list country acts and aging rockers performed. There were almost two hundred of

us. Most, like Tom, Erin, and me, were college students willing

to work for peanuts. Some of the full-timers were there, as

well. I saw Rozzie Gold, today dressed for work in her gypsy

joy land

57

duds and dangly earrings. Lane Hardy was up on stage, placing

a mike at the podium and then checking it with a series of

thudding finger-taps. His derby was present and accounted

for, cocked at its usual just-so angle . I don't know how he

picked me out in all those milling kids, but he did, and sketched

a little salute off the tilted brim of his lid. I sent him one right

back.

He finished his work, nodded, jumped off the stage, and took

the seat Rozzie had been saving for him. Fred Dean walked

briskly out from the wings . "Be seated, please, all of you be

seated. Before you get your team assignments, the owner of

Joyland-and your employer-would like to say a few words.

Please give a hand to Mr. Bradley Easterbrook."

We did as we were told, and an old man emerged from the

wings, walking with the careful, high-stepping strides of someone

with bad hips, a bad back, or both. He was tall and amazingly

thin, dressed in a black suit that made him look more like an

undertaker than a man who owned an amusement park. His

face was long, pale, covered with bumps and moles. Shaving

must have been torture for him, but he had a clean one. Ebony

hair that had surely come out of a bottle was swept back from

his deeply lined brow. He stood beside the podium, his enormous hands-they seemed to be nothing but knuckles-clasped before him. His eyes were set deep in pouched sockets.

Age looked at youth, and youth's applause first weakened,

then died.

I'm not sure what we expected; possibly a mournful foghorn

voice telling us that the Red Death would soon hold sway over

all. Then he smiled, and it lit him up like a jukebox. You could

almost hear a sigh of relief rustle through the summer hires. I

ss

STEPHEN KING

found out later that was the summer Bradley Easterbrook turned

ninety-three.

"You guys," he said, "welcome to Joyland." And then, before

stepping behind the podium, he actually bowed to us. He took

several seconds adjusting the mike, which produced a series of

amplified screeks and scronks. He never took his sunken eyes

from us as he did it.

"I see many returning faces, a thing that always makes me

happy. For you greenies, I hope this will be the best summer

of your lives, the yardstick by which you judge all your future

employment. That is no doubt an extravagant wish, but anyone

who runs a place like this year in and year out must have a wide

streak of extravagance. For certain you'll never have another

job like it."

He surveyed us, giving the poor mike's articulated neck

another twist as he did so.

"In a few moments, Mr. Dean and Mrs. Brenda Rafferty,

who is queen of the front office, will give you your team assignments. There will be seven of you to a team, and you will be expected to act as a team and work as a team. Your team's tasks

will be assigned by your team leader and will vary from week to

week, sometimes from day to day. If variety is the spice of life,

you will find the next three months very spicy, indeed. I hope

you will keep one thought foremost in your mind, young ladies

and gentlemen. Will you do that?"

He paused as if expecting us to answer, but nobody made a

sound. We only looked at him, a very old man in a black suit

and a white shirt open at the collar. When he spoke again, it

might have been himself he was talking to, at least to begin

with.

joyland

59

"This is a badly broken world, full of wars and cruelty and

senseless tragedy. Every human being who inhabits it is served

his or her portion of unhappiness and wakeful nights. Those of

you who don't already know that will come to know it. Given

such sad but undeniable facts of the human condition, you

have been given a priceless gift this summer: you are here to

sell fun. In exchange for the hard-earned dollars of your customers, you will parcel out happiness. Children will go home and dream of what they saw here and what they did here. I

hope you will remember that when the work is hard, as it sometimes will be, or when people are rude, as they often will be, or when you feel your best efforts have gone unappreciated. This

is a different world, one that has its own customs and its own

language, which we simply call the Talk. You'll begin learning it

today. As you learn to talk the Talk, you'll learn to walk the

walk. I'm not going to explain that, because it can't be explained;

it can only be learned."

Tom leaned close to me and whispered, "Talk the talk? Walk

the walk? Did we just wander into an AA meeting?"

I hushed him. I had come in expecting to get a list of commandments, mostly thou shalt nots; instead I had gotten a kind of rough poetry, and I was delighted. Bradley Easterbrook surveyed us, then suddenly displayed those horsey teeth in another grin. This one looked big enough to eat the world. Erin Cook

was staring at him raptly. So were most of the new summer

hires. It was the way students stare at a teacher who offers a

new and possibly wonderful way of looking at reality.

"I hope you'll enjoy your work here, but when you don'twhen, for instance, it's your turn to wear the fur-try to remember how privileged you are. In a sad and dark world, we

6o

STEPHEN KING

are a little island of happiness. Many of you already have plans

for your lives-you hope to become doctors, lawyers, I don't

know, politicians-"

"OH-GOD-NO!" someone shouted, to general laughter.

I would have said Easterbrook's grin could not possibly have

widened, but it did. Tom was shaking his head, but he had also

given in. "Okay, now I get it," he whispered in my ear. "This guy

is the Jesus of Fun."

"You'll have interesting, fruitful lives, my young friends. You'll

do many good things and have many remarkable experiences.

But I hope you'll always look back on your time in Joyland as

something special. We don't sell furniture. We don't sell cars.

We don't sell land or houses or retirement funds. We have no

political agenda. We sell fun. Never forget that. Thank you for

your attention. Now go forth."

He stepped away from the podium, gave another bow, and

left the stage in that same painful, high-stepping stride. He was

gone almost before the applause began. It was one of the best

speeches I ever heard, because it was truth rather than horseshit. I mean, listen: how many rubes can put sold fun for three months in 1973 on their resumes?

•

All the team leaders were long-time Joyland employees who

worked the carny circuit as showies in the off-season. Most

were also on the Park Services Committee, which meant they

had to deal with state and federal regulations (both very loose

in 1973), and field customer complaints. That summer most of

the complaints were about the new no-smoking policy.

Our team leader was a peppy little guy named Gary Allen, a

joyland

61

seventy-something who ran the Annie Oakley Shootin' Gallery.

Only none of us called it that after the first day. In the Talk, a

shooting gallery was a bang-shy and Gary was the bang-shy

agent. The seven of us on Team Beagle met him at his joint,

where he was setting out rifles on chains . My first official

Joyland job-along with Erin, Tom, and the other four guys on

the team-was putting the prizes on the shelves. The ones that

got pride of place were the big fuzzy stuffed animals that hardly

anyone ever won . . . although, Gary said, he was careful to give

out at least one every evening when the tip was hot.

"I like the marks," he said. "Yes I do. And the marks I like

the best are the points, by which I mean the purty girls, and the

points I like the best are the ones who wear the low-cut tops

and bend forrad to shoot like this." He snatched up a .22 modified to shoot BBs (it had also been modified to make a loud and satisfying bang with each trigger-pull) and leaned forward to

demonstrate.

'When a guy does that, I notify em that they're foulin the line.

The points? Never."

Ronnie Houston, a bespectacled, anxious-looking young man

wearing a Florida State University cap, said: "I don't see any

foul-line, Mr. Allen."

Gary looked at him, hands fisted on non-existent hips. His

jeans seemed to be staying up in defiance of gravity. "Listen up,

son, I got three things for you. Ready?"

Ronnie nodded. He looked like he wanted to take notes. He

also looked like he wanted to hide behind the rest of us.

"First thing. You can call me Gary or Pops or come here you

old sonofabitch, but I ain't no schoolteacher, so can the mister.

Second thing. I never want to see that fucking schoolboy hat on

6z

STEPHEN KING

your head again. Third thing. The foul line is wherever I say

the foul line is on any given night. I can do that because it's in

my myyyyynd." He tapped one sunken, vein-gnarled temple to

make this point perfectly clear, then waved at the prizes, the

targets, and the counter where the conies-the rubes-laid down

their mooch. "This is all in my myyyyynd. The shy is mental.

Geddit?"

Ronnie didn't, but he nodded vigorously.

"Now whip off that turdish-looking schoolboy hat. Get you a

Joyland visor or a Howie the Happy Hound dogtop. Make it

Job One."

Ronnie whipped off his FSU lid with alacrity, and stuck it in

his back pocket. Later that day-I believe within the hour-he

replaced it with a Howie cap, known in the Talk as a dogtop.

After three days of ribbing and being called greenie, he took

his new dogtop out to the parking lot, found a nice greasy spot,

and trampled it for a while. When he put it back on, it had the

right look. Or almost. Ronnie Houston never got the complete

right look; some people were just destined to be greenies forever. I remember Tom sidling up to him one day and suggesting that he needed to piss on it a little to give it that final touch that

means so much. When he saw Ronnie was on the verge of taking

him seriously, Tom backpedaled and said just soaking it in the

Atlantic would achieve the same effect.

Meanwhile, Pops was surveying us.

"Speaking of good-looking ladies, I perceive we have one

among us."

Erin smiled modestly.

"Hollywood Girl, darlin?"

"That's what Mr. Dean said I'd be doing, yes."

joyland

"Then you want to go see Brenda Rafferty. She's second-incommand around here, and she's also the park Girl Mom. She'll get you fitted up with one of those cute green dresses. Tell her

you want yours extra-short."

"The hell I will, you old lecher," Erin said, and promptly joined

him when he threw back his head and bellowed laughter.

"Pert! Sassy! Do I like it? I do! When you're not snappin pix

of the conies, you come on back to your Pops and I'll find you

something to do . . . but change out of the dress first. You don't

get grease or sawdust on it. Kapish ?"

"Yes," Erin said. She was all business again.

Pops Allen looked at his watch. "Park opens in one hour, kiddies, then you'll learn while you earn. Start with the rides." He pointed to us one by one, naming rides. I got the Carolina Spin,

which pleased me. "Got time for a question or two, but no

more'n that. Anybody got one or are you good to go?"

I raised my hand. He nodded at me and asked my name.

"Devin Jones, sir."

"Call me sir again and you're fired, lad."

"Devin Jones, Pops." I certainly wasn't going to call him

come here you old sonofoabitch, at least not yet. M aybe when

we knew each other better.

"There you go," he said, nodding. "What's on your mind,

Jonesy? Besides that foine head of red hair?"

"What's carny-from-carny mean?"

"Means you're like old man Easterbrook. His father worked

the carny circuit back in the Dust Bowl days, and his grandfather

worked it back when they had a fake Indian show featuring Big

Chief Yowlatcha."

"You got to be kidding!" Tom exclaimed, almost exultantly.

STEPHEN KING

Pops gave him a cool stare that settled Tom down-a thing

not always easy to do. "Son, do you know what history is?"

"Uh . . . stuff that happened in the past?"

"Nope," he said, tying on his canvas change-belt. "History is

the collective and ancestral shit of the human race, a great big

and ever-growin pile of crap. Right now we're standin at the

top of it, but pretty soon we'll be buried under the doodoo of

generations yet to come. That's why your folks' clothes look so

funny in old photographs, to name but a single example. And,

as someone who's destined to be buried beneath the shit of

your children and grandchildren, I think you should be just a

leetle more forgiving."

Tom opened his mouth, probably to make a smart comeback, then wisely closed it again.

George Preston, another member of Team Beagle, spoke up.

"Are you carny-from-carny?"

"Nope. My daddy was a cattle rancher in Oregon; now my

brothers run the spread. I'm the black sheep of the family, and

damn proud of it. Okay, if there's nothing else, it's time to quit

the foolishness and get down to business."

"Can I ask one thing more?" Erin asked.

"Only because you're purty."

"What does 'wearing the fur' mean?"

Pops Allen smiled. He placed his hands on the moochcounter of his shy. "Tell me, little lady, do you have an idea what it might mean?"

"Well . . . yes."

The smile widened into a grin that showed every yellowing

fang in our new team leader's mouth. "Then you're probably

right."

]oyland

6s

•

What did I do at Joyland that summer? Everything. Sold tickets.

Pushed a popcorn wagon. Sold funnel cakes, cotton candy, and

a zillion hot dogs (which we called Hound Dogs-you probably

knew that). It was a Hound Dog that got my picture in the paper,

as a matter of fact, although I wasn't the guy who sold that

unlucky pup; George Preston did. I worked as a lifeguard, both

on the beach and at Happy Lake, the indoor pool where the

Splash & Crash water slide ended. I line-danced in the Wiggle

Waggle Village with the other members of Team Beagle to "Bird

Dance Beat," "Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor on the

Bedpost Overnight," "Rippy-Rappy, Zippy-Zappy," and a dozen

other nonsense songs. I also did time-most of it happy-as an

unlicensed child-minder. In the Wiggle-Waggle, the approved

rallying cry when faced with a bawling kiddie was "Let's turn

that frown upside-down!" and I not only liked it, I got good at

it. It was in the Wiggle-Waggle that I decided having kids at

some point in the future was an actual Good Idea rather than a

Wendy-flavored daydream.

l-and all the other Happy Helpers-learned to race from

one side of J oyland to the other in nothing flat, using either the

alleys behind the shys, joints, rides, and concessions or one of

three service-tunnels known as Joyland Under, Hound Dog

Under, and the Boulevard. I hauled trash by the ton, usually

driving it in an electric cart down the Boulevard, a shadowy

and sinister thoroughfare lit by ancient fluorescent bar-lights

that stuttered and buzzed. I even worked a few times as a

roadie, hauling amps and monitors when one of the acts showed

up late and unsupported.

I learned to talk the Talk. Some of it-like bally for a free

66

STEPHEN KING

show, or gone larry for a ride that had broken down-was pure

carny, and as old as the hills. Other terms-like points for purty

girls and fumps for the chronic complainers-were strictly Joyland lingo. I suppose other parks have their own version of the Talk, but underneath it's always carny-from-carny. A hammersquash is a cony (usually a fump) who bitches about having to wait in line. The last hour of the day (at Joyland, that was ten PM

to eleven) was the blow-off. A cony who loses at some shy and

wants his mooch back is a mooch-hammer. The donniker is the

bathroom, as in "Hey, Jonesy, hustle down to the donniker by the

Moon Rocket-some dumb fump just puked in one of the sinks."

Running the concessions (known as joints) came easy to most

of us, and really, anyone who can make change is qualified to

push the popcorn wagon or work the counter of a souvenir shop.

Learning to ride-jock wasn't much more difficult, but it was

scary at first, because there were lives in your hands, many

those of little children.

•

"Here for your lesson?" Lane Hardy asked me when I joined him

at the Carolina Spin. "Good. Just in time. Park opens in twenty

minutes. We do it the way they do in the navy-see one, do

one, teach one. Right now that heavyset kid you were standing

next to-"

"Tom Kennedy."

"Okay. Right now Tom's over learning the Devil Wagons. At

some point-probably this very day-he's gonna teach you how

to run the ride, and you'll teach him how to run the Spin. Which,

by the way, is an Aussie Wheel, meaning it runs counterclock-

wise."

joyland

"Is that impmtant?"

"Nope," he said, "but I think it's interesting. There are only a

few in the States. It has two speeds: slow and really slow."

"Because it's a grandma ride."

"Correctamundo." He demonstrated with the long stick shift

I'd seen him operating on the day I got my job, then made me

take over the stick with the bicycle handgrip at the top. "Feel it

click when it's in gear?"

"Yes."

"Here's stop." He put his hand over mine and pulled the

lever all the way up. This time the click was harder, and the

enormous wheel stopped at once, the cars rocking gently.

"With me so far?"

"I guess so. Listen, don't I need a permit or a license or

something to run this thing?"

"You got a license, don't you?"

"Sure, a Maine driver's license, but-"

"In South Carolina, a valid DL's all you need. They'll get

around to additional regulations in time-they always do-but

for this year, at least, you're good to go. Now pay attention,

because this is the most important part. Do you see that yellow

stripe on the side of the housing?"

I did. It was just to the right of the ramp leading up to the

ride.

"Each car has a Happy Hound decal on the door. When you

see the Hound lining up with the yellow stripe, you pull stop,

and there'll be a car right where the folks get on." He yanked

the lever forward again. "See?"

I said I did.

"Until the wheel's tipsed-"

68

STEPHEN KING

"What?"

"Loaded. Tipsed means loaded. Don't ask me why. Until

the wheel's tipsed, you just alternate between super-slow and

stop. Once you've got a full load-which you'll have most of

the time, if we have a good season-you go to the normal slow

speed. They get four minutes." He pointed to his suitcase

radio. "It's my boomie, but the rule is when you run the ride,

you control the tunes. Just no real blasting rock and roll

Who, Zep, Stones, stufflike that-until after the sun goes down.

Got it?"

"Yeah. What about letting them off?"

"Exactly the same. Super-slow, stop. Super-slow, stop. Always

line up the yellow stripe with the Happy Hound, and you'll

always have a car right at the ramp. You should be able to get

ten spins an hour. If the wheel's loaded each time, that's over

seven hundred customers, which comes to almost a d-note."

"Which is what, in English?"

"Five hundred."

I looked at him uncertainly. "I won't really have to do this,

will I? I mean, it's your ride."

"It's Brad Easterbrook's ride, kiddo. They all are. I'm just

another employee, although I've been here a few years. I'll run

the hoister most of the time, but not all of the time. And hey, stop

sweating. There are carnies where half-drunk bikers covered

with tattoos do this, and if they can, you can."

"If you say so."

Lane pointed. "Gates're open and here come the conies,

rolling down Joyland Avenue. You're going to stick with me for

the first three rides. Later on you teach the rest of your team,

and that includes your Hollywood Girl. Okay?"

]oyland

6g

It wasn't even close to okay-I was supposed to send people a

hundred and seventy feet in the air after a five-minute tutorial?

It was insane.

He gripped my shoulder. "You can do this, Jonesy. So never

mind 'if you say so.' Tell me it's okay."

"It's okay," I said.

"Good boy." He turned on his radio, now hooked to a speaker

high on the Spin's frame. The Hollies began to sing "Long Cool

Woman in a Black Dress" as Lane took a pair of rawhide gloves

from the back pocket of his jeans. "And get you a pair of theseyou're going to need them. Also, you better start learning how to pitch." He bent down, grabbed a hand-held mike from the

ever-present orange crate, put one foot up, and began to work

the crowd.

"Hey folks welcome in, time to take a little spin, hurry hurry,

summer won't last forever, take a ride upstairs where the air is

rare, this is where the fun begins, step over here and ride the

Spin."

He lowered the mike and gave me a wink. "That's my pitch,

more or less; give me a drink or three and it gets a lot better.

You work out your own."

The first time I ran the Spin by myself, my hands were shaking

with terror, but by the end of that first week I was running it

like a pro (although Lane said my pitch needed a lot of work).

I was also capable of running the Whirly Cups and the Devil

Wagons . . . although ride-jacking the latter came down to little

more than pushing the green START button, the red STOP

button, and getting the cars untangled when the rubes got

them stuck together against the rubber bumpers, which was at

least four times during each four-minute ride. Only when you

S T E P H E N K I N G

were running the Devil Wagons, you didn't call them rides; each

run was a spree.

I learned the Talk; I learned the geography, both above and

below ground; I learned how to run a joint, take over a shy,

and award plushies to good-looking points. It took a week or so

to get most of it down, and it was two weeks before I started

getting comfortable. Wearing the fur, however, I understood

by twelve-thirty on my first day, and it was just my luck-good

or bad-that Bradley Easterbrook happened to be in Wiggle

Waggle Village at the time, sitting on a bench and eating his

usual lunch of bean sprouts and tofu-hardly amusement park

chow, but let's keep in mind that the man's food-processing

system hadn't been new since the days of bathtub gin and

flappers.

After my first impromptu performance as Howie the Happy

Hound, I wore the fur a lot. Because I was good at it, you see.

And Mr. Easterbrook knew I was good at it. I was wearing it a

month or so later, when I met the little girl in the red hat on

Joyland Avenue.

•

That first day was a madhouse, all right. I ran the Carolina Spin

with Lane until ten o'clock, then alone for the next ninety minutes while he rushed around the park putting out opening day fires. By then I no longer believed the wheel was going to malfunction and start running out of control, like the merry-goround in that old Alfred Hitchcock movie. The most terrifying thing was how trusting people were. Not a single dad with kids

in tow detoured to my pitch to ask if I knew what I was doing. I

didn't get as many spins as I should have-I was concentrating so

Joyland

71

hard on that damn yellow stripe that I gave myself a headachebut every spin I did get was tipsed.

Erin came by once, pretty as a picture in her green Hollywood Girl dress, and took pictures of some of the family groups waiting to get on. She took one of me, too-l still have it somewhere. When the wheel was turning again, she gripped me by the arm, little beads of sweat standing out on her forehead, her

lips parted in a smile, her eyes shining.

"Is this great, or what?" she asked.

"As long as I don't kill anybody, yeah," I said.

"If some little kid falls out of a car, just make sure you catch

him." Then, having given me something new to obsess about,

she jogged off in search of new photo subjects. There was no

shortage of people willing to pose for a gorgeous redhead on a

summer morning. And she was right, actually. It was pretty

great.

Around eleven-thirty, Lane came back. By that point, I was

comfortable enough ride-jacking the Spin to turn the rudimentary controls over to him with some reluctance.

"Who's your team leader, Jonesy? Gary Allen?"

"That's right."

"Well, go on over to his bang-shy and see what he's got for

you. If you're lucky, he'll send you down to the boneyard for

lunch."

'What's the boneyard?"

'Where the help goes when they've got time off. Most carnies,

it's the parking lot or out behind the trucks, but Joyland's lux.

There's a nice break-room where the Boulevard and Hound

Dog Under connect. Take the stairs between the balloon-pitch

and the knife-show. You'll like it, but you only eat if Pop says it's

72

STEPHEN K I N G

okay. I ain't getting in dutch with that old bastard. His team is

his team; I got my own. You got a dinner bucket?"

"Didn't know I was supposed to bring one."

He grinned. "You'll learn. For today, stop at Ernie's jointthe fried chicken place with the big plastic rooster on top.

Show him your Joyland ID card and he'll give you the company

discount."

I did end up eating fried chicken at Ernie's, but not until

two that afternoon. Pop had other plans for me. "Go by the

costume shop-it's the trailer between Park Services and the

carpentry shop. Tell Dottie Lassen I sent you. Damn woman's

busting her girdle."

"Want me to help you reload first?" The Shootin' Gallery

was also tipsed, the counter crowded with high school kids anxious to win those elusive plushies. More rubes (so I was already thinking of them) were lined up three deep behind the current

shooters. Pop Allen's hands never stopped moving as he talked

to me.

"What I want is for you to get on your pony and ride. I was

doin this shit long before you were born. Which one are you,

anyway, Jonesy or Kennedy? I know you're not the dingbat in

the college-boy hat, but beyond that I can't remember."

''I'm Jonesy."

"Well, Jonesy, you're going to spend an edifying hour in the

Wiggle-Waggle. It'll be edifying for the kiddies, anyhow. For

you, maybe not so much." He bared his yellow fangs in a trademark Pop Allen grin, the one that made him look like an elderly shark. "Enjoy that fur suit."

•

Joyland

73

The costume shop was also a madhouse, filled with women running every whichway. Dottie Lassen, a skinny lady who needed a girdle like I needed elevator shoes, fell on me the second I

walked through the door. She hooked her long-nailed fingers

into my armpit and dragged me past clown costumes, cowboy

costumes, a huge Uncle Sam suit (with stilts leaning beside it

against the wall), a couple of princess outfits, a rack of Hollywood Girl dresses, and a rack of old-fashioned Gay Nineties bathing suits . . . which, I found out, we were condemned to wear

when on lifeguard duty. At the very back of her crowded little

empire were a dozen deflated dogs. Howies, in fact, complete

with the Happy Hound's delighted stupid-and-loving-it grin,

his big blue eyes, and his fuzzy cocked ears. Zippers ran down

the backs of the suits from the neck to the base of the tail.

"Christ, you're a big one," Dottie said. "Thank God I got the

extra-large mended last week. The last kid who wore it ripped

it out under both arms. There was a hole under the tail, too. He

must have been eating M exican food. " She snatched the XL

Howie off the rack and slammed it into my arms. The tail curled

around my leg like a python. "You're going to the Wiggle-Waggle,

and I mean chop-fucking-chop. Butch Hadley was supposed to

take care of that from Team Corgi-or so I thought-but he

says his whole team's out with a key to the midway." I had no

idea what that meant, and Dottie gave me no time to ask. She

rolled her eyes in a way that indicated either good humor or

the onset of madness, and continued. "You say 'What's the big

deal?' I'll tell you what's the big deal, greenie: Mr. Easterbrook

usually eats his lunch there, he always eats it there on the first

day we're running full-out, and if there's no Howie, he'll be very

disappointed."

74

STEPHEN KING

"Like as in someone will get fired?"

"No, as in very disappointed. Stick around awhile and you'll

know that's plenty bad enough. No one wants to disappoint

him, because he's a great man. Which is nice, I suppose, but

what's more important is he's a good guy. In this business, good

guys are scarcer than hen's teeth." She looked at me and made

a sound like a small animal with its paw caught in a trap. "Dear

Christ, you're a big one. And green as grass. But it can't be

helped."

I had a billion questions, but my tongue was frozen. All I

could do was stare at the deflated Howie. Who stared back at

me. Do you know what I felt like just then? James Bond, in the

movie where he's tied to some kind of crazy exercise gadget. Do

you expect me to talk? he asks Goldfinger, and Goldfinger replies,

with chilling good humor, No, Mr. Bond! I expect you to die! I

was tied to a happiness machine instead of an exercise machine,

but hey, same idea. No matter how hard I worked to keep up

on that first day, the damn thing just kept going faster.

"Take it down to the boneyard, kid. Please tell me you know

where that is."

"I do." Thank God Lane had told me.

"Well, that's one for the home team, anyway. When you get

there, strip down to your undies. If you wear more than that

while you're wearing the fur, you'll roast. And . . . anybody ever

tell you the First Rule of Carny, kid?"

I thought so, but it seemed safer to keep my mouth shut.

"Always know where your wallet is. This park isn't anywhere

near as sleazy as some of the places I worked in the flower of

my youth-thank God-but that's still the First Rule. Give it to

me, I'll keep it for you."

Joyland

75

I handed over my wallet without protest.

"Now go. But even before you strip down, drink a lot of water.

I mean until your belly feels swollen. And don't eat anything, I

don't care how hungry you are. I've had kids get heatstroke and

barf in Howie suits, and the results ain't pretty. Suit almost

always has to be thrown out. Drink, strip, put on the fur, get

someone to zip you up, then hustle down the Boulevard to the

Wiggle-Waggle. There's a sign, you can't miss it."

I looked doubtfully at Howie's big blue eyes.

"They're screen mesh," she said. "Don't worry, you'll see

fine."

"But what do I do?"

She looked at me, at first unsmiling. Then her face-not just

her mouth and eyes but her whole face-broke into a grin. The

laugh that accompanied it was this weird honk that seemed to

come through her nose. "You'll be fine," she said. People kept

telling me that. "It's method acting, kiddo. Just find your inner

dog."

•

There were over a dozen new hires and a handful of old-timers

having lunch in the boneyard when I arrived. Two of the greenies

were Hollywood Girls, but I had no time to be modest. After

gulping a bellyful from the drinking fountain, I shucked down

to my Jockeys and sneakers. I shook out the Howie costume

and stepped in, making sure to get my feet all the way down in

the back paws.

"Fur!" one of the old-timers yelled, and slammed a fist down

on the table. "Fur! Fur! Fur!"

The others took it up, and the boneyard rang with the chant

STEPHEN KING

as I stood there in my underwear with a deflated Howie puddled

around my shins. It was like being in the middle of a prison

messhall riot. Rarely have I felt so exquisitely stupid . . . or so

oddly heroic. It was showbiz, after all, and I was stepping into

the breach. For a moment it didn't matter that I didn't know

what the fuck I was doing.

"Fur! Fur! FUR! FUR!"

"Somebody zip me the hell up!" I shouted. "I have to get

down to the Wiggle-Waggle posthaste!"

One of the girls did the honors, and I immediately saw why

wearing the fur was such a big deal. The boneyard was air conditioned-all of J oyland Under was-but I was already popping hard sweat.

One of the old-timers came over and gave me a kindly pat on

my Howie-head. "''ll give you a ride, son," he said. "Cart's right

there. Jump in."

"Thanks." My voice was muffled.

"Woof-woof, Bowser!" someone called, and they all cracked

up.

We rolled down the Boulevard with its spooky, stuttering

fluorescent lights, a grizzled old guy in janitor's greens with a

giant blue-eyed German Shepherd riding co-pilot. As he pulled

up at the stairs marked with an arrow and the painted legend

WIGWAG on the cinderblocks, he said: "Don't talk. Howie never

talks, just gives hugs and pats em on the head. Good luck, and

if you start feelin all swimmy, get the hell out. The kids don't

want to see Howie flop over with heatstroke."

"I have no idea what I'm supposed to do," I said. "Nobody's

told me."

I don't know if that guy was carny-from-carny or not, but he

joyland

77

knew something about Joyland. "It don't matter. The kids all

love Howie. They'll know what to do."

I clambered out of the cart, almost tripped over my tail, then

grasped the string in the left front paw and gave it a yank to get

the damn thing out of my way. I staggered up the stairs and

fumbled with the lever of the door at the top. I could hear music,

something vaguely remembered from my early childhood. I

finally got the lever to go down. The door opened and bright

Junelight flooded through Howie's screen-mesh blue eyes, momentarily dazzling me.

The music was louder now, being piped from overhead

speakers, and I could put a name to it: "The Hokey Pokey," that

all-time nursery school hit. I saw swings, slides, and teeter-totters,

an elaborate jungle gym, and a roundy-round being pushed by

a greenie wearing long fuzzy rabbit ears and a powder-puff tail

stuck to the seat of his jeans. The Choo-Choo Wiggle, a toy

train capable of dazzling speeds approaching four miles an

hour, steamed by, loaded with little kids dutifully waving to

their camera-toting parents. About a gazillion kids were boiling

around, watched over by plenty of summer hires, plus a couple

of full-time personnel who probably did have child-care licenses.

These two, a man and a woman, were wearing sweatshirts that

read WE L uv HAPPY KIDS . Dead ahead was the long daycare

building called Howie's Howdy House.

I saw Mr. Easterbrook, too. He was sitting on a bench beneath

a Joyland umbrella, dressed in his mortician's suit and eating

his lunch with chopsticks . He didn't see me at first; he was

looking at a crocodile line of children being led toward the

Howdy House by a couple of greenies. The kiddies could be

parked there (I found this out later) for a maximum of two

STEPHEN KING

hours while the parents either took their older kids on the

bigger rides or had lunch at Rock Lobster, the park's class-A

restaurant.

I also found out later that the eligibility ages for Howdy House

ran from three to six. Many of the children now approaching

looked pretty mellow, probably because they were daycare vets

from families where both parents worked. Others weren't taking

it so well. Maybe they'd managed to keep a stiff upper lip at

first, hearing mommy and daddy say they'd all be back together

in just an hour or two (as if a four-year-old has any real concept

of what an hour is), but now they were on their own, in a noisy

and confusing place filled with strangers and mommy and daddy

nowhere in sight. Some of those were crying. Buried in the

Howie costume, looking out through the screen mesh that

served as eyeholes and already sweating like a pig, I thought I

was witnessing an act of uniquely American child abuse. Why

would you bring your kid-your toddler, for Christ's sake-to

the jangling sprawl of an amusement park only to fob him

or her off on a crew of strange babysitters, even for a little

while?

The greenies in charge could see the tears spreading

(toddler-angst is just another childhood disease, really, like

measles), but their faces said they had no idea what to do

about it. Why would they? It was Day One, and they had been

thrown into the mix with as little preparation as I'd had when

Lane Hardy walked away and left me in charge of a gigantic

Ferris wheel. But at least kids under eight can't get on the

Spin without an adult, I thought. These little buggers are pretty

much on their own.

I didn't know what to do either, but felt I had to try something.

Joyland

79

I walked toward the line of kids with my front paws up and

wagging my tail like mad (I couldn't see it, but I could feel it).

And just as the first two or three saw me and pointed me out,

inspiration struck. It was the music. I stopped at the intersection

of Jellybean Road and Candy Cane Avenue, which happened to

be directly beneath two of the blaring speakers. Standing almost

seven feet from paws to furry cocked ears, I'm sure I was quite

a presence. I bowed to the kids, who were now all staring with

open mouths and wide eyes. As they watched, I began to do the

Hokey Pokey.

Sorrow and terror over lost parents were forgotten, at least

for the time being. They laughed, some with tears still gleaming

on their cheeks. They didn't quite dare approach, not while I

was doing my clumsy little dance, but they crowded forward.

There was wonder but no fear. They all knew Howie; those

from the Carolinas had seen his afternoon TV show, and even

those from far-flung exotic locales like St. Louis and Omaha

had seen brochures and advertisements on the Saturday morning

cartoons. They understood that although Howie was a big dog,

he was a good dog. He'd never bite. He was their friend.

I put my left foot in; I put my left foot out; I put my left foot

in and I shook it all about. I did the Hokey Pokey and I turned

myself around, because-as almost every little kid in America

knows-that's what it's all about. I forgot about being hot and

uncomfortable. I didn't think about how my undershorts were

sticking in the crack of my ass. Later I would have a bitch of a

heat-headache, but just then I felt okay-really good, in fact.

And you know what? Wendy Keegan never once crossed my

mind.

When the music changed to the Sesame Street theme, I quit

So

STEPHEN KING

dancing, dropped to one padded knee, and held out my arms

like AI Jolson.

"HOWWWIE!" a little girl screamed, and all these years

later I can still hear the perfect note of rapture in her voice.

She ran forward, pink skirt swirling around her chubby knees.

That did it. The orderly crocodile line dissolved.

The kids will know what to do, the old-timer had said, and

how right he was. First they swarmed me, then they knocked

me over, then they gathered around me, hugging and laughing.

The little girl in the pink skirt kissed my snout repeatedly,

shouting "Howie, Howie, Howie!" as she did it.

Some of the parents who had ventured into the Wiggle-Waggle

to snap pictures were approaching, equally fascinated. I paddled

my paws to get some space, rolled over, and got up before they

could crush me with their love. Although just then I was loving

them right back. For such a hot day, it was pretty cool.

I didn't notice Mr. Easterbrook reach into the jacket of his

mortician's suit, bring out a walkie-talkie, and speak into it

briefly. All I knew was that the Sesame Street music suddenly

cut out and "The Hokey Pokey" started up again. I put my right

paw in and my right paw out. The kids got into it right away,

their eyes never leaving me, not wanting to miss the next move

and be left behind.

Pretty soon we were all doing the Hokey Pokey at the intersection of Jellybean and Candy Cane. The greenie minders joined in. I'll be goddamned if some of the parents didn't join

in as well. I even put my long tail in and pulled my long tail out.

Laughing madly, the kids turned around and did the same, only

with invisible tails.

As the song wound down, I made an extravagant "Come on,

Joy land

kids!" gesture with my left paw (inadvertently yanking my tail

up so stringently I almost tore the troublesome fucker off) and

led them toward Howdy House. They followed as willingly as

the children of Hamelin followed the pied piper, and not one of

them was crying. That actually wasn't the best day of my brilliant (if i do say so myself, and I do) career as Howie the Happy Hound, but it was right up there .

•

When they were safely inside Howdy House (the little girl in

the pink skirt stood in the door long enough to wave me a byebye), I turned around and the world seemed to keep right on turning when I stopped. Sweat sheeted into my eyes, doubling

Wiggle-Waggle Village and everything in it. I wavered on my

back paws. The entire performance, from my first Hokey Pokey

moves to the little girl waving bye-bye, had only taken seven

minutes-nine, tops-but I was totally fried. I started trudging

back the way I had come, not sure what to do next.

"Son," a voice said. "Over here."

It was Mr. Easterbrook. He was holding open a door in the

back of the Wishing Well Snack Bar. It might have been the

door I'd come through, probably was, but then I'd been too

anxious and excited to notice.

He ushered me inside, closed the door behind us, and pulled

down the zipper at the back of the costume. Howie's surprisingly

heavy head fell off my own, and my damp skin drank up the

blessed air conditioning. My skin, still winter-white (it wouldn't

stay that way for long), rashed out in goosebumps. I took big

deep breaths.

" Sit down on the steps," he said. "''ll call for a ride in a

Bz

STEPHEN KING

minute, but right now you need to get your wind back. The first

few turns as Howie are always difficult, and the performance

you just gave was particularly strenuous. It was also extraordinary."

"Thanks." It was all I could manage. Until I was back inside

the cool quiet, I hadn't realized how close to my limit I was.

"Thanks very much."

"Head down if you feel faint."

"Not faint. Got a headache, though." I snaked one arm out

of Howie and wiped my face, which was dripping. "You kinda

rescued me."

"Maximum time wearing Howie on a hot day-I'm talking

July and August, when the humidity is high and the temperature goes into the nineties-is fifteen minutes," Mr. Easterbrook said. "If someone tries to tell you different, send them directly

to me. And you'll be well advised to swallow a couple of salt

pills. We want you summer kids to work hard, but we don't

want to kill you."

He took out his walkie-talkie and spoke briefly and quietly.

Five minutes later, the old-timer showed up again in his cart,

with a couple of Anacin and a bottle of blessedly cold water. In

the meantime Mr. Easterbrook sat next to me, lowering himself

to the top step leading down to the Boulevard with a glassy care

that made me a trifle nervous.

"What's your name, son?"

"Devin Jones, sir."

"Do they call you Jonesy?" He didn't wait for me to reply.

"Of course they do, it's the carny way, and that's all Joyland is,

really-a thinly disguised carny. Places like this won't last much

longer. The Disneys and Knott's Berry Farms are going to rule

Joyland

the amusement world, except maybe down here in the midsouth. Tell me, aside from the heat, how did you enjoy your first turn wearing the fur?"

"I liked it."

"Because?"

"Because some of them were crying, I guess."

He smiled. "And?"

"Pretty soon all of them would have been crying, but I stopped

it.,

"Yes. You did the Hokey Pokey. A splinter of genius. How did

you know it would work?"

"I didn't." But actually . . . I did. On some level, I did.

He smiled. "At Joyland, we throw our new hires-our greenies-into the mix without much in the way of preparation, because in some people, some gifted people, it encourages a sort

of spontaneity that's very special and valuable, both to us and to

our patrons. Did you learn something about yourself just now?"

"Jeez, I don't know. Maybe. But . . . can I say something, sir?"

"Feel free."

I hesitated, then decided to take him at his word. "Sending

those kids to daycare-daycare at an amusement park-that

seems, I don't know, kind of mean." I added hastily, "Although

the Wiggle-Waggle seems really good for little people. Really

fun."

"You have to understand something, son. At Joyland, we're

in the black this much." He held a thumb and forefinger only a

smidge apart. "When parents know there's care for their wee

ones-even for just a couple of hours-they bring the whole

family. If they needed to hire a babysitter at home, they might

not come at all, and our profit margin would disappear. I take

STEPHEN KING

your point, but I have a point, too. Most of those little ones

have never been to a place like this before. They'll remember it

the way they'll remember their first movie, or their first day at

school. Because of you, they won't remember crying because

they were abandoned by their parents for a little while; they'll

remember doing the Hokey Pokey with Howie the Happy Hound,

who appeared like magic."

"I guess."

He reached out, not for me but for Howie. He stroked the

fur with his gnarled fingers as he spoke. "The Disney parks are

scripted, and I hate that. Hate it. I think what they're doing

down there in Orlando is fun-pimping. I'm a seat-of-the-pants

fan, and sometimes I see someone who's a seat-of-the-pants

genius. That could be you. Too early to tell for sure, but yes, it

could be you." He put his hands to the small of his back and

stretched. I heard an alarmingly loud series of cracking noises.

"Might I share your cart back to the boneyard? I think I've had

enough sun for one day."

"My cart is your cart." Since Joyland was his park, that was

literally true.

"I think you'll wear the fur a lot this summer. Most of the

young people see that as a burden, or even a punishment. I don't

believe that you will. Am I wrong?"

He wasn't. I've done a lot of jobs in the years since then, and

my current editorial gig-probably my last gig before retirement

seizes me in its claws-is terrific, but I never felt so weirdly

happy, so absolutely in-the-right-place, as I did when I was

twenty-one, wearing the fur and doing the Hokey Pokey on a

hot day in June.

Seat of the pants, baby.

Joyland

Bs

•

I stayed friends with Tom and Erin after that summer, and I'm

friends with Erin still, although these days we're mostly email

and Facebook buddies who sometimes get together for lunch

in New York. I've never met her second husband. She says he's

a nice guy, and I believe her. Why would I not? After being

married to Mr. Original Nice Guy for eighteen years and having

that yardstick to measure by, she'd hardly pick a loser.

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 fucks 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.

"I don't know and don't care," Grumpy Girl said. "I got tired

of all the drinking and hen-parties at two in the morning. Some

of us actually like to get a little sleep. Strange but true."

My heart was beating so hard I could feel it pulsing in my

temples. "Did Renee go with her?"

"No, they had a fight. Over that guy. The one who helped

Wennie move out." She said Wennie with a kind of bright contempt that made me sick to my stomach. Surely it wasn't the guy part that made me feel that way; I was her guy. If some

friend, someone she'd met at work, had pitched in and helped

her move her stuff, what was that to me? Of course she could

have guy friends. I had made at least one girl friend, hadn't I?

"Is Renee there? Can I talk to her?"

Joyland

8g

"No, she had a date." Some penny must have finally dropped,

because all at once Grumpy Girl got interested in the conversation. "Heyyy, is your name Devin?"

I hung up. It wasn't something I planned, just something I

did. I told myself I hadn't heard Grumpy Girl all of a sudden

change into Amused Grumpy Girl, as if there was some sort of

joke going on and I was part of it. Maybe even the butt of it. As

I believe I have said, the mind defends itself as long as it can .

•

Three days later, I got the only letter I received from Wendy

Keegan that summer. The last letter. It was written on her stationery, which was deckle-edged and featured happy kittens playing with balls of yam. It was the stationery of a fifth-grade

girl, although that thought didn't occur to me until much later.

There were three breathless pages, mostly saying how sorry

she was, and how she had fought against the attraction but it

was just hopeless, and she knew I would be hurt so I probably

shouldn't call her or try to see her for a while, and she hoped

we could be good friends after the initial shock wore off, and

he was a nice guy, he went to Dartmouth, he played lacrosse,

she knew I'd like him, maybe she could introduce him to me

when the fall semester started, etc. etc. fucking etc.

That night I plopped myself down on the sand fifty yards or

so from Mrs. Shoplaw's Beachside Accommodations, planning

to get drunk. At least, I thought, it wouldn't be expensive. In

those days, a sixpack was all it took to get me pie-eyed. At some

point Tom and Erin joined me, and we watched the waves roll

in together: the three Joyland Musketeers.

"What's wrong?" Erin asked.

go

STEPHEN KING

I shrugged, the way you do when it's small shit but annoying

shit, all the same. "Girlfriend broke up with me. Sent me a

Dear John letter."

'Which in your case," Tom said, "would be a Dear Dev letter."

"Show a little compassion," Erin told him. "He's sad and

hurt and trying not to show it. Are you too much of a dumbass

to see that?"

"No," Tom said. He put his arm around my shoulders and

briefly hugged me against him. "''m sorry for your pain, pal. I

feel it coming off you like a cold wind from Canada or maybe

even the Arctic. Can I have one of your beers?"

"Sure."

We sat there for quite a while, and under Erin's gentle questioning, I spilled some of it, but not all of it. I was sad. I was hurt. But there was a lot more, and I didn't want them to see

it. This was partly because I'd been raised by my parents to

believe barfing your feelings on other people was the height

of impoliteness, but mostly because I was dismayed by the

depth and strength of my jealousy. I didn't want them to even

guess at that lively worm (he was from Dartmouth, oh God

yes, he'd probably pledged the best frat and drove a Mustang

his folks had given him as a high school graduation present).

Nor was jealousy the worst of it. The worst was the horrifying

realization-that night it was just starting to sink in-that I

had been really and truly rejected for the first time in my life.

She was through with me, but I couldn't imagine being through

with her.

Erin also took a beer, and raised the can. "Let's toast the next

one to come along. I don't know who she'll be, Dev, only that

meeting you will be her lucky day."

Joy land

91

"Hear-hear! " Tom said, raising his own can. And, because

he was Tom , he felt compelled to add "Where-where ! " and

"There-there!"

I don't think either of them realized, then or all the rest of

the summer, how fundamentally the ground under my feet had

shifted. How lost I felt. I didn't want them to !mow. It was more

than embarrassing; it seemed shameful. So I made myself smile,

raised my own can of suds, and drank.

At least with them to help me drink the six, I didn't have to

wake up the next morning hungover as well as heartbroke. That

was good, because when we got to J oyland that morning, I

found out from Pop Allen that I was down to wear the fur that

afternoon on Joyland Avenue-three fifteen-minute shifts at

three, four, and five. I bitched for form's sake (everybody was

supposed to bitch about wearing the fur) but I was glad. I liked

being mobbed by the kids, and for the next few weeks, playing

Howie also had a bitter sort of amusement value. As I made

my tail-wagging way down Joyland Avenue, followed by crowds

of laughing children, I thought it was no wonder Wendy had

dumped me. Her new boyfriend went to Dartmouth and played

lacrosse. Her old one was spending the summer in a third-tier

amusement park. Where he played a dog .

•

Joyland summer.

I ride-jockeyed. I flashed the shys in the mornings-meaning

I restocked them with prizes-and ran some of them in the

afternoons. I untangled Devil Wagons by the dozen, learned

how to fry dough without burning my fingers off, and worked

on my pitch for the Carolina Spin. I danced and sang with the

92

STEPHEN KING

other greenies on the Wiggle-Waggle Village's Story Stage.

Several times Fred Dean sent me to scratch the midway, a true

sign of trust because it meant picking up the noon or five PM

take from the various concessions. I made runs to Heaven's

B ay or Wilmington when some piece of machinery broke

down and stayed late on Wednesday nights-usually along

with Tom , George Preston, and Ronnie Houston-to lube

the Whirly Cups and a vicious, neck-snapping ride called the

Zipper. Both of those babies drank oil the way camels drink

water when they get to the next oasis. And, of course, I wore

the fur.

In spite of all this, I wasn't sleeping for shit. Sometimes I'd

lie on my bed, clap my elderly, taped-up headphones over my

ears, and listen to my Doors records. (I was particularly partial

to such cheerful tunes as "Cars Hiss By My Window," "Riders on

the Storm," and-of course-''The End.") When Jim Morrison's

voice and Ray Manzarek's mystic, chiming organ weren't enough

to sedate me, I'd creep down the outside staircase and walk on

the beach. Once or twice I slept on the beach. At least there

were no bad dreams when I did manage to get under for a little

while. I don't remember dreaming that summer at all.

I could see bags under my eyes when I shaved in the morning,

and sometimes I'd feel lightheaded after a particularly strenuous turn as Howie (birthday parties in the overheated bedlam of Howdy House were the worst), but that was normal; Mr.

Easterbrook had told me so. A little rest in the boneyard always

put me right again. On the whole, I thought I was representing,

as they say nowadays. I learned different on the first Monday in

July, two days before the Glorious Fourth .

•

Joy land

93

My team-Beagle-reported to Pop Allen's shy first thing, as

always, and he gave us our assignments as he laid out the popguns. Usually our early chores involved toting boxes of prizes (MADE IN TAIWAN stamped on most of them) and flashing shys

until Early Gate, which was what we called opening. That morning, however, Pop told me that Lane Hardy wanted me. This was a surprise; Lane rarely showed his face outside the boneyard until twenty minutes or so before Early Gate. I started that way, but Pop yelled at me.

"Nah, nah, he's at the simp-hoister." This was a derogatory

term for the Ferris wheel he would have known better than to

use if Lane had actually been there. "Beat feet, Jonesy. Got a lot

to do today."

I beat feet, but saw no one at the Spin, which stood tall, still,

and silent, waiting for the day's first customers.

"Over here," a woman called. I turned to my left and saw

Rozzie Gold standing outside her star-studded fortune-telling

shy, all kitted out in one of her gauzy Madame Fortuna rigs. On

her head was an electric blue scarf, the knotted tail of which fell

almost to the small of her back. Lane was standing beside her in

his usual rig: faded straight-leg jeans and a skin-tight strappy

tee-shirt perfect for showing off his fully loaded guns. His derby

was tilted at the proper wiseguy angle. Looking at him, you'd

believe he didn't have a brain in his head, but he had plenty.

Both dressed for show, and both wearing bad-news faces. I

ran quickly through the last few days, trying to think of anything I'd done that might account for those faces. It crossed my mind that Lane might have orders to lay me off. . . or even fire me.

But at the height of the summer? And wouldn't that be Fred

Dean's or Brenda Rafferty's job? Also, why was Rozzie here?

94

STEPHEN K I N G

"Who died, guys?" I asked.

"Just as long as it isn't you," Rozzie said. She was getting into

character for the day and sounded funny: half Brooklyn and

half Carpathian Mountains.

"Huh?"

"Walk with us, Jonesy," Lane said, and immediately started

down the midway, which was largely deserted ninety minutes

before Early Gate; no one around but a few members of the

janitorial staff-gazoonies, in the Talk, and probably not a green

card among them-sweeping up around the concessions: work

that should have been done the night before. Rozzie made

room for me between them when I caught up. I felt like a crook

being escorted to the pokey by a couple of cops.

"What's this about?"

"You'll see," Rozzie/Fortuna said ominously, and pretty soon

I did. Next to Horror House-the two connected, actuallywas Mysterio's Mirror Mansion. Next to the agent's booth was a regular mirror with a sign over it reading so YOU woN'T

FORGET HOW YOU REALLY LOOK. Lane took me by one arm,

Rozzie by the other. Now I really did feel like a perp being

brought in for booking. They placed me in front of the mirror.

"What do you see?" Lane asked.

"Me," I said, and then, because that didn't seem to be the

answer they wanted: "Me needing a haircut."

"Look at your clothes, silly boy," Rozzie said, pronouncing

the last two words seely poy.

I looked. Above my yellow workboots I saw jeans (with the

recommended brand of rawhide gloves sticking out of the back

pocket), and above my jeans was a blue chambray workshirt,

faded but reasonably clean. On my head was an admirably

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95

battered H owie dogtop, the finishing touch that means so

much.

"What about them?" I said. I was starting to get a little mad.

"Kinda hangin on ya, aren't they?" Lane said. "Didn't used to.

How much weight you lost?"

"Jesus, I don't know. Maybe we ought to go see Fat Wally."

Fat Wally ran the guess-your-weight joint.

"Is not funny," Fortuna said. "You can't wear that damn dog

costume half the day under the hot summer sun, then swallow

two more salt pills and call it a meal. Mourn your lost love all

you want, but eat while you do it. Eat, dammit!"

"Who's been talking to you? Tom?" No, it wouldn't have been

him. "Erin. She had no business-"

"No one has been talking to me," Rozzie said. She drew herself up impressively. "I have the sight."

"I don't know about the sight, but you've got one hell of a

nerve."

All at once she reverted to Rozzie. ''I'm not talking about

psychic sight, kiddo, I'm talking about ordinary woman-sight.

You think I don't know a lovestruck Romeo when I see one?

After all the years I've been gigging palms and peeping the

crystal? Hah !" She stepped forward, her considerable breastworks leading the way. "I don't care about your love life; I just don't want to see you taken to the hospital on July Fourthwhen it's supposed to hit ninety-five in the shade, by the waywith heat prostration or something worse."

Lane took off his derby, peered into it, and re-set it on his

head cocked the other way. "What she won't come right out and

say because she has to protect her famous crusty reputation is

we all like you, kid. You learn fast, you do what's asked of you,

g6

STEPHEN K I N G

you're honest, you don't make no trouble, and the kids love you

like mad when you're wearing the fur. But you'd have to be

blind not to see something's wrong with you. Rozzie thinks girl

trouble. Maybe she's right. Maybe she ain't."

Rozzie gave him a haughty dare-you-doubt-me stare.

"Maybe your parents are getting a divorce. Mine did, and it

damn near killed me. Maybe your big brother got arrested for

selling dope-"

"My mother's dead and I'm an only child," I said sulkily.

"I don't care what you are in the straight world," he said.

"This is Joyland. The show. And you're one of us. Which means

we got a right to care about you, whether you like it or not. So

get something to eat."

"Get a lot to eat," Rozzie said. "Now, noon, all day. Every

day. And try to eat something besides fried chicken where, I

tell you what, there's a heart attack in every drumstick. Go in

Rock Lobster and tell them you want a take-out of fish and

salad. Tell them to make it a double. Get your weight up so you

don't look like the Human Skeleton in a ten-in-one." She turned

her gaze on Lane. "It's a girl, of course it is. Anybody can see

that."

"Whatever it is, stop fucking pining," Lane said.

"Such language to use around a lady," Rozzie said. She was

sounding like Fortuna again. Soon she'd come out with Ziss is

vat za spirits vant, or something equivalent.

"Ah, blow it out," Lane said, and walked back toward the

Spin.

When he was gone, I looked at Rozzie. She really wasn't much

in the mother-figure department, but right then she was what I

had. "Roz, does everyone know?"

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97

She shook her head. "Nah. To most of the old guys, you're

just another greenie jack-of-all-trades . . . although not as green

as you were three weeks ago. But many people here like you,

and they see something is wrong. Your friend Erin, for one.

Your friend Tom for another." She said friend like it rhymed

with rent. "I am another friend, and as a friend I tell you that

you can't fix your heart. Only time can do that, but you can fix

your body. Eat!"

"You sound like a Jewish mother joke," I said.

"I am a Jewish mother, and believe me, it's no joke."

''I'm the joke," I said. "I think about her all the time."

"That you can't help, at least for now. But you must turn

your back on the other thoughts that sometimes come to you."

I think my mouth dropped open. I'm not sure. I know I stared.

People who've been in the business as long as Rozzie Gold had

been back then-they are called mitts in the Talk, for their

palmistry skills-have their ways of picking your brains so that

what they say sounds like the result of telepathy, but usually it's

just close observation.

Not always, though.

"I don't understand."

"Give those morbid records a rest, do you understand that?"

She looked grimly into my face, then laughed at the surprise

she saw there. "Rozzie Gold may be just a Jewish mother and

grandmother, but Madame Fortuna sees much."

So did my landlady, and I found out later-after seeing Rozzie

and Mrs. Shoplaw having lunch together in Heaven's Bay on one

of Madame Fortuna's rare days off-that they were close friends

who had known each other for years. Mrs. Shoplaw dusted my

room and vacuumed the floor once a week; she would have seen

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STEPHEN K I N G

my records. As for the rest-those famous suicidal ideations that

sometimes came to me-might not a woman who had spent

most of her life observing human nature and watching for psychological clues (called tells both in the Talk and big-league poker) guess that a sensitive young man, freshly dumped, might

entertain thoughts of pills and ropes and riptide undertows?

''I'll eat," I promised. I had a thousand things to do before

Early Gate, but mostly I was just anxious to be away from her

before she said something totally outrageous like Her name is

Vendy, and you still think of her ven you mess-turbate.

"Also, drink big glass of milk before you go to bed." She raised

an admonitory finger. "No coffee; milk. Viii help you sleep."

"Worth a try," I said.

She went back to Roz again. "The day we met, you asked if I

saw a beautiful woman with dark hair in your future. Do you

remember that?"

"What did I say?"

"That she was in my past."

Rozzie gave a single nod, hard and imperious. "So she is .

And when you want to call her and beg for a second chanceyou will, you will-show a little spine. Have a little self-respect.

Also remember that the long-distance is expensive."

Tell me something I don't know, I thought. "Listen, I really

have to get going, Roz. Lots to do."

"Yes, a busy day for all of us. But before you go, Jonesyhave you met the boy yet? The one with the dog? Or the girl who wears the red hat and carries the doll? I told you about

them, too, when we met."

"Roz, I've met a billion kids in the last-"

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99

"You haven't, then. Okay. You will." She stuck out her lower

lip and blew, stirring the fringe of hair that stuck out from

beneath her scarf. Then she seized my wrist. "I see danger for

you, J onesy. Sorrow and danger."

I thought for a moment she was going to whisper something

like Beware the dark stranger! He rides a unicycle! Instead, she

let go of me and pointed at Horror House. "Which team turns

that unpleasant hole? Not yours, is it?"

"No, Team Doberman." The Dobies were also responsible

for the adjacent attractions: Mysterio's Mirror Mansion and the

Wax Museum. Taken together, these three were Joyland's halfhearted nod to the old carny spook-shows.

"Good. Stay out of it. It's haunted, and a boy with bad thoughts

needs to be visiting a haunted house like he needs arsenic in his

mouthwash. Kapish?"

"Yeah." I looked at my watch.

She got the point and stepped back. "Watch for those kids.

And watch your step, boychick. There's a shadow over you."

•

Lane and Rozzie gave me a pretty good jolt, I'll admit it. I didn't

stop listening to my Doors records-not immediately, at leastbut I made myself eat more, and started sucking down three milkshakes a day. I could feel fresh energy pouring into my

body as if someone had turned on a tap, and I was very grateful

for that on the afternoon of July Fourth. J oyland was tip sed and

I was down to wear the fur ten times, an all-time record.

Fred Dean himself came down to give me the schedule, and

to hand me a note from old Mr. Easterbrook. If it becomes too

much, stop at once and tell your team leader to find a sub .

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STEPHEN KING

'Til be fine," I said.

"Maybe, but make sure Pop sees this memo."

"Okay."

"Brad likes you, Jonesy. That's rare. He hardly ever notices

the greenies unless he sees one of them screw up."

I liked him, too, but didn't say so to Fred. I thought it would

have sounded suck-assy.

•

All my July Fourth shifts were tenners, not bad even though

most ten-minute shifts actually turned out to be fifteenies, but

the heat was crushing. Ninety-five in the shade, Rozzie had said,

but by noon that day it was a hundred and two by the thermometer that hung outside the Park Ops trailer. Luckily for me, Dottie Lassen had repaired the other XL Howie suit and I could

swap between the two. While I was wearing one, Dottie would

have the other turned as inside-out as it would go and hung in

front of three fans, drying the sweat-soaked interior.

At least I could remove the fur by myself; by then I'd discovered the secret. Howie's right paw was actually a glove, and when you knew the trick, pulling down the zipper to the

neck of the costume was a cinch. Once you had the head off,

the rest was cake. This was good, because I could change by

myself behind a pull-curtain. No more displaying my sweaty,

semi-transparent undershorts to the costume ladies.

As the bunting-draped afternoon of July Fourth wore on, I

was excused from all other duties. I'd do my capering, then

retreat to J oyland Under and collapse on the ratty old couch in

the boneyard for a while, soaking up the air conditioning. When

I felt revived, I'd use the alleys to get to the costume shop and

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101

swap one fur for the other. Between shifts I guzzled pints of

water and quarts of unsweetened iced tea. You won't believe I

was having fun, but I was. Even the brats were loving me that

day.

So: quarter to four in the afternoon. I'm jiving down Joyland

Avenue-our midway-while the overhead speakers blast out

Daddy Dewdrop's "Chick-A-Boom, Chick-A-Boom, Don'tcha

Just Love It." I'm giving out hugs to the kiddies and Awesome

August coupons to the adults, because Joyland's business always

dropped off as the summer wound down. I'm posing for pictures (some taken by Hollywood Girls, most by hordes of sweatsoaked, sunburned Parent Paparazzi), and trailing adoring kids after me in cometary splendor. I'm also looking for the nearest

door to Joyland Under, because I'm pretty well done up. I have

just one more turn as Howie scheduled today, because Howie

the Happy Hound never shows his blue eyes and cocked ears

after sundown. I don't know why; it was just a show tradition.

Did I notice the little girl in the red hat before she fell down

on the baking pavement ofJoyland Avenue, writhing and jerking?

I think so but can't say for sure, because passing time adds false

memories and modifies real ones. I surely wouldn't have noticed

the Pup-A-Licious she was waving around, or her bright red

Howie dogtop; a kid at an amusement park with a hotdog is

hardly a unique sighting, and we must have sold a thousand red

Howie hats that day. If I did notice her, it was because of the

doll she held curled to her chest in the hand not holding her

mustard-smeared Pup. It was a big old Raggedy Ann. M adame

Fortuna had suggested I be on the lookout for a little girl with a

doll only two days before, so maybe I did notice her. Or maybe

I was only thinking of getting off the midway before I fell down

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STEPHEN K I N G

in a faint. Anyway, her doll wasn't the problem . The Pup-A

Licious she was eating-that was the problem.

I only think I remember her running toward me (hey, they

all did), but I know what happened next, and why it happened.

She had a bite of her Pup in her mouth, and when she drew in

breath to scream HOWWWIE, she pulled it down her throat.

Hot dogs: the perfect choking food. Luckily for her, just enough

of Rozzie Gold's Fortuna bullshit had stuck in my head for me

to act quickly.

When the little girl's knees buckled, her expression of happy

ecstasy turning first to surprise and then terror, I was already

reaching behind me and grabbing the zipper with my pawglove . The Howie-head tumbled off and lolled to the side, revealing the red face and sweat-soaked, clumpy hair of Mr.

Devin Jones. The little girl dropped her Raggedy Ann. Her hat

fell off. She began clawing at her neck.

"Hallie?" a woman cried. "Hallie, what's wrong?"

Here's more Luck in Action: I not only knew what was wrong,

I knew what to do. I'm not sure you'll understand how fortunate

that was. This is 1973 we're talking about, remember, and Henry

Heimlich would not publish the essay that would give the Heimlich Maneuver its name for another full year. Still, it's always been the most commonsense way to deal with choking, and we had

learned it during our first and only orientation session before

beginning work in the UNH Commons. The teacher was a tough

old veteran of the restaurant wars who had lost his Nashua coffee

shop a year after a new McDonald's went up nearby.

"Just remember, it won't work if you don't do it hard," he told

us. "Don't worry about breaking a rib if you see someone dying

in front of you."

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103

I saw the little girl's face turning purple and didn't even

think about her ribs. I seized her in a vast, furry embrace, with

my tail-pulling left paw jammed against the bony arch in her

midsection where her ribs came together. I gave a single hard

squeeze, and a yellow-smeared chunk of hotdog almost two

inches long came popping out of her mouth like a cork from a

champagne bottle. It flew nearly four feet. And no, I didn't

break any of her ribs. Kids are flexible, God bless 'em.

I wasn't aware that I and Hallie Stansfield-that was her

name-were hemmed in by a growing circle of adults. I certainly wasn't aware that we were being photographed dozens of times, including the shot by Erin Cook that wound up in the

Heaven's Bay Weekly and several bigger papers, including the

Wilmington Star-News. I've still got a framed copy of that photo

in an attic box somewhere. It shows the little girl dangling in

the arms of this weird man/dog hybrid with one of its two heads

lolling on its shoulder. The girl is holding out her arms to her

mother, perfectly caught by Erin's Speed Graphic just as Mom

collapses to her knees in front of us.

All of that is a blur to me, but I remember the mother

sweeping the little girl up into her own arms and the father

saying Kid, I think you saved her life. And I remember-this is

as clear as crystal-the girl looking at me with her big blue eyes

and saying, "Oh poor Howie, your head fell off."

•

The all-time classic newspaper headline, as everyone knows, is

MAN B IT E S D O G . The Star-News couldn't equal that, but the

one over Erin's picture gave it a run for its money: DOG SAVES

G I R L A T AMUSEMENT PARK .

STEPHEN K I N G

Want to know my first snarky urge? To clip the article and

send it to Wendy Keegan. I might even have done it, had I not

looked so much like a drowned muskrat in Erin's photo. I did

send it to my father, who called to say how proud of me he was.

I could tell by the tremble in his voice that he was close to tears.

"God put you in the right place at the right time, Dev," he

said.

M aybe God. Maybe Rozzie Gold, aka Madame Fortuna.

Maybe a little of both.

The next day I was summoned to Mr. Easterbrook's office, a

pine-paneled room raucous with old carny posters and photographs. I was particularly taken by a photo that showed a straw-hatted agent with a dapper mustache standing next to a

test-your-strength shy. The sleeves of his white shirt were

rolled up, and he was leaning on a sledgehammer like it was a

cane: a total dude. At the top of the ding-post, next to the bell,

was a sign reading KISS HIM, LADY, HE'S A HE-MAN!

"Is that guy you?" I asked.

"It is indeed, although I only ran the ding-show for a season.

It wasn't to my taste. Gaff jobs never have been. I like my games

straight. Sit down, Jonesy. You want a Coke or anything?"

"No, sir. I'm fine." I was, in fact, sloshing with that morning's

milkshake.

''I'll be perfectly blunt. You gave this show twenty thousand

dollars' worth of good publicity yesterday afternoon, and I still

can't afford to give you a bonus. If you knew .. . but never mind."

He leaned forward. "What I can do is owe you a favor. If you

need one, ask. I'll grant it if it's in my power. Will that do?"

"Sure."

"Good. And would you be willing to make one more appear-

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105

ance-as Howie-with the little girl? Her parents want to thank

you in private, but a public appearance would be an excellent

thing for Joyland. Entirely your call, of course."

"When?"

"Saturday, after the noon parade. We'd put up a platform at

the intersection of Joyland and Hound Dog Way. Invite the

press."

"Happy to," I said. I liked the idea of being in the newspapers

again, I will admit. It had been a tough summer on my ego and

self-image, and I'd take all the turnaround I could get.

He rose to his feet in his glassy, unsure way, and offered me

his hand. "Thank you again. On behalf of that little girl, but also

on behalf of J oyland. The accountants who run my damn life

will be very happy about this."

•

When I stepped out of the office building, which was located

with the other administrative buildings in what we called the

backyard, my entire team was there. Even Pop Allen had come.

Erin, dressed for success in Hollywood Girl green, stepped forward with a shiny metal crown of laurels made from Campbell's Soup cans. She dropped to one knee. "For you, my hero."

I would have guessed I was too sunburned to flush, but that

turned out not to be true. "Oh Jesus, get up."

"Savior of little girls," Tom Kennedy said. "Not to mention

savior of our place of employment getting its ass sued off and

possibly having to shut its doors."

Erin bounced to her feet, stuck the ludicrous soup-can crown

on my head, then gave me a big old smackaroonie. Everyone on

Team Beagle cheered.

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STEPHEN K I N G

"Okay," Pop said when it died down. "We can all agree that

you're a knight in shining ah-mah, Jonesy. You are also not the

first guy to save a rube from popping off on the midway. Could

we maybe all get back to work?"

I was good with that. Being famous was fun, but the don'tget-a-swelled-head message of the tin laurels wasn't lost on me .

•

I was wearing the fur that Saturday, on the makeshift platform

at the center of our midway. I was happy to take Hallie in my

arms, and she was clearly happy to be there. I'd guess there

were roughly nine miles of film burned as she proclaimed her

love for her favorite doggy and kissed him again and again for

the cameras.

Erin was in the front row with her camera for a while, but

the news photogs were bigger and all male. Soon they shunted

her away to a less favorable position, and what did they all

want? What Erin had already gotten, a picture of me with my

Howie-head off. That was one thing I wouldn't do, although

I'm sure none of Fred, Lane, or Mr. Easterbrook himself would

have penalized me for it. I wouldn't do it because it would have

flown in the face of park tradition: Howie never took off the fur

in public; to do so would have been like outing the Tooth Fairy.

I'd done it when Hallie Stansfield was choking, but that was the

necessary exception. I would not deliberately break the rule.

So I guess I was carny after all (although not carny-from-carny,

never that).

Later, dressed in my own duds again, I met with Hallie and

her parents in the Joyland Customer Service Center. Close-up,

I could see that Mom was pregnant with number two, although

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107

she probably had three or four months of eating pickles and ice

cream still ahead of her. She hugged me and wept some more.

Hallie didn't seem overly concerned. She sat in one of the plastic

chairs, swinging her feet and looking at old copies of Screen

Time, speaking the names of the various celebrities in the declamatory voice of a court page announcing visiting royalty. I patted Mom's back and said there-there. Dad didn't cry, but

the tears were standing in his eyes as he approached me and

held out a check in the amount of five hundred dollars, made

out to me. When I asked what he did for a living, he said he had

started his own contracting firm the year before-just now

little, but gettin on our feet pretty good, he told me. I considered that, factored in one kid here plus another on the way, and tore up the check. I told him I couldn't take money for something that was just part of the job.

You have to remember I was only twenty-one .

•

There were no weekends per se for Joyland summer help; we

got a day and a half every nine, which meant they were never

the same days. There was a sign-up sheet, so Tom, Erin, and I

almost always managed to get the same downtime. That was

why we were together on a Wednesday night in early August,

sitting around a campfire on the beach and having the sort

of meal that can only nourish the very young: beer, burgers,

barbecue-flavored potato chips, and coleslaw. For dessert we

had s'mores that Erin cooked over the fire, using a grill she

borrowed from Pirate Pete's Ice Cream Waffle joint. It worked

pretty well.

We could see other fires-great leaping bonfires as well as

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STEPHEN K I N G

cooking fires-all the way down the beach to the twinkling

metropolis of J oyland. They made a lovely chain of burning

jewelry. Such fires are probably illegal in the twenty-first century;

the powers that be have a way of outlawing many beautiful

things made by ordinary people. I don't know why that should

be, I only know it is.

While we ate, I told them about Madame Fortuna's prediction that I would meet a boy with a dog and a little girl in a red hat who carried a doll. I finished by saying, "One down and one

to go."

"Wow," Erin said. "Maybe she really is psychic. A lot of people

have told me that, but I didn't really-"

"Like who?" Tom demanded.

"Well . . . Dottie Lassen in the costume shop, for one. Tina

Ackerley, for another. You know, the librarian Dev creeps down

the hall to visit at night?"

I flipped her the bird. She giggled.

"Two is not a lot," Tom said, speaking in his Hot Shit Professor

voice.

"Lane Hardy makes three," I said. "He says she's told people

stuff that rocked them back on their heels." In the interest of

total disclosure, I felt compelled to add: "Of course he also said

that ninety percent of her predictions are total crap."

"Probably closer to ninety-five," said the Hot Shit Professor.

"Fortune telling's a con game, boys and girls. An Ikey Heyman,

in the Talk. Take the hat thing. J oyland dogtops only come in

three colors-red, blue, and yellow. Red's by far the most popular. As for the doll, c'mon. How many little kids bring some sort of toy to the amusement park? It's a strange place, and

a favorite toy is a comfort thing. If she hadn't choked on her

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109

hotdog right in front of you, if she'd just given Howie a big old

hug and passed on, you would have seen some other little girl

wearing a red dogtop and carrying a doll and said, 'Aha! Madame

Fortuna really can see the future, I must cross her palm with

silver so she will tell me more.' "

"You're such a cynic," Erin said, giving him an elbow. "Rozzie

Gold would never try taking money from someone in the show."

"She didn't ask for money," I said, but I thought what Tom

said made a lot of sense. It was true she had known (or seemed to

know) that my dark-haired girl was in my past, not my future, but

that could have been no more than a guess based on percentages-or the look on my face when I asked.

"Course not," Tom said, helping himself to another s'more.

"She was just practicing on you. Staying sharp. I bet she's told a

lot of other greenies stuff, too."

"Would you be one of them?" I asked.

"Well . . . no. But that means nothing."

I looked at Erin, who shook her head.

"She also thinks Horror House is haunted," I said.

''I've heard that one, too," Erin said. "By a girl who got murdered in there."

"Bullshit!" Tom cried. "Next you'll be telling me it was the

Hook, and he still lurks behind the Screaming Skull!"

"There really was a murder," I said. "A girl named Linda Gray.

She was from Florence, South Carolina. There are pictures of

her and the guy who killed her at the shooting gallery and

standing in line at the Spin. No hook, but there was a tattoo of a

bird on his hand. A hawk or an eagle."

That silenced him, at least for the time being.

"Lane Hardy said that Roz only thinks Horror H ouse is

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STEPHEN K I N G

haunted, because she won't go inside and find out for sure. She

won't even go near it, if she can help it. Lane thinks that's ironic,

because he says it really is haunted."

Erin made her eyes big and round and scooted a little closer

to the fire-partly for effect, mostly I think so that Tom would

put his arm around her. "He's seen-?"

"I don't know. He said to ask Mrs. Shoplaw, and she gave me

the whole story." I ran it down for them. It was a good story to

tell at night, under the stars, with the surf rolling and a beachfire just starting to burn down to coals. Even Tom seemed fascinated.

"Does she claim to have seen Linda Gray?" he asked when I

finally ran down. "La Shoplaw?"

I mentally replayed her story as told to me on the day I rented

the room on the second floor. "I don't think so. She would have

said."

He nodded, satisfied. "A perfect lesson in how these things

work. Everyone knows someone who's seen a UFO, and everyone knows someone who's seen a ghost. Hearsay evidence, inadmissible in court. Me, I'm a Doubting Thomas. Geddit?

Tom Kennedy, Doubting Thomas?"

Erin threw him a much sharper elbow. 'We get it." She looked

thoughtfully into the fire. "You know what? Summer's two-thirds

gone, and I've never been in the Joyland scream-shy a single

time, not even the baby part up front. It's a no-photo zone.

Brenda Rafferty told us it's because lots of couples go in there

to make out." She peered at me. 'What are you grinning about?"

"Nothing." I was thinking of La Shoplaw's late husband going

through the place after Late Gate and picking up cast-off panties.

"Have either of you guys been in?"

Joy land

1 1 1

We both shook our heads. "HH is Dobie Team's job," Tom

said.

"Let's do it tomorrow. All three of us in one car. Maybe we'll

see her."

"Go to Joyland on our day off when we could spend it on the

beach?" Tom asked. "That's masochism at its very finest."

This time in spite of giving him an elbow, she poked him in

the ribs. I didn't know if they were sleeping together yet, but it

seemed likely; the relationship had certainly become very physical. "Poop on that! As employees we get in free, and what does the ride take? Five minutes?"

"I think a little longer," I said. "Nine or ten. Plus some time

in the baby part. Say fifteen minutes, all told."

Tom put his chin on her head and looked at me through the

fine cloud of her hair. "Poop on that, she says. You can tell that

here is a young woman with a fine college education. Before

she started hanging out with sorority girls, she would have said

shitsky and left it at that."

"The day I start hanging out with that bunch of half-starved

mix-n-match sluts will be the day I crawl up my own ass and

die ! " For some reason, this vulgarity pleased me to no end.

Possibly because Wendy was a veteran mix-n-matcher. "You,

Thomas Patrick Kennedy, are just afraid we will see her, and

you'll have to take back all those things you said about Madame

Fortuna and ghosts and UFOs and-"

Tom raised his hands. "I give up. We'll get in the line with

the rest of the rubes-the conies, I mean-and take the Horror

House tour. I only insist it be in the afternoon. I need my beauty

rest."

"You certainly do," I said.

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"Coming from someone who looks like you, that's pretty

funny. Give me a beer, Jonesy."

I gave him a beer.

"Tell us how it went with the Stansfields," Erin said. "Did

they blubber all over you and call you their hero?"

That was pretty close, but I didn't want to say so. "The parents

were okay. The kid sat in the corner, reading Screen Time and

saying she spied Dean Martin with her little eye."

"Forget the local color and cut to the chase," Tom said. "Did

you get any money out of it?"

I was preoccupied with thoughts of how the little girl announcing the celebrities with such reverence could have been in a flatline coma instead. Or in a casket. Thus distracted, I

answered honestly. "The guy offered me five hundred dollars,

but I wouldn't take it."

Tom goggled. "Say what?"

I looked down at the remains of the s'more I was holding.

Marshmallow was drooling onto my fingers, so I tossed it into

the fire. I was full, anyway. I was also embarrassed, and pissed off

to be feeling that way. "The man's trying to get a little business

up and running, and based on the way he talked about it, it's at

the point where it could go either way. He's also got a wife and

a kid and another kid coming soon. I didn't think he could afford

to be giving money away."

"He couldn't? What about you?"

I blinked. "What about me?"

To this day I don't know if Tom was genuinely angry or faking

it. I think he might have started out faking, then gathered steam

as full understanding of what I'd done struck him . I have no

idea exactly what his home situation was, but I know he was

Joy land

1 13

living from paycheck to paycheck, and had no car. When he

wanted to take Erin out, he borrowed mine .. . and was careful

-punctilious, I should say-about paying for the gas he used.

Money mattered to him. I never got the sense it completely

owned him, but yes, it mattered to him a great deal.

"You're going to school on a wing and a prayer, same as Erin

and me, and working at J oyland isn't going to land any of us in a

limousine. What's wrong with you? Did your mother drop you

on your head when you were a baby?"

"Take it easy," Erin said.

He paid no attention. "Do you want to spend the fall semester

next year getting up early so you can pull dirty breakfast dishes

off a Commons conveyor belt? You must, because five hundred

a semester is about what it pays at Rutgers. I know, because

I checked before lucking into a tutoring gig. You know how I

made it through freshman year? Writing papers for rich fratboys majoring in Advanced Beerology. If I'd been caught, I could have been suspended for a semester or tossed completely.

I'll tell you what your grand gesture amounted to: giving away

twenty hours a week you could have spent studying." He heard

himself ranting, stopped, and raised a grin. "Or chatting up lissome females."

''I'll give you lissome," Erin said, and pounced on him. They

went rolling across the sand, Erin tickling and Tom yelling (with

a notable lack of conviction) for her to get off. That was fine with

me, because I did not care to pursue the issues Tom had raised.

I had already made up my mind about some things, it seemed,

and all that remained was for my conscious mind to get the

news.

•

1 14

STEPHEN K I N G

The next day, at quarter past three, we were in line at Horror

House. A kid named Brady Waterman was agenting the shy. I

remember him because he was also good at playing Howie.

(But not as good as I was, I feel compelled to add .. . strictly in

the cause of honesty. ) Although quite stout at the beginning of

the summer, Brady was now slim and trim. As a diet program,

wearing the fur had Weight Watchers beat six ways to Tulsa.

"What are you guys doing here?" he asked. "Isn't it your day

off?"

"We had to see Joyland's one and only dark ride," Tom said,

"and I'm already feeling a satisfying sense of dramatic unity

Brad Waterman and Horror House. It's the perfect match."

He scowled. "You're all gonna try to cram into one car,

aren'tcha?"

"We have to," Erin told him. Then she leaned close to one of

Brad's juggy ears and whispered, "It's a Truth or Dare thing."

As Brad considered this, he touched the tip of his tongue to

the middle of his upper lip. I could see him calculating the possibilities.

The guy behind us spoke up. "Kids, could you move the line

along? I understand there's air conditioning inside, and I could

use some."

"Go on," Brad told us. "Put an egg in your shoe and beat it."

Coming from Brad, this was Rabelaisian wit.

"Any ghosts in there?" I asked.

"Hundreds, and I hope they all fly right up your ass."

•

We started with Mysterio's Mirror Mansion, pausing briefly

to regard ourselves drawn tall or smashed squat. With that

minor giggle accomplished, we followed the tiny red dots on

Joyland

the bottoms of certain mirrors. These led us directly to the Wax

Museum. Given this secret roadmap, we arrived well ahead of

the rest of the current group, who wandered around, laughing

and bumping into the various angled panes of glass.

To Tom's disappointment, there were no murderers in the

Wax Museum, only pols and celebs. A smiling John F. Kennedy

and a jumpsuited Elvis Presley flanked the doorway. Ignoring

the PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH sign, Erin gave Elvis's guitar a

strum. "Out of tu-" she began, then recoiled as Elvis jerked to

life and began singing "Can't Help Falling in Love with You."

"Gotcha!" Tom said gleefully, and gave her a hug.

Beyond the Wax Museum was a doorway leading to the Barrel

and Bridge Room, which rumbled with machinery that sounded

dangerous (it wasn't) and stuttered with strobe lights of conflicting colors. Erin crossed to the other side on the shaking, tilting Billy Goat's Bridge while the macho men accompanying

her dared the Barrel. I stumbled my way through, reeling like a

drunk but only falling once. Tom stopped in the middle, stuck

out his hands and feet so he looked like a paperdoll, and made

a complete three-sixty that way.

"Stop it, you goof, you'll break your neck!" Erin called.

"He won't even if he falls," I said. "It's padded."

Tom rejoined us, grinning and flushed to the roots of his

hair. "That woke up brain cells that have been asleep since I

was three."

"Yeah, but what about all the ones it killed?" Erin asked.

Next came the Tilted Room and beyond that was an arcade

filled with teenagers playing pinball and Skee- Ball. Erin watched

the Skee-Ball for a while, with her arms folded beneath her

breasts and a disapproving look on her face. "Don't they know

that's a complete butcher's game?"

u6

S T E P H E N K I N G

"People come here to be butched," I said. "It's part of the

attraction."

Erin sighed. "And I thought Tom was a cynic."

On the far side of the arcade, beneath a glowing green skull,

was a sign reading: HORROR HOUSE LIES BEYOND ! BEWARE!

P R E G NANT WOMEN AND THOSE WITH SMALL C H ILDREN

MAY EXIT LEFT.

We walked into an antechamber filled with echoing recorded

cackles and screams. Pulsing red light illuminated a single steel

track and a black tunnel entrance beyond. From deep within it

came rumbles, flashing lights, and more screams. These were

not recorded. From a distance, they didn't sound particularly

happy, but probably they were. Some, at least.

Eddie Parks, proprietor of Horror House and boss of Team

Doberman, walked over to us. He was wearing rawhide gloves

and a dogtop so old it was faded to no color at all (although it

turned blood red each time the lights pulsed). He gave us a dismissive sniff. "Must have been a damn boring day off."

"Just wanted to see how the other half lives," Tom said.

Erin gave Eddie her most radiant smile. It was not returned.

"Three to a car, I guess. That what you want?"

"Yes," I said.

"Fine with me. Just remember that the rules apply to you,

same as anyone else. Keep your fuckin hands inside."

"Yessir," Tom said, and gave a little salute. Eddie looked at

him the way a man might look at a new species of bug and

walked back to his controls, which consisted of three shifterknobs sticking out of a waist-high podium. There were also a few buttons illuminated by a Tensor lamp bent low to minimize

its less-than-ghostly white light.

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117

"Charming guy," Tom muttered.

Erin hooked an arm into Tom's right elbow and my left,

drawing us close. "Does anyone like him?" she murmured.

"No," Tom said. "Not even his own team. He's already fired

two of them."

The rest of our group started to catch up just as a train filled

with laughing conies (plus a few crying kids whose parents

probably should have heeded the warning and exited from the

arcade) arrived. Erin asked one of the girls if it was scary.

"The scary part was trying to keep his hands where they

belong," she said, then squealed happily as her boyfriend first

kissed her neck and then pulled her toward the arcade.

We climbed aboard. Three of us in a car designed for two

made for an extremely tight fit, and I was very aware of Erin's

thigh pressing against mine, and the brush of her breast against

my arm . I felt a sudden and far from unpleasant southward

tingle. I would argue that-fantasies aside-the majority of

men are monogamous from the chin up. Below the belt-buckle,

however, there's a wahoo stampeder who just doesn't give a

shit.

"Hands inside the caaa!" Eddie Parks was yelling in a boredto-death monotone that was the complete antithesis of a cheerful Lane Hardy pitch. "Hands inside the caaa! You got a kid under

three feet, put im in your lap or get out of the caaa! Hold still

and watch for the baaa!"

The safety bars came down with a clank, and a few girls tuned

up with preparatory screams. Clearing their vocal cords for

dark-ride arias to come, you might say.

There was a jerk, and we rode into Horror House .

•

u8

STEPHEN K I N G

N ine minutes later we got out and exited through the arcade

with the rest of the tip. Behind us, we could hear Eddie exhorting his next bunch to keep their hands inside the caaa and watch for the baaa. He never gave us a look.

"The dungeon part wasn't scary, because all the prisoners

were Dobies," Erin said. "The one in the pirate outfit was Billy

Ruggerio." Her color was high, her hair was mussed from the

blowers, and I thought she had never looked so pretty. "But the

Screaming Skull really got me, and the Torture Chamber. . . my

God!"

"Pretty gross," I agreed. I'd seen a lot of horror movies during

my high school years, and thought of myself as inured, but seeing

an eye-bulging head come rolling down an inclined trough

from the guillotine had jumped the shit out of me. I mean, the

mouth was still moving.

Out on Joyland Avenue again, we spotted Cam Jorgensen

from Team Foxhound selling lemonade. "Who wants one?"

Erin asked. She was still bubbling over. "''m buying!"

"Sure," I said.

"Tom?"

He shrugged his assent. Erin gave him a quizzical look, then

ran to get the drinks. I glanced at Tom, but he was watching the

Rocket go around and around. Or maybe looking through it.

Erin came back with three tall paper cups, half a lemon bobbing on top of each. We took them to the benches in Joyland Park, just down from the Wiggle-Waggle, and sat in the shade.

Erin was talking about the bats at the end of the ride, how she

knew they were just wind-up toys on wires, but bats had always

scared the hell out of her and-

There she broke off. "Tom, are you okay? You haven't said a

Joy land

1 19

word. Not sick to your stomach from turning in the Barrel, are

you?"

"My stomach's fine." He took a sip of his lemonade, as if to

prove it. "What was she wearing, Dev? Do you know?"

"Huh?"

"The girl who got murdered. Laurie Gray."

"Linda Gray."

"Laurie, Larkin, Linda, whatever. What was she wearing?

Was it a full skirt-a long one, down to her shins-and a sleeveless blouse?"

I looked at him closely. We both did, initially thinking it was

just another Tom Kennedy goof. Only he didn't look like he was

goofing. Now that I really examined him, what he looked like

was scared half to death.

"Tom?" Erin touched his shoulder. "Did you see her? Don't

joke, now."

He put his hand over hers but didn't look at her. He was

looking at me. "Yeah," he said, "long skirt and sleeveless blouse.

You know, because La Shoplaw told you."

"What color?" I asked.

"Hard to tell with the lights changing all the time, but I think

blue. Blouse and skirt both."

Then Erin got it. "Holy shit," she said in a kind of sigh. The

high color was leaving her cheeks in a hurry.

There was something else. Something the police had held

back for a long time, according to Mrs. Shoplaw.

"What about her hair, Tom? Ponytail, right?"

He shook his head. Took a small sip of his lemonade. Patted

his mouth with the back of his hand. His hair hadn't gone gray,

he wasn't all starey-eyed, his hands weren't shaking, but he still

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S T E P H E N K I N G

didn't look like the same guy who'd joked his way through the

M irror Mansion and the Barrel and Bridge Room. He looked

like a guy who'd just gotten a reality enema, one that had flushed

all the junior-year-summer-job bullshit out of his system.

"Not a ponytail. Her hair long, all right, but she had a thing

across the top of her head to keep it out of her face. I've seen a

billion of em, but I can't remember what girls call it."

"An Alice band," Erin said.

"Yeah. I think that was blue, too. She was holding out her

hands." He held his out in the exact same way Emmalina Shoplaw had held hers out on the day she told me the story. "Like she was asking for help."

"You already know this stuff from Mrs. Shop law," I said. "Isn't

that right? Tell us, we won't be mad. Will we, Erin?"

"No, uh-uh."

But Tom shook his head. "''m just telling you what I saw.

Neither of you saw her?"

We had not, and said so.

"Why me?" Tom asked plaintively. "Once we were inside, I

wasn't even thinking of her. I was just having fun. So why me?"

•

Erin tried to get more details while I drove us back to Heaven's

Bay in my heap. Tom answered the first two or three of her

questions, then said he didn't want to talk about it anymore in

an abrupt tone I'd never heard him use with Erin before. I

don't think she had, either, because she was quiet as a mouse

for the rest of the ride. Maybe they talked about it some more

between themselves, but I can tell you that he never spoke of it

again to me until about a month before he died, and then only

]oyland

121

briefly. It was near the end of a phone conversation that had

been painful because of his halting, nasal voice and the way he

sometimes got confused.

"At least . . . ! know .. . there's something," he said. "I saw .. . for myself. . . that summer. In the Hasty Hut." I didn't bother to

correct him; I knew what he meant. "Do you . . . remember?"

"I remember," I said.

"But I don't know . . . the something . . if it's good . . . or bad."

.

His dying voice filled with horror. "The way she . . . Dev, the way

she held out her hands . . . "

Yes.

The way she held out her hands .

•

The next time I had a full day off, it was nearly the middle of

August, and the tide of conies was ebbing. I no longer had to

jink and juke my way up Joyland Avenue to the Carolina Spin

. . . and to Madame Fortuna's shy, which stood in its revolving

shadow.

Lane and Fortuna-she was all Fortuna today, in full gypsy

kit-were talking together by the Spin's control station. Lane

saw me and tipped his derby widdershins, which was his way of

acknowledging me.

"Look what the cat drug in," he said. "How ya be, Jonesy?"

"Fine," I said, although this wasn't strictly true. The sleepless nights had come back now that I was only wearing the fur four or five times a day. I lay in my bed waiting for the small

hours to get bigger, window open so I could hear the incoming

surf, thinking about Wendy and her new boyfriend. Also thinking

about the girl Tom had seen standing beside the tracks in Horror

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S T E P H E N K I N G

House, in the fake brick tunnel between the Dungeon and the

Chamber of Torture.

I turned to Fortuna. "Can I talk to you?"

She didn't ask why, just led me to her shy, swept aside the

purple curtain that hung in the doorway, and ushered me in.

There was a round table covered with a rose-pink cloth. On it

was Fortuna's crystal, now draped. Two simple folding chairs

were positioned so that seer and supplicant faced each other

over the crystal (which, I happened to know, was underlit by a

small bulb Madame Fortuna could operate with her foot). On

the back wall was a giant silk-screened hand, fingers spread

and palm out. On it, neatly labeled, were the Seven: lifeline,

heartline, headline, loveline (also known as the Girdle ofVenus),

sunline, fateline, healthline.

Madame Fortuna gathered her skirts and seated herself. She

motioned for me to do the same. She did not undrape her crystal,

nor did she invite me to cross her palm with silver so that I

might know the future.

"Ask what you came to ask," she said.

"I want to know if the little girl was just an informed guess

or if you really knew something. Saw something."

She looked at me, long and steadily. In Madame Fortuna's

place of business, there was a faint smell of incense instead

of popcorn and fried dough. The walls were flimsy, but the

music, the chatter of the conies, and the rumble of the rides all

seemed very far away. I wanted to look down, but managed

not to.

"Actually, you want to know if I'm a fraud. Isn't that so?"

"I . . . ma'am, I honestly don't know what I want."

At that she smiled. It was a good one-as if I had passed

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123

some sort of test. "You're a sweet boy, Jonesy, but like so many

sweet boys, you're a punk liar."

I started to reply; she hushed me with a wave of her ringheavy right hand. She reached beneath her table and brought out her cashbox. Madame Fortuna's readings were free-all

part of your admission fee, ladies and gentlemen, boys and

girls-but tips were encouraged. And legal under North Carolina

law. When she opened the box, I saw a sheaf of crumpled bills,

mostly ones, something that looked suspiciously like a punchboard (not legal under North Carolina law), and a single small envelope. Printed on the front was my name. She held it out. I

hesitated, then took it.

"You didn't come to Joyland today just to ask me that," she

said.

"Well . . . "

She waved me off again. "You know exactly what you want.

In the short term, at least. And since the short term is all any of

us have, who is Fortuna-or Rozzie Gold, for that matter-to

argue with you? Go now. Do what you came here to do. When

it's done, open that and read what I've written." She smiled.

"No charge to employees. Especially not good kids like you."

"I don't-"

She rose in a swirl of skirts and a rattle of jewelry. "Go, J onesy.

We're finished here."

•

I left her tight little booth in a daze. Music from two dozen shys

and rides seemed to hit me like conflicting winds, and the sun

was a hammer. I went directly to the administration building

(actually a doublewide trailer), gave a courtesy knock, went in,

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STEPHEN KING

and said hello to Brenda Rafferty, who was going back and forth

between an open account book and her faithful adding machine.

"Hello, Devin," she said. "Are you taking care of your Holly-

wood Girl?"

"Yes, ma'am, we all watch out for her."

"Dana Elkhart, isn't it?"

"Erin Cook, ma'am."

"Erin, of course. Team Beagle. The redhead. What can I do

for you?"

"I wonder if I could speak to Mr. Easterbrook."

"He's resting, and I hate to disturb him. He had an awful lot

of phone calls to make earlier, and we still have to go over some

numbers, much as I hate to bother him with them. He tires

very easily these days."

"I wouldn't be long."

She sighed. "I suppose I could see if he's awake. Can you tell

me what it's about?"

"A favor," I said. "He'll understand."

•

He did, and only asked me two questions. The first was if I was

sure. I said I was. The second . . .

"Have you told your parents yet, Jonesy?"

"It's just me and my dad, Mr. Easterbrook, and I'll do that

tonight."

"Very well, then. Put Brenda in the picture before you leave.

She'll have all the necessary paperwork, and you can fill it out. . . "

Before he could finish, his mouth opened and he displayed his

horsey teeth in a vast, gaping yawn. "Excuse me, son. It's been

a tiring day. A tiring summer."

"Thank you, Mr. Easterbrook."

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125

He waved his hand. "Very welcome. I'm sure you'll be a great

addition, but if you do this without your father's consent, I shall

be disappointed in you. Close the door on your way out, please."

I tried not to see Brenda's frown as she searched her file cabinets and hunted out the various forms Joyland, Inc. required for full-time employment. It didn't matter, because I felt her

disapproval anyway. I folded the paperwork, stuck it in the back

pocket of my jeans, and left.

Beyond the line of donnikers at the far end of the backyard

was a little grove of blackgum trees. I went in there, sat down

with my back against one, and opened the envelope M adame

Fortuna had given me. The note was brief and to the point.

You 're going to Mr. Easterbrook to ask if you can stay on at

the park after Labor Day. You know he will not refuse your

request.

She was right, I wanted to know if she was a fraud. Here was

her answer. And yes, I had made up my mind about what came

next in the life of Devin Jones. She had been right about that,

too.

But there was one more line.

You saved the little girl, but dear boy! You can't save everyone .

•

After I told my dad I wasn't going back to UNH-that I needed

a year off from college and planned to spend it at Joylandthere was a long silence at the southern Maine end of the line. I thought he might yell at me, but he didn't. He only sounded

tired. "It's that girl, isn't it?"

I'd told him almost two months earlier that Wendy and I were

"taking some time off," but Dad saw right through that. Since

126

STEPHEN KING

then, he hadn't spoken her name a single time in our weekly

phone conversations. Now she was just that girl. After the first

couple of times he said it I tried a joke, asking if he thought I'd

been going out with Marlo Thomas. He wasn't amused. I didn't

try again.

"Wendy's part of it," I admitted, "but not all of it. I just need

some time off. A breather. And I've gotten to like it here."

He sighed. "Maybe you do need a break. At least you'll be

working instead of hitchhiking around Europe, like Dewey Michaud's girl. Fourteen months in youth hostels! Fourteen and counting! Ye gods! She's apt to come back with ringworm and

a bun in the oven."

"Well," I said, "I think I can avoid both of those. If I'm

careful."

"Just make sure you avoid the hurricanes . It's supposed to

be a bad season for them."

"Are you really all right with this, Dad?"

"Why? Did you want me to argue? Try to talk you out of it?

If that's what you want, I'm willing to give it a shot, but I know

what your mother would say-if he's old enough to buy a legal

drink, he's old enough to start making decisions about his life."

I smiled. "Yeah. That sounds like her."

"As for me, I guess I don't want you going back to college if

you're going to spend all your time mooning over that girl and

letting your grades go to hell. If painting rides and fixing up

concessions will help get her out of your system, probably that's

a good thing. But what about your scholarship and loan package,

if you want to go back in the fall of '74?"

"It won't be a problem. I've got a 3.2 cume, which is pretty

persuasive."

joy land

127

"That girl," he said in tones of infinite disgust, and then we

moved on to other topics.

•

I was still sad and depressed about how things had ended with

Wendy, he was right about that, but I had begun the difficult trip

(the journey, as they say in the self-help groups these days) from

denial to acceptance. Anything like true serenity was still over the

horizon, but I no longer believed-as I had in the long, painful

days and nights of June-that serenity was out of the question.

Staying had to do with other things that I couldn't even begin

to sort out, because they were piled helter-skelter in an untidy

stack and bound with the rough twine of intuition. Hallie Stansfield was there. So was Bradley Easterbrook, way back at the beginning of the summer, saying we sell fun. The sound of the

ocean at night was there, and the way a strong onshore breeze

would make a little song when it blew through the struts of the

Carolina Spin. The cool tunnels under the park were there. So

was the Talk, that secret language the other greenies would

have forgotten by the time Christmas break rolled around. I

didn't want to forget it; it was too rich. I felt that Joyland had

something more to give me. I didn't know what, just . . . s'more.

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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129

"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 fuck, 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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131

"You're really going to give up a year you could spend drinking

beer and getting laid to scrape paint here at Joyland?"

"Yep."

"Are you crazy?"

I considered this. "Probably. A little. But getting better."

I was sweaty and his clothes were clean, but he gave me a

brief hug just the same. Then he headed for the door, pausing

to give Dottie a kiss on one wrinkled cheek. She couldn't cuss

at him-her mouth was full of pins at the time-but she shooed

him away with a flap of her hand.

At the door, he turned back to me. "You want some advice,

Dev? Stay away from . . . " He finished with a head-jerk, and I

knew well enough what he meant: Horror House. Then he was

gone, probably thinking about his visit home, and Erin, the car

he hoped to buy, and Erin, the upcoming school year, and Erin.

Upstream, Redteam, Redteam, Upstream. Come spring semester,

they could chant it together. Hell, they could chant it that very

night, if they wanted to. In Wilmington. In bed. Together .

•

There was no punch-clock at the park; our comings and goings

were supervised by our team leaders. After my final turn as

Howie on that first Monday in September, Pop Allen told me to

bring him my time-card.

"I've got another hour," I said.

"Nab, someone's waiting at the gate to walk you back." I knew

who the someone had to be. It was hard to believe there was a

soft spot in Pop's shriveled-up raisin of a heart for anyone, but

there was, and that summer Miss Erin Cook owned it.

"You know the deal tomorrow?"

STEPHEN K I N G

"Seven-thirty to six," I said. And no fur. What a blessing.

'Til be running you for the first couple of weeks, then I'm

off to sunny Florida. After that, you're Lane Hardy's responsibility. And Freddy Dean, I guess, if he happens to notice you're still around."

"Got it."

"Good. I'll sign your card and then you're ten-forty-two."

Which meant the same thing in the Talk as it did on the CBs

that were so popular then: End of tour. "And Jonesy? Tell that

girl to send me a postcard once in a while. I'll miss her."

He wasn't the only one.

•

Erin had also begun making the transition back from Joyland

Life to Real Life. Gone were the faded jeans and tee-shirt with

the sassy rolled-to-the-shoulder sleeves; ditto the green Hollywood Girl dress and Sherwood Forest hat. The girl standing in the scarlet shower of neon just outside the gate was wearing a

silky blue sleeveless blouse tucked into a belted A-line skirt.

Her hair was pinned back and she looked gorgeous.

"Walk me up the beach," she said. 'Til just have time to catch

the bus to Wilmington. I'm meeting Tom."

"He told me. But never mind the bus. I'll drive you."

"Would you do that?"

"Sure."

We walked along the fine white sand. A half-moon had risen

in the sky, and it beat a track across the water. Halfway to Heaven's

Beach-it was, in fact, not far from the big green Victorian that

played such a part in my life that fall-she took my hand, and

we walked that way. We didn't say much until we reached the

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133

steps leading up to the beach parking lot. There she turned

to me.

"You'll get over her. " Her eyes were on mine. She wasn't

wearing makeup that night, and didn't need any. The moonlight

was her makeup.

"Yes," I said. I knew it was true, and part of me was sorry. It's

hard to let go. Even when what you're holding onto is full of

thorns, it's hard to let go. Maybe especially then.

"And for now this is the right place for you. I feel that."

"Does Tom feel it?"

"No, but he never felt about Joyland the way you do . . . and

the way I did this summer. And after what happened that day in

the funhouse . . . what he saw . . . "

"Do the two of you ever talk about that?"

"I tried. Now I leave it alone. It doesn't fit into his philosophy

of how the world works, so he's trying to make it gone. But I

think he worries about you."

"Do you worry about me?"

"About you and the ghost of Linda Gray, no. About you and

the ghost of that Wendy, a little."

I grinned. "My father no longer speaks her name. Just calls

her 'that girl.' Erin, would you do me a favor when you get back

to school? If you have time, that is?"

"Sure. What is it?"

I told her.

•

She asked if I would drop her at the Wilmington bus station

instead of taking her directly to the B&B Tom had booked. She

said she'd rather take a taxi there. I started to protest that it was

134

STEPHEN KING

a waste of money, then didn't. She looked flustered, a trifle

embarrassed, and I guessed it had something to do with not

wanting to climb out of my car just so she could drop her clothes

and climb into the sack with Tom Kennedy two minutes later.

When I pulled up opposite the taxi stand, she put her hands

on the sides of my face and kissed my mouth. It was a long and

thoroughly thorough kiss.

"If Tom hadn't been there, I would have made you forget that

stupid girl," she said.

"But he was," I said.

"Yes. He was. Stay in touch, Dev."

"Remember what I asked you to do. If you get a chance, that

is."

'Til remember. You're a sweet man."

I don't know why, but that made me feel like crying. I smiled

instead. "Also, admit it, I made one hell of a Howie."

"That you did. Devin Jones, savior of little girls."

For a moment I thought she was going to kiss me again, but

she didn't. She slid out of my car and ran across the street to the

taxis, skirt flying. I sat there until I saw her climb into the back

of a Yellow and drive away. Then I drove away myself, back to

Heaven's Beach, and Mrs. Shoplaw's, and my autumn at Joyland

-both the best and worst autumn of my life .

•

Were Annie and Mike Ross sitting at the end of the green Victorian's boardwalk when I headed down the beach to the park on that Tuesday after Labor Day? I remember the warm croissants I ate as I walked, and the circling gulls, but of them I can't be completely sure. They became such an important part of the

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135

scenery-such a landmark-that it's impossible to pinpoint the

first time I actually noticed their presence. Nothing screws with

memory like repetition.

Ten years after the events I'm telling you about, I was (for

my sins, maybe) a staff writer on Cleveland magazine. I used to

do most of my first-draft writing on yellow legal pads in a coffee

shop on West Third Street, near Lakefront Stadium, which was

the Indians' stomping grounds back then. Every day at ten, this

young woman would come in and get four or five coffees, then

take them back to the real estate office next door. I couldn't tell

you the first time I saw her, either. All I know is that one day I

saw her, and realized that she sometimes glanced at me as she

went out. The day came when I returned that glance, and when

she smiled, I did, too. Eight months later we were married.

Annie and Mike were like that; one day they just became a

real part of my world. I always waved, the kid in the wheelchair

always waved back, and the dog sat watching me with his ears

cocked and the wind ruffling his fur. The woman was blonde

and beautiful-high cheekbones, wide-set blue eyes, and full

lips, the kind that always look a little bruised. The boy in the

wheelchair wore a White Sox cap that came down over his ears.

He looked very sick. His smile was healthy enough, though.

Whether I was going or coming, he always flashed it. Once or

twice he even flashed me the peace sign, and I sent it right

back. I had become part of his landscape, just as he had become

part of mine. I think even Milo, the Jack Russell, came to recognize me as part of the landscape. Only Mom held herself apart. Often when I passed, she never even looked up from

whatever book she was reading. When she did she didn't wave,

and she certainly never flashed the peace sign.

STEPHEN KING

•

I had plenty to occupy my time at Joyland, and if the work

wasn't as interesting and varied as it had been during the

summer, it was steadier and less exhausting. I even got a

chance to reprise my award-winning role as Howie, and to sing

a few more choruses of"Happy Birthday to You" in the Wiggle

Waggle Village, because Joyland was open to the public for the

first three weekends in September. Attendance was way down,

though, and I didn't jock a single tipsed ride . Not even the

Carolina Spin, which was second only to the merry-go-round as

our most popular attraction.

"Up north in New England, most parks stay open weekends

until Halloween," Fred Dean told me one day. We were sitting

on a bench and eating a nourishing, vitamin-rich lunch of chili

burgers and pork rinds. "Down south in Florida, they run yearround. We're in a kind of gray zone. Mr. Easterbrook tried pushing for a fall season back in the sixties-spent a bundle on

a big advertising blitz-but it didn't work very well. By the time

the nights start getting nippy, people around here start thinking

about county fairs and such. Also, a lot of our vets head south

or out west for the winter." He looked down the empty expanse

of Hound Dog Way and sighed. "This place gets kind of lonely

this time of year."

"I like it," I said, and I did. That was my year to embrace

loneliness. I sometimes went to the movies in Lumberton or

Myrtle Beach with Mrs. Shoplaw and Tina Ackerley, the librarian

with the goo-goo-googly eyes, but I spent most evenings in my

room, re-reading The Lord of the Rings and writing letters to

Erin, Tom, and my dad. I also wrote a fair amount of poetry,

which I am now embarrassed even to think about. Thank God I

burned it. I added a new and satisfyingly grim record to my

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137

small collection-The Dark Side of the Moon . In the Book of

Proverbs we are advised that "as a dog returns to its vomit, so a

fool repeats his folly." That autumn I returned to Dark Side

again and again, only giving Floyd the occasional rest so I could

listen to Jim Morrison once more intone, "This is the end, beautiful friend." Such a really bad case of the twenty-ones-I know, I know.

At least there was plenty at Joyland to occupy my days. The

first couple of weeks, while the park was still running parttime, were devoted to fall cleaning. Fred Dean put me in charge of a small crew of gazoonies, and by the time the CLOSED FOR

THE S E A S O N sign went up out front, we had raked and cut

every lawn, prepared every flowerbed for winter, and scrubbed

down every joint and shy. We slapped together a prefab corrugated metal shed in the backyard and stored the food carts (called grub-rollers in the Talk) there for the winter, each popcorn

wagon, Sno-Cone wagon, and Pup-a-Licious wagon snugged

under its own green tarp.

When the gazoonies headed north to pick apples, I started

the winterizing process with Lane Hardy and Eddie Parks, the

ill-tempered vet who ran Horror House (and Team Doberman)

during the season. We drained the fountain at the intersection

of Joyland Avenue and Hound Dog Way, and had moved on to

Captain Nemo's Splash & Crash-a much bigger job-when

Bradley Easterbrook, dressed for traveling in his black suit,

came by.

'Tm off to Sarasota this evening," he told us. "Brenda Rafferty

will be with me, as usual." He smiled, showing those horse

teeth of his. ''I'm touring the park and saying my thank-yous.

To those who are left, that is."

"Have a wonderful winter, Mr. Easterbrook," Lane said.

STEPHEN KING

Eddie muttered something that sounded to me like eat a

wooden ship, but was probably have a good trip .

"Thanks for everything," I said.

He shook hands with the three of us, coming to me last. "I

hope to see you again next year, Jonesy. I think you're a young

man with more than a little carny in his soul."

But he didn't see me the following year, and nobody saw him.

Mr. Easterbrook died on New Year's Day, in a condo on John

Ringling Boulevard, less than half a mile from where the famous

circus winters.

"Crazy old bastid," Parks said, watching Easterbrook walk

to his car, where Brenda was waiting to receive him and help

him in.

Lane gave him a long, steady look, then said: "Shut it, Eddie."

Eddie did. Which was probably wise .

•

One morning, as I walked to Joyland with my croissants, the

Jack Russell finally trotted down the beach to investigate me.

"Milo, come back!" the woman called.

Milo turned to look at her, then looked back at me with his

bright black eyes. On impulse, I tore a piece from one of my

pastries, squatted, and held it out to him. Milo came like a shot.

"Don't you feed him!" the woman called sharply.

"Aw, Mom, get over it," the boy said.

Milo heard her and didn't take the shred of croissant. . . but

he did sit up before me with his front paws held out. I gave him

the bite.

"I won't do it again," I said, getting up, "but I couldn't let a

good trick go to waste."

]oyland

139

The woman snorted and went back to her book, which was

thick and looked arduous. The boy called, "We feed him all the

time. He never puts on weight, just runs it off."

Without looking up from her book, Mom said: "What do we

know about talking to strangers, Mike-0?"

"He's not exactly a stranger when we see him every day," the

boy pointed out. Reasonably enough, at least from my point of

view.

"''m Devin Jones," I said. "From down the beach. I work at

Joyland."

"Then you won't want to be late." Still not looking up.

The boy shrugged at me-whattaya gonna do , it said. He

was pale and as bent-over as an old man, but I thought there

was a lively sense of humor in that shrug and the look that went

with it. I returned the shrug and walked on. The next morning I

took care to finish my croissants before I got to the big green

Victorian so Milo wouldn't be tempted, but I waved. The kid,

Mike, waved back. The woman was in her usual place under

the green umbrella, and she had no book, but-as per usualshe didn't wave to me. Her lovely face was closed. There is nothing here for you , it said. Go on down to your trumpery

amusement park and leave us alone.

So that was what I did. But I continued to wave, and the kid

waved back. Morning and night, the kid waved back.

•

The Monday after Gary "Pop" Allen left for Florida-bound

for Alston's All-Star Carnival in Jacksonville, where he had a

job waiting as shy-boss-I arrived at Joyland and found Eddie

Parks, my least favorite old-timer, sitting in front of Horror

STEPHEN KING

House on an apple-box. Smoking was verboten in the park, but

with Mr. Easterbrook gone and Fred Dean nowhere in evidence,

Eddie seemed to feel it safe to flout the rule. He was smoking

with his gloves on, which would have struck me as strange if he

ever took them off, but he never seemed to.

"There you are, kiddo, and only five minutes late." Everyone

else called me either Dev or Jonesy, but to Eddie I was just

kiddo, and always would be.

"''ve got seven-thirty on the nose," I said, tapping my watch.

"Then you're slow. Why don't you drive from town, like everybody else? You could be here in five minutes."

"I like the beach."

"I don't give a tin shit what you like, kiddo, just get here on

time. This isn't like one of your college classes, when you can

duck in and out anytime you want to. This is a job, and now that

the Head Beagle is gone, you're gonna work like it's a job."

I could have pointed out that Pop had told me Lane Hardy

would be in charge of my schedule after he, Pop, was gone, but

kept my lip zipped. No sense making a bad situation worse. As

to why Eddie had taken a dislike to me, that was obvious.

Eddie was an equal-opportunity disliker. I'd go to Lane if life

with Eddie got too hard, but only as a last resort. My father had

taught me-mostly by example-that if a man wanted to be in

charge of his life, he had to be in charge of his problems.

"What have you got for me, Mr. Parks?"

"Plenty. I want you to get a tub of Turtle Wax from the supply

shed to start with, and don't be lingerin down there to shoot the

shit with any of your pals, either. Then I want you to go on in

Horra and wax all them cars." Except, of course, he said it caaas.

"You know we wax em once the season's over, don't you?"

joy/and

"Actually I didn't."

"Jesus Christ, you kids." He stomped on his cigarette butt,

then lifted the apple-box he was sitting on enough to toss it

under. As if that would make it gone. "You want to really put

some elbow-grease into it, kiddo, or I'll send you back in to do

it again. You got that?"

"I got it."

"Good for you." He stuck another cigarette in his gob, then

fumbled in his pants pocket for his lighter. With the gloves on,

it took him awhile. He finally got it, flicked back the lid, then

stopped. "What are you looking at?"

"Nothing," I said.

"Then get going. Flip on the house lights so you can see

what the fuck you're doing. You know where the switches are,

don't you?"

I didn't, but I'd find them without his help. "Sure."

He eyed me sourly. "Ain't you the smart one." Smaaat .

•

I found a metal box marked L TS on the wall between the Wax

Museum and the Barrel and Bridge Room. I opened it and flipped

up all the switches with the heel of my hand. Horror House

should have lost all of its cheesy/sinister mystique with all the

house lights on, but somehow didn't. There were still shadows

in the corners, and I could hear the wind-quite strong that

morning-blowing outside the joint's thin wooden walls and

rattling a loose board somewhere. I made a mental note to track

it down and fix it.

I had a wire basket swinging from one hand. It was filled with

clean rags and a giant economy-size can of Turtle Wax. I carried

STEPHEN KING

it through the Tilted Room-now frozen on a starboard slantand into the arcade. I looked at the Skee-Ball machines and remembered Erin's disapproval: Don't they know that's a complete butcher's game? I smiled at the memory, but my heart was beating hard. I knew what I was going to do when I'd finished

my chore, you see.

The cars, twenty in all, were lined up at the loading point.

Ahead, the tunnel leading into the bowels of Horror House

was lit by a pair of bright white work lights instead of flashing

strobes. It looked a lot more prosaic that way.

I was pretty sure Eddie hadn't so much as swiped the little

cars with a damp rag all summer long, and that meant I had to

start by washing them down. Which also meant fetching soap

powder from the supply shed and carrying buckets of water

from the nearest working tap. By the time I had all twenty cars

washed and rinsed off, it was break-time, but I decided to work

right through instead of going out to the backyard or down to

the boneyard for coffee. I might meet Eddie at either place,

and I'd listened to enough of his grouchy bullshit for one morning. I set to work polishing instead, laying the Turtle Wax on thick and then buffing it off, moving from car to car, making

them shine in the overhead lights until they looked new again.

Not that the next crowd of thrill-seekers would notice as they

crowded in for their nine-minute ride. My own gloves were

ruined by the time I was finished. I'd have to buy a new pair at

the hardware store in town, and good ones didn't come cheap. I

amused myself briefly by imagining how Eddie would react if I

asked him to pay for them.

I stashed my basket of dirty rags and Turtle Wax (the can now

mostly empty) by the exit door in the arcade. It was ten past

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143

noon, but right then food wasn't what I was hungry for. I tried

to stretch the ache out of my arms and legs, then went back to

the loading-point. I paused to admire the cars gleaming mellowly beneath the lights, then walked slowly along the track and into Horror House proper.

I had to duck my head when I passed beneath the Screaming

Skull, even though it was now pulled up and locked in its home

position. Beyond it was the Dungeon, where the live talent from

Eddie's Team Doberman had tried (and mostly succeeded) in

scaring the crap out of children of all ages with their moans and

howls. Here I could straighten up again, because it was a tall

room. My footfalls echoed on a wooden floor painted to look

like stone. I could hear my breathing. It sounded harsh and dry.

I was scared, okay? Tom had told me to stay away from this

place, but Tom didn't run my life any more than Eddie Parks

did. I had the Doors, and I had Pink Floyd, but I wanted more.

I wanted Linda Gray.

Between the Dungeon and the Torture Chamber, the track

descended and described a double-S curve where the cars

picked up speed and whipped the riders back and forth. Horror

House was a dark ride, but when it was in operation, this stretch

was the only completely dark part. It had to be where the girl's

killer had cut her throat and dumped her body. How quick he

must have been, and how certain of exactly what he was going

to do! Beyond the last curve, riders were dazzled by a mix of

stuttering, multi-colored strobes. Although Tom had never said

it in so many words, I was positive it was where he had seen

what he'd seen.

I walked slowly down the double-S, thinking it would not be

beyond Eddie to hear me and shut off the overhead work-lights

144

STEPHEN KING

as a joke. To leave me in here to feel my way past the murder

site with only the sound of the wind and that one slapping board

to keep me company. And suppose . . . just suppose . . . a young

girl's hand reached out in that darkness and took mine, the way

Erin had taken my hand that last night on the beach?

The lights stayed on. No bloody shirt and gloves appeared

beside the track, glowing spectrally. And when I came to what

I felt sure was the right spot, just before the entrance to the

Torture Chamber, there was no ghost-girl holding her hands out

to me.

Yet something was there. I knew it then and I know it now.

The air was colder. Not cold enough to see my breath, but yes,

definitely colder. My arms and legs and groin all prickled with

gooseflesh, and the hair at the nape of my neck stiffened.

"Let me see you," I whispered, feeling foolish and terrified.

Wanting it to happen, hoping it wouldn't.

There was a sound. A long, slow sigh. Not a human sigh, not

in the least. It was as if someone had opened an invisible steamvalve. Then it was gone. There was no more. Not that day .

•

"Took you long enough," Eddie said when I finally reappeared

at quarter to one. He was seated on the same apple-box, now

with the remains of a BLT in one hand and a Styrofoam cup of

coffee in the other. I was filthy from the neck down. Eddie, on

the other hand, looked fresh as a daisy.

"The cars were pretty dirty. I had to wash them before I

could wax them."

Eddie hawked back phlegm, twisted his head, and spat. "If

you want a medal, I'm fresh out. Go find Hardy. He says it's

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145

time to drain the irry-gation system. That should keep a lagass like you busy until quittin time. If it don't, come see me and I'll find something else for you to do. I got a whole list,

believe me."

"Okay." I started off, glad to be going.

"Kiddo!"

I turned back reluctantly.

"Did you see her in there?"

"Huh?"

He grinned unpleasantly. "Don't 'huh' me. I know what you

were doin. You weren't the first, and you won't be the last. Did

you see her?"

"Have you ever seen her?"

"Nope." He looked at me, sly little gimlet eyes peering out

of a narrow sunburned face. How old was he? Thirty? Sixty? It

was impossible to tell, just as it was impossible to tell if he was

speaking the truth. I didn't care. I just wanted to be away from

him. He gave me the creeps.

Eddie raised his gloved hands. "The guy who did it wore a

pair of these. Did you know that?"

I nodded. "Also an extra shirt."

"That's right." His grin widened. "To keep the blood off. And

it worked, didn't it? They never caught him. N ow get out of

here."

•

When I got to the Spin, only Lane's shadow was there to greet

me. The man it belonged to was halfway up the wheel, climbing

the struts. He tested each steel crosspiece before he put his

weight on it. A leather toolkit hung on one hip, and every now

STEPHEN KING

and then he reached into it for a socket wrench. Joyland only

had a single dark ride, but almost a dozen so-called high rides,

including the Spin, the Zipper, the Thunderball, and the Delirium Shaker. There was a three-man maintenance crew that checked them each day before Early Gate during the season,

and of course there were visits (both announced and unannounced) from the North Carolina State Inspector of Amusements, but Lane said a ride-jock who didn't check his ride himself was both lazy and irresponsible. Which made me

wonder when Eddie Parks had last ridden in one of his own

caaas and safety-checked the baaas.

Lane looked down, saw me, and shouted: "Did that ugly sonofabitch ever give you a lunch break?"

"I worked through it," I called back. "Lost track of time."

But now I was hungry.

"There's some tuna-and-macaroni salad in my doghouse, if

you want it. I made up way too much last night."

I went into the little control shack, found a good-sized Tupperware container, and popped it open. By the time Lane was back on the ground, the tuna-and-macaroni was in my stomach and I

was tamping it down with a couple of leftover Fig Newtons.

"Thanks, Lane. That was tasty."

"Yeah, I'll make some guy a good wife someday. Gimme some

of those Newtons before they all go down your throat."

I handed over the box. "How's the ride?"

"The Spin is tight and the Spin is right. Want to help me work

on the engine for a while after you've digested a little?"

''Sure."

He took off his derby and spun it on his finger. His hair was

pulled back in a tight little ponytail, and I noticed a few threads

Joy land

147

of white in the black. They hadn't been there at the start of the

summer-I was quite sure of it. "Listen, Jonesy, Eddie Parks is

carny-from-carny, but that doesn't change the fact that he's one

mean-ass sonofabitch. In his eyes, you got two strikes against

you: you're young and you've been educated beyond the eighth

grade. When you get tired of taking his shit, tell me and I'll get

him to back off."

"Thanks, but I'm okay for now."

"I know you are. I've been watching how you handle yourself, and I'm impressed. But Eddie's not your average bear."

"He's a bully," I said.

"Yeah, but here's the good news: like with most bullies, you

scratch the surface and find pure chickenshit underneath. Usually

not very far underneath, either. There are people on the show

he's afraid of, and I happen to be one of them. I've whacked his

nose before and I don't mind whacking it again. All I'm saying

is that if the day comes when you want a little breathing room,

I'll see that you get it."

"Can I ask you a question about him?"

"Shoot."

"Why does he always wear those gloves?"

Lane laughed, stuck his derby on his head, and gave it the

correct tilt. "Psoriasis. His hands are scaly with it, or so he

says-I can't tell you the last time I actually saw them. He says

without the gloves, he scratches them until they bleed."

"Maybe that's what makes him so bad-temp�red."

"I think it's more likely the other way around-the bad temper

made the bad skin." He tapped his temple. "Head controls body,

that's what I believe. Come on, Jonesy, let's get to work."

•

STEPHEN K I N G

We finished putting the Spin right for its long winter's nap, then

moved on to the irrigation system. By the time the pipes were

blown out with compressed air and the drains had swallowed

several gallons of antifreeze, the sun was lowering toward the

trees west of the park and the shadows were lengthening.

"That's enough for today," Lane said. "More than enough.

Bring me your card and I'll sign it."

I tapped my watch, showing him it was only quarter past five.

He shook his head, smiling. "''ve got no problem writing six

on the card. You did twelve hours' worth today, kiddo. Twelve

easy."

"Okay," I said, "but don't call me kiddo. That's what he calls

me." I jerked my head toward Horror House.

''I'll make a note of it. Now bring me your card and buzz off."

•

The wind had died a little during the afternoon, but it was still

warm and breezy when I set off down the beach. On many of

those walks back to town I liked to watch my long shadow on

the waves, but that evening I mostly watched my feet. I was

tired out. What I wanted was a ham and cheese sandwich from

Betty's Bakery and a couple of beers from the 7-Eleven next

door. I'd go back to my room, settle into my chair by the

window, and read me some Tolkien as I ate. I was deep into The

Two Towers.

What made me look up was the boy's voice. The breeze was

in my favor, and I could hear him clearly. "Faster, Mom! You've

almost g-" He was temporarily stopped by a coughing fit.

Then: "You've almost got it!"

Mike's mother was on the beach tonight instead of beneath

Joyland

149

her umbrella. She was running toward me but didn't see me,

because she was looking at the kite she was holding over her

head. The string ran back to the boy, seated in his wheelchair at

the end of the boardwalk.

Wrong direction, Mom, I thought.

She released the kite. It rose a foot or two, wagged naughtily

from side to side, then took a dive into the sand. The breeze

kicked up and it went skittering. She had to chase it down.

"Once more!" Mike called. "That time-" Cough-cough-cough,

harsh and bronchial. "That time you alnwst had it!"

"No, I didn't." She sounded tired and pissed off. "Goddamned

thing hates me. Let's go in and get some sup-"

Milo was sitting beside Mike's wheelchair, watching the

evening's activities with bright eyes. When he saw me, he was

off like a shot, barking. As I watched him come, I remembered

Madame Fortuna's pronouncement on the day I first met her:

In your future is a little girl and a little boy. The boy has a

dog.

"Milo, come back! " Mom shouted. Her hair had probably

started that evening tied up, but after several experiments in

aviation, it hung around her face in strings. She pushed it away

wearily with the backs of her hands.

Milo paid no attention. He skidded to a stop in front of me

with his front paws spraying sand, and did his sitting-up thing. I

laughed and patted his head. "That's all you get, pal-no croissants tonight."

He barked at me once, then trotted back to Mom, who was

standing ankle-deep in the sand, breathing hard and eyeing me

with mistrust. The captured kite hung down by her leg.

" See?" she said. "That's why I didn't want you to feed him.

STEPHEN K I N G

He's a terrible beggar, and he thinks anybody who gives him a

scrap is his friend."

"Well, I'm a friendly sort of guy."

"Good to know," she said. "Just don't feed our dog anymore."

She was wearing pedal pushers and an old blue tee-shirt with

faded printing on the front. Judging from the sweat-stains on it,

she had been trying to get the kite airborne for quite some

time. Trying hard, and why not? If I had a kid stuck in a wheelchair, I'd probably want to give him something that would fly, too.

"You're going the wrong way with that thing," I said. "And

you don't need to run with it, anyway. I don't know why everybody thinks that."

"''m sure you're quite the expert," she said, "but it's late and

I have to get Mike his supper."

"Mom, let him try," Mike said. "Please?"

She stood for a few more seconds with her head lowered and

escaped locks of her hair-also sweaty-clumped against her

neck. Then she sighed and held the kite out to me. Now I could

read the printing on her shirt: CAMP PERRY MATCH COMPETI

TION (PRONE) 1959. The front of the kite was a lot better, and

I had to laugh. It was the face of Jesus.

"Private joke," she said. "Don't ask."

"Okay."

"You get one try, Mr. Joyland, and then I'm taking him in for

his supper. He can't get chilled. He was sick last year, and he

still hasn't gotten over it. He thinks he has, but he hasn't."

It was still at least seventy-five on the beach, but I didn't

point this out; Mom was clearly not in the mood for further

contradictions. Instead I told her again that my name was Devin

Joyland

Jones. She raised her hands and then let them flop: Whatever

you say, bub .

I looked at the boy. "Mike?"

"Yes?"

"Reel in the string. I'll tell you when to stop."

He did as I asked. I followed, and when I was even with where

he sat, I looked at Jesus. "Are you going to fly this time, Mr.

Christ?"

Mike laughed. Mom didn't, but I thought I saw her lips twitch.

"He says he is," I told Mike.

"Good, because-" Cough . Cough-cough-cough. She was

right, he wasn't over it. Whatever it was. "Because so far he hasn't

done anything but eat sand."

I held the kite over my head, but facing Heaven's Bay. I could

feel the wind tug at it right away. The plastic rippled. ''I'm going

to let go, Mike. When I do, start reeling in the string again."

"But it'll just-"

"No, it won't just. But you have to be quick and careful." I

was making it sound harder than it was, because I wanted him

to feel cool and capable when the kite went up. It would, too, as

long as the breeze didn't die on us. I really hoped that wouldn't

happen, because I thought Mom had meant what she said about

me getting only one chance. "The kite will rise. When it does,

start paying out the twine again. Just keep it taut, okay? That

means if it starts to dip, you-"

"I pull it in some more. I get it. God's sake."

"Okay. Ready?"

"Yeah!"

Milo sat between Mom and me, looking up at the kite.

"Okay, then. Three . . . two . . . one . . . lift-off."

STEPHEN K I N G

The kid was hunched over in his chair and the legs beneath his

shorts were wasted, but there was nothing wrong with his hands

and he knew how to follow orders. He started reeling in, and

the kite rose at once. He began to pay the string out-at first too

much, and the kite sagged, but he corrected and it started going

up again. He laughed. "I can feel it! I can feel it in my hands!"

"That's the wind you feel," I said. "Keep going, Mike. Once

it gets up a little higher, the wind will own it. Then all you have

to do is not let go."

He let out the twine and the kite climbed, first over the

beach and then above the ocean, riding higher and higher into

that September day's late blue. I watched it awhile, then chanced

looking at the woman. She didn't bristle at my gaze, because

she didn't see it. All her attention was focused on her son. I

don't think I ever saw such love and such happiness on a person's

face. Because he was happy. His eyes were shining and the

coughing had stopped.

"Mommy, it feels like it's alive!"

It is, I thought, remembering how my father had taught me

to fly a kite in the town park. I had been Mike's age, but with

good legs to stand on. As long as it's up there, where it was

made to be, it really is.

"Come and feel it!"

She walked up the little slope of beach to the boardwalk and

stood beside him. She was looking at the kite, but her hand was

stroking his cap of dark brown hair. "Are you sure, honey? It's

your kite."

"Yeah, but you have to try it. It's incredible!"

She took the reel, which had thinned considerably as the

twine paid out and the kite rose (it was now just a black diamond,

Joy land

153

the face of Jesus no longer visible) and held it in front of her. For

a moment she looked apprehensive. Then she smiled. When a

gust tugged the kite, making it wag first to port and then to starboard above the incoming waves, the smile widened into a grin.

After she'd flown it for a while, Mike said: "Let him."

"No, that's okay," I said.

But she held out the reel. "We insist, Mr. Jones. You're the

flightmaster, after all."

So I took the twine, and felt the old familiar thrill. It tugged

the way a fishing-line does when a fair-sized trout has taken the

hook, but the nice thing about kite-flying is nothing gets killed.

"How high will it go?" Mike asked.

"I don't know, but maybe it shouldn't go much higher tonight.

The wind up there is stronger, and might rip it. Also, you guys

need to eat."

"Can Mr. Jones eat supper with us, Mom?"

She looked startled at the idea, and not in a good way. Still, I

saw she was going to agree because I'd gotten the kite up.

"That's okay," I said. "I appreciate the invitation, but it was

quite a day at the park. We're battening down the hatches for

winter, and I'm dirt from head to toe."

"You can wash up in the house," Mike said. "We've got, like,

seventy bathrooms."

"Michael Ross, we do not!"

"Maybe seventy-five, with a Jacuzzi in each one." He started

laughing. It was a lovely, infectious sound, at least until it turned

to coughing. The coughing became whooping. Then, just as Mom

was starting to look really concerned (I was already there), he

got it under control.

"Another time," I said, and handed him the reel of twine. "I

154

STEPHEN KING

love your Christ-kite. Your dog ain't bad, either." I bent and

patted Milo's head.

"Oh . . . okay. Another time. But don't wait too long, because-"

Mom interposed hastily. "Can you go to work a little earlier

tomorrow, Mr. Jones?"

"Sure, I guess."

, "We could have fruit smoothies right here, if the weather's

nice. I make a mean fruit smoothie."

I bet she did. And that way, she wouldn't have to have a

strange man in the house.

"Will you?" Mike asked. "That'd be cool."

"''d love to. I'll bring a bag of pastries from Betty's."

"Oh, you don't have to-" she began.

"My pleasure, ma'am."

"Oh!" She looked startled. "I never introduced myself, did I?

I'm Ann Ross." She held out her hand.

''I'd shake it, Mrs. Ross, but I really am filthy." I showed her

my hands. "It's probably on the kite, too."

"You should have given Jesus a mustache!" Mike shouted,

and then laughed himself into another coughing fit.

"You're getting a little loose with the twine there, Mike," I

said. "Better reel it in." And, as he started doing it, I gave Milo

a farewell pat and started back down the beach.

"Mr. Jones," she called.

I turned back. She was standing straight, with her chin raised.

Sweat had molded the shirt to her, and she had great breasts.

"It's Miss Ross. But since I guess we've now been properly

introduced, why don't you call me Annie?"

"I can do that." I pointed at her shirt. "What's a match competition? And why is it prone?"

Joyland

155

"That's when you shoot lying down," Mike said.

"Haven't done it in ages," she said, in a curt tone that suggested she wanted the subject closed.

Fine with me. I tipped Mike a wave and he sent one right

back. He was grinning. Kid had a great grin.

Forty or fifty yards down the beach, I turned around for

another look. The kite was descending, but for the time being

the wind still owned it. They were looking up at it, the woman

with her hand on her son's shoulder.

Miss, I thought. Miss, not Mrs. And is there a mister with

them in the big old Victorian with the seventy bathrooms? Just

because I'd never seen one with them didn't mean there wasn't

one, but I didn't think so. I thought it was just the two of them.

On their own.

•

I got no clarification from Annie Ross the next morning, but

plenty of dish from Mike. I also got one hell of a nice fruit

smoothie. She said she made the yogurt herself, and it was layered with fresh strawberries from God knows where. I brought croissants and blueberry muffins from Betty's Bakery. Mike

skipped the pastries, but finished his smoothie and asked for

another. From the way his mother's mouth dropped open, I

gathered that this was an astounding development. But not, I

guessed, in a bad way.

"Are you sure you can eat another one?"

"Maybe just half," he said. "What's the deal, Mom? You're

the one who says fresh yogurt helps me move my bowels."

"I don't think we need to discuss your bowels at seven in the

morning, Mike." She got up, then cast a doubtful glance my way.

STEPHEN K I N G

"Don't worry," Mike said brightly, "if he tries to kiddie-fiddle

me, I'll tell Milo to sic 'im."

Color bloomed in her cheeks. "Michael Everett Ross!"

"Sorry," he said. He didn't look sorry. His eyes were sparkling.

"Don't apologize to me, apologize to Mr. Jones."

"Accepted, accepted."

"Will you keep an eye on him, Mr. Jones? I won't be long."

"I will if you'll call me Devin."

"Then I'll do that." She hurried up the boardwalk, pausing

once to look over her shoulder. I think she had more than half a

mind to come back, but in the end, the prospect of stuffing a

few more healthy calories into her painfully thin boy was too

much for her to resist, and she went on.

Mike watched her climb the steps to the back patio and

sighed. "Now I'll have to eat it."

"Well . . . yeah. You asked for it, right?"

"Only so I could talk to you without her butting in. I mean, I

love her and all, but she's always butting in. Like what's wrong

with me is this big shameful secret we have to keep." He shrugged.

"''ve got muscular dystrophy, that's all. That's why I'm in the

wheelchair. I can walk, you know, but the braces and crutches

are a pain in the butt."

''I'm sorry," I said. "That stinks, Mike."

"I guess, but I can't remember not having it, so what the

hell. Only it's a special kind of MD. Duchenne's muscular dystrophy, it's called. Most kids who have it croak in their teens or early twenties."

So, you tell me-what do you say to a ten-year-old kid who's

just told you he's living under a death sentence?

"But." He raised a teacherly finger. "Remember her talking

about how I was sick last year?"

Joy land

157

"Mike, you don't have to tell me all this if you don't want to."

"Yeah, except I do." He was looking at me with clear intensity. Maybe even urgency. "Because you want to know. Maybe you even need to know."

I was thinking of Fortuna again. Two children, she had told

me, a girl in a red hat and a boy with a dog. She said one of them

had the sight, but she didn't know which. I thought that now

I did.

"Mom said I think I got over it. Do I sound like I got over

it?"

"Nasty cough," I ventured, "but otherwise . . . " I couldn't think how to finish. Otherwise your legs are nothing but sticks? Otherwise you look like your mom and I could tie a string to the back of your shirt and fly you like a kite? Otherwise if I had to bet

on whether you or Milo would live longer, I'd put my money on

the dog?

"I came down with pneumonia just after Thanksgiving, okay?

When I didn't improve after a couple of weeks in the hospital,

the doctor told my mom I was probably going to die and she

ought to, you know, get ready for that."

But he didn't tell her in your hearing, I thought. They'd never

have a conversation like that in your hearing.

"I hung in, though." He said this with some pride. "My grandfather called my mom-I think it was the first time they'd talked in a long time. I don't know who told him what was going on, but

he has people everywhere. It could have been any of them ."

People everywhere sounded kind of paranoid, but I kept

my mouth shut. Later I found out it wasn't paranoid at all.

M ike's grandfather did have them everywhere, and they all

saluted Jesus, the flag, and the N RA, although possibly not in

that order.

STEPHEN K I N G

"Grampa said I got over the pneumonia because of God's will.

Mom said he was full ofbullshit, just like when he said me having

D MD in the first place was God's punishment. She said I was just

one tough little sonofabitch, and God had nothing to do with it.

Then she hung up on him."

Mike might have heard her end of that conversation, but not

Grampa's, and I doubted like hell if his mother had told him. I

didn't think he was making it up, though. I found myself hoping

Annie wouldn't hurry back. This wasn't like listening to Madame

Fortuna. What she had, I believed (and still do, all these years

later), was some small bit of authentic psychic ability amped up

by a shrewd understanding of human nature and then packaged

in glittering carny bullshit. Mike's thing was clearer. Simpler.

Purer. It wasn't like seeing the ghost of Linda Gray, but it was

akin to that, okay? It was touching another world.

" Mom said she'd never come back here, but here we are.

Because I wanted to come to the beach and because I wanted

to fly a kite and because I'm never going to make twelve, let

alone my early twenties. It was the pneumonia, see? I get

steroids, and they help, but the pneumonia combined with the

Duchenne's MD fucked up my lungs and heart permanently."

He looked at me with a child's defiance, watching for how

I'd react to what is now so coyly referred to as "the f-bomb."

I didn't react, of course. I was too busy processing the sense to

worry about his choice of words.

"So," I said. "I guess what you're saying is an extra fruit smoothie

won't help."

He threw back his head and laughed. The laughter turned into

the worst coughing fit yet. Alarmed, I went to him and pounded

his back. . . but gently. It felt as if there were nothing under there

Joy land

159

but chicken bones. Milo barked once and put his paws up on

one of Mike's wasted legs.

There were two pitchers on the table, water in one and

fresh-squeezed orange juice in the other. Mike pointed to the

water and I poured him half a glass. When I tried to hold it for

him, he gave me an impatient look-even with the coughing fit

still wracking him-and took it himself. He spilled some on his

shirt, but most of it went down his throat, and the coughing

eased.

"That was a bad one," he said, patting his chest. "My heart's

going like a bastard. Don't tell my mother."

"Jesus, kid! Like she doesn't know?"

"She knows too much, that's what I think," Mike said. "She

knows I might have three more good months and then four or

five really bad ones. Like, in bed all the time, not able to do

anything but suck oxygen and watch MASH and Fat Albert.

The only question is whether or not she'll let Grammy and

Grampa Ross come to the funeral." He'd coughed hard enough

to make his eyes water, but I didn't mistake that for tears. He

was bleak, but in control. Last evening, when the kite went up

and he felt it tugging the twine, he had been younger than his

age. Now I was watching him struggle to be a lot older. The

scary thing was how well he was succeeding. His eyes met mine,

dead-on. "She knows. She just doesn't know that I know."

The back door banged. We looked and saw Annie crossing

the patio, heading for the boardwalk.

"Why would I need to know, Mike?"

He shook his head. "I don't have any idea. But you can't talk

about it to Mom, okay? It just upsets her. I'm all she's got." He

said this last not with pride but a kind of gloomy realism .

160

STEPHEN K I N G

"All right."

"Oh, one other thing. I almost forgot." He shot a glance at

her, saw she was only halfway down the boardwalk, and turned

back to me. "It's not white."

"What's not white?"

Mike Ross looked mystified. "No idea. When I woke up this

morning, I remembered you were coming for smoothies, and

that came into my head. I thought you'd know."

Annie arrived. She had poured a mini-smoothie into a juice

glass. On top was a single strawberry.

"Yum!" Mike said. "Thanks, Mom!"

"You're very welcome, hon."

She eyed his wet shirt but didn't mention it. When she asked

me if I wanted some more juice, Mike winked at me. I said more

juice would be great. While she poured, Mike fed Milo two

heaping spoonfuls of his smoothie.

She turned back to him, and looked at the smoothie glass,

now half empty. "Wow, you really were hungry."

"Told you."

'What were you and Mr. Jones-Devin-talking about?"

"Nothing much," Mike said. "He's been sad, but he's better

now."

I said nothing, but I could feel heat rising in my cheeks. When

I dared a look at Annie, she was smiling.

"Welcome to Mike's world, Devin," she said, and I must have

looked like I'd swallowed a goldfish, because she burst out

laughing. It was a nice sound .

•

joy land

That evening when I walked back from Joyland, she was standing

at the end of the boardwalk, waiting for me. It was the first time

I'd seen her in a blouse and skirt. And she was alone. That was

a first, too.

"Devin? Got a second?"

"Sure," I said, angling up the sandy slope to her. "Where's

Mike?"

"He has physical therapy three times a week. Usually Janiceshe's his therapist-comes in the morning, but I arranged for her to come this evening instead, because I wanted to speak to

you alone."

"Does Mike know that?"

Annie smiled ruefully. "Probably. Mike knows far more than

he should. I won't ask what you two talked about after he got

rid of me this morning, but I'm guessing that his . . .insights . . .

come as no surprise to you."

"He told me why he's in a wheelchair, that's all. And he mentioned he had pneumonia last Thanksgiving."

"I wanted to thank you for the kite, Dev. My son has very

restless nights. He's not in pain, exactly, but he has trouble

breathing when he's asleep. It's like apnea. He has to sleep in a

semi-sitting position, and that doesn't help. Sometimes he stops

breathing completely, and when he does, an alarm goes off and

wakes him up. Only last night-after the kite-he slept right

through. I even went in once, around two AM, to make sure the

monitor wasn't malfunctioning. He was sleeping like a baby.

No restless tossing and turning, no nightmares-he's prone to

them-and no moaning. It was the kite. It satisfied him in a

way nothing else possibly could. Except maybe going to that

damned amusement park of yours, which is completely out of

162

STEPHEN K I N G

the question." She stopped, then smiled. "Oh, shit. I'm making

a speech."

"It's all right," I said.

"It's just that I've had so few people to talk to. I have housekeeping help-a very nice woman from Heaven's Bay-and of course there's Janice, but it's not the same." She took a deep

breath. "Here's the other part. I was rude to you on several

occasions, and with no cause. I'm sorry."

"Mrs . . . . Miss . . . " Shit. "Annie, you don't have anything to

apologize for."

"Yes. I do. You could have just walked on when you saw me

struggling with the kite, and then Mike wouldn't have gotten

that good night's rest. All I can say is that I have problems

trusting people."

This is where she invites me in for supper, I thought. But she

didn't. Maybe because of what I said next.

"You know, he could come to the park. It'd be easy to arrange,

and with it closed and all, he could have the run of the place."

Her face closed up hard, like a hand into a fist. "Oh, no.

Absolutely not. If you think that, he didn't tell you as much

about his condition as I thought he did. Please don't mention it

to him. In fact, I have to insist."

"All right," I said. "But if you change your mind . . . "

I trailed off. She wasn't going to change her mind. S he

looked at her watch, and a new smile lit her face. It was so

brilliant you could almost ove.rlook how it never reached her

eyes. "Oh boy, look how late it's getting. Mike will be hungry

after his PE, and I haven't done a thing about supper. Will you

excuse me?"

"Sure.,

Joyland

I stood there watching her hurry back down the boardwalk

to the green Victorian-the one I was probably never going to

see the inside of, thanks to my big mouth . But the idea of

taking Mike through Joyland had seemed so right. During the

summer, we had groups of kids with all sorts of problems and

disabilities-crippled kids, blind kids, cancer kids, kids who

were mentally challenged (what we called retarded back in the

unenlightened 70s). It wasn't as though I expected to stick Mike

in the front car of the Delirium Shaker and then blast him off.

Even if the Shaker hadn't been buttoned up for the winter, I'm

not a total idiot.

But the merry-go-round was still operational, and surely he

could ride that. Ditto the train that ran through the Wiggle

Waggle Village. I was sure Fred Dean wouldn't mind me touring

the kid through Mysterio's Mirror Mansion, either. But no. No.

He was her delicate hothouse flower, and she intended to keep

it that way. The thing with the kite had just been an aberration,

and the apology a bitter pill she felt she had to swallow.

Still, I couldn't help admiring how quick and lithe she was,

moving with a grace her son would never know. I watched her

bare legs under the hem of her skirt and thought about Wendy

Keegan not at all.

•

I had the weekend free, and you know what happened. I guess

the idea that it always rains on the weekends must be an illusion, but it sure doesn't seem like one; ask any working stiff who ever planned to go camping or fishing on his days off.

Well, there was always Tolkien. I was sitting in my chair by

the window on Saturday afternoon, moving ever deeper into

STEPHEN K I N G

the mountains of Mordor with Frodo and Sam, when Mrs.

Shop law knocked on the door and asked if I'd like to come

down to the parlor and play Scrabble with her and Tina Ackerley.

I am not at all crazy about Scrabble, having suffered many humiliations at the hands of my aunts Tansy and Naomi, who each have a huge mental vocabulary of what I still think of as "Scrabble

shit-words"-stuff like suq, tranq, and bhoot (an Indian ghost,

should you wonder). Nevertheless, I said I'd love to play. Mrs.

Shoplaw was my landlady, after all, and diplomacy takes many

forms.

On our way downstairs, she confided, "We're helping Tina

bone up. She's quite the Scrabble-shark. She's entered in some

sort of tournament in Atlantic City next weekend. I believe

there is a cash prize."

It didn't take long-maybe four turns-to discover that our

resident librarian could have given my aunts all the game they

could handle, and more. By the time Miss Ackerley laid down

nubility (with the apologetic smile all Scrabble-sharks seem to

have; I think they must practice it in front of their mirrors),

Emmalina Shoplaw was eighty points behind. As for me .. . well,

never mind.

"I don't suppose either of you know anything about Annie

and Mike Ross, do you?" I asked during a break in the action

(both women seemed to feel a need to study the board a looong

time before laying down so much as a single tile). "They live on

Beach Row in the big green Victorian?"

Miss Ackerley paused with her hand still inside the little

brown bag of letters. Her eyes were big, and her thick lenses

made them even bigger. "Have you met them?"

"Uh-huh. They were trying to fly a kite .. . well, she was . . . and

joy land

I helped out a little. They're very nice. I just wondered . . . the

two of them all alone in that big house, and him pretty sick . . . "

The look they exchanged was pure incredulity, and I started

to wish I hadn't raised the subject.

"She talks to you?" Mrs. Shoplaw asked. "The Ice Queen actually talks to you?"

Not only talked to me, but gave me a fro it smoothie. Thanked

me. Even apologized to me. But I said none of that. Not because

Annie really had iced up when I presumed too much, but because to do so would have seemed disloyal, somehow.

"Well, a little. I got the kite up for them, that's all." I turned

the board. It was Tina's, the pro kind with its own little built-in

spindle. "Come on, Mrs. S. Your turn. Maybe you'll even make

a word that's in my puny vocabulary."

"Given the correct positioning, puny can be worth seventy

points," Tina Ackerley said. "Even more, if a y-word is connected

to pun."

Mrs. Shoplaw ignored both the board and the advice. "You

know who her father is, of course."

"Can't say I do." Although I did know she was on the outs

with him, and big-time.

"Buddy Ross? As in The Buddy Ross Hour of Power? Ring

any bells?"

It did, vaguely. I thought I might have heard some preacher

named Ross on the radio in the costume shop. It kind of made

sense. During one of my quick-change transformations into

Howie, Dottie Lassen had asked me-pretty much out of a clear

blue sky-if I had found Jesus. My first impulse had been to

tell her that I didn't know He was lost, but I restrained it.

"One of those Bible-shouters, right?"

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STEPHEN K I N G

"Next to Oral Roberts and that Jimmy Swaggart fellow, he's

just about the biggest of them," Mrs. S . said. "He broadcasts

from this gigantic church-God's Citadel, he calls it-in Atlanta.

His radio show goes out all over the country, and now he's getting more and more into TV. I don't know if the stations give him the time free, or if he has to buy it. I'm sure he can afford

it, especially late at night. That's when the old folks are up with

their aches and pains. His shows are half miracle healings and

half pleas for more love-offerings."

"Guess he didn't have any luck healing his grandson," I said.

Tina withdrew her hand from the letter-bag with nothing in

it. She had forgotten about Scrabble for the time being, which

was a good thing for her hapless victims. Her eyes were sparkling.

"You don't know any of this story, do you? Ordinarily I don't

believe in gossip, but . . . " She dropped her voice to a confidential

tone pitched just above a whisper. " . . . but since you've met them,

I could tell you."

"Yes, please," I said. I thought one of my questions-how

Annie and Mike came to be living in a huge house on one of

North Carolina's ritziest beaches-had already been answered.

It was Grampa Buddy's summer retreat, bought and paid for

with love-offerings.

"He's got two sons," Tina said. "They're both high in his

church-deacons or assistant pastors, I don't know what they

call them exactly, because I don't go for that holy rolling stuff.

The daughter, though, she was different. A sporty type. Horseback riding, tennis, archery, deer hunting with her father, quite a bit of competition shooting. All that got in the papers after

her trouble started."

Now the CAMP PERRY shirt made sense.

Joy land

"Around the time she turned eighteen, it all went to hellquite literally, as he saw it. She went to what they call 'a secularhumanist college,' and by all accounts she was quite the wild child. Giving up the shooting competitions and tennis tournaments was one thing; giving up the church-going for parties and liquor and men was quite another. Also . . . " Tina lowered

her voice. "Pot-smoking."

"Gosh," I said, "not that!"

Mrs. Shoplaw gave me a look, but Tina didn't notice. "Yes!

That! She got into the newspapers, too, those tabloids, because

she was pretty and rich, but mostly because of her father. And

being fallen-away. That's what they call it. She was a scandal to

that church of his, wearing mini-skirts and going braless and all.

Well, you know what those fundamentalists preach is straight

out of the Old Testament, all that about the righteous being

rewarded and sinners being punished even unto the seventh

generation. And she did more than hit the party circuit down

there in Green Witch Village." Tina's eyes were now so huge

they looked on the verge of tumbling from their sockets and

rolling down her cheeks . "She quit the NRA and joined the

American Atheist Society !"

"Ah. And did that get in the papers?"

"Did it ever! Then she got pregnant, no surprise there, and

when the baby turned out to have some sort of problem . . . cerebral palsy, I think-"

"Muscular dystrophy."

"Whatever it is, her father was asked about it on one of his

crusade things, and do you know what he said?"

I shook my head, but thought I could make a pretty good

guess.

168

S T E P H E N K I N G

"He said that God punishes the unbeliever and the sinner. He

said his daughter was no different, and maybe her son's affliction would bring her back to God."

"I don't think it's happened yet," I said. I was thinking of the

Jesus-kite.

"I can't understand why people use religion to hurt each other

when there's already so much pain in the world," Mrs. Shoplaw

said. "Religion is supposed to comfort."

"He's just a self-righteous old prig," Tina said. "No matter

how many men she might have been with or how many joints of

pot she might have smoked, she's still his daughter. And the child

is still his grandson. I've seen that boy in town once or twice,

either in a wheelchair or tottering along in those cruel braces

he has to wear if he wants to walk. He seems like a perfectly nice

boy, and she was sober. Also wearing a bra." She paused for further recollection. "I think."

"Her father might change," Mrs. Shoplaw said, "but I doubt

it. Young women and young men grow up, but old women and

old men just grow older and surer they've got the right on their

side. Especially if they know scripture."

I remembered something my mother used to say. "The devil

can quote scripture."

"And in a pleasing voice," Mrs. Shoplaw agreed moodily. Then

she brightened. "Still, if the Reverend Ross is letting them use

his place on Beach Row, maybe he's willing to let bygones be

bygones. It might have crossed his mind by now that she was

only a young girl, maybe not even old enough to vote. Dev, isn't

it your turn?"

It was. I made tear. It netted me four points .

•

Joy land

169

My drubbing wasn't merciful, but once Tina Ackerley really

got rocking, it was relatively quick. I returned to my room, sat

in my chair by the window, and tried to rejoin Frodo and Sam

on the road to Mount Doom. I couldn't do it. I closed the book

and stared out through the rain-wavery glass at the empty

beach and the gray ocean beyond. It was a lonely prospect,

and at times like that, my thoughts had a way of turning back

to Wendy-wondering where she was, what she was doing.

and who she was with. Thinking about her smile, the way her

hair fell against her cheek, the soft rise of her breasts in one of

her seemingly endless supply of cardigan sweaters.

Not today. Instead of Wendy, I found myself thinking of

Annie Ross and realizing I'd developed a small but powerful

crush on her. The fact that nothing could come of it-she had

to be ten years older than me, maybe twelve-only seemed to

make things worse. Or maybe I mean better, because unrequited

love does have its attractions for young men.

Mrs. S. had suggested that Annie's holier-than-thou father

might be willing to let bygones be bygones, and I thought she

might have something there. I'd heard that grandchildren had

a way of softening stiff necks, and he might want to get to know

the boy while there was still time. He could have found out

(from the people he had everywhere) that Mike was smart as

well as crippled. It was even possible he'd heard rumors that

Mike had what Madame Fortuna called "the sight." Or maybe

all that was too rosy. Maybe Mr. Fire-and-Brimstone had given

her the use of the house in exchange for a promise that she'd

keep her mouth shut and not brew up any fresh pot-and-miniskirt

scandals while he was making the crucial transition from radio

to television.

170

STEPHEN K I N G

I could speculate until the cloud-masked sun went down, and

not be sure of anything on Buddy Ross's account, but I thought

I could be sure about one thing on Annie's: she was not ready to

let bygones be bygones.

I got up and trotted downstairs to the parlor, fishing a scrap

of paper with a phone number on it out of my wallet as I went.

I could hear Tina and Mrs. S. in the kitchen, chattering away

happily. I called Erin Cook's dorm, not expecting to get her on

a Saturday afternoon; she was probably down in New Jersey

with Tom, watching Rutgers football and singing the Scarlet

Knights' fight song.

But the girl on phone duty said she'd get her, and three minutes later, her voice was in my ear.

"Dev, I was going to call you. In fact, I want to come down

and see you, if I can get Tom to go along. I think I can, but it

wouldn't be next weekend. Probably the one after."

I checked the calendar hanging on the wall and saw that would

be the first weekend in October. "Have you actually found something out?"

"I don't know. Maybe. I love to do research, and I really got

into this. I've piled up lots of background stuff for sure, but it's

not like I solved the murder of Linda Gray in the college library,

or anything. Still . . . there are things I want to show you. Things

that trouble me."

"Trouble you why? Trouble you how?"

"I don't want to try explaining over the phone. If I can't persuade Tom to come down, I'll put everything in a big manila envelope and send it to you. But I think I can. He wants to see

you, he just doesn't want anything to do with my little investigation. He wouldn't even look at the photos."

I thought she was being awfully mysterious, but decided to

Joyland

171

let it go. "Listen, have you heard of an evangelist named Buddy

Ross?"

"Buddy-" She burst into giggles. "The Buddy Ross Hour of

Power! My gramma listens to that old faker all the time! He

pretends to pull goat stomachs out of people and claims they're

tumors! Do you know what Pop Allen would say?"

"Carny-from-carny," I said, grinning.

"Right you are. What do you want to know about him? And

why can't you find out for yourself? Did your mother get scared

by a card catalogue while she was carrying you?"

"Not that I know of, but by the time I get off work, the

Heaven's Bay library is closed. I doubt if they've got Who's Who,

anyway. I mean, it's only one room. It's not about him, anyway.

It's about his two sons. I want to know if they have any kids."

"Why?"

"Because his daughter has one. He's a great kid, but he's

dying."

A pause. Then: "What are you into down there now, Dev?"

"Meeting new people. Come on down. I'd love to see you

guys again. Tell Tom we'll stay out of the funhouse."

I thought that might make her laugh, but it didn't. "Oh, he

will. You couldn't get him within thirty yards of the place."

We said our goodbyes, I wrote the length of my call on the

honor sheet, then went back upstairs and sat by the window.

I was feeling that strange dull jealousy again. Why had Tom

Kennedy been the one to see Linda Gray? Why him and not me?

•

The Heaven's Bay weekly paper came out on Thursdays, and the

headline on the October fourth edition read JOYLAND EMPLOYEE

SAVES SECOND LIFE. I thought that was an exaggeration. I'll take

STEPHEN K I N G

full credit for Hallie Stansfield, but only part of it for the unpleasant Eddie Parks. The rest-not neglecting a tip of the old Howie-hat to Lane Hardy-belongs to Wendy Keegan, because

if she hadn't broken up with me in June, I would have been in

Durham, New Hampshire that fall, seven hundred miles from

Joyland.

I certainly had no idea that more life-saving was on the agenda;

premonitions like that were strictly for folks like Rozzie Gold

and Mike Ross. I was thinking of nothing but Erin and Tom's

upcoming visit when I arrived at the park on October first,

after another rainy weekend. It was still cloudy, but in honor of

Monday, the rain had stopped. Eddie was seated on his applebox throne in front of Horror House, and smoking his usual morning cigarette. I raised my hand to him. He didn't bother to

raise his in return, just stomped on his butt and leaned over to

raise the apple-box and toss it under. I'd seen it all fifty times or

more (and sometimes wondered how many butts were piled up

beneath that box), but this time, instead of lifting the applebox, he just went right on leaning.

Was there a look of surprise on his face? I can't say. By the

time I realized something was wrong, all I could see was his

faded and grease-smeared dogtop as his head dropped between

his knees. He kept going forward, and ended up doing a complete somersault, landing on his back with his legs splayed out and his face up to the cloudy sky. And by then the only thing on

it was a knotted grimace of pain.

I dropped my lunchsack, ran to him, and fell on my knees

beside him. "Eddie? What is it?"

"Ticka," he managed.

For a moment I thought he was talking about some obscure

Joy land

173

disease engendered by tick-bites, but then I saw the way he

was clutching the left side of his chest with his gloved right

hand.

The pre-Joyland version of Dev Jones would simply have

yelled for help, but after four months of talking the Talk, help

never even crossed my mind. I filled my lungs, lifted my head,

and screamed "HEY, R UBE!" into the damp morning air as

loud as I could. The only person close enough to hear was Lane

Hardy, and he came fast.

The summer employees Fred Dean hired didn't have to know

CPR when they signed on, but they had to learn. Thanks to the

life-saving class I'd taken as a teenager, I already knew. The

half-dozen of us in that class had learned beside the YMCA

pool, working on a dummy with the unlikely name of Herkimer

Saltfish. Now I had a chance to put theory into practice for the

first time, and do you know what? It wasn't really that much

different from the clean-and-jerk I'd used to pop the hotdog

out of the little Stansfield girl's throat. I wasn't wearing the fur,

and there was no hugging involved, but it was still mostly a

matter of applying hard force. I cracked four of the old bastard's ribs and broke one. I can't say I'm sorry, either.

By the time Lane arrived, I was kneeling alongside Eddie

and doing closed chest compressions, first rocking forward with

my weight on the heels of my hands, then rocking back and listening to see if he'd draw in a breath.

"Christ," Lane said. "Heart attack?"

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure. Call an ambulance."

The closest phone was in the little shack beside Pop Allen's

Shootin' Gallery-his doghouse, in the Talk. It was locked, but

Lane had the Keys to the Kingdom: three masters that opened

174

S T E P H E N K I N G

everything in the park. He ran. I went on doing CPR, rocking

back and forth, my thighs aching now, my knees barking about

their long contact with the rough pavement of J oyland Avenue.

After each five compressions I'd slow-count to three, listening

for Eddie to inhale, but there was nothing. No joy in Joyland,

not for Eddie. Not after the first five, not after the second five,

not after half a dozen fives. He just lay there with his gloved

hands at his sides and his mouth open. Eddie fucking Parks. I

stared down at him as Lane came sprinting back, shouting that

the ambulance was on its way.

I'm not doing it, I thought. I'll be damned if I'll do it.

Then I leaned fmward, doing another compression on the

way, and pressed my mouth to his. It wasn't as bad as I feared;

it was worse. His lips were bitter with the taste of cigarettes,

and there was the stink of something else in his mouth-God

help me, I think it was jalapeno peppers, maybe from a breakfast omelet. I got a good seal, though, pinched his nostrils shut, and breathed down his throat.

I did that five or six times before he started breathing on his

own again. I stopped the compressions to see what would happen,

and he kept going. Hell must have been full that day, that's all I

can figure. I rolled him onto his side in case he vomited. Lane

stood beside me with a hand on my shoulder. Shortly after that,

we heard the wail of an approaching siren.

Lane hurried to meet them at the gate and direct them. Once

he was gone, I found myself looking at the snarling green

monster-faces decorating the fa�ade of Horror House. COME

I N I F YOU DARE was written above the faces in drippy green

letters. I found myself thinking again of Linda Gray, who had

gone in alive and had been carried out hours later, cold and

]oyland

175

dead. I think my mind went that way because Erin was coming

with information. Information that troubled her. I also thought

of the girl's killer.

Could have been you, Mrs. Shoplaw had said. Except you're

dark-haired instead of blond and don't have a bird's head tattooed on one of your hands. This guy did. An eagle or maybe a hawk.

Eddie's hair was the premature gray of the lifelong heavy

smoker, but it could have been blond four years ago. And he

always wore gloves. Surely he was too old to have been the man

who had accompanied Linda Gray on her last dark ride, surely,

but . . .

The ambulance was very close but not quite here, although

I could see Lane at the gate, waving his hands over his head,

making hurry-up gestures. Thinking what the hell, I stripped

off Eddie's gloves. His fingers were lacy with dead skin, the

backs of his hands red beneath a thick layer of some sort of

white cream. There were no tattoos.

Just psoriasis.

•

As soon as he was loaded up and the ambulance was heading

back to the tiny Heaven's Bay hospital, I went into the nearest

donniker and rinsed my mouth again and again. It was a long

time before I got rid of the taste of those damn jalapeno peppers, and I have never touched one since.

When I came out, Lane Hardy was standing by the door.

"That was something," he said. "You brought him back."

"He won't be out of the woods for a while, and there might

be brain damage."

S T E P H E N K I N G

"Maybe yes, maybe no, but if you hadn't been there, he'd

have been in the woods permanently. First the little girl, now

the dirty old man. I may start calling you Jesus instead of J onesy,

because you sure are the savior."

"You do that, and I'm DS." That was Talk for down south,

which in turn meant turning in your time-card for good.

"Okay, but you did all right, Jonesy. In fact, I gotta say you

rocked the house."

"The taste of him," I said. "God!"

"Yeah, I bet, but look on the bright side. With him gone, you're

free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, you're free at last.

I think you'll like it better that way, don't you?"

I certainly did.

From his back pocket, Lane drew out a pair of rawhide gloves.

Eddie's gloves. "Found these laying on the ground. Why'd you

take em off him?"

"Uh . . . I wanted to let his hands breathe." That sounded

prima stupid, but the truth would have sounded even stupider.

I couldn't believe I'd entertained the notion of Eddie Parks

being Linda Gray's killer for even a moment. "When I took my

life-saving course, they told us that heart attack victims need all

the free skin they can get. It helps, somehow." I shrugged. "It's

supposed to, at least."

"Huh. You learn a new thing every day." He flapped the gloves.

"I don't think Eddie's gonna be back for a long time-if at allso you might as well stick these in his doghouse, yeah?"

"Okay," I said, and that's what I did. But later that day I went

and got them again. Something else, too .

•

Joy land

177

I didn't like him, we're straight on that, right? He'd given me

no reason to like him. He had, so far as I knew, given not one

single Joyland employee a reason to like him. Even old-timers

like Rozzie Gold and Pop Allen gave him a wide berth. Nevertheless, I found myself entering the Heaven's Bay Community Hospital that afternoon at four o'clock, and asking if Edward

Parks could have a visitor. I had his gloves in one hand, along

with the something else.

The blue-haired volunteer receptionist went through her

paperwork twice, shaking her head, and I was starting to think

Eddie had died after all when she said, "Ah! It's Edwin, not

Edward. He's in Room 315. That's ICU, so you'll have to check

at the nurse's station first."

I thanked her and went to the elevator-one of those huge

ones big enough to admit a gurney. It was slower than old cold

death, which gave me plenty of time to wonder what I was

doing here. If Eddie needed a visit from a park employee, it

should have been Fred Dean, not me, because Fred was the

guy in charge that fall. Yet here I was. They probably wouldn't

let me see him, anyway.

But after checking his chart, the head nurse gave me the okay.

"He may be sleeping, though."

"Any idea about his-?" I tapped my head.

"Mental function? Well . . . he was able to give us his name."

That sounded hopeful.

He was indeed asleep. With his eyes shut and that day's

late-arriving sun shining on his face, the idea that he might

have been Linda Gray's date a mere four years ago was even

more ludicrous. He looked at least a hundred, maybe a hundred

STEPHEN K I N G

and twenty. I saw I needn't have brought his gloves, either.

Someone had bandaged his hands, probably after treating the

psoriasis with something a little more powerful than whatever

OTC cream he'd been using on them. Looking at those bulky

white mittens made me feel a queer, reluctant pity.

I crossed the room as quietly as I could, and put the gloves

in the closet with the clothes he'd been wearing when he was

brought in. That left me with the other thing-a photograph

that had been pinned to the wall of his cluttered, tobaccosmelling little shack next to a yellowing calendar that was two years out of date. The photo showed Eddie and a plain-faced

woman standing in the weedy front yard of an anonymous tract

house. Eddie looked about twenty-five. He had his arm around

the woman. She was smiling at him. And-wonder of wondershe was smiling back.

There was a rolling table beside his bed with a plastic pitcher

and a glass on it. This I thought rather stupid; with his hands

bandaged the way they were, he wasn't going to be pouring

anything for a while. Still, the pitcher could serve one useful

purpose. I propped the photo against it so he'd see it when he

woke up. With that done, I started for the door.

I was almost there when he spoke in a whispery voice that

was a long way from his usual ill-tempered rasp. "Kiddo."

I returned-not eagerly-to his bedside. There was a chair in

the corner, but I had no intention of pulling it over and sitting

down. "How you feeling, Eddie?"

"Can't really say. Hard to breathe. They got me all taped up."

"I brought you your gloves, but I see they already . . . " I nodded

at his bandaged hands.

"Yeah." He sucked in air. "If anything good comes out of this,

Joyland

179

maybe they'll fix em up. Fuckin itch all the time, they do." He

looked at the picture. "Why'd you bring that? And what were

you doin in my doghouse?"

"Lane told me to put your gloves in there. I did, but then I

thought you might want them. And you might want the picture.

Maybe she's someone you'd want Fred Dean to call?"

"Corinne?" He snorted. "She's been dead for twenty years.

Pour me some water, kiddo. I'm as dry as ten-year dogshit."

I poured, and held the glass for him, and even wiped the

corner of his mouth with the sheet when he dribbled. It was all

a lot more intimate than I wanted, but didn't seem so bad when

I remembered that I'd been soul-kissing the miserable bastard

only hours before.

He didn't thank me, but when had he ever? What he said

was, "Hold that picture up." I did as he asked. He looked at it

fixedly for several seconds, then sighed. " Miserable scolding

backbiting cunt. Walking out on her for Royal American Shows

was the smartest thing I ever did." A tear trembled at the corner

of his left eye, hesitated, then rolled down his cheek.

"Want me to take it back and pin it up in your doghouse,

Eddie?"

"No, might as well leave it. We had a kid, you know. A little

girl."

''Yeah?"

"Yeah. She got hit by a car. Three years old she was, and died

like a dog in the street. That miserable cunt was yakking on the

phone instead of watching her." He turned his head aside and

closed his eyes. "Go on, get outta here. Hurts to talk, and I'm

tired. Got a elephant sitting on my chest."

"Okay. Take care of yourself."

180

S T E P H E N K I N G

He grimaced without opening his eyes. "That's a laugh. How

e'zacly am I s'posed to do that? You got any ideas? Because I

haven't. I got no relatives, no friends, no savings, no in-surance.

What am I gonna do now?"

"It'll work out," I said lamely.

"Sure, in the movies it always does. Go on, get lost."

This time I was all the way out the door before he spoke again.

"You shoulda let me die, kiddo." He said it without melo-

drama, just as a passing observation. "I coulda been with my

little girl."

•

When I walked back into the hospital lobby I stopped dead, at

first not sure I was seeing who I thought I was seeing. But it

was her, all right, with one of her endless series of arduous novels

open in front of her. This one was called The Dissertation.

"Annie?"

She looked up, at first wary, then smiling as she recognized

me. "Dev! What are you doing here?"

"Visiting a guy from the park. He had a heart attack today."

"Oh, my God, I'm so sorry. Is he going to be all right?"

She didn't invite me to sit down next to her, but I did, anyway.

My visit to Eddie had upset me in ways I didn't understand,

and my nerves were jangling. It wasn't unhappiness and it

wasn't sorrow. It was a queer, unfocused anger that had something to do with the foul taste of jalapeno peppers that still seemed to linger in my mouth. And with Wendy, God knew

why. It was wearying to know I wasn't over her, even yet. A

broken arm would have healed quicker. "I don't know. I didn't

talk to a doctor. Is Mike all right?"

joyland

181

"Yes, it's j ust a regularly scheduled appointment. A chest

X-ray and a complete blood count. Because of the pneumonia,

you know. Thank God he's over it now. Except for that lingering

cough, Mike's fine." She was still holding her book open, which

probably meant she wanted me to go, and that made me angrier.

You have to remember that was the year everyone wanted me

to go, even the guy whose life I'd saved.

Which is probably why I said, "Mike doesn't think he's fine.

So who am I supposed to believe here, Annie?"

Her eyes widened with surprise, then grew distant. ''I'm

sure I don't care who or what you believe, Devin. It's really not

any of your business."

"Yes it is." That came from behind us. Mike had rolled up in

his chair. It wasn't the motorized kind, which meant he'd been

turning the wheels with his hands . Strong boy, cough or no

cough. He'd buttoned his shirt wrong, though.

Annie turned to him, surprised. "What are you doing here?

You were supposed to let the nurse-"

"I told her I could do it on my own and she said okay. It's just

a left and two rights from radiology, you know. I'm not blind,

just dy-"

"Mr. Jones was visiting a friend of his, Mike." So now I had

been demoted back to Mr. Jones. She closed her book with a

snap and stood up. "He's probably anxious to get home, and I'm

sure you must be ti-"

"I want him to take us to the park." M ike spoke calmly

enough, but his voice was loud enough to make people look

around. " Us."

"Mike, you know that's not-"

"To Joyland. To Joy . . . Land." Still calm, but louder still. Now

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S T E P H E N K I N G

everyone was looking. Annie's cheeks were flaming. "I want

you both to take me." His voice rose louder still. "I want you to

take me to Joy land before I die. "

Her hand covered her mouth . Her eyes were huge. Her

words, when they came, were muffled but understandable.

"Mike . . . you're not going to die, who told you . . . " She turned on

me. "Do I have you to thank for putting that idea in his head?"

"Of course not." I was very conscious that our audience was

growing-it now included a couple of nurses and a doctor in

blue scrubs and booties-but I didn't care. I was still angry.

"He told me. Why would that surprise you, when you know all

about his intuitions?"

That was my afternoon for provoking tears. First Eddie, now

Annie. Mike was dry-eyed, though, and he looked every bit as

furious as I felt. But he said nothing as she grabbed the handles

of his wheelchair, spun it around, and drove it at the door. I

thought she was going to crash into them, but the magic eye got

them open just in time.

Let them go, I thought, but I was tired of letting women go. I

was tired of just letting things happen to me and then feeling

bad about them.

A nurse approached me. "Is everything all right?"

"No," I said, and followed them out .

•

Annie had parked in the lot adjacent to the hospital, where a sign

announced THESE TWO ROWS RESERVED FOR THE HANDI

C A P P E D . She had a van, I saw, with plenty of room for the

folded-up wheelchair in back. She had gotten the passenger

door open, but Mike was refusing to get out of the chair. He

Joy land

was gripping the handles with all his strength, his hands dead

white.

"Get in!" she shouted at him.

Mike shook his head, not looking at her.

"Get in, dammit!"

This time he didn't even bother to shake his head.

She grabbed him and yanked. The wheelchair had its brake

on and tipped forward. I grabbed it j ust in time to keep it

from going over and spilling them both into the open door of

the van.

Annie's hair had fallen into her face, and the eyes peering

through it were wild: the eyes, almost, of a skittish horse in a

thunderstorm. "Let go! This is all your fault! I never should

have-"

"Stop," I said. I took hold of her shoulders. The hollows there

were deep, the bones close to the surface. I thought, She's been

too busy stuffing calories into him to worry about herself

"LET ME G-"

"I don't want to take him away from you," I said. "Annie, that's

the last thing I want."

She stopped struggling. Warily, I let go of her. The novel

she'd been reading had fallen to the pavement in the struggle. I

bent down, picked it up, and put it into the pocket on the back

of the wheelchair.

"Mom." Mike took her hand. "It doesn't have to be the last

good time."

Then I understood. Even before her shoulders slumped and

the sobs started, I understood. It wasn't the fear that I'd stick

him on some crazy-fast ride and the burst of adrenaline would

kill him. It wasn't fear that a stranger would steal the damaged

STEPHEN K I N G

heart she loved so well. It was a kind of atavistic belief-a

mother's belief-that if they never started doing certain last

things, life would go on as it had: morning smoothies at the end

of the boardwalk, evenings with the kite at the end of the

boardwalk, all of it in a kind of endless summer. Only it was

October now and the beach was deserted. The happy screams

of teenagers on the Thunderball and little kids shooting down

the Splash & Crash water slide had ceased, there was a nip in

the air as the days drew down. No summer is endless.

She put her hands over her face and sat down on the passenger seat of the van. It was too high for her, and she almost slid off. I caught her and steadied her. I don't think she noticed.

"Go on, take him," she said. "I don't give a fuck. Take him

parachute-jumping, if you want. Just don't expect me to be a

part ofyour . . . your boys' adventure."

Mike said, "I can't go without you."

That got her to drop her hands and look at him. "Michael,

you're all I've got. Do you understand that?"

"Yes," he said. He took one of her hands in both of his. "And

you're all I've got."

I could see by her face that the idea had never crossed her

mind, not really.

"Help me get in," Mike said. "Both of you, please."

When he was settled (I don't remember fastening his seatbelt, so maybe this was before they were a big deal), I closed the door and walked around the nose of the van with her.

"His chair," she said distractedly. "I have to get his chair."

"''ll put it in. You sit behind the wheel and get yourself ready

to drive. Take a few deep breaths."

She let me help her in. I had her above the elbow, and I

joy land

could close my whole hand around her upper arm. I thought of

telling her she couldn't live on arduous novels alone, and thought

better of it. She had been told enough this afternoon.

I folded the wheelchair and stowed it in the cargo compartment, taking longer with the job than I needed to, giving her time to compose herself. When I went back to the driver's side,

I half-expected to find the window rolled up, but it was still

down. She had wiped her eyes and nose, and pushed her hair

into some semblance of order.

I said, "He can't go without you, and neither can 1."

She spoke to me as if Mike weren't there and listening. ''I'm

so afraid for him, all the time. He sees so much, and so much of

it hurts him. That's what the nightmares are about, I know it.

He's such a great kid. Why can't he just get well? Why this?

Why this?"

"I don't know," I said.

She turned to kiss Mike's cheek. Then she turned back to me.

Drew in a deep, shaky breath and let it out. "So when do we

go?" she asked.

•

The Return of the King was surely not as arduous as The Dissertation, but that night I couldn't have read The Cat in the Hat.

After eating some canned spaghetti for supper (and largely

ignoring Mrs. Shoplaw's pointed observations about how some

young people seem determined to mistreat their bodies), I

went up to my room and sat by the window, staring out at the

dark and listening to the steady beat-and-retreat of the surf.

I was on the verge of dozing when Mrs. S. knocked lightly on

my door and said, "You've got a call, Dev. It's a little boy."

STEPHEN K I N G

I went down to the parlor in a hurry, because I could think of

only one little boy who might call me.

"Mike?"

He spoke in a low voice. "My mom is sleeping. She said she

was tired."

"I bet she was," I said, thinking of how we'd ganged up on

her.

"I know we did," Mike said, as if I had spoken the thought

aloud. "We had to."

"Mike . . . can you read minds? Are you reading mine?"

"I don't really know," he said. "Sometimes I see things and

hear things, that's all. And sometimes I get ideas. It was my

idea to come to Grampa's house. Mom said he'd never let us,

but I knew he would. Whatever I have, the special thing, I

think it came from him. He heals people, you know. I mean,

sometimes he fakes it, but sometimes he really does."

"Why did you call, Mike?"

He grew animated. "About Joyland! Can we really ride the

merry-go-round and the Ferris wheel?"

"''m pretty sure."

"Shoot in the shooting gallery?"

"Maybe. If your mother says so. All this stuff is contingent

on your mother's approval. That means-"

"I know what it means." Sounding impatient. Then the child's

excitement broke through again. "That is so awesome!"

"None of the fast rides," I said. "Are we straight on that? For

one thing, they're buttoned up for the winter." The Carolina

Spin was, too, but with Lane Hardy's help, it wouldn't take

forty minutes to get it running again. "For another-"

"Yeah, I know, my heart. The Ferris wheel would be enough

for me. We can see it from the end of the boardwalk, you

Joyland

know. From the top, it must be like seeing the world from my

kite."

I smiled. "It is like that, sort of. But remember, only if your

mom says you can. She's the boss."

"We're going for her. She'll know when we get there." He

sounded eerily sure of himself. "And it's for you, Dev. But

mostly it's for the girl. She's been there too long. She wants to

leave."

My mouth dropped open, but there was no danger of drooling;

my mouth had gone entirely dry. "How-" Just a croak. I swallowed again. "How do you know about her?"

"I don't know, but I think she's why I came. Did I tell you it's

not white?"

"You did, but you said you didn't know what that meant. Do

you now?"

"Nope." He began to cough. I waited it out. When it cleared,

he said, "I have to go. My mom's getting up from her nap. Now

she'll be up half the night, reading."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I really hope she lets me go on the Ferris wheel."

"It's called the Carolina Spin, but people who work there

just call it the hoister." Some of them-Eddie, for instanceactually called it the chump-hoister, but I didn't tell him that.

"Joyland folks have this kind of secret talk. That's part of it."

"The hoister. I'll remember. Bye, Dev."

The phone clicked in my ear .

•

This time it was Fred Dean who had the heart attack.

He lay on the ramp leading to the Carolina Spin, his face blue

and contorted. I knelt beside him and started chest compressions.

188

STEPHEN K I N G

When there was no result from that, I leaned forward, pinched

his nostrils shut, and jammed my lips over his. Something tickled

across my teeth and onto my tongue. I pulled back and saw a

black tide of baby spiders pouring from his mouth.

I woke up half out of bed, the covers pulled loose and wound

around me in a kind of shroud, heart pumping, clawing at my

own mouth. It took several seconds for me to realize there was

nothing in there. Nonetheless, I got up, went to the bathroom,

and drank two glasses of water. I may have had worse dreams

than the one that woke me at three o'clock on that Tuesday

morning, but if so, I can't remember them. I re-made my bed

and laid back down, convinced there would be no more sleep

for me that night. Yet I had almost dozed off again when it

occurred to me that the big emotional scene the three of us had

played out at the hospital yesterday might have been for nothing.

Sure, Joyland was happy to make special arrangements for

the lame, the halt, and the blind-what are now called "special

needs children" -during the season, but the season was over.

Would the park's undoubtedly expensive insurance policy still

provide coverage if something happened to Mike Ross in October? I could see Fred Dean shaking his head when I made my request and saying he was very sorry, but-

•

It was chilly that morning, with a strong breeze, so I took my

car, parking beside Lane's pickup. I was early, and ours were

the only vehicles in Lot A, which was big enough to hold five

hundred cars . Fallen leaves tumbled across the pavement,

making an insectile sound that reminded me of the spiders in

my dream.

Joy land

189

Lane was sitting in a lawn chair outside Madame Fortuna's

shy (which would soon be disassembled and stored for the

winter), eating a bagel generously smeared with cream cheese.

His derby was tilted at its usual insouciant angle, and there was

a cigarette parked behind one ear. The only new thing was the

denim jacket he was wearing. Another sign, had I needed one,

that our Indian summer was over.

"Jonesy, Jonesy, lookin lonely. Want a bagel? I got extra."

"Sure," I said. "Can I talk to you about something while I

eat it?"

"Come to confess your sins, have you? Take a seat, my son."

He pointed to the side of the fortune-telling booth, where

another couple of folded lawn chairs were leaning.

"Nothing sinful," I said, opening one of the chairs . I sat

down and took the brown bag he was offering. "But I made a

promise and now I'm afraid I might not be able to keep it."

I told him about Mike, and how I had convinced his mother

to let him come to the park-no easy task, given her fragile

emotional state. I finished with how I'd woken up in the middle

of the night, convinced Fred Dean would never allow it. The

only thing I didn't mention was the dream that had awakened

me.

"So," Lane said when I'd finished. "Is she a fox? The mommy?"

'Well . . . yeah. Actually she is. But that isn't the reason-"

He patted my shoulder and gave me a patronizing smile I

could have done without. "Say nummore, Jonesy, say nummore."

"Lane, she's ten years older than I am !"

"Okay, and if I had a dollar for every babe I ever took out

who was ten years younger, I could buy me a steak dinner at

Hanratty's in the Bay. Age is just a number, my son."

190

STEPHEN K I N G

"Terrific. Thanks for the arithmetic lesson. Now tell me if I

stepped in shit when I told the kid he could come to the park

and ride the Spin and the merry-go-round."

"You stepped in shit," he said, and my heart sank. Then he

raised a finger. "But."

"But?"

"Have you set a date for this little field trip yet?"

"Not exactly. I was thinking maybe Thursday." Before Erin

and Tom showed up, in other words.

"Thursday's no good. Friday, either. Will the kid and his foxy

mommy still be here next week?"

"I guess so, but-"

"Then plan on Monday or Tuesday."

"Why wait?"

"For the paper." Looking at me as ifl were the world's biggest

idiot.

"Paper . . . ?"

"The local rag. It comes out on Thursday. When your latest

lifesaving feat hits the front page, you're going to be Freddy

Dean's fair-haired boy." Lane tossed the remains of his bagel

into the nearest litter barrel-two points-and then raised his

hands in the air, as if framing a newspaper headline. " 'Come to

Joyland! We not only sell fun, we save lives!' " He smiled and

tilted his derby the other way. "Priceless publicity. Fred's gonna

owe you another one. Take it to the bank and say thanks."

"How would the paper even find out? I can't see Eddie Parks

telling them." Although if he did, he'd probably want them to

make sure the part about how I'd practically crushed his ribcage

made Paragraph One.

He rolled his eyes. "I keep forgetting what a Jonesy-comelately you are to this part of the world. The only articles any-

]oyland

body actually reads in that catbox-liner are the Police Beat and

the Ambulance Calls. But ambulance calls are pretty dry. As a

special favor to you, J onesy, I'll toddle on down to the Banner

office on my lunch break and tell the rubes all about your

heroism. They'll send someone out to interview you pronto."

"I don't really want-"

"Oh gosh, a Boy Scout with a merit badge in modesty. Save

it. You want the kid to get a tour of the park, right?"

"Yes."

"Then do the interview. Also smile pretty for the camera."

Which-if I may jump ahead-is pretty much what I did.

As I was folding up my chair, he said: "Our Freddy Dean

might have said fuck the insurance and risked it anyway, you

know. He doesn't look it, but he's carny-from-carny himself.

His father was a low-pitch jack-jaw on the corn circuit. Freddy

told me once his pop carried a Michigan bankroll big enough to

choke a horse."

I knew low-pitch, jack-jaw, and corn circuit, but not Michigan

bankroll. Lane laughed when I asked him. "Two twenties on

the outside, the rest either singles or cut-up green paper. A

great gag when you want to attract a tip. But when it comes to

Freddy himself, that ain't the point." He re-set his derby yet

again.

"What is?"

"Carnies have a weakness for good-looking points in tight

skirts and kids down on their luck. They also have a strong allergy

to rube rules. Which includes all the bean-counter bullshit."

"So maybe I wouldn't have to-"

He raised his hands to stop me. "Better not to have to find

out. Do the interview."

•

STEPHEN K I N G

The Banner's photographer posed me in front of the Thunderball. The picture made me wince when I saw it. I was squinting and thought I looked like the village idiot, but it did the job; the

paper was on Fred's desk when I came in to see him on Friday

morning. He hemmed and hawed, then okayed my request, as

long as Lane promised to stick with us while the kid and his

mother were in the park.

Lane said okay to that with no hemming or hawing. He said

he wanted to see my girlfriend, then burst out laughing when I

started to fulminate.

Later that day, I told Annie Ross I'd set up a tour of the park

the following Tuesday morning, if the weather was good

Wednesday or Thursday if it wasn't. Then I held my breath.

There was a long pause, followed by a sigh.

Then she said okay.

•

That was a busy Friday. I left the park early, drove to Wilmington, and was waiting when Tom and Erin stepped off the train.

Erin ran the length of the platform, threw herself into my

arms, and kissed me on both cheeks and the tip of my nose.

She made a lovely armful, but it's impossible to mistake sisterly kisses for anything other than what they are. I let her go and allowed Tom to pull me into an enthusiastic back-thumping

manhug. It was as if we hadn't seen each other in five years

instead of five weeks. I was a working stiff now, and although I

had put on my best chinos and a sport-shirt, I looked it. Even

with my grease-spotted jeans and sun-faded dogtop back in

the closet of my room at Mrs. S.'s, I looked it.

"It's so great to see you!" Erin said. "My God, what a tan!"

Joy land

193

I shrugged. 'What can I say? I'm working in the northernmost

province of the Redneck Riviera."

"You made the right call," Tom said. "I never would have

believed it when you said you weren't going back to school, but

you made the right call. Maybe I should have stayed at Joyland."

He smiled-that I-French-kissed-the-Blarney-Stone smile

of his that could charm the birdies down from the trees-but it

didn't quite dispel the shadow that crossed his face. He could

never have stayed at Joyland, not after our dark ride.

They stayed the weekend at Mrs. Shoplaw's Beachside Accommodations (Mrs. S. was delighted to have them, and Tina Ackerley was delighted to see them) and all five of us had a

hilarious half-drunk picnic supper on the beach, with a roaring

bonfire to provide warmth. But on Saturday afternoon, when it

came time for Erin to share her troubling information with me,

Tom declared his intention to whip Tina and Mrs. S. at Scrabble

and sent us off alone. I thought that if Annie and Mike were at

the end of their boardwalk, I'd introduce Erin to them. But the

day was chilly, the wind off the ocean was downright cold, and

the picnic table at the end of the boardwalk was deserted. Even

the umbrella was gone, taken in and stored for the winter.

At Joyland, all four parking lots were empty save for the little

fleet of service trucks . Erin-dressed in a heavy turtleneck

sweater and wool pants, carrying a slim and very businesslike

briefcase with her initials embossed on it-raised her eyebrows

when I produced my keyring and used the biggest key to open

the gate.

"So," she said. "You're one of them now."

That embarrassed me-aren't we all embarrassed (even if

we don't know why) when someone says we're one of them?

194

STEPHEN KING

"Not really. I carry a gate-key in case I get here before anyone

else, or if I'm the last to leave, but only Fred and Lane have all

the Keys to the Kingdom."

She laughed as if I'd said something silly. "The key to the

gate is the key to the kingdom, that's what I think." Then she

sobered and gave me a long, measuring stare. "You look older,

Devin. I thought so even before we got off the train, when I

saw you waiting on the platform. Now I know why. You went

to work and we went back to Never Never Land to play with

the Lost Boys and Girls. The ones who will eventually turn

up in suits from Brooks Brothers and with M BAs in their

pockets ."

I pointed to the briefcase. "That would go with a suit from

Brooks Brothers . . .if they really make suits for women, that is."

She sighed. "It was a gift from my parents. My father wants

me to be a lawyer, like him. So far I haven't gotten up the nerve

to tell him I want to be a freelance photographer. He'll blow his

stack."

We walked up Joyland Avenue in silence-except for the

bonelike rattle of the fallen leaves. She looked at the covered

rides, the dry fountain, the frozen horses on the merry-goround, the empty Story Stage in the deserted Wiggle-Waggle Village.

"Kind of sad, seeing it this way. It makes me think mortal

thoughts." She looked at me appraisingly. "We saw the paper.

Mrs. Shoplaw made sure to leave it in our room. You did it

again."

"Eddie? I just happened to be there." We had reached Madame Fortuna's shy. The lawn chairs were still leaning against it. I unfolded two and gestured for Erin to sit down. I sat beside

]oyland

195

her, then pulled a pint bottle of Old Log Cabin from the pocket

of my jacket. "Cheap whiskey, but it takes the chill off."

Looking amused, she took a small nip. I took one of my own,

screwed on the cap, and stowed the bottle in my pocket. Fifty

yards down Joyland Avenue-our midway-! could see the tall

false front of Horror House and read the drippy green letters:

C O M E IN IF YOU DARE .

Her small hand gripped my shoulder with surprising strength.

"You saved the old bastard. You did. Give yourself some credit,

you."

I smiled, thinking of Lane saying I had a merit badge in modesty. M aybe; giving myself credit for stuff wasn't one of my strong points in those days.

"Will he live?"

"Probably. Freddy Dean talked to some doctors who said

blah-blah-blah, patient must give up smoking, blah-blah-blah,

patient must give up eating French fries, blah-blah-blah, patient

must begin a regular exercise regimen."

"I can just see Eddie Parks jogging," Erin said.

"Uh-huh, with a cigarette in his mouth and a bag of pork rinds

in his hand."

She giggled. The wind gusted and blew her hair around her

face. In her heavy sweater and businesslike dark gray pants, she

didn't look much like the flushed American beauty who'd run

around J oyland in a little green dress, smiling her pretty Erin

smile and coaxing people to let her take their picture with her

old-fashioned camera.

"What have you got for me? What did you find out?"

She opened her briefcase and took out a folder. "Are you

absolutely sure you want to get into this? Because I don't think

STEPHEN K I N G

you're going to listen, say 'Elementary, my dear Erin,' and spit

out the killer's name like Sherlock Holmes."

If I needed evidence that Sherlock Holmes I wasn't, my wild

idea that Eddie Parks might have been the so-called Funhouse

Killer was it. I thought of telling her that I was more interested

in putting the victim to rest than I was in catching the killer,

but it would have sounded crazy, even factoring in Tom's experience. "''m not expecting that, either."

"And by the way, you owe me almost forty dollars for interlibrary loan fees."

"''m good for it."

She poked me in the ribs. "You better be. I'm not working

my way through school for the fun of it."

She settled her briefcase between her ankles and opened

the folder. I saw Xeroxes, two or three pages of typewritten

notes, and some glossy photographs that looked like the kind

the conies got when they bought the Hollywood Girls' pitch.

"Okay, here we go. I started with the Charleston News and

Courier article you told me about." She handed me one of the

Xeroxes. "It's a Sunday piece, five thousand words of speculation and maybe eight hundred words of actual info. Read it later if you want, I'll summarize the salient points.

"Four girls. Five if you count her." She pointed down the

midway at Horror House. "The first was Delight Mowbray,

Dee Dee to her friends. From Waycross, Georgia. White, twentyone years old. Two or three days before she was killed, she told her good friend Jasmine Withers that she had a new boyfriend,

older and very handsome. She was found beside a trail on the

edge of the Okefenokee Swamp on August 31st, 1961, nine

days after she disappeared. If the guy had taken her into the

Joyland

197

swamp, even a little way, she might not have been found for a

much longer time."

"If ever," I said. "A body left in there would have been gatorbait in twenty minutes."

"Gross but true." She handed me another Xerox. "This is the

story from the Waycross Journal-Herald." There was a photo.

It showed a somber cop holding up a plaster cast of tire tracks.

"The theory is that he dumped her where he cut her throat.

The tire tracks were made by a truck, the story says."

"Dumped her like garbage," I said.

"Also gross but true." She handed me another Xeroxed newspaper clipping. "Here's number two. Claudine Sharp, from Rocky Mount, right here in NC. White, twenty-three years old.

Found dead in a local theater. August second, 1963. The movie

being shown was Lawrence of Arabia, which happens to be very

long and very loud. The guy who wrote the story quotes 'an

unnamed police source' as saying the guy probably cut her throat

during one of the battle scenes. Pure speculation, of course.

He left a bloody shirt and gloves, then must have walked out in

the shirt he was wearing underneath."

"That just about has to be the guy who killed Linda Gray," I

said. "Don't you think so?"

"It sure sounds like it. The cops questioned all her friends,

but Claudine hadn't said anything about a new boyfriend."

"Or who she was going to the movies with that night? Not

even to her parents?"

Erin gave me a patient look. "She was twenty-three, Dev, not

fourteen. She lived all the way across town from her parents.

Worked in a drugstore and had a little apartment above it."

"You got all that from the newspaper story?"

198

S T E P H E N K I N G

"Of course not. I also made some calls. Practically dialed my

fingers off, if you want to know the truth. You owe me for the

long-distance, too. More about Claudine Sharp later. For now,

let's move on. Victim number three-according to the News and

Courier story-was a girl from Santee, South Carolina. Now

we're up to 1965. Eva Longbottom, age nineteen. Black. Disappeared on July fourth. Her body was found nine days later by a couple of fishermen, lying on the north bank of the Santee

River. Raped and stabbed in the heart. The others were neither

black nor raped. You can put her in the Funhouse Killer column

if you want to, but I'm doubtful, myself. Last victim-before

Linda Gray-was her."

She handed me what had to be a high school yearbook photo

of a beautiful golden-haired girl. The kind who's the head

cheerleader, the Homecoming Queen, dates the football quarterback . . . and is still liked by everyone.

"Darlene Stamnacher. Probably would have changed her

last name if she'd gotten into the movie biz, which was her

stated goal. White, nineteen. From Maxton, North Carolina.

Disappeared on June zgth, 1967. Found two days later, after

a massive search, inside a roadside lean-to in the sugar-pine

williwags south of Elrod. Throat cut."

"Christ, she's beautiful. Didn't she have a steady boyfriend?"

"A girl this good-looking, why do you even ask? And that's

where the police went first, only he wasn't around. He and

three of his buddies had gone camping in the Blue Ridge, and

they could all vouch for him. Unless he flapped his arms and

flew back, it wasn't him."

"Then came Linda Gray," I said. "Number five. If they were

all murdered by the same guy, that is."

Joy land

199

Erin raised a teacherly flnger. "And only five if all the guy's

victims have been found. There could have been others in '62,

'64, '66 . . . you get it."

The wind gusted and moaned through the struts of the Spin.

"Now for the things that trouble me," Erin said . . . as if five

dead girls weren't troubling enough. From her folder she took

another Xerox. It was a flier-a shout, in the Talk-advertising

something called Manly Wellman's Show of 1 000 Wonders. It

showed a couple of clowns holding up a parchment listing

some of the wonders, one of which was AMERICA' s FINEST

COLLECTION O F FREAKS ! A N D ODDITIES ! There were also

rides, games, fun for the kiddies, and THE WORLD's SCARIEST

FUNHOUSE !

Come in if you dare, I thought.

"You got this from interlibrary loan?" I asked.

"Yes. I've decided you can get anything by way of interlibrary loan, if you're willing to dig. Or maybe I should say cock an ear, because it's really the world's biggest jungle telegraph.

This ad appeared in the Waycross Journal-Herald. It ran during

the first week of August, 1961."

"The Wellman carny was in Waycross when the first girl disappeared?"

"Her name was DeeDee Mowbray, and no-it had moved

on by then. But it was there when DeeDee told her girlfriend

that she had a new boyfriend. Now look at this. It's from the

Rocky Mount Telegram. Ran for a week in mid-July of 1963.

Standard advance advertising. I probably don't even need to

tell you that."

It was another full-pager shouting Manly Wellman's Show of

1 000 Wonders. Same two clowns holding up the same parch-

200

STEPHEN K I N G

ment, but two years after the stop in Waycross, they were also

promising a ten thousand dollar cover-all Beano game, and the

word freaks was nowhere to be seen.

"Was the show in town when the Sharp girl was killed in the

movie theater?"

"Left the day before." She tapped the bottom of the sheet.

"All you have to do is look at the dates, Dev."

I wasn't as familiar with the timeline as she was, but I didn't

bother defending myself. "The third girl? Longbottom?"

"I didn't find anything about a carny in the Santee area, and

I sure wouldn't have found anything about the Wellman show,

because it went bust in the fall of 1964. I found that in Outdoor

Trade and Industry . So far as I or any of my many librarian

helpers could discover, it's the only trade magazine that covers

the carny and amusement park biz."

"Jesus, Erin, you should forget photography and find yourself a rich writer or movie producer. Hire on as his research assistant."

''I'd rather take pictures. Research is too much like work.

But don't lose the thread here, Devin. There was no carny in the

Santee area, true, but the Eva Longbottom murder doesn't look

like the other four, anyway. Not to me. No rape in the others,

remember?"

"That you know of. Newspapers are coy about that stuff."

"That's right, they say molested or sexually assaulted instead

of raped, but they get the point across, believe me."

"What about Darlene Shoemaker? Was there-"

"Stamnacher. These girls were murdered, Dev, the least you

can do is get their names right."

"I will. Give me time."

Joyland

201

She put a hand over mine. "Sorry. I'm throwing this at you

all at once, aren't I? I've had weeks to brood over it."

"Have you been?"

"Sort of. It's pretty awful."

She was right. If you read a whodunit or see a mystery movie,

you can whistle gaily past whole heaps of corpses, only interested in finding out if it was the butler or the evil stepmother.

But these had been real young women. Crows had probably

ripped their flesh; maggots would have infested their eyes and

squirmed up their noses and into the gray meat of their brains.

"Was there a carny in the Maxton area when the Stamnacher

girl was killed?"

"No, but there was a county fair about to start in Lumberton

-that's the nearest town of any size. Here."

She handed me another Xerox, this one advertising the

Robeson County Summer Fair. Once again, Erin tapped the

sheet. This time she was calling my attention to a line reading

50 SAFE RIDES PROVIDED BY SOUTHERN STAR AMUSEMENTS.

"I also looked Southern Star up in Outdoor Trade and Industry.

The company's been around since after World War II. They're

based in Birmingham and travel all over the south, putting up

rides. Nothing so grand as the Thunderball or the Delirium

Shaker, but they've got plenty of chump-shoots, and the jocks

to run them."

I had to grin at that. She hadn't forgotten all the Talk, it

seemed. Chump-shoots were rides that could be easily put up

or taken down. If you've ever ridden the Krazy Kups or the Wild

Mouse, you've been on on a chump-shoot.

"I called the ride-boss at Southern Star. Said I'd worked at Joyland this summer, and was doing a term paper on the amusement 202

S T E P H E N K I N G

industry for my sociology class. Which I just might do, you lmow.

After all this, it would be a slam-dunk. He told me what I'd already guessed, that there's a big turnover in their line of work.

He couldn't tell me offhand if they'd picked anyone up from the

Wellman show, but he said it was likely-a couple of roughies

here, a couple of jocks there, maybe a ride-monkey or two. So

the guy who killed DeeDee and Claudine could have been at

that fair, and Darlene Stamnacher could have met him. The

fair wasn't officially open for business yet, but lots of townies

gravitate to the local fairgrounds to watch the !ide-monkeys and

the local gazoonies do the setup." She looked at me levelly. "And

I think that's just what happened."

"Erin, is the carny link in the story the News and Courier

published after Linda Gray was killed? Or maybe I should call

it the amusement link."

"Nope. Can I have another nip from your bottle? I'm cold."

"We can go inside-"

"No, it's this murder stuff that makes me cold. Every time I

go over it."

I gave her the bottle, and after she'd taken her nip, I took one

of my own. "Maybe you're Sherlock Holmes," I said. "What

about the cops? Do you think they missed it?"

"I don't lmow for sure, but I think .. . they did. If this was a detective show on TV, there'd be one smart old cop-a Lieutenant Columbo type-who'd look at the big picture and put it together,

but I guess there aren't many guys like that in real life. Besides,

the big picture is hard to see because it's scattered across three

states and eight years. One thing you can be sure of is that if he

ever worked at Joyland, he's long gone. I'm sure the turnover at

an amusement park isn't as fast as it is in a road company like

Joy land

203

Southern Star Amusements, but there are still plenty of people

leaving and coming in."

I knew that for myself. Ride-jocks and concession shouters

aren't exactly the most grounded people, and gazoonies went in

and out like the tide.

"Now here's the other thing that troubles me," she said, and

handed me her little pile of eight-by-ten photos. Printed on the

white border at the bottom of each was PHOTO TAKEN BY YOUR

JOYLAND "HOLLYWOOD G IRL. "

I shuffled through them, and felt in need of another nip when

I realized what they were: the photos showing Linda Gray and

the man who had killed her. "Jesus God, Erin, these aren't newspaper pix. Where'd you get them?"

"Brenda Rafferty. I had to butter her up a little, tell her what

a good mom she'd been to all us Hollywood Girls, but in the

end she came through. These are fresh prints made from negatives she had in her personal files and loaned to me. Here's something interesting, Dev. You see the headband the Gray

girl's wearing?"

"Yes." An Alice band, Mrs. Shoplaw had called it. A blue Alice

band.

"Brenda said they fuzzed that out in the shots they gave to

the newspapers. They thought it would help them nail the guy,

but it never did."

"So what troubles you?"

God knew all of the pictures troubled me, even the ones

where Gray and the man she was with were just passing in the

background, only recognizable by her sleeveless blouse and

Alice band and his baseball cap and dark glasses. In only two of

them were Linda Gray and her killer sharp and clear. The first

204

S T E P H E N K I N G

showed them at the Whirly Cups, his hand resting casually on

the swell of Gray's bottom. In the other-the best of the lotthey were at the Annie Oakley Shootin' Gallery. Yet in neither was the man's face really visible. I could have passed him on

the street and not known him.

Erin plucked up the Whirly Cups photo. "Look at his hand."

"Yeah, the tattoo. I see it, and I heard about it from Mrs. S.

What do you make it to be? A hawk or an eagle?"

"I think an eagle, but it doesn't matter."

"Really?"

"Really. Remember I said I'd come back to Claudine Sharp?

A young woman getting her throat cut in the local movie theater-during Lawrence of Arabia, no less-was big news in a little town like Rocky Mount. The Telegram ran with it for

almost a month. The cops turned up exactly one lead, Dev. A

girl Claudine went to high school with saw her at the snackbar

and said hello. Claudine said hi right back. The girl said there

was a man in sunglasses and a baseball cap next to her, but she

never thought the guy was with Claudine, because he was a lot

older. The only reason she noticed him at all was because he

was wearing sunglasses in a movies how . . . and because he had a

tattoo on his hand."

"The bird."

"No, Dev. It was a Coptic cross. Like this." She took out

another Xerox sheet and showed me. "She told the cops she

thought at first it was some kind of Nazi symbol."

I looked at the cross. It was elegant, but looked nothing at all

like a bird. "Two tats, one on each hand," I said at last. "The

bird on one, the cross on the other."

She shook her head and gave me the Whirly Cups photo

again. "Which hand's got the bird on it?"

joyland

205

He was standing on Linda Gray's left, encircling her waist.

The hand resting on her bottom . . .

"The right."

"Yes. But the girl who saw him in the movie theater said the

cross was on his right."

I considered this. "She made a mistake, that's all. Witnesses

do it all the time."

"Sure they do. My father could talk all day on that subject.

But look, Dev."

Erin handed me the Shootin' Gallery photo, the best of the

bunch because they weren't just passing in the background. A

roving Hollywood Girl had seen them, noted the cute pose, and

snapped them, hoping for a sale. Only the guy had given her the

brushoff. A hard brushoff, according to Mrs. Shoplaw. That made

me remember how she had described the photo: Him snuggled up

to her hip to hip, showing her how to hold the rifle, the way guys

always do. The version Mrs. S. saw would have been a fuzzy newspaper reproduction, made up of little dots. This was the original, so sharp and clear I almost felt I could step into it and warn the

Gray girl. He was snuggled up to her, his hand over hers on the

barrel of the beebee-shooting .22, helping her aim.

It was his left hand. And there was no tattoo on it.

Erin said, "You see it, don't you?"

"There's nothing to see."

"That's the point, Dev. That's exactly the point."

"Are you saying that it was two different guys? That one with

a cross on his hand killed Claudine Sharp and another one-a

guy with a bird on his hand-killed Linda Gray? That doesn't

seem very likely."

"I couldn't agree more."

"Then what are you saying?"

zo6

STEPHEN K I N G

"I thought I saw something in one of the photos, but I wasn't

sure, so I took the print and the negative to a grad student named

Phil Hendron. He's a darkroom genius, practically lives in the

Bard Photography Department. You know those clunky Speed

Graphics we carried?"

"Sure."

"They were mostly for effect-cute girls toting old-fashioned

cameras-but Phil says they're actually pretty terrific. You can

do a lot with the negs. For example . . . "

She handed me a blow-up of the Whirly Cups pic. The Hollywood Girl's target had been a young couple with a toddler between them, but in this enlarged version they were hardly there.

Now Linda Gray and her murderous date were at the center of

the image.

"Look at his hand, Dev. Look at the tattoo!"

I did, frowning. "It's a little hard to see," I complained. "The

hand's blurrier than the rest."

"I don't think so."

This time I held the photo close to my eyes. "It's . . . Jesus,

Erin. Is it the ink? Is it running? Just a little?"

She gave me a triumphant smile. "July of 1g6g. A hot night

in Dixie. Almost everybody was sweating buckets. If you don't

believe me, look at some of the other pictures and note the perspiration rings. Plus, he had something else to be sweaty about, didn't he? He had murder on his mind. An audacious one, at

that."

I said, "Oh, shit. Pirate Pete's."

She pointed a forefinger at me. "Bingo."

Pirate Pete's was the souvenir shop outside the Splash & Crash,

proudly flying a Jolly Roger from its roof. Inside you could get

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207

the usual stuff-tee-shirts, coffee mugs, beach towels, even a

pair of swim-trunks if your kid forgot his, everything imprinted

with the Joyland logo. There was also a counter where you

could get a wide assortment of fake tattoos. They came on decals.

If you didn't feel capable of applying it yourself, Pirate Pete (or

one of his greenie minions) would do it for a small surcharge.

Erin was nodding. "I doubt he got it there-that would have

been dumb, and this guy isn't dumb-but I'm sure it's not a

real tattoo, any more than the Coptic cross the girl saw in that

Rocky Mount movie theater was a real tattoo." She leaned forward and gripped my arm. "You know what I think? I think he does it because it draws attention. People notice the tattoo and

everything else just . . . " She tapped the indistinct shapes that

had been the actual subject of this photo before her friend at

Bard blew it up.

I said, "Everything else about him fades into the background."

"Yup. Later he just washes it off."

"Do the cops know?"

"I have no idea. You could tell them-not me, I'm going back

to school-but I'm not sure they'd care at this late date."

I shuffled through the photos again. I had no doubt that Erin

had actually discovered something, although I did doubt it would,

by itself, be responsible for the capture of the Funhouse Killer.

But there was something else about the photos . Something.

You know how sometimes a word gets stuck on the tip of your

tongue and just won't come off? It was like that.

"Have there been any murders like these five-or these four,

if we leave out Eva Longbottom-since Linda Gray? Did you

check?"

"I tried," she said. "The short answer is I don't think so, but I

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STEPHEN KING

can't say for sure. I've read about fifty murders of young girls

and women-fifty at least-and haven't found any that fit the

parameters." She ticked them off. "Always in summer. Always

as a result of a dating situation with an unknown older man.

Always the cut throat. And always with some sort of carny

connec-"

"Hello, kids."

We looked up, startled. It was Fred Dean. Today he was

wearing a golfing shirt, bright red baggies, and a long-billed

cap with HEAVEN'S BAY COUNTRY CLUB stitched in gold thread

above the brim. I was a lot more used to seeing him in a suit,

where informality consisted of pulling down his tie and popping the top button of his Van Heusen shirt. Dressed for the links, he looked absurdly young. Except for the graying wings

of hair at his temples, that was.

"Hello, Mr. Dean," Erin said, standing up. Most of her paperwork-and some of the photographs-were still clutched in one hand. The folder was in the other. "I don't know if you remember me-"

"Of course I do," he said, approaching. "I never forget a

Hollywood Girl, but sometimes I do mix up the names. Are you

Ashley or Jerri?"

She smiled, put her paperwork back in the folder, and handed

it to me. I added the photos I was still holding. "''m Erin."

"Of course. Erin Cook." He dropped me a wink, which was

even weirder than seeing him in old-fashioned golfing baggies.

"You have excellent taste in young ladies, Jonesy."

"I do, don't I?" It seemed too complicated to tell him that

Erin was actually Tom Kennedy's girlfriend. Fred probably

wouldn't remember Tom anyway, never having seen him in a

flirty green dress and high heels.

Joyland

zog

"I just stopped by to get the accounts books. Quarterly IRS

payments coming up. Such a pain in the hindquarters. Enjoying

your little alumna visit, Erin?"

"Yes, sir, very much."

"Coming back next year?"

She looked a trifle uncomfortable at that, but stuck gamely

to the truth. "Probably not."

"Fair enough, but if you change your mind, I'm sure Brenda

Rafferty can find a place for you." He switched his attention to

me. "This boy you plan to bring to the park, Jonesy. Have you

set a date with his mother?"

"Tuesday. Wednesday or Thursday if it's rainy. The kid can't

be out in the rain."

Erin was looking at me curiously.

"I advise you stick to Tuesday," he said. "There's a storm

coming up the coast. Not a hurricane, thank God, but a tropical

disturbance. Lots of rain and gale-force winds is what they're

saying. It's supposed to arrive mid-morning on Wednesday."

"Okay," I said. "Thanks for the tip."

"Nice to see you again, Erin." He tipped his cap to her and

started off toward the back lot.

Erin waited until he was out of sight before bursting into

giggles. "Those pants. Did you see those pants?"

"Yeah," I said. "Pretty wild." But I was damned if I was going

to laugh at them. Or him. According to Lane, Fred Dean held

Joyland together with spit, baling wire, and account-book wizardry. That being the case, I thought he could wear all the golf baggies he wanted. And at least they weren't checks.

"What's this about bringing some kid to the park?"

"Long story," I said. 'Til tell you while we walk back."

So I did, giving her the Boy-Scout-majoring-in-modesty

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STEPHEN KING

version and leaving out the big argument at the hospital. Erin

listened without interruption, asking only one question, just as

we reached the steps leading up from the beach. "Tell me the

truth, Dev-is mommy foxy?"

People kept asking me that.

•

That night Tom and Erin went out to Surfer Joe's, a beer-andboogie bar where they had spent more than a few off-nights during the summer. Tom invited me along, but I heeded that old

saying about two being company and three being you-knowwhat. Besides, I doubted if they'd find the same raucous, partyhearty atmosphere. In towns like Heaven's Bay, there's a big difference between July and October. In my role as big brother,

I even said so.

"You don't understand, Dev," Tom said. "Me n Erin don't go

looking for the fun; we bring the fun. It's what we learned last

summer."

Nevertheless, I heard them coming up the stairs early, and

almost sober, from the sound of them. Yet there were whispers

and muffled laughter, sounds that made me feel a little lonely.

Not for Wendy; just for someone. Looking back on it, I suppose

even that was a step forward.

I read through Erin's notes while they were gone, but found

nothing new. I set them aside after fifteen minutes and went

back to the photographs, crisp black-and-white images TAKEN

B Y YOUR JOYLAND "HOLLYWOOD GIRL." At first I just shuffled

through them; then I sat on the floor and laid them out in a

square, moving them from place to place like a guy trying to put a

puzzle together. Which was, I suppose, exactly what I was doing.

Joyland

2 1 1

Erin was troubled by the carny connection and the tattoos

that probably weren't real tattoos at all. Those things troubled

me as well, but there was something else. Something I couldn't

quite get. It was maddening because I felt like it was staring me

right in the face. Finally I put all but two of the photos back in

the folder. The key two. These I held up, looking first at one,

then at the other.

Linda Gray and her killer waiting in line at the Whirly Cups.

Linda Gray and her killer at the Shootin' Gallery.

Never mind the goddam tattoo, I told myself. It's not that.

It's something else.

But what else could it be? The sunglasses masked his eyes.

The goatee masked his lower face, and the slightly tilted bill of

the baseball cap shaded his forehead and eyebrows. The cap's

logo showed a catfish peering out of a big red C, the insignia of

a South Carolina minor league team called the Mudcats. Dozens

of M udcat lids went through the park every day at the height of

the season, so many that we called them fish tops instead of dogtops. The bastard could hardly have picked a more anonymous lid, and surely that was the idea.

Back and forth I went, from the Whirly Cups to the Shootin'

Gallery and then back to the Whirly Cups again. At last I tossed

the photos in the folder and threw the folder on my little desk.

I read until Tom and Erin came in, then went to bed.

Maybe it'll come to me in the morning, I thought. I'll wake

up and say, "Oh shit, of course. "

The sound of the incoming waves slipped me into sleep. I

dreamed I was on the beach with Annie and Mike. Annie and

I were standing with our feet in the surf, our arms around each

other, watching Mike fly his kite. He was paying out twine and

212

STEPHEN KING

running after it. He could do that because there was nothing

wrong with him . He was fine. I had only dreamed that stuff

about Duchenne's muscular dystrophy.

I woke early because I'd forgotten to pull down the shade.

I went to the folder, pulled out those two photographs, and

stared at them in the day's first sunlight, positive I'd see the

answer.

But I didn't.

•

A harmony of scheduling had allowed Tom and Erin to travel

from New Jersey to North Carolina together, but when it comes

to train schedules, harmony is the exception rather than the

rule. The only ride they got together on Sunday was the one

from Heaven's Bay to Wilmington, in my Ford. Erin's train left

for upstate New York and Annandale-on-Hudson two hours

before Tom's Coastal Express was due to whisk him back to New

Jersey.

I tucked a check in her jacket pocket. "Interlibrary loans and

long distance."

She fished it out, looked at the amount, and tried to hand it

back. "Eighty dollars is too much, Dev."

"Considering all you found out, it's not enough. Take it,

Lieutenant Columbo."

She laughed, put it back in her pocket, and kissed me goodbye

-another brother-sister quickie, nothing like the one we'd shared

that night at the end of the summer. She spent considerably

longer in Tom's arms. Promises were made about Thanksgiving

at Tom's parents' home in western Pennsylvania. I could tell he

didn't want to let her go, but when the loudspeakers announced

Joy land

213

last call for Richmond, Baltimore, Wilkes-Barre, and points

north, he finally did.

When she was gone, Tom and I strolled across the street and

had an early dinner in a not-too-bad ribs joint. I was contemplating the dessert selection when he cleared his throat and said, "Listen, Dev."

Something in his voice made me look up in a hurry. His

cheeks were even more flushed than usual. I put the menu

down.

"This stuff you've had Erin doing .. . I think it should stop. It's

bothering her, and I think she's been neglecting her coursework." He laughed, glanced out the window at the train-station bustle, looked back at me. "I sound more like her dad than her

boyfriend, don't I?"

"You sound concerned, that's all. Like you care for her."

"Care for her? Buddy, I'm head-over-heels in love. She's

the most important thing in my life. What I'm saying here isn't

jealousy talking, though. I don't want you to get that idea.

Here's the thing: if she's going to transfer and still hold onto

her financial aid, she can't let her grades slip. You see that,

don't you?"

Yes, I could see that. I could see something else, too, even if

Tom couldn't. He wanted her away from Joyland in mind as

well as body, because something had happened to him there

that he couldn't understand. Nor did he want to, which in my

opinion made him sort of a fool. That dour flush of envy ran

through me again, causing my stomach to clench around the

food it was trying to digest.

Then I smiled-it was an effort, I won't kid you about thatand said, "Message received. As far as I'm concerned, our little 214

STEPHEN KING

research project is over." So relax, Thomas. You can stop thinking

about what happened in Horror House. About what you saw

there.

"Good. We're still friends, right?"

I reached across the table. "Friends to the end," I said.

We shook on it.

•

The Wiggle-Waggle Village's Story Stage had three backdrops:

Prince Charming's Castle, Jack's Magic Beanstalk, and a starry

night sky featuring the Carolina Spin outlined in red neon. All

three had sun-faded over the course of the summer. I was in

the Wiggle-Waggle's small backstage area on Monday morning,

touching them up (and hoping not to fuck them up-I was no

Van Gogh) when one of the part-time gazoonies arrived with a

message from Fred Dean. I was wanted in his office.

I went with some unease, wondering if I was going to get

a reaming for bringing Erin into the park on Saturday. I was

surprised to find Fred dressed not in one of his suits or his

amusing golf outfit, but in faded jeans and an equally faded

Joyland tee-shirt, the short sleeves rolled to show some real

muscle. There was a paisley sweatband cinched around his

brow. He didn't look like an accountant or the park's chief

employment officer; he looked like a ride-jock.

He registered my surprise and smiled. "Like the outfit? I

must admit I do. It's the way I dressed when I caught on with

the Blitz Brothers show in the Midwest, back in the fifties. My

mother was okay with the Blitzies, but my dad was horrified.

And he was carny."

"I know," I said.

Joyland

215

He raised his eyebrows. "Really? Word gets around, doesn't

it? Anyway, there's a lot to do this afternoon."

"Just give me a list. I'm almost done painting the backdrops

in the-"

"Not at all, Jonesy. You're signing out at noon today, and I

don't want to see you until tomorrow morning at nine, when

you turn up with your guests . Don't worry about your paycheck, either. I'll see you're not docked for the hours you miss."

"What's this about, Fred?"

He gave me a smile I couldn't interpret. "It's a surprise."

•

That Monday was warm and sunny, and Annie and Mike were

having lunch at the end of the boardwalk when I walked back

to Heaven's Bay. Milo saw me coming and raced to meet me.

"Dev!" Mike called. "Come and have a sandwich! We've got

plenty!"

"No, I really shouldn't-"

"We insist," Annie said. Then her brow furrowed. "Unless

you're sick, or something. I don't want Mike to catch a bug."

"''m fine, just got sent home early. Mr. Dean-he's my bosswouldn't tell me why. He said it was a surprise. It's got something to do with tomorrow, I guess." I looked at her with some anxiety. "We're still on for tomorrow, right?"

"Yes," she said. "When I surrender, I surrender. Just . . . we're

not going to tire him out. Are we, Dev?"

"Mom," Mike said.

She paid him no mind. "Are we?"

"No, ma'am." Although seeing Fred Dean dressed up like a

carny road dog, with all those unsuspected muscles showing,

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STEPHEN KING

had made me uneasy. Had I made it clear to him how fragile

Mike's health was? I thought so, but-

"Then come on up here and have a sandwich," she said. "I

hope you like egg salad."

•

I didn't sleep well on Monday night, half-convinced that the

tropical storm Fred had mentioned would arrive early and

wash out Mike's trip to the park, but Tuesday dawned cloudless. I crept down to the parlor and turned on the TV in time to get the six forty-five weathercast on WECT. The storm was still

coming, but the only people who were going to feel it today

were the ones living in coastal Florida and Georgia. I hoped

Mr. Easterbrook had packed his galoshes.

"You're up early," Mrs. Shoplaw said, poking her head in

from the kitchen. "I was just making scrambled eggs and bacon.

Come have some."

''I'm not that hungry, Mrs. S."

"Nonsense. You're still a growing boy, Devin, and you need

to eat. Erin told me what you've got going on today, and I think

you're doing a wonderful thing. It will be fine."

"I hope you're right," I said, but I kept thinking of Fred Dean

in his work-clothes. Fred, who'd sent me home early. Fred, who

had a surprise planned.

•

We had made our arrangements at lunch the day before, and

when I turned my old car into the driveway of the big green

Victorian at eight-thirty on Tuesday morning, Annie and Mike

were ready to go. So was Milo.

Joy land

217

"Are you sure nobody will mind us bringing him?" Mike had

asked on Monday. "I don't want to get into trouble."

"Service dogs are allowed in Joyland," I said, "and Milo's going

to be a service dog. Aren't you, Milo?"

Milo had cocked his head, apparently unfamiliar with the

service dog concept.

Today Mike was wearing his huge, clanky braces. I moved to

help him into the van, but he waved me off and did it himself.

It took a lot of effort and I expected a coughing fit, but none

came. He was practically bouncing with excitement. Annie,

looking impossibly long-legged in Lee Riders, handed me the

van keys. "You drive." And lowering her voice so Mike wouldn't

hear: ''I'm too goddam nervous to do it."

I was nervous, too. I'd bulldozed her into this, after all. I'd

had help from Mike, true, but I was the adult. If it went wrong,

it would be on me. I wasn't much for prayer, but as I loaded

Mike's crutches and wheelchair into the back of the van, I sent

one up that nothing would go wrong. Then I backed out of the

driveway, turned onto Beach Drive, and drove past the billboard reading BRING YOUR KIDS TO JOYLAND FOR THE TIME

OF THEIR LIVES !

Annie was in the passenger seat, and I thought she had never

looked more beautiful than she did that October morning, in

her faded jeans and a light sweater, her hair tied back with a

hank of blue yarn.

"Thank you for this, Dev," she said. "I just hope we're doing

the right thing."

"We are," I said, trying to sound more confident than I felt.

Because, now that it was a done deal, I had my doubts .

•

218

STEPHEN KING

The Joyland sign was lit up-that was the first thing I noticed.

The second was that the summertime get-happy music was

playing through the loudspeakers: a sonic parade of late sixties

and early seventies hits. I had intended to park in one of the

Lot A handicapped spaces-they were only fifty feet or so from

the park entrance-but before I could do so, Fred Dean stepped

through the open gate and beckoned us forward. Today he wasn't

wearing just any suit but the three-piecer he saved for the

occasional celebrity who rated a VIP tour. The suit I had seen,

but never the black silk top hat, which looked like the kind you

saw diplomats wearing in old newsreel footage.

"Is this usual?" Annie asked.

"Sure," I said, a trifle giddily. None of it was usual.

I drove through the gate and onto Joyland Avenue, pulling up

next to the park bench outside the Wiggle-Waggle Village where

I had once sat with Mr. Easterbrook after my first turn as Howie.

Mike wanted to get out of the van the way he'd gotten in: by

himself. I stood by, ready to catch him if he lost his balance,

while Annie hoisted the wheelchair out of the back. Milo sat at

my feet, tail thumping, ears cocked, eyes bright.

As Annie rolled the wheelchair up, Fred approached in a

cloud of aftershave. He was . . . resplendent. There's really no

other word for it. He took off his hat, bowed to Annie, then

held out a hand. "You must be Mike's mother." You have to remember that Ms. wasn't common usage back then, and, nervous as I was, I took a moment to appreciate how deftly he had

avoided the Miss/Mrs. dichotomy.

"I am," she said. I don't know if she was flustered by his

courtliness or by the difference in the way they were dressedshe amusement-park casual, he state-visit formal-but flustered joyland

219

she was. She shook his hand, though. "And this young man-"

"-is Michael." He offered his hand to the wide-eyed boy

standing there in his steel supports. "Thank you for coming

today."

"You're welcome . . . I mean, thank you. Thank you for having

us." He shook Fred's hand. "This place is huge."

It wasn't, of course; Disney World is huge. But to a ten-yearold who had never been to an amusement park, it had to look that way. For a moment I could see it through his eyes, see it

new, and my doubts about bringing him began to melt away.

Fred bent down to examine the third member of the Ross

family, hands on his knees. "And you're Milo!"

Milo barked.

"Yes," Fred said, "and I am equally pleased to meet you." He

held out his hand, waiting for Milo to raise his paw. When he

did, Fred shook it.

"How do you know our dog's name?" Annie asked. "Did Dev

tell you?"

He straightened, smiling. "He did not. I know because this is

a magic place, my dear. For instance." He showed her his empty

hands, then put them behind his back. "Which hand?"

"Left," Annie said, playing along.

Fred brought out his left hand, empty.

She rolled her eyes, smiling. "Okay, right."

This time he brought out a dozen roses. Real ones. Annie

and Mike gasped. Me too. All these years later, I have no idea

how he did it.

"Joyland is for children, my dear, and since today Mike is the

only child here, the park belongs to him. These, however, are

for you."

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She took them like a woman in a dream, burying her face in

the blooms, smelling their sweet red dust.

'Til put them in the van for you," I said.

She held them a moment longer, then passed them to me.

"Mike," Fred said, "do you know what we sell here?"

He looked uncertain. "Rides? Rides and games?"

"We sell fun. So what do you say we have some?"

•

I remember Mike's day at the park-Annie's day, too-as if it

happened last week, but it would take a correspondent much

more talented than I am to tell you how it felt, or to explain

how it could have ended the last hold Wendy Keegan still held

over my heart and my emotions. All I can say is what you already know: some days are treasure. Not many, but I think in almost every life there are a few. That was one of mine, and

when I'm blue-when life comes down on me and everything

looks tawdry and cheap, the way Joyland Avenue did on a rainy

day-I go back to it, if only to remind myself that life isn't always

a butcher's game. Sometimes the prizes are real. Sometimes

they're precious.

Of course not all the rides were running, and that was okay,

because there were a lot of them Mike couldn't handle. But more

than half of the park was operational that morning-the lights,

the music, even some of the shys, where half a dozen gazoonies

were on duty selling popcorn, fries, sodas, cotton candy, and

Pup-A-Licious dogs. I have no idea how Fred and Lane pulled

it off in a single afternoon, but they did.

We started in the Village, where Lane was waiting beside the

engine of the Choo-Choo Wiggle. He was wearing a pillowtick

engineer's cap instead of his derby, but it was cocked at the

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221

same insouciant angle. Of course it was. "All aboard! This is

the ride that makes kids happy, so get on board and make it

snappy. Dogs ride free, moms ride free, kids ride up in the

engine with me."

He pointed at Mike, then to the passenger seat in the engine.

Mike got out of his chair, set his crutches, then tottered on them.

Annie started for him.

"No, Mom. I'm okay. I can do it."

He got his balance and clanked to where Lane was standinga real boy with robot legs-and allowed Lane to boost him into the passenger seat. "Is that the cord that blows the whistle?

Can I pull it?"

"That's what it's there for," Lane said, "but watch out for pigs

on the tracks. There's a wolf in the area, and they're scared to

death of him."

Annie and I sat in one of the cars. Her eyes were bright. Roses

all her own burned in her cheeks. Her lips, though tightly pressed

together, were trembling.

"You okay?" I asked her.

"Yes." She took my hand, laced her fingers through mine, and

squeezed almost tight enough to hurt. "Yes. Yes. Yes."

"Controls green across the board!" Lane cried. "Check me

on that, Michael!"

"Check!"

"Watch out for what on the tracks?"

"Pigs!"

"Kid, you got style that makes me smile. Give that yell-rope

a yank and we're of£1"

Mike yanked the cord. The whistle howled. Milo barked. The

airbrakes chuffed, and the train began to move.

Choo-Choo Wiggle was strictly a zamp ride, okay? All the

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STEPHEN KING

rides in the Village were zamps, meant mostly for boys and girls

between the ages of three and seven. But you have to remember

how seldom Mike Ross had gotten out, especially since his

pneumonia the year before, and how many days he had sat with

his mother at the end of that boardwalk, listening to the rumble

of the rides and the happy screams coming from down the beach,

knowing that stuff wasn't for him. What was for him was more

gasping for air as his lungs failed, more coughing, a gradual

inability to walk even with the aid of crutches and braces, and

finally the bed where he would die, wearing diapers under his

PJs and an oxygen mask over his face.

Wiggle-Waggle Village was sort of depopulated with no greenies to play the fairy-tale parts, but Fred and Lane had reactivated all the mechanicals: the magic beanstalk that shot out of the ground in a burst of steam; the witch cackling in front of

the Candy House; the Mad Hatter's tea party; the nightcapwearing wolf who lurked beneath one of the underpasses and sprang at the train as it passed. As we rounded the final turn,

we passed three houses all kids know well-one of straw, one of

sticks, and one of bricks.

"Watch out for pigs!" Lane cried, and just then they came

waddling onto the tracks, uttering amplified oinks. Mike shrieked

with laughter and yanked the whistle. As always, the pigs escaped

. . . barely.

When we pulled back into the station, Annie let go of my

hand and hurried up to the engine. "Are you okay, hon? Want

your inhaler?"

"No, I'm fine." Mike turned to Lane. "Thanks, Mr. Engineer!"

"My pleasure, Mike." He held out a hand, palm up. "Slap me

five if you're still alive."

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223

Mike did, and with gusto. I doubt if he'd ever felt more alive.

"Now I've got to move on," Lane said. "Today I am a man of

many hats." He dropped me a wink.

•

Annie vetoed the Whirly Cups but allowed Mike-not without

apprehension-to ride the Chair-0-Planes. She gripped my

arm even harder than she had my hand when his chair rose

thirty feet above the ground and began to tilt, then loosened up

again when she heard him laughing.

"God," she said, "look at his hair! How it flies out behind him!"

She was smiling. She was also crying, but didn't seem aware of

it. Nor of my arm, which had found its way around her waist.

Fred was running the controls, and knew enough to keep

the ride at half-speed, rather than bringing it all the way up to

full, which would have had Mike parallel to the ground, held in

only by centrifugal force. When he finally came back to earth,

the kid was too dizzy to walk. Annie and I each took an arm and

guided him to the wheelchair. Fred toted Mike's crutches.

"Oh, man." It seemed to be all he could say. "Oh man, oh

man."

The Dizzy Speedboats-a land ride in spite of the namewas next. Mike rode over the painted water in one with Milo, both of them clearly loving it. Annie and I took another one.

Although I had been working at Joyland for over four months

by then, I'd never been on this ride, and I yelled the first time I

saw us rushing prow-first at Mike and Milo's boat, only to shear

off at the last second.

"Wimp!" Annie shouted in my ear.

When we got off, Mike was breathing hard but still not

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STEPHEN KING

coughing. We rolled him up Hound Dog Way and grabbed

sodas. The gazoonie refused to take the fivespot Annie held

out. "Everything's on the house today, ma'am."

"Can I have a Pup, Mom? And some cotton candy?"

She frowned, then sighed and shrugged. "Okay. Just as long

as you understand that stuff is still off-limits, buster. Today's an

exception. And no more fast rides."

He wheeled ahead to the Pup-A-Licious shy, his own pup

trotting beside him. She turned to me. "It's not about nutrition,

if that's what you're thinking. If he gets sick to his stomach, he

might vomit. And vomiting is dangerous for kids in Mike's condition. They-"

I kissed her, just a gentle brush of my lips across hers . It

was like swallowing a tiny drop of something incredibly sweet.

"Hush," I said. "Does he look sick?"

Her eyes got very large. For a moment I felt positive that she

was going to slap me and walk away. The day would be ruined

and it would be my own stupid goddam fault. Then she smiled,

looking at me in a speculative way that made my stomach feel

light. "I bet you could do better than that, if you had half a

chance."

Before I could think of a reply, she was hurrying after her son.

It really would have made no difference if she'd hung around,

because I was totally flummoxed .

•

Annie, Mike, and Milo crowded into one car of the Gondola

Glide, which crossed above the whole park on a diagonal. Fred

Dean and I rode beneath them in one of the electric carts, with

Mike's wheelchair tucked in back.

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225

"Seems like a terrific kid," Fred commented.

"He is, but I never expected you to go all-out like this."

"That's for you as much as for him. You've done the park more

good than you seem to know, Dev. When I told Mr. Easterbrook

I wanted to go big, he gave me the green light."

"You called him?"

"I did indeed."

"That thing with the roses . . . how'd you pull it off?"

Fred shot his cuffs and looked modest. "A magician never

tells his secrets. Don't you know that?"

"Did you have a card-and-bunny-gig when you were with

Blitz Brothers?"

"No, sir, I did not. All I did with the Blitzies was ride-jock

and drag the midway. And, although I did not have a valid driver's

license, I also drove a truck on a few occasions when we had to

DS from some rube-ranch or other in the dead of night."

"So where did you learn the magic?"

Fred reached behind my ear, pulled out a silver dollar, dropped

it into my lap. "Here and there, all around the square. Better

goose it a little, Jonesy. They're getting ahead of us."

•

From Skytop Station, where the gondola ride ended, we went

to the merry-go-round. Lane Hardy was waiting. He had lost

the engineer's cap and was once more sporting his derby. The

park's loudspeakers were still pumping out rock and roll, but

under the wide, flaring canopy of what's known in the Talk as

the spinning jenny, the rock was drowned out by the calliope

playing "A Bicycle Built for Two." It was recorded, but still

sweet and old-fashioned.

zz6

STEPHEN KING

Before Mike could mount the dish, Fred dropped to one

knee and regarded him gravely. "You can't ride the jenny without a Joyland hat," he said. "We call em dogtops. Got one?"

"No," Mike said. He still wasn't coughing, but dark patches

had begun to creep out beneath his eyes. Where his cheeks

weren't flushed with excitement, he looked pale. "I didn't know

I was supposed to . . . "

Fred took off his own hat, peered inside, showed it to us. It

was empty, as all magicians' top hats must be when they are displayed to the audience. He looked into it again, and brightened.

"Ah!" He brought out a brand new Joyland dogtop and put it on

Mike's head. "Perfect! Now which beast do you want to ride? A

horse? The unicorn? Marva the Mermaid? Leo the Lion?"

"Yes, the lion, please!" Mike cried. "Mom, you ride the tiger

right next to me!"

"You bet," she said. ''I've always wanted to ride a tiger."

"Hey, champ," Lane said, "Iemme help you up the ramp."

While he did that, Annie lowered her voice and spoke to Fred.

"Not a lot more, okay? It's all great, a day he'll never forget,

but-"

"He's fading," Fred said. "I understand."

Annie mounted the snarling, green-eyed tiger next to Mike's

lion. Milo sat between them, grinning a doggy grin. As the

merry-go-round started to move, "A Bicycle Built for Two" gave

way to "Twelfth Street Rag." Fred put his hand on my shoulder.

"You'll want to meet us at the Spin-we'll make that his last

ride-but you need to visit the costume shop first. And put

some hustle into it."

I started to ask why, then realized I didn't need to. I headed

for the back lot. And yes, I put some hustle into it.

Joyland

227

•

That Tuesday morning in October of 1973 was the last time I

wore the fur. I put it on in the costume shop and used Joyland

Under to get back to the middle of the park, pushing one of the

electric carts as fast as it would go, my Howie-head bouncing up

and down on one shoulder. I surfaced behind Madame Fortuna's

shy, just in time. Lane, Annie, and Mike were coming up the

midway. Lane was pushing Mike's chair. None of them saw me

peering around the corner of the shy; they were looking at the

Carolina Spin, their necks craned. Fred saw me, though. I raised

a paw. He nodded, then turned and raised his own paw to whoever was currently watching from the little sound booth above Customer Services. Seconds later, Howie-music rolled from all

the speakers. First up was Elvis, singing "Hound Dog."

I leaped from cover, going into my Howie-dance, which was

kind of a fucked-up soft-shoe. Mike gaped. Annie clapped her

hands to her temples, as if she'd suddenly been afflicted with a

monster headache, then started laughing. I believe what followed was one of my better performances. I hopped and skipped around Mike's chair, hardly aware that Milo was doing the same

thing, only in the other direction. "Hound Dog" gave way to

the Rolling Stones version of 'Walking the Dog." That's a pretty

short song, which was good-I hadn't realized how out of shape

I was.

I finished by throwing my arms wide and yelling: "Mikel Mikel

Mikel" That was the only time Howie ever talked, and all I can

say in my defense is that it really sounded more like a bark.

Mike rose from his chair, opened his arms, and fell forward.

He knew I'd catch him, and I did. Kids half his age had given

me the Howie-Hug all summer long, but no hug had ever felt

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STEPHEN KING

so good. I only wished I could turn him around and squeeze

him the way I had Hallie Stansfield, expelling what was wrong

with him like an aspirated chunk of hotdog.

Face buried in the fur, he said: ''You make a really good Howie,

Dev."

I rubbed his head with one paw, knocking off his dogtop. I

couldn't reply as Howie-barking his name was as close as I

could come to that-but I was thinking, A good kid deserves a

good dog. Just ask Milo.

Mike looked up into Howie's blue mesh eyes. "Will you come

on the hoister with us?"

I gave him an exaggerated nod and patted his head again. Lane

picked up Mike's new dogtop and stuck it back on his head.

Annie approached. Her hands were clasped demurely at her

waist, but her eyes were full of merriment. "Can I unzip you,

Mr. Howie?"

I wouldn't have minded, but of course I couldn't let her. Every

show has its rules, and one ofJoyland's-hard and fast-was that

Howie the Happy Hound was always Howie the Happy Hound.

You never took off the fur where the conies could see .

•

I ducked back into J oyland Under, left the fur in the cart, and

rejoined Annie and Mike at the ramp leading up to the Carolina

Spin. Annie looked up nervously and said, "Are you sure you

want to do this, Mike?"

"Yes! It's the one I want to do most!"

"All right, then. I guess." To me she added: ''I'm not terrified

of heights, but they don't exactly thrill me."

Lane was holding a car door open. "Climb aboard, folks. I'm

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229

going to send you up where the air is rare." He bent down and

scruffed Milo's ears. "You're sittin this one out, fella."

I sat on the inside, nearest the wheel. Annie sat in the middle,

and Mike on the outside, where the view was best. Lane dropped

the safety bar, went back to the controls, and reset his derby on

a fresh slant. "Amazement awaits!" he called, and up we went,

rising with the stately calm of a coronation procession.

Slowly, the world opened itself beneath us: first the park,

then the bright cobalt of the ocean on our right and all of the

North Carolina lowlands on our left. When the Spin reached

the top of its great circle, Mike let go of the safety bar, raised

his hands over his head, and shouted, "We're flying!"

A hand on my leg. Annie's. I looked at her and she mouthed

two words: Thank you. I don't know how many times Lane sent

us around-more spins than the usual ride, I think, but I'm not

sure. What I remember best was Mike's face, pale and full of

wonder, and Annie's hand on my thigh, where it seemed to burn.

She didn't take it away until we slowed to a stop.

Mike turned to me. "Now I know what my kite feels like," he

said.

So did I.

•

When Annie told Mike he'd had enough, the kid didn't object.

He was exhausted. As Lane helped him into his wheelchair,

Mike held out a hand, palm up. "Slap me five if you're still alive."

Grinning, Lane slapped him five. "Come back anytime, Mike."

"Thanks. It was so great."

Lane and I pushed him up the midway. The booths on both

sides were shut up again, but one of the shys was open: Annie

STEPHEN KING

Oakley's Shootin' Gallery. Standing at the chump board, where

Pop Allen had stood all summer long, was Fred Dean in his

three-piece suit. Behind him, chain-driven rabbits and ducks

traveled in opposite directions. Above them were bright yellow

ceramic chicks. These were stationary, but very small.

"Like to try your shooting skill before you exit the park?"

Fred asked. "There are no losers today. Today ev-rybody wins a

prize."

Mike looked around at Annie. "Can I, mom?"

"Sure, honey. But not long, okay?"

He tried to get out of the chair, but couldn't. He was too

tired. Lane and I propped him up, one on each side. Mike picked

up a rifle and took a couple of shots, but he could no longer

steady his arms, even though the gun was light. The beebees

struck the canvas backdrop and clicked into the gutter at the

bottom.

"Guess I suck," he said, putting the rifle down.

"Well, you didn't exactly bum it up," Fred allowed, "but as I

said, today everyone wins a prize." With that, he handed over

the biggest Howie on the shelf, a top stuffy that even sharpshooters couldn't earn without spending eight or nine bucks on reloads.

Mike thanked him and sat back down, looking overwhelmed.

That damn stuffed dog was almost as big as he was. "You try,

Mom."

"No, that's okay," she said, but I thought she wanted to. It

was something in her eyes as she measured the distance between

the chump board and the targets.

"Please?" He looked first at me, then at Lane. "She's really

good. She won the prone shooting tournament at Camp Perry

joyland

before I was born and came in second twice. Camp Perry's in

Ohio."

"I don't-"

Lane was already holding out one of the modified .22s. "Step

right up. Let's see your best Annie Oakley, Annie."

She took the rifle and examined it in a way few of the conies

ever did. "How many shots?"

"Ten a clip," Fred said.

"If I'm going to do this, can I shoot two clips?"

"As many as you want, ma'am. Today's your day."

"Mom used to also shoot skeet with my grampa," Mike told

them.

Annie raised the .22 and squeezed off ten shots with a pause

of perhaps two seconds between each. She knocked over two

moving ducks and three of the moving bunnies. The teensy

ceramic chicks she ignored completely.

"A crack shot!" Fred crowed. "Any prize on the middle shelf,

your pick!"

She smiled. "Fifty percent isn't anywhere near crack. My

dad would have covered his face for shame. I'll just take the

reload, if that's okay."

Fred took a paper cone from under the counter-a wee shoot,

in the Talk-and put the small end into a hole on top of the gag

rifle. There was a rattle as another ten beebees rolled in.

"Are the sights on these trigged?" she asked Fred.

"No, ma'am. All the games at Joyland are straight. But if I

told you Pop Allen-the man who usually runs this shy-spent

long hours sighting them in, I'd be a liar."

Having worked on Pop's team, I knew that was disingenuous,

to say the least. Sighting in the rifles was the last thing Pop would

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STEPHEN KING

do. The better the rubes shot, the more prizes Pop had to give

away . . . and he had to buy his own prizes. All the shy-bosses did.

They were cheap goods, but not free goods.

"Shoots left and high," she said, more to herself than to us.

Then she raised the rifle, socked it into the hollow of her right

shoulder, and triggered off ten rounds. This time there was no

discernable pause between shots, and she didn't bother with

the ducks and bunnies. She aimed for the ceramic chicks and

exploded eight of them.

As she put the gun back on the counter, Lane used his bandanna to wipe a smutch of sweat and grime from the back of his neck. He spoke very softly as he did this chore. "Jesus Horatio

Christ. Nobody gets eight peeps."

"I only nicked the last one, and at this range I should have had

them all." She wasn't boasting, just stating a fact.

Mike said, almost apologetically: "Told you she was good."

He curled a fist over his mouth and coughed into it. "She

was thinking about the Olympics, only then she dropped out of

college."

"You really are Annie Oakley," Lane said, stuffing his bandanna back into a rear pocket. "Any prize, pretty lady. You pick."

"I already have my prize," she said. "This has been a wonderful, wonderful day. I can never thank you guys enough." She turned in my direction. "And this guy. Who actually had to talk

me into it. Because I'm a fool." She kissed the top of M ike's

head. "But now I better get my boy home. Where's Milo?"

We looked around and saw him halfway down Joyland Avenue,

sitting in front of Horror House with his tail curled around his

paws.

"Milo, come!" Annie called.

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233

His ears pricked up but he didn't come. He didn't even turn

in her direction, just stared at the fac;ade of Joyland's only dark

ride. I could almost believe he was reading the drippy, cobwebfestooned invitation: COME IN IF YOU DARE .

While Annie was looking at Milo, I stole a glance at Mike.

Although he was all but done in from the excitements of the

day, his expression was hard to mistake. It was satisfaction. I

know it's crazy to think he and his Jack Russell had worked this

out in advance, but I did think it.

I still do.

"Roll me down there, Mom," Mike said. "He'll come with

me."

"No need for that," Lane said. "If you've got a leash, I'm

happy to go get him."

"It's in the pocket on the back of Mike's wheelchair," Annie

said.

"Urn, probably not," Mike said. "You can check but I'm pretty

sure I forgot it."

Annie checked while I thought, In a pig's ass you forgot.

"Oh, Mike," Annie said reproachfully. "Your dog, your responsibility. How many times have I told you?"

"Sorry, Mom." To Fred and Lane he said, "Only we hardly

ever use it because Milo always comes."

"Except when we need him to." Annie cupped her hands

around her mouth. "Milo, come on ! Time to go home!" Then, in

a much sweeter voice: "Biscuit, Milo! Come get a biscuit!"

Her coaxing tone would have brought me on the run-probably with my tongue hanging out-but Milo didn't budge.

"Come on Dev," Mike said. As if I were also in on the plan

but had missed my cue, somehow. I grabbed the wheelchair's

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STEPHEN KING

handles and rolled Mike down Joyland Avenue toward the funhouse. Annie followed. Fred and Lane stayed where they were, Lane leaning on the chump board among the laid-out popguns

on their chains. He had removed his derby and was spinning it

on one finger.

When we got to the dog, Annie regarded him crossly. "What's

wrong with you, Milo?"

Milo thumped his tail at the sound of Annie's voice, but didn't

look at her. Nor did he move. He was on guard and intended to

stay that way unless he was hauled away.

"Michael, please make your dog heel so we can go home.

You need to get some r-"

Two things happened before she could finish. I'm not exactly

sure of the sequence. I've gone over it often in the years since

then-most often on nights when I can't sleep-and I'm still

not sure. I think the rumble came first: the sound of a ride-car

starting to roll along its track. But it might have been the padlock dropping. It's even possible that both things happened at the same time.

The big American Master fell off the double doors below the

Horror House fat;ade and lay on the boards, gleaming in the

October sunshine. Fred Dean said later that the shackle must

not have been pushed firmly into the locking mechanism, and

the vibration of the moving car caused it to open all the way.

This made perfect sense, because the shackle was indeed open

when I checked it.

Still bullshit, though.

I put that padlock on myself, and remember the click as the

shackle clicked into place. I even remember tugging on it to

make sure it caught, the way you do with a padlock. And all that

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235

begs a question Fred didn't even try to answer: with the Horror

House breakers switched off, how could that car have gotten

rolling in the first place? As for what happened next . . .

Here's how a trip through Horror House ended. On the far

side of the Torture Chamber, just when you thought the ride

was over and your guard was down, a screaming skeleton (nicknamed Hagar the Horrible by the greenies) came flying at you, seemingly on a collision course with your car. When it pulled

away, you saw a stone wall dead ahead. Painted there in fluorescent green was a rotting zombie and a gravestone with END

O F THE L I N E printed on it. Of course the stone wall split open

just in time, but that final double-punch was extremely effective. When the car emerged into the daylight, making a semicircle before going back in through another set of double doors and stopping, even grown men were often screaming their

heads off. Those final shrieks (always accompanied by gales of

oh-shit-you-got-me laughter) were Horror House's best advertisement.

There were no screams that day. Of course not, because

when the double doors banged open, the car that emerged was

empty. It rolled through the semicircle, bumped lightly against

the next set of double doors, and stopped.

"O-kay," Mike said. It was a whisper so low that I barely heard

it, and I'm sure Annie didn't-all her attention had been drawn

to the car. The kid was smiling.

"What made it do that?" Annie asked.

"I don't know," I said. "Short-circuit, maybe. Or some kind

of power surge." Both of those explanations sounded good, as

long as you didn't know about the breakers being off.

I stood on my tiptoes and peered into the stalled car. The

STEPHEN KING

first thing I noticed was that the safety bar was up. If Eddie

Parks or one of his greenie minions forgot to lower it, the bar

was supposed to snap down automatically once the ride was in

motion. It was a state-mandated safety feature. The bar being

up on this one made a goofy kind of sense, though, since the only

rides in the park that had power that morning were the ones

Lane and Fred had turned on for Mike.

I spotted something beneath the semicircular seat, something as real as the roses Fred had given Annie, only not red.

It was a blue Alice band .

•

We headed back to the van. Milo, once more on best behavior,

padded along beside Mike's wheelchair.

"''ll be back as soon as I get them home," I told Fred. "Put in

some extra hours."

He shook his head. "You're eighty-six for today. Get to bed

early, and be here tomorrow at six. Pack a couple of extra sandwiches, because we'll all be working late. Turns out that storm's moving a little faster than the weather forecasters expected."

Annie looked alarmed. "Should I pack some stuff and take

Mike to town, do you think? I'd hate to when he's so tired,

but-"

"Check the radio this evening," Fred advised. "If NOAA issues

a coastal evacuation order, you'll hear it in plenty of time, but I

don't think that'll happen. This is just going to be your basic

cap of wind. I'm a little worried about the high rides, that's allthe Thunderball, the Shaker, and the Spin."

"They'll be okay," Lane said. "They stood up to Agnes last year,

and that was a bona fide hurricane."

joy land

237

"Does this storm have a name?" Mike asked.

"They're calling it Gilda," Lane said. "But it's no hurricane,

just a little old subtropical depression."

Fred said, "Winds are supposed to start picking up around

midnight, and the heavy rain'll start an hour or two later. Lane's

probably right about the big rides, but it's still going to be a

busy day. Have you got a slicker, Dev?"

"Sure."

"You'll want to wear it."

•

The weather forecast we heard on WKLM as we left the park

eased Annie's mind. The winds generated by Gilda weren't expected to top thirty miles an hour, with occasionally higher gusts. There might be some beach erosion and minor flooding

inland, but that was about it. The dj called it "great kite-flying

weather," which made us all laugh. We had a history now, and

that was nice.

Mike was almost asleep by the time we arrived back at the

big Victorian on Beach Row. I lifted him into his wheelchair.

It wasn't much of a chore; I'd put on muscle in the last four

months, and with those horrible braces off, he couldn't have

weighed seventy pounds. Milo once more paced the chair as I

rolled it up the ramp and into the house.

Mike needed the toilet, but when his mother tried to take

over the wheelchair handles, Mike asked if I'd do it, instead. I

rolled him into the bathroom, helped him to stand, and eased

down his elastic-waisted pants while he held onto the grab

bars.

"I hate it when she has to help me. I feel like a baby."

STEPHEN KING

Maybe, but he pissed with a healthy kid's vigor. Then, as he

leaned forward to push the flush handle, he staggered and

almost took a header into the toilet bowl. I had to catch him.

"Thanks, Dev. I already washed my hair once today." That

made me laugh, and Mike grinned. "I wish we were going to

have a hurricane. That'd be boss."

"You might not think so if it happened." I was remembering

Hurricane Doria, two years before. It hit New Hampshire and

M aine packing ninety-mile-an-hour winds, knocking down

trees all over Portsmouth, Kittery, Sanford, and the Berwicks.

One big old pine just missed our house, our basement flooded,

and the power had been out for four days.

"I wouldn't want stuff to fall down at the park, I guess. That's

just about the best place in the world. That I've ever been, anyway."

"Good. Hold on, kid, let me get your pants back up. Can't

have you mooning your mother."

That made him laugh again, only the laughter turned to coughing. Annie took over when we came out, rolling him down the hall to the bedroom. "Don't you sneak out on me, Devin," she

called back over her shoulder.

Since I had the afternoon off, I had no intention of sneaking

out on her if she wanted me to stay awhile. I strolled around

the parlor, looking at things that were probably expensive but

not terribly interesting-not to a young man of twenty-one,

anyway. A huge picture window, almost wall-to-wall, saved

what would otherwise have been a gloomy room, flooding it

with light. The window looked out on the back patio, the

boardwalk, and the ocean. I could see the first clouds feathering in from the southeast, but the sky overhead was still joyland

239

bright blue. I remember thinking that I'd made it to the big

house after all, although I'd probably never have a chance to

count all the bathrooms. I remember thinking about the Alice

band, and wondering if Lane would see it when he put the

wayward car back under cover. What else was I thinking? That

I had seen a ghost after all. Just not of a person.

Annie came back. "He wants to see you, but don't stay long."

"Okay."

"Third door on the right."

I went down the hall, knocked lightly, and let myself in. Once

you got past the grab bars, the oxygen tanks in the corner, and

the leg braces standing at steely attention beside the bed, it

could have been any boy's room. There was no baseball glove

and no skateboard propped against the wall, but there were

posters of Mark Spitz and Miami Dolphins running back Larry

Csonka. In the place of honor above the bed, the Beatles were

crossing Abbey Road.

There was a faint smell of liniment. Mike looked very small

in the bed, all but lost under a green coverlet. Milo was curled

up, nose to tail, beside him, and M ike was stroking his fur

absently. It was hard to believe this was the same kid who had

raised his hands triumphantly over his head at the apogee of

the Carolina Spin. He didn't look sad, though. He looked almost

radiant.

"Did you see her, Dev? Did you see her when she left?"

I shook my head, smiling. I had been jealous of Tom, but not

of Mike. Never of Mike.

"I wish my grampa had been there. He would have seen her,

and heard what she said when she left."

"What did she say?''

STEPHEN KING

"Thanks. She meant both of us. And she told you to be careful.

Are you sure you didn't hear her? Even a little?"

I shook my head again. No, not even a little.

"But you know." His face was too pale and tired, the face of

a boy who was very sick, but his eyes were alive and healthy.

"You know, don't you?"

"Yes." Thinking of the Alice band. "Mike, do you know what

happened to her?"

"Someone killed her." Very low.

"I don't suppose she told you . . . "

But there was no need to finish. He was shaking his head.

"You need to sleep," I said.

''Yeah, I'll feel better after a nap. I always do." His eyes closed,

then slowly opened again. "The Spin was the best. The hoister.

It's like flying."

"Yes," I said. "It is like that."

This time when his eyes closed, they didn't re-open. I walked

to the door as quietly as I could. As I put my hand on the knob,

he said, "Be careful, Dev. It's not white."

I looked back. He was sleeping. I'm sure he was. Only Milo

was watching me. I left, closing the door softly .

•

Annie was in the kitchen. ''I'm making coffee, but maybe you'd

rather have a beer? I've got Blue Ribbon."

"Coffee would be fine."

"What do you think of the place?"

I decided to tell the truth. "The furnishings are a little elderly

for my taste, but I never went to interior decorating school."

"Nor did I," she said. "Never even finished college."

Joyland

"Join the club."

"Ah, but you will. You'll get over the girl who dumped you,

and you'll go back to school, and you'll finish, and you'll march

off into a brilliant future."

"How do you know about-"

"The girl? One, you might as well be wearing a sandwich

board. Two, Mike knows. He told me. He's been my brilliant

future. Once upon a time I was going to major in anthropology.

I was going to win a gold medal at the Olympics. I was going

to see strange and fabulous places and be the M argaret M ead

of my generation. I was going to write books and do my best to

earn back my father's love. Do you know who he is?"

"My landlady says he's a preacher."

"Indeed he is. Buddy Ross, the man in the white suit. He also

has a great head of white hair. He looks like an older version of

the Man from Glad in the TV ads. Mega church; big radio presence; now TV. Offstage, he's an asshole with a few good points."

She poured two cups of coffee. "But that's pretty much true of

all of us, isn't it? I think so."

"You sound like someone with regrets." It wasn't the politest

thing to say, but we were beyond that. I hoped so, at least.

She brought the coffee and sat down opposite me. "Like the

song says, I've had a few. But Mike's a great kid, and give my

father this-he's taken care of us financially so I could be with

Mike full-time. The way I look at it, checkbook love is better

than no love at all. I made a decision today. I think it happened

when you were wearing that silly costume and doing that silly

dance. While I was watching Mike laugh."

"Tell me."

"I decided to give my father what he wants, which is to be

STEPHEN KING

invited back into my son's life before it's too late. He said terrible things about how God caused Mike's MD to punish me for my supposed sins, but I've got to put that behind me. If I wait

for an apology, I'll be waiting a long time . . . because in his heart,

Dad still believes that's true."

"I'm sorry."

She shrugged, as if it were of no matter. "I was wrong about

not letting Mike go to Joyland, and I've been wrong about holding

onto my old grudges and insisting on some sort of fucked-up

quid pro quo. My son isn't goods in a trading post. Do you think

thirty-one's too old to grow up, Dev?"

"Ask me when I get there."

She laughed. "Touche. Excuse me a minute."

She was gone for almost five. I sat at the kitchen table, sipping

my coffee. When she came back, she was holding her sweater

in her right hand. Her stomach was tanned. Her bra was a pale

blue, almost matching her faded jeans.

"Mike's fast asleep," she said. "Would you like to go upstairs

with me, Devin?"

•

Her bedroom was large but plain, as if, even after all the months

she had spent here, she'd never fully unpacked. She turned to

me and linked her arms around my neck. Her eyes were very

wide and very calm. A trace of a smile touched the corners of her

mouth, making soft dimples. " 'I bet you could do better, if you

had half a chance.' Remember me saying that?"

"Yes."

"Is that a bet I'd win?"

joyland

243

Her mouth was sweet and damp. I could taste her breath.

She drew back and said, "It can only be this once. You have

to understand that."

I didn't want to, but I did. "Just as long as it's not . . . you

know . . . "

She was really smiling now, almost laughing. I could see teeth

as well as dimples. "As long as it's not a thank-you fuck? It's not,

believe me. The last time I had a kid like you, I was a kid myself."

She took my right hand and put it on the silky cup covering

her left breast. I could feel the soft, steady beat of her heart. "I

must not have let go of all my daddy issues yet, because I feel

delightfully wicked."

We kissed again. Her hands dropped to my belt and unbuckled it. There was the soft rasp as my zipper went down, and then the side of her palm was sliding along the hard ridge

beneath my shorts. I gasped.

"Dev?"

'What?"

"Have you ever done this before? Don't you dare lie to me."

"No.''

"Was she an idiot? This girl of yours?"

"I guess we both were."

She smiled, slipped a cool hand inside my underwear, and

gripped me. That sure hold, coupled with her gently moving

thumb, made all of Wendy's efforts at boyfriend satisfaction

seem very minor league. "So you're a virgin."

"Guilty as charged."

"Good."

•

244

STEPHEN KING

It wasn't just the once, and that was lucky for me, because the

first time lasted I'm going to say eight seconds. Maybe nine. I

got inside, that much I did manage, but then everything spurted

everywhere. I may have been more embarrassed once-the

time I blew an ass-trumpet while taking communion at Methodist Youth Camp-but I don't think so.

"Oh God," I said, and put a hand over my eyes.

She laughed, but there was nothing mean about it. "In a

weird way, I'm flattered. Try to relax. I'm going downstairs for

another check on Mike. I'd just as soon he didn't catch me in

bed with Howie the Happy Hound."

"Very funny." I think if I'd blushed any harder, my skin would

have caught on fire.

"I think you'll be ready again when I come back. It's the nice

thing about being twenty-one, Dev. If you were seventeen, you'd

probably be ready now."

She came back with a couple of sodas in an ice bucket, but

when she slipped out of her robe and stood there naked, Coke

was the last thing I wanted. The second time was quite a bit

better; I think I might have managed four minutes. Then she

began to cry out softly, and I was gone. But what a way to go .

•

We drowsed, Annie with her head pillowed in the hollow of my

shoulder. "Okay?" she asked.

"So okay I can't believe it."

I didn't see her smile, but I felt it. "After all these years, this

bedroom finally gets used for something besides sleeping."

"Doesn't your father ever stay here?"

"Not for a long time, and I only started coming back because

Joy land

245

Mike loves it here. Sometimes I can face the fact that he's almost

certainly going to die, but mostly I can't. I just turn away from

it. I make deals with myself. 'If I don't take him to Joyland, he

won't die. If I don't make it up with my father so Dad can come

and see him, he won't die. If we just stay here, he won't die.' A

couple of weeks ago, the first time I had to make him put on his

coat to go down to the beach, I cried. He asked me what was

wrong, and I told him it was my time of the month. He knows

what that is."

I remembered something Mike had said to her in the hospital parking lot: It doesn't have to be the last good time . But sooner or later the last good time would come around. It does

for all of us.

She sat up, wrapping the sheet around her. "Remember me

saying that Mike turned out to be my future? My brilliant

career?"

"Yes."

"I can't think of another one. Anything beyond Michael is just

. . . blank. Who said that in America there are no second acts?"

I took her hand. "Don't worry about act two until act one is

over."

She slipped her hand free and caressed my face with it.

"You're young, but not entirely stupid."

It was nice of her to say, but I certainly felt stupid. About

Wendy, for one thing, but that wasn't the only thing. I found my

mind drifting to those damn pictures in Erin's folder. Something about them . . .

She lay back down. The sheet slipped away from her nipples,

and I felt myself begin to stir again. Some things about being

twenty-one were pretty great. "The shooting gallery was fun. I

STEPHEN KING

forgot how good it is, sometimes, just to have that eye-and-hand

thing going on. My father put a rifle in my hands for the first

time when I was six. Just a little single-shot .22. I loved it."

"Yeah?"

She was smiling. "Yeah. It was our thing, the thing that

worked. The only thing, as it turned out." She propped herself

up on an elbow. "He's been selling that hellfire and brimstone

shit since he was a teenager, and it's not just about the moneyhe got a triple helping of backroads gospel from his own parents, and I have no doubt he believes every word of it. You know

what, though? He's still a southern man first and a preacher

second. He's got a custom pickup truck that cost fifty thousand

dollars, but a pickup truck is still a pickup truck. He still eats

biscuits and gravy at Shoney's. His idea of sophisticated humor

is Minnie Pearl and Junior Samples. He loves songs about

cheatin and honky-tonkin. And he loves his guns. I don't care

for his brand of Jesus and I have no interest in owning a pickup

truck, but the guns . . . that he passed on to his only daughter. I

go bang-bang and feel better. Shitty legacy, huh?"

I said nothing, only got out of bed and opened the Cokes. I

gave one to her.

"He's probably got fifty guns at his full-time place in Savannah,

most of them valuable antiques, and there's another half a dozen

in the safe here. I've got two rifles of my own at my place in

Chicago, although I hadn't shot at a target for two years before

today. If Mike dies . . . " She held the Coke bottle to the middle

of her forehead, as if trying to soothe a headache. "When Mike

dies, the first thing I'm going to do is get rid of them all. They'd

be too much temptation."

"Mike wouldn't want-"

"No, of course not, I know that, but it's not all about him. If

Joyland

247

I could believe-like my holy-hat father-that I was going to

find Mike waiting outside the golden gates to show me in after

I die, that would be one thing. But I don't. I tried my ass off to

believe that when I was a little girl, and I couldn't. God and

heaven lasted about four years longer than the Tooth Fairy, but

in the end, I couldn't. I think there's just darkness. No thought,

no memory, no love. Just darkness. Oblivion. That's why I find

what's happening to him so hard to accept."

"Mike knows it's more than oblivion," I said.

"What? Why? Why do you think that?"

Because she was there. He saw her, and he saw her go. Because

she said thank you. And I know because I saw the Alice band, and

Tom saw her.

"Ask him," I said. "But not today."

She put her Coke aside and studied me. She was wearing the

little smile that put dimples at the corners of her mouth. "You've

had seconds. I don't suppose you'd be interested in thirds?"

I put my own Coke down beside the bed. "As a matter of

fact. . . "

She held out her arms.

•

The first time was embarrassing. The second time was good.

The third . . . man, the third time was the charm .

•

I waited in the parlor while Annie dressed. When she came

downstairs, she was back in her jeans and sweater. I thought of

the blue bra just beneath the sweater, and damned if I didn't

feel that stirring again.

"Are we good?" she said.

STEPHEN KING

"Yes, but I wish we could be even better."

"I wish that, too, but this is as good as it's ever going to get. If

you like me as much as I like you, you'll accept that. Can you?"

"Yes."

"Good."

"How much longer will you and Mike be here?"

"If the place doesn't blow away tonight, you mean?"

"It won't."

"A week. Mike's got a round of specialists back in Chicago

starting on the seventeenth, and I want to get settled before

then." She drew in a deep breath. "And talk to his grandpa about

a visit. There'll have to be some ground rules. No Jesus, for one."

"Will I see you again before you leave?"

"Yes." She put her arms around me and kissed me. Then she

stepped away. "But not like this. It would confuse things too

much. I know you get that."

I nodded. I got it.

"You better go now, Dev. And thank you. It was lovely. We

saved the best ride for last, didn't we?"

That was true. Not a dark ride but a bright one. "I wish I

could do more. For you. For Mike."

"So do I," she said, "but that's not the world we live in. Come

by tomorrow for supper, if the storm's not too bad. Mike would

love to see you."

She looked beautiful, standing there barefooted in her faded

jeans. I wanted to take her in my arms, and lift her, and carry

her into some untroubled future.

Instead, I left her where she was. That's not the world we

live in, she'd said, and how right she was.

How right she was.

joy land

249

•

About a hundred yards down Beach Row, on the inland side

of the two-lane, there was a little cluster of shops too tony to

be called a strip mall: a gourmet grocery, a salon called Hair's

Looking at You, a drugstore, a branch of the Southern Trust,

and a restaurant called Mi Casa, where the Beach Row elite no

doubt met to eat. I didn't give those shops so much as a glance

when I drove back to Heaven's Bay and Mrs. Shoplaw's. If ever

I needed proof that I didn't have the gift that M ike Ross and

Rozzie Gold shared, that was it.

•

Go to bed early, Fred Dean had told me, and I did. I lay on my

back with my hands behind my head, listening to the waves as I

had all summer long, remembering the touch of her hands, the

firmness of her breasts, the taste of her mouth. Mostly it was

her eyes I thought about, and the fan of her hair on the pillow.

I didn't love her the way I loved Wendy-that sort of love, so

strong and stupid, only comes once-but I loved her. I did then

and still do now. For her kindness, mostly, and her patience.

Some young man somewhere may have had a better initiation into

the mysteries of sex, but no young man ever had a sweeter one.

Eventually, I slept.

•

It was a banging shutter somewhere below that woke me. I

picked my watch up from the night table and saw it was quarter

of one. I didn't think there was going to be any more sleep for

me until that banging stopped, so I got dressed, started out the

door, then returned to the closet for my slicker. When I got

250

STEPHEN KING

downstairs, I paused. From the big bedroom down the hall

from the parlor, I could hear Mrs. S. sawing wood in long, noisy

strokes. No banging shutter was going to break her rest.

It turned out I didn't need the slicker, at least not yet, because

the rain hadn't started. The wind was strong, though; it had to

be blowing twenty-five already. The low, steady thud of the surf

had become a muted roar. I wondered if the weather boffins

had underestimated Gilda, thought of Annie and Mike in the

house down the beach, and felt a tickle of unease.

I found the loose shutter and re-fastened it with the hookand-eye. I let myself back in, went upstairs, undressed, and lay down again. This time sleep wouldn't come. The shutter was

quiet, but there was nothing I could do about the wind moaning

around the eaves (and rising to a low scream each time it gusted).

Nor could I turn off my brain, now that it was running again.

It's not white, I thought. That meant nothing to me, but it

wanted to mean something. It wanted to connect with something I'd seen at the park during our visit.

There's a shadow over you, young man. That had been Rozzie

Gold, on the day that I'd met her. I wondered how long she had

worked at Joyland, and where she had worked before. Was she

carny-from-carny? And what did it matter?

One of these children has the sight. I don't know which.

I knew. Mike had seen Linda Gray. And set her free. He had,

as they say, shown her the door. The one she hadn't been able

to find herself. Why else would she have thanked him?

I closed my eyes and saw Fred at the Shootin' Gallery, resplendent in his suit and magic top hat. I saw Lane holding out one of the.zzs chained to the chump board.

Annie: How many shots?

Fred: Ten a clip. As many as you want. Today's your day.

]oyland

My eyes flew open as several things came crashing together

in my mind. I sat up, listening to the wind and the agitated surf.

Then I turned on the overhead light and got Erin's folder out of

my desk drawer. I laid the photographs on the floor again, my

heart pounding. The pix were good but the light wasn't. I dressed

for the second time, shoved everything back into the folder,

and made another trip downstairs.

A lamp hung above the Scrabble table in the middle of the

parlor, and I knew from the many evenings I'd gotten my ass

kicked that the light it cast was plenty bright. There were sliding

doors between the parlor and the hall leading to Mrs. S.'s quarters. I pulled them shut so the light wouldn't disturb her. Then I turned on the lamp, moved the Scrabble box to the top of the

TV, and laid my photos out. I was too agitated to sit down. I

bent over the table instead, arranging and re-arranging the

photographs. I was about to do that for the third time when my

hand froze. I saw it. I saw him. Nat proof that would stand up

in court, no, but enough for me. My knees came unhinged, and

I sat down after all.

The phone I'd used so many times to call my father-always

noting down the time and duration on the guest-call honor sheet

when I was done-suddenly rang. Only in that windy early

morning silence, it sounded more like a scream. I lunged at it

and picked up the receiver before it could ring again.

"H-H-Hel-" It was all I could manage. My heart was pounding

too hard for more.

"It's you," the voice on the other end said. He sounded both

amused and pleasantly surprised. "I was expecting your landlady. I had a story about a family emergency all ready."

I tried to speak. Couldn't.

"Devin?" Teasing. Cheeiful. "Are you there?"

STEPHEN K I N G

"I . . . just a second."

I held the phone to my chest, wondering (it's crazy how your

mind can work when it's put under sudden stress) if he could

hear my heart at his end of the line. On mine, I listened for

Mrs. Shop law. I heard her, too: the muted sound of her continuing snores. It was a good thing I'd closed the parlor doors, and a better thing that there was no extension in her bedroom. I

put the phone back to my ear and said, "What do you want?

Why are you calling?"

"I think you know, Devin . . . and even if you didn't, it's too

late now, isn't it?"

"Are you psychic, too?" It was stupid, but right then my brain

and my mouth seemed to be running on separate tracks.

"That's Rozzie," he said. "Our Madame Fortuna." He actually

laughed. He sounded relaxed, but I doubt if he was. Killers

don't make telephone calls in the middle of the night if they're

relaxed. Especially if they can't be sure of who's going to answer

the phone.

But he had a story, I thought. This guy's a Boy Scout, he's

crazy but always prepared. The tattoo, for instance . That's

what takes your eye when you look at those photos. Not the

face. Not the baseball cap.

"I knew what you were up to," he said. "I knew even before

the girl brought you that folder. The one with the pictures in it.

Then today . . . with the pretty mommy and the crippled kid . . .

have you told them, Devin? Did they help you work it out?"

"They don't know anything."

The wind gusted. I could hear it at his end, too . . . as if he

were outside. "I wonder if I can believe you."

"You can. You absolutely can." Looking down at the pictures.

Tattoo Man with his hand on Linda Gray's ass. Tattoo Man

Joy land

253

helping her aim her rifle at the Shootin' Gallery.

Lane: Let's see your best Annie Oakley, Annie.

Fred: A crack shot!

Tattoo Man in his fishtop cap and dark glasses and sandy

blond goatee. You could see the bird tattoo on his hand because

the rawhide gloves had stayed in his back pocket until he and

Linda Gray were in Horror House. Until he had her in the dark.

"I wonder," he said again. "You were in that big old house for

a long time this afternoon, Devin. Were you talking about the

pictures the Cook girl brought, or were you just fucking her?

Maybe it was both. Mommy's a tasty piece, all right."

"They don't know anything," I repeated. I was speaking low

and fixing my gaze on the closed parlor doors. I kept expecting

them to open and to see Mrs. S . standing there in her nightgown, her face ghostly with cream. "Neither do I. Not that I could prove."

"Probably not, but it would only be a matter of time. You

can't unring the bell. Do you know that old saying?"

"Sure, sure." I didn't, but at that moment I would have agreed

with him if he'd declared that Bobby Rydell (a yearly performer

at Joyland) was president.

"Here's what you're going to do. You're going to come to

Joyland, and we'll talk this out, face to face. Man to man."

"Why would I do that? That would be pretty crazy, if you're

who I-"

"Oh, you know I am ." He sounded impatient. "And I know

that if you went to the police, they'd find out I came onboard at

Joyland only a month or so after Linda Gray was killed. Then

they'd put me with the Wellman show and Southern Star Amusements, and there goes the ballgame."

"So why don't I call them right now?"

254

STEPHEN K I N G

"Do you know where I am?" Anger was creeping into his

voice. N a-venom. "Do you know where I am right now, you

nosy little sonofabitch ?"

"Joyland, probably. In admin."

"Not at all. I'm at the shopping center on Beach Row. The

one where the rich bitches go to buy their macrobiotics. Rich

bitches like your girlfriend."

A cold finger began to trace its course-its very slow coursedown the length of my spine from the nape of my neck to the crack of my ass. I said nothing.

"There's a pay phone outside the drugstore. Not a booth, but

that's okay because it isn't raining yet. Just windy. That's where

I am. I can see your girlfriend's house from where I'm standing.

There's a light on in the kitchen-probably the one she leaves

on all night-but the rest of the house is dark. I could hang up

this phone and be there in sixty seconds."

"There's a burglar alarm!" I didn't know if there was or not.

He laughed. "At this point, do you think I give a shit? It won't

stop me from cutting her throat. But first I'll make her watch

me do it to the little cripple."

You won't rape her, though, I thought. You wouldn't even if

there was time. I don't think you can.

I came close to saying it, but didn't. As scared as I was, I

knew that goading him right now would be a very bad idea.

"You were so nice to them today," I said stupidly. "Flowers . . .

prizes . . . the rides . . . "

"Yeah, all the rube shit. Tell me about the car that came popping out of the funhouse shy. What was that about?"

"I don't know."

"I think you do. Maybe we'll discuss it. At Joyland. I know

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255

your Ford, Jonesy. It's got the flickery left headlight and the

cute little pinwheel on the antenna. If you don't want me in

that house cutting throats, you're going to get in it right now,

and you're going to drive down Beach Row to Joyland."

�'1-"

"Shut up when I'm talking to you. When you pass the shopping center, you'll see me standing by one of the park trucks.

I'll give you four minutes to get here from the time I hang up

the phone. If I don't see you, I'll kill the woman and the kid.

Understand?"

"I. 0 0 "

"Do you understand?"

"Yes!"

'Til follow you to the park. Don't worry about the gate; it's

already open."

"So you'll either kill me or them. I get to choose. Is that it?"

"Kill you?" He sounded honestly surprised. ''I'm not going

to kill you, Devin. That would only make my position worse.

No, I'm going to do a fade. It won't be the first time, and it

probably won't be the last. What I want is to talk. I want to

know how you got onto me."

"I could tell you that over the phone."

He laughed. "And spoil your chance to overpower me and

be Howie the Hero again? First the little girl, then E ddie Parks,

and the pretty mommy and her crippled-up brat for the exciting

climax. How could you pass that up?" He stopped laughing.

"Four minutes."

"I-"

He hung up. I stared down at the glossy photos. I opened

the drawer in the Scrabble table, took out one of the pads, and

STEPHEN K I N G

fumbled for the mechanical pencil Tina Ackerley always insisted

on using to keep score. I wrote: Mrs. S. If you're reading this,

something has happened to me. I know who killed Linda Gray.

Others, too.

I wrote his name in capital letters.

Then I ran for the door.

•

My Ford's starter spun and sputtered and did not catch. Then it

began to slow. All summer I'd been telling myself ! had to get a

new battery, and all summer I'd found other things to spend

my money on.

My father's voice: You're flooding it, Devin.

I took my foot off the gas and sat there in the dark. Time

seemed to be racing, racing. Part of me wanted to run back

inside and call the police. I couldn't call Annie because I didn't

have her fucking phone number, and given her famous father,

it would be unlisted. Did he know that? Probably not, but he

had the luck of the devil. As brazen as he was, the murdering

son of a bitch should have been caught three or four times already, but hadn't been. Because he had the luck of the devil.

She'll hear him breaking in and she'll shoot him.

Only the guns were in the safe, she'd said so. Even if she got

one, she'd probably find the bastard holding his straight-razor

to Mike's throat when she confronted him.

I turned the key again, and with my foot off the accelerator

and the carb full of gas, my Ford started up at once. I backed

down the driveway and turned toward J oyland. The circular

red neon of the Spin and the blue neon swoops of the Thunderball stood out against low, fast-running clouds. Those two rides were always lit on stormy nights, partly as a beacon for ships at

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257

sea, partly to warn away any low-flying small aircraft bound for

the Parish County Airport.

Beach Row was deserted. Sheets of sand blew across it with

every gust of wind, some of those gusts strong enough to shake

my car. Dunelets were already starting to build up on the macadam. In my headlights, they looked like skeleton fingers.

When I passed the shopping center, I saw a single figure

standing in the middle of the parking lot next to one of the

Joyland maintenance trucks. He raised a hand to me as I went

past and gave a single solemn wave.

The big Victorian on the beach side came next. There was a

light on in the kitchen. I thought it was the fluorescent over the

sink. I remembered Annie coming into the room with her sweater

in her hand. Her tanned stomach. The bra almost the same color

as her jeans. Would you like to go upstairs with me, Devin?

Lights bloomed in my rearview mirror and pulled up close.

He was using his brights and I couldn't see the vehicle behind

them, but I didn't have to. I knew it was the maintenance truck,

just as I knew he had been lying when he said he wasn't going

to kill me. The note I'd left for Mrs. Shoplaw would still be there

in the morning. She would read it, and the name I had written

there. The question was how long it would take her to believe it.

He was such a charmer, him with his rhyming patter, winning

smile, and cocked derby lid. Why, all the women loved Lane

Hardy.

•

The gates were open, as promised. I drove through them and

tried to park in front of the now-shuttered Shootin' Gallery. He

gave his horn a brief blip and flashed his lights: Drive on. When

I got to the Spin, he flashed his lights again. I turned off my

zs8

STEPHEN K I N G

Ford, very aware that I might never start it again. The hoister's

red neon cast a blood-colored light over the dashboard, the

seats, my own skin.

The truck's headlights went out. I heard the door open and

shut. And I heard the wind blowing through the Spin's strutstonight that sound was a harpy's screech. There was a steady, almost syncopated rattling sound, as well. The wheel was shaking

on its tree-thick axle.

The Gray girl's killer-and DeeDee Mowbray's, and Claudine

Sharp's, and Darlene Stamnacher's-walked to my car and tapped

on the window with the barrel of a pistol. With his other hand he

made a beckoning gesture. I opened the door and got out.

"You said you weren't going to kill me." It sounded as weak

as my legs felt.

Lane smiled his charming smile. "Well . . . we'll see which way

the flow's gonna go. Won't we?"

Tonight his derby was cocked to the left and pulled down

tight so it wouldn't fly off. His hair, let loose from its workday

ponytail, blew around his neck. The wind gusted and the Spin

gave an unhappy screech. The red glow of the neon flickered

across his face as it shook.

"Don't worry about the hoister," he said. "If it was solid it

might blow over, but the wind shoots right through the struts.

You've got other things to worry about. Tell me about the funhouse car. That's what I really want to know. How'd you do that? Was it some kind of remote gadget? I'm very interested

in those things. They're the wave of the future, that's what I

think."

"There was no gadget."

He didn't seem to hear me. "Also what was the point? Was it

Joyland

259

supposed to flush me out? If it was, you didn't need to bother. I

was already flushed."

"She did it," I said. I didn't know if that was strictly true, but

I had no intention of bringing Mike into this conversation.

"Linda Gray. Didn't you see her?"

The smile died. "Is that the best you can manage? The old

ghost-in-the-funhouse story? You'll have to do a little better

than that."

So he hadn't seen her any more than I had. But I think he

knew there was something. I'll never know for sure, but I think

that was why he offered to go after Milo. He hadn't wanted us

anywhere near Horror House.

"Oh, she was there. I saw her headband. Remember me

looking in? It was under the seat."

He lashed out so suddenly I didn't even have a chance to get

my hand up. The barrel of the gun slammed across my forehead, opening a gash. I saw stars. Then blood poured into my eyes and I saw only that. I staggered back against the rail beside

the ramp leading to the Spin and gripped it to keep from falling

down. I swiped at my face with the sleeve of my slicker.

"I don't know why you'd bother trying to spook me with a

campfire story at this late date," he said, "and I don't appreciate

it. You know about the headband because there was a picture

of it in the folder your nosy college-cunt girlfriend brought you."

He smiled. There was nothing charming about this one; it was

all teeth. "Don't kid a kidder, kiddo."

"But . . . you didn't see the folder." The answer to that one was

a simple deduction even with my head ringing. "Fred saw it.

And told you. Didn't he?"

"Yep. On Monday. We were having lunch together in his

z6o

STEPHEN K I N G

office. He said that you and the college cunt were playing Hardy

Boys, although he didn't put it quite that way. He thought it

was sort of cute. I didn't, because I'd seen you stripping off

Eddie Parks's gloves after he had his heart attack. That's when I

knew you were playing Hardy Boys. That folder . . . Fred said the

cunt had pages of notes. I knew it was only a matter of time

before she put me with Wellman's and Southern Star."

I had an alarming picture of Lane Hardy riding the train to

Annandale with a straight razor in his pocket. "Erin doesn't

know anything."

"Oh, relax. Do you think I'm going after her? Apply some

strain and use your brain. And take a little stroll while you do it.

Up the ramp, champ. You and I are going for a ride. Up there

where the air is rare."

I started to ask him if he was crazy, but that would have been

sort of a stupid question at this late date, wouldn't it?

"What have you got to grin about, Jonesy?"

"Nothing," I said. "You don't really want to go up with the

wind blowing like this, do you?" But the Spin's engine was running. I hadn't been aware of it over the wind, the surf, and the eerie scream of the ride itself, but now that I was listening,

I heard it: a steady rumble. Almost a purr. Something fairly

obvious came to me: he was probably planning to turn the gun

on himself after he finished with me. Maybe you think that

should have occurred to me sooner, because crazy people have

a way of doing that-you read about it in the paper all the time.

Maybe you'd be right. But I was under a lot of stress.

"Old Carolina's safe as houses," he said. ''I'd go up in her if

the wind was blowing sixty instead of just thirty. It blew at least

that hard when Carla skimmed past the coast two years ago,

and she was just fine."

Joy land

261

"How are you going to put it in gear if we're both in the car?"

"Get in and see. Or. . . " He lifted the gun. "Or I can shoot

you right here. I'm good with it either way."

I walked up the ramp, opened the door of the car currently

sitting at the loading station, and started to climb in.

"No, no, no," he said. "You want to be on the outside. Better

view. Stand aside, Clyde. And put your hands in your pockets."

Lane sidled past me, the gun leveled. More blood was trickling into my eyes and down my cheeks, but I didn't dare take a hand from my slicker pocket to wipe it off. I could see how

white his finger was on the trigger of the pistol. He sat down on

the inside of the car.

"Now you."

I got in. I didn't see any choice.

"And close the door, that's what it's there for."

"You sound like Dr. Seuss," I said.

He grinned. "Flattery will get you nowhere. Close the door

or I'll put a bullet in your knee. You think anyone will hear it

over this wind? I don't."

I closed the door. When I looked at him again, he had the

pistol in one hand and a square metal gadget in the other. It had

a stubby antenna. "Told you, I love these gadgets. This one's your

basic garage door-opener with a couple of small modifications.

Sends a radio signal. Showed it to Mr. Easterbrook this spring,

told him it was the perfect thing for wheel maintenance when

there wasn't a greenie or a gazoonie around to run the groundside controls. He said I couldn't use it because it hasn't been safety-approved by the state commission. Cautious old sonofabitch. I was going to patent it. Too late now, I guess. Take it."

I took it. It was a garage door opener. A Genie. My dad had

one almost exactly like it.

z6z

STEPHEN K I N G

"See the button with the up arrow?"

"Yes."

"Push it."

I put my thumb on the button, but didn't push it. The wind

was strong down here; how much stronger up there, where the

air was rare? We're flying! Mike had shouted.

"Push it or take one in the knee, Jonesy."

I pushed the button. The Spin's motor geared down at once,

and our car began to rise.

"Now throw it over the side."

"What?"

"Throw it over the side or you get one in the knee and you'll

never two-step again. I'll give you a three-count. One . . . t-"

I threw his controller over the side. The wheel rose and rose

into the windy night. To my right I could see the waves pounding

in, their crests marked by foam so white it looked phosphorescent. On the left, the land was dark and sleeping. Not a single set of headlights moved on Beach Row. The wind gusted. My

blood-sticky hair flew back from my forehead in clumps. The

car rocked. Lane threw himself forward, then back, making the

car rock more . . . but the gun, now pointed at my side, never

wavered. Red neon skimmed lines along the barrel.

He shouted, "Not so much like a grandma ride tonight, is it,

Jonesy?"

It sure wasn't. Tonight the staid old Carolina Spin was terrifying. As we reached the top, a savage gust shook the wheel so hard I heard our car rattling on the steel supports that held it.

Lane's derby flew off into the night.

"Shit! Well, there's always another one."

Lane, how are we going to get off? The question rose behind

joyland

my lips, but I didn't ask. I was too afraid he'd tell me we weren't,

that if the storm didn't blow the Spin over and if the power

didn't go out, we'd still be going around and around when Fred

got here in the morning. Two dead men on Joyland's chumphoister. Which made my next move rather obvious.

Lane was smiling. "You want to try for the gun, don't you? I

can see it in your eyes. Well, it's like Dirty Harry said in that

movie-you have to ask yourself if you feel lucky."

We were going down now, the car still rocking but not quite

so much. I decided I didn't feel lucky at all.

"How many have you killed, Lane?"

"None of your fucking business. And since I have the gun,

I think I should get to ask the questions. How long have you

known? Quite a while, right? At least since the college cunt

showed you the pictures. You just held off so the cripple could

get his day at the park. Your mistake, Jonesy. A rube's mistake."

"I only figured it out tonight," I said.

"Liar, liar, pants on fire."

We swept past the ramp and started up again. I thought,

He's probably going to shoot me when the car's at the top.

Then he'll either shoot himself or push me out, slide over; and

jump onto the ramp when the car comes back down. Take his

chances on not breaking a leg or a collarbone. I was betting on

the murder-suicide scenario, but not until his curiosity was

satisfied.

I said, "Call me stupid if you want, but don't call me a liar. I

kept looking at the pictures, and I kept seeing something in

them, something familiar, but until tonight I couldn't quite figure

out what it was. It was the hat. You were wearing a fishtop

baseball cap in the photos, not a derby, but it was tilted one way

STEPHEN K I N G

when you and the Gray girl were at the Whirly Cups, and the

other when you were at the Shootin' Gallery. I looked at the rest,

the ones where the two of you are only in the background, and

saw the same thing. Back and forth, back and forth. You do it all

the time. You don't even think about it."

"That's all? A fucking tilted cap?"

"No."

We were reaching the top for the second time, but I thought

I was good for at least one more turn. He wanted to hear this.

Then the rain started, a hard squall that turned on like a shower

spigot. At least it'll wash the blood off my face, I thought. When

I looked at him, I saw that wasn't all it was washing off.

"One day I saw you with your hat off and I thought your hair

was showing the first strands of white." I was almost yelling to

be heard over the wind and the rush of the rain. It was coming

sideways, hitting us in the face. "Yesterday I saw you wiping the

back of your neck. I thought it was dirt. Then tonight, after I

got the thing about the cap, I started thinking about the fake

bird tattoo. Erin saw how the sweat made it run. I guess the

cops missed that."

I could see my car and the maintenance truck, growing larger

as the Spin neared the bottom of its circle for the second time.

Beyond them, something large-a wind-loosened swatch of

canvas, maybe-was blowing up Joyland Avenue.

"It wasn't dirt you were wiping off, it was dye. It was running, just like the tattoo ran. Like it's running now. It's all over your neck. It wasn't strands of white hair I saw, it was strands of

blond."

He wiped his neck and looked at the black smear on his

palm. I almost went for him then, but he raised the gun and

]oyland

z6s

all at once I was looking into a black eye. It was small but terrible.

"I used to be blond," he said, "but under the black I'm mostly

gray now. I've lived a stressful life, Jonesy." He smiled ruefully,

as though this were some sad joke we were both in on.

We were going up again, and I had just a moment to think

that the thing I'd seen blowing up the midway-what I'd taken

for a big square of loose canvas-could have been a car with its

headlights out. It was crazy to hope, but I hoped, anyway.

The rain slashed at us. My slicker rippled. Lane's hair flew

like a ragged flag. I hoped I could keep him from pulling the

trigger for at least one more spin. Maybe two? Possible but not

probable.

"Once I let myself think of you as Linda Gray's killer-and it

wasn't easy, Lane, not after the way you took me in and showed

me the ropes-I could see past the hat and sunglasses and facehair. I could see you. You weren't working here-"

"I was running a forklift in a warehouse in Florence." He

wrinkled his nose. "Rube work. I hated it."

"You were working in Florence, you met Linda Gray in Florence, but you knew all about Joyland over here in NC, didn't you? I don't know if you're carny-from-carny, but you've never

been able to stay away from the shows. And when you suggested

a little road trip, she went along with it."

"I was her secret boyfriend. I told her I had to be. Because I

was older." He smiled. "She bought it. They all do. You'd be

surprised how much the young ones will buy."

You sickfuck, I thought. You sick, sickfuck.

"You brought her to Heaven's Bay, you stayed at a motel, and

then you killed her here at Joyland even though you must have

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STEPHEN K I N G

known about the Hollywood Girls running around with their

cameras. Bold as brass. That was part of the kick, wasn't it?

Sure it was. You did it on a ride full of conies-"

"Rubes," he said. The hardest gust yet shook the Spin, but

he seemed not to feel it. Of course, he was on the inside of the

wheel where things were a little calmer. "Call em what they

are. They're just rubes, all of them. They see nothing. It's like

their eyes are connected to their assholes instead of their brains.

Everything goes right through."

"You get off on the risk, don't you? That's why you came back

and hired on."

"Not even a month later." His smile widened. "All this time

I've been right under their noses. And you know what? I've

been . . . you know, good . . . ever since that night in the funhouse.

All the bad stuff was behind me. I could have gone on being

good. I like it here. I was building a life. I had my gadget, and I

was going to patent it."

"Oh, I think sooner or later you would have done it again."

We were back at the top. The wind and rain pelted us. I was

shivering. My clothes were soaked; Lane's cheeks were dark

with hair-dye. It ran down his skin in tendrils. His mind is like

that, I thought. On the inside, where he never smiles.

"No. I was cured. I have to do you, Jonesy, but only because

you stuck your nose in where it doesn't belong. It's too bad,

because I liked you. I really did."

I thought he was telling the truth, which made what was

happening even more horrible.

We were going back down. The world below was windy and

rain-soaked. There had been no car with its headlights out,

only a blowing piece of canvas that for a moment looked like

joyland

that to my yearning mind. The cavalry wasn't coming. Thinking

it was would only get me killed. I had to do this myself, and the

only chance I had was to make him mad. Really mad.

"You get off on risk, but you don't get off on rape, do you? If

you did, you would have taken them to some isolated place.

I think what your secret girlfriends have between their legs

scares you limp. What do you do later? Lie in bed and jack off

thinking about how brave you are, killing defenseless girls?"

"Shut up."

"You can fascinate them, but you can't fuck them ." The wind

shouted; the car rocked. I was going to die and at that moment

I didn't give shit one. I didn't know how angry I was making

him, but I was angry enough for both of us. "What happened to

make you this way? Did your mother put a clothespin on your

peepee when you went weewee in the corner? Did Uncle Stan

make you give him a blowjob? Or was it-"

"Shut up!" He rose into a crouch, gripping the safety bar in

one hand and pointing the gun at me with the other. A stroke of

lightning lit him up: staring eyes, lank hair, working mouth.

And the gun. "Shut your dirty mou-"

"DEVIN, DUCK!"

I didn't think about it, I just did it. There was a whipcrack

report, an almost liquid sound in the blowing night. The bullet

must have gone right past me, but I didn't hear it or feel it, the

way characters do in books. The car we were in swept past the

loading point and I saw Annie Ross standing on the ramp with a

rifle in her hands. The van was behind her. Her hair was blowing

around her bone-white face.

We started up again. I looked at Lane. He was frozen in his

crouch, his mouth ajar. Black dye ran down his cheeks. His eyes

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S T E P H E N K I N G

were rolled up so only the bottom half of the irises showed.

Most of his nose was gone. One nostril hung down by his upper

lip, but the rest of it was just a red ruin surrounding a black

hole the size of a dime.

He sat down on the seat, hard. Several of his front teeth rattled out of his mouth when he did. I plucked the gun from his hand and tossed it over the side. What I was feeling right then

was . . . nothing. Except in some very deep part of me, where I

had begun to realize this might not be my night to die, after all.

"Oh," he said. Then he said "Ah." Then he slumped forward,

chin on chest. He looked like a man considering his options,

and very carefully.

There was more lightning as the car reached the top. It illuminated my seatmate in a stutter of blue fire. The wind blew and the Spin moaned in protest. We were coming down again.

From below, almost lost in the storm: "Dev, how do I stop it?"

I first thought of telling her to look for the remote control

gadget, but in the storm she could hunt for half an hour and

still not find it. Even if she did, it might be broken or lying

shorted out in a puddle. Besides, there was a better way.

"Go to the motor!" I shouted. "Look for the red button! RED

B UTTON, ANNIE! It's the emergency stop!"

I swept past her, registering the same jeans and sweater she'd

worn earlier, both now soaked and plastered to her. No jacket,

no hat. She had come in a hurry, and I knew who had sent her.

How much simpler it would have been if Mike had focused on

Lane at the start. But Rozzie never had, even though she'd known

him for years, and I was to find out later that Mike never focused on Lane Hardy at all.

I was going back up again. Beside me, Lane's soaking hair

Joy land

z6g

was dripping black rain into his lap. "Wait until I come back

down!"

"What?"

I didn't bother trying again; the wind would have drowned it

out. I could only hope she wouldn't hammer on the red button

while I was at the top of the ride. As the car rose into the worst

of the storm the lightning flashed again, and this time there

was an accompanying crack of thunder. As if it had roused

him-perhaps it had-Lane lifted his head and looked at me.

Tried to look at me; his eyes had come back level in their sockets,

but were now pointing in opposite directions. That terrible

image has never left my mind, and still comes to me at the

oddest times: going through turnpike tollbooths, drinking a

cup of coffee in the morning with the CNN anchors baying bad

news, getting up to piss at three AM, which some poet or other

has rightly dubbed the Hour of the Wolf.

He opened his mouth and blood poured out. He made a:

grinding insectile sound, like a cicada burrowing into a tree. A

spasm shook him. His feet tap-danced briefly on the steel floor

of the car. They stilled, and his head dropped forward again.

Be dead, I thought. Please be dead this time.

As the Spin started down again, a bolt of lightning struck the

Thunderball; I saw the tracks light up briefly. I thought, That

could have been me. The hardest gust of wind yet struck the

car. I held on for dear life. Lane flopped like a big doll.

I looked down at Annie-her white face staring up, her eyes

squinted against the rain. She was inside the rail, standing next

to the motor. So far, so good. I put my hands around my mouth.

"The red button!"

"I see it!"

270

STEPHEN K I N G

"Wait until I tell you!"

The ground was coming up. I grabbed the bar. When the

late (at least I hoped he was) Lane Hardy was at the control

stick, the Spin always came to an easy halt, the cars up top

swaying gently. I had no idea what an emergency stop would be

like, but I was going to find out.

"Now, Annie! Push it now!"

It was a good thing I was holding on. My car stopped dead

about ten feet from the unloading point and still five feet above

the ground. The car tilted. Lane was thrown forward, his head

and torso flopping over the bar. Without thinking, I grabbed

his shirt and pulled him back. One of his hands flopped into my

lap and I flung it away with a grunt of disgust.

The bar wouldn't unlock, so I had to wriggle out from beneath it.

"Be careful, Dev!" Annie was standing beside the car, holding

up her hands, as if to catch me. She had propped the rifle she'd

used to end Hardy's life against the motor housing.

"Step back," I said, and threw one leg over the side of the

car. More lightning flashed. The wind howled and the Spin

howled back. I got hold of a strut and swung out. My hands

slipped on the wet metal and I dropped. I went to my knees. A

moment later she was pulling me to my feet.

"Are you all right?"

I wasn't, though. The world was swimming, and I was on the

edge of a faint. I lowered my head, gripped my legs just above

the knees, and began taking deep breaths. For a moment it

could have gone either way, but then things began to solidify. I

stood up again, careful not to move too fast.

It was hard to tell with the rain bucketing down, but I was

Joyland

271

pretty sure she was crying. "I had to do it. He was going to kill

you. Wasn't he? Please, Dev, say he was going to kill you. Mike

said he was, and-"

"You can quit worrying about that, believe me. And I wouldn't

have been his first. He's killed four women." I thought of Erin's

speculation about the years when there had been no bodiesnone discovered, at least. "Maybe more. Probably more. We have to call the police. There's a phone in-"

I started to point toward Mysterio's Mirror Mansion, but she

grabbed my arm. "No. You can't. Not yet."

"Annie-"

She thrust her face close to mine, almost kissing distance,

but kissing was the last thing on her mind. "How did I get here?

Am I supposed to tell the police that a ghost showed up in my

son's room in the middle of the night and told him you'd die on

the Ferris wheel if I didn't come? Mike can't be a part of this,

and if you tell me I'm being an overprotective mom, I'll . . . I'II

kill you myself."

"No," I said. "I won't tell you that."

"So how did I get here?"

At first I didn't know. You have to remember that I was still

scared myself. Only scared doesn't cover it. Scared isn't even in

the ballpark. I was in shock. Instead of Mysterio's, I led her to

her van and helped her sit behind the wheel. Then I went

around and got in on the passenger side. By then I had an idea.

It had the virtue of simplicity, and I thought it would fly. I shut

the door and took my wallet out of my hip pocket. I almost

dropped it on the floor when I opened it; I was shaking like

crazy. Inside there were plenty of things to write on, but I had

nothing to write with.

"Please tell me you have a pen or a pencil, Annie."

STEPHEN K I N G

"Maybe in the glove compartment. You 'll have to call the

police, Dev. I have to get back to Mike. If they arrest me for

leaving the scene or something . . . or for murder. . . "

"Nobody's going to arrest you, Annie. You saved my life." I

was pawing through the glove compartment as I talked. There

was an owner's manual, piles of gasoline credit card receipts,

Rolaids, a bag of M&Ms, even a Jehovah's Witnesses pamphlet

asking if I knew where I was going to spend the afterlife, but no

pen or pencil.

"You can't wait . . .in a situation like that . . . that's what I was

always told . . . " Her words came in chunks because her teeth

were chattering. "Just aim . . . and squeeze before you can . . . you

know . . . second-guess yourself. . .it was supposed to go between

his eyes, but . . . the wind . . . I guess the wind . . . "

She shot out a hand and gripped my shoulder hard enough

to hurt. Her eyes were huge.

"Did I hit you, too, Dev? There's a gash in your forehead and

blood on your shirt!"

"You didn't hit me. He pistol-whipped me a little, that's all.

Annie, there's nothing in here to write w-"

But there was: a ballpoint at the very back of the glove compartment. Printed on the barrel, faded but still legible, was LET's GO KROGERING ! I won't say that pen saved Annie and

Mike Ross serious police trouble, but I know it saved them a lot

of questions about what had brought Annie to Joyland on such

a dark and stormy night.

I passed her the pen and a business card from my wallet,

blank side up. Earlier, sitting in my car and terribly afraid that

my failure to buy a new battery was going to get Annie and

Mike killed, I'd thought I could go back into the house and call

Joyland

273

her. . . only I didn't have her number. Now I told her to write it

down. "And below the number, write Call if plans change."

While she did, I started the van's engine and turned the heater

on full blast. She returned the card. I tucked it into my wallet,

shoved the wallet back into my pocket, and tossed the pen into

the glove compartment. I took her in my arms and kissed her

cold cheek. Her trembling didn't stop, but it eased.

"You saved my life," I said. "Now let's make sure nothing

happens to you or Mike because you did. Listen very carefully."

She listened.

•

Six days later, Indian summer came back to Heaven's Bay for a

brief final fling. It was perfect weather for a noon meal at the

end of the Ross boardwalk, only we couldn't go there. Newsmen

and photographers had it staked out. They could do that because,

unlike the two acres surrounding the big green Victorian, the

beach was public property. The story of how Annie had taken

out Lane Hardy (known then and forever after as The Carny

Killer) with one shot had gone nationwide.

Not that the stories were bad. Quite the opposite. The Wilmington paper had led with DAUGHTER OF EVANGELIST BUDDY

ROSS BAGS CARNY KILLER. The New York Post was more succinct: HERO MOM ! It helped that there were file photos from Annie's salad days where she looked not just gorgeous but smoking

hot. Inside View, the most popular of the supermarket tabloids

back then, put out an extra edition. They had unearthed a photo

of Annie at seventeen, taken after a shooting competition at

Camp Perry. Clad in tight jeans, an NRA tee-shirt, and cowboy

boots, she was standing with an antique Purdey shotgun broken

274

STEPHEN K I N G

over one arm and holding up a blue ribbon in her free hand.

Next to the smiling girl was a mug-shot of Lane Hardy at twentyone, after an arrest in San Diego-under his real name, which was Leonard Hopgood-for indecent exposure. The two pix

made a terrific contrast. The headline: BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.

Being a minor hero myself, I got some mention in the North

Carolina papers, but in the tabloids I was hardly mentioned.

Not sexy enough, I guess.

Mike thought having a HERO MOM was cool. Annie loathed

the whole circus and couldn't wait for the press to move on to

the next big thing. She'd gotten all the newspaper coverage she

wanted in the days when she had been the holy man's wild child,

famous for dancing on the bars in various Greenwich Village

dives. So she gave no interviews, and we had our farewell picnic

in the kitchen. There were actually five of us, because Milo was

under the table, hoping for scraps, and Jesus-on the face of

Mike's kite-was propped in the extra chair.

Their bags were in the hall. When the meal was done, I would

drive them to Wilmington International. A private jet, laid on

by Buddy Ross Ministries, Inc., would fly them back to Chicago

and out of my life. The Heaven's Bay police department (not

to mention the North Carolina State Police and maybe even

the FBI) would undoubtedly have more questions for her, and

she'd probably be back at some point to testify before a grand

jury, but she'd be fine. She was the HERO MOM, and thanks to

that promotional pen from Kroger's in the back of the van's

glove compartment, there would never be a photo of Mike in

the Post below a headline reading PSYCHIC SAVIOR!

Our story was simple, and Mike played no part in it. I had

gotten interested in the murder of Linda Gray because of the

legend that her ghost haunted the Joyland funhouse. I had en-

Joy land

275

listed the help of my research-minded friend and summer coworker, Erin Cook. The photographs of Linda Gray and her killer had reminded me of someone, but it wasn't until after

Mike's day at Joyland that the penny dropped. Before I could

call the police, Lane Hardy had called me, threatening to kill

Annie and Mike if I didn't come to Joyland on the double. So

much truth, and only one little lie: I had Annie's phone number

so I could call her if plans for Mike's visit to the park changed.

(I produced the card for the lead detective, who barely glanced

at it. ) I said I called Annie from Mrs. Shoplaw's before leaving

for Joyland, telling her to lock her doors, call the cops, and stay

put. She did lock the doors, but didn't stay put. Nor did she call

the police. She was terrified that if Hardy saw blue flashing

lights, he'd kill me. So she'd taken one of the guns from the

safe and followed Lane with her headlights off, hoping to surprise him. Which she did. Thus, HERO MOM.

"How's your father taking all this, Dev?" Annie asked.

"Aside from saying he'd come to Chicago and wash your cars

for life, if you wanted?" She laughed, but my father had actually

said that. "He's fine. I'm heading back to New Hampshire next

month. We'll have Thanksgiving together. Fred asked me to

stay on until then, help him get the park buttoned up, and I

agreed. I can still use the money."

"For school?"

"Yeah. I guess I'll go back for the spring semester. Dad's

sending me an application."

"Good. That's where you need to be, not painting rides and

replacing lightbulbs in an amusement park."

"You'll really come to see us in Chicago, right?" Mike asked.

"Before I get too sick?"

Annie stirred uneasily, but said nothing.

S T E P H E N K I N G

"I have to," I said, and pointed to the kite. "How else am I

going to return that? You said it was just a loan."

"Maybe you'll get to meet my grandpa. Other than being

crazy about Jesus, he's pretty cool." He gave his mother a sideways glance. "I think so, anyway. He's got this great electric train set in his basement."

I said, "Your grandfather may not want to see me, Mike. I

almost got your mother in a whole peck of trouble."

"He'll know you didn't mean to. It wasn't your fault that you

worked with that guy." Mike's face grew troubled. He put down

his sandwich, picked up a napkin, and coughed into it. "Mr.

Hardy seemed really nice. He took us on the rides."

A lot of girls thought he was really nice, too, I thought. "You

never had a . . . a vibe about him?"

Mike shook his head and coughed some more. "No. I liked

him. And I thought he liked me."

I thought of Lane on the Carolina Spin, calling Mike a crippled brat.

Annie put a hand on Mike's wand of a neck and said, "Some

people hide their real faces, han. Sometimes you can tell when

they're wearing masks, but not always. Even people with powerful intuitions can get fooled."

I had come for lunch, and to take them to the airport, and to

say goodbye, but I had another reason, as well. "I want to ask you

something, Mike. It's about the ghost who woke you up and told

you I was in trouble at the park. Is that okay? Will it upset you?"

"No, but it's not like on TY. There wasn't any white see-through

thing floating around and going whooo-ooo. I just woke up . . . and

the ghost was there. Sitting on my bed like a real person."

"I wish you wouldn't talk about this," Annie said. "Maybe it's

not upsetting him, but it's sure as hell upsetting me."

Joyland

"I just have one more question, and then I'll let it go."

"Fine." She began to clear the table.

Tuesday we had taken Mike to Joyland. Not long after midnight on Wednesday morning, Annie had shot Lane Hardy on the Carolina Spin, ending his life and saving mine. The next

day had been taken up by police interviews and dodging reporters. Then, on Thursday afternoon, Fred Dean had come to see me, and his visit had nothing to do with Lane Hardy's death.

Except I thought it did.

"Here's what I want to know, Mike. Was it the girl from the

funhouse? Was she the one who came and sat on your bed?"

Mike's eyes went wide. "Gosh, no! She's gone. When they

go, I don't think they ever come back. It was a guy."

•

In 1991, shortly after his sixty-third birthday, my father suffered

a fairly serious heart attack. He spent a week in Portsmouth

General Hospital and was then sent home, with stern warnings

about watching his diet, losing twenty pounds, and cutting out

the evening cigar. He was one of those rare fellows who actually

followed the doctor's orders, and at this writing he's eighty-five

and, except for a bad hip and dimming eyesight, still good to go.

In 1973, things were different. According to my new research

assistant (Coogle Chrome), the average stay back then was two

weeks-the first in ICU, the second on the Cardiac Recovery

floor. Eddie Parks must have done okay in ICU, because while

Mike was touring Joyland on that Tuesday, Eddie was being

moved downstairs. That was when he had the second heart attack.

He died in the elevator.

•

STEPHEN K I N G

"What did he say to you?" I asked Mike.

"That I had to wake up my mom and make her go to the park

right away, or a bad man was going to kill you."

Had this warning come while I was still on the phone with

Lane, in Mrs. Shoplaw's parlor? It couldn't have come much

later, or Annie wouldn't have made it in time. I asked, but Mike

didn't know. As soon as the ghost went-that was the word Mike

used; it didn't disappear, didn't walk out the door or use the

window, it just went-he had thumbed the intercom beside his

bed. When Annie answered his buzz, he'd started screaming.

"That's enough," Annie said, in a tone that brooked no refusal. She was standing by the sink with her hands on her hips.

"I don't mind, Mom." Cough-cough. "Really." Cough-coughcough.

"She's right," I said. "It's enough."

Did Eddie appear to Mike because I saved the bad-tempered

old geezer's life? It's hard to know anything about the motivations

of those who've Gone On (Rozzie's phrase, the caps always implied by lifted and upturned palms), but I doubt it. His reprieve only lasted a week, after all, and he sure didn't spend those last

few days in the Caribbean, being waited on by topless honeys.

But . . .

I had come to visit him, and except maybe for Fred Dean, I

was the only one who did. I even brought him a picture of his

ex-wife. Sure, he'd called her a miserable scolding backbiting

cunt, and maybe she was, but at least I'd made the effort. In

the end, so had he. For whatever reason.

As we drove to the airport, Mike leaned forward from the

back seat and said, "You want to know something funny, Dev?

He never once called you by name. He just called you the kiddo.

I guess he figured I'd know who he meant."

Joy land

279

I guessed so, too.

Eddie fucking Parks.

•

Those are things that happened once upon a time and long ago,

in a magical year when oil sold for eleven dollars a barrel. The

year I got my damn heart broke. The year I lost my virginity.

The year I saved a nice little girl from choking and a fairly nasty

old man from dying of a heart attack (the first one, at least) .

The year a madman almost killed m e o n a Ferris wheel. The

year I wanted to see a ghost and didn't . . . although I guess at

least one of them saw me. That was also the year I learned to

talk a secret language, and how to dance the Hokey Pokey in a

dog costume. The year I discovered that there are worse things

than losing the girl.

The year I was twenty-one, and still a greenie.

The world has given me a good life since then, I won't deny

it, but sometimes I hate the world, anyway. Dick Cheney, that

apologist for waterboarding and for too long chief preacher in

the Holy Church of Whatever It Takes, got a brand-new heart

while I was writing this-how about that? He lives on; other

people have died. Talented ones like Clarence Clemons. Smart

ones like Steve Jobs. Decent ones like my old friend Tom Kennedy. Mostly you get used to it. You pretty much have to. As W. H. Auden pointed out, the Reaper takes the rolling in money,

the screamingly funny, and those who are very well hung. But

that isn't where Auden starts his list. He starts with the innocent young.

Which brings us to Mike .

•

z8o

S T E P H E N KING

I took a seedy off-campus apartment when I went back to school

for the spring semester. One chilly night in late March, as I was

cooking a stir-fry for myself and this girl I was just about crazy

for, the phone rang. I answered it in my usual jokey way: 'Wormwood Arms, Devin Jones, proprietor."

"Dev? It's Annie Ross."

"Annie! Wow! Hold on a second, just let me turn down the

radio."

Jennifer-the girl I was just about crazy for-gave me an

inquiring look. I shot her a wink and a smile and picked up the

phone. 'Til be there two days after spring break starts, and you

can tell him that's a promise. I'm going to buy my ticket next

wee-"

"Dev. Stop. Stop."

I picked up on the dull sorrow in her voice and all my happiness at hearing from her collapsed into dread. I put my forehead against the wall and closed my eyes. What I really wanted to close was the ear with the phone pressed to it.

"Mike died last evening, Dev. He . . . " Her voice wavered,

then steadied. "He spiked a fever two days ago, and the doctor

said we ought to get him into the hospital. Just to be safe, he

said. He seemed to be getting better yesterday. Coughing less.

Sitting up and watching TV. Talking about some big basketball

tournament. Then . . . last night . . . " She stopped. I could hear

the rasp of her breath as she tried to get herself under control.

I was also trying, but the tears had started. They were warm,

almost hot.

"It was very sudden," she said. Then, so softly I could barely

hear: "My heart is breaking."

There was a hand on my shoulder. Jennifer's. I covered it

Joyland

with my own. I wondered who was in Chicago to put a hand on

Annie's shoulder.

"Is your father there?"

"On a crusade. In Phoenix. He's coming tomorrow."

"Your brothers?"

"George is here now. Phil's supposed to arrive on the last

flight from Miami. George and I are at the . . . place. The place

where they . . . I can't watch it happen. Even though it's what he

wanted." She was crying hard now. I had no idea what she was

talking about.

"Annie, what can I do? Anything. Anything at all."

She told me.

•

Let's end on a sunny day in April of 1974. Let's end on that short

stretch of North Carolina beach that lies between the town of

Heaven's Bay and Joyland, an amusement park that would close

its doors two years later; the big parks finally drove it to bankruptcy in spite of all Fred Dean's and Brenda Rafferty's efforts to save it. Let's end with a pretty woman in faded jeans and a young

man in a University of New Hampshire sweatshirt. The young

man is holding something in one hand. Lying at the end of the

boardwalk with his snout on one paw is a Jack Russell terrier

who seems to have lost all his former bounce. On the picnic

table, where the woman once served fruit smoothies, there's a

ceramic urn. It looks sort of like a vase missing its bouquet.

We're not quite ending where we began, but close enough.

Close enough.

•

z8z

STEPHEN K I N G

''I'm on the outs with my father again," Annie said, "and this

time there's no grandson to hold us together. When he got back

from his damn crusade and found out I'd had Mike cremated,

he was furious." She smiled wanly. "If he hadn't stayed for that

last goddam revival, he might have talked me out of it. Probably

would have."

"But it's what Mike wanted."

"Strange request for a kid, isn't it? But yes, he was very clear.

And we both know why."

Yes. We did. The last good time always comes, and when you

see the darkness creeping toward you, you hold on to what was

bright and good. You hold on for dear life.

"Did you even ask your dad . . . ?"

"To come? Actually I did. It's what Mike would have wanted.

Daddy refused to participate in what he called 'a pagan ceremony.' And I'm glad." She took my hand. "This is for us, Dev.

Because we were here when he was happy."

I raised her hand to my lips, kissed it, gave it a brief squeeze,

then let it go. "He saved my life as much as you did, you know.

If he hadn't woken you up . . .if he'd even hesitated-"

"I know."

"Eddie couldn't have done anything for me without Mike. I

don't see ghosts, or hear them. Mike was the medium."

"This is hard," she said. "Just . . . so hard to let him go. Even

the little bit that's left."

"Are you sure you want to go through with it?"

"Yes. While I still can."

She took the urn from the picnic table. Milo raised his head

to look at it, then lowered it back to his paw. I don't know if he

understood Mike's remains were inside, but he knew Mike was

gone, all right; that he knew damned well.

Joy land

I held out the Jesus kite with the back to her. There, as per

Mike's instructions, I had taped a small pocket, big enough to

hold maybe half a cup of fine gray ash. I held it open while

Annie tipped the urn. When the pocket was full, she planted

the urn in the sand between her feet and held out her hands. I

gave her the reel of twine and turned toward J oyland, where

the Carolina Spin dominated the horizon.

I'm flying, he'd said that day, lifting his arms over his head.

No braces to hold him down then, and none now. I believe that

Mike was a lot wiser than his Christ-minded grandfather. Wiser

than all of us, maybe. Was there ever a crippled kid who didn't

want to fly, just once?

I looked at Annie. She nodded that she was ready. I lifted

the kite and let it go. It rose at once on a brisk, chilly breeze off

the ocean. We followed its ascent with our eyes.

"You," she said, and held out her hands. "This part is for you,

Dev. He said so."

I took the twine, feeling the pull as the kite, now alive, rose

above us, nodding back and forth against the blue. Annie picked

up the urn and carried it down the sandy slope. I guess she

dumped it there at the edge of the ocean, but I was watching

the kite, and once I saw the thin gray streamer of ash running

away from it, carried into the sky on the breeze, I let the string

go free. I watched the untethered kite go up, and up, and up.

Mike would have wanted to see how high it would go before it

disappeared, and I did, too.

I wanted to see that, too.

August 24, 2012

T W E

E N D

I=

A U THOR ' S NOTE

Carny purists (I'm sure there are such) are even now preparing

to write and inform me, with varying degrees of outrage, that

much of what I call "the Talk" doesn't exist: that rubes were

never called conies, for instance, and that pretty girls were

never called points. Such purists would be correct, but they

can save their letters and emails. Folks, that's why they call it

fiction.

And anyway, most of the terms here really are carnival lingo,

an argot both rich and humorous. The Ferris wheel was known

as the chump-hoister or the simp-hoister; kiddie rides were

known as zamp rides; leaving town in a hurry was indeed called

burning the lot. These are just a few examples. I am indebted to

The Dictionary of Carny, Circus, Sideshow & Vaudeville Lingo,

by Wayne N . Keyser. It's posted on the internet. You can go

there and check out a thousand other terms. Maybe more. You

can also order his book, On the Midway.

Charles Ardai edited this book. Thanks, man.

Stephen King

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