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 HANDICAPPED. 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 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 just 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 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 of your...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."
"I'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 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 I."
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."
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?"
"I'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 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 wor
k there just call it the hoister." Some of them--Eddie, for instance--actually 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. 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.
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 fortunetelling 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."
"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 if I 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-come-lately you are to this part of the world. The only articles anybody 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, Jonesy, 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 reset 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."
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!"
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?
"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 MBAs in their pockets."