Stephen King - Joyland

“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.”

“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.

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-to-last 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.”

“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 sea-breeze. 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.”

“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.