Stephen King - Joyland

“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.”

“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 to 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 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.”

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.

I called Annie Ross later that morning, using the same phone Lane had used to call the ambulance. I told her 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.