C H A P T E R 1 0 4 страница

'Isn't it obvious? ' He grinned. 'I stayed here. '

'You kept the lighthouse, ' Ben said. Bill jerked around and looked at him, startled, but Ben was staring hard at Mike and didn't see. 'That doesn't make me feel so good, Mike. In fact, it makes me feel sort of like a bugturd. ' 'Amen, ' Beverly said.

Mike shook his head patiently. 'You have nothing to feel guilty about, any of you. Do. you think it was my choice to stay here, any more than it was your choice — any of you — to leave? Hell, we were kids. For one reason or another your parents moved away, and you guys were part of the baggage they took along. My parents stayed. And was it really their decision

— any of them) I don't think so. How was it decided who would go and who would stay? Was it luck? Fate? It? Some Other? I don't know. But it wasn't us guys. So quit it. ' 'You're not. . . not bitter? ' Eddie asked timidly.

'I've been too busy to be bitter, ' Mike said. 'I've spent a long time watching and waiting. . . I was watching and waiting even before I knew it, I think, but for the last five years or so I've been on what you might call red alert. Since the turn of the year I've been keeping a journal.

And when a man writes, he thinks harder. . . or maybe just more specifically. And one of the things I've spent time writing and thinking about is the nature of It. It changes; we know that. I think It also manipulates, and leaves Its marks on people just by the nature of what It is — the way you can smell a skunk on you even after a long bath, if it lets go its bag of scent too near you. The way a grasshopper will spit bug juice into your palm if you catch it in your hand. '

Mike slowly unbuttoned his shirt and spread it wide. They could all see the pinkish scrawls of scar across the smooth brown skin of his chest between the nipples. 'The way claws leave scars, ' he said.

'The werewolf, ' Richie almost moaned. 'Oh Christ, Big Bill, the werewolf! When we went back to Neibolt Street! '

'What? ' Bill asked. He sounded like a man called out of a dream. 'What, Richie? '

'Don't you remember?

'No. . . do you? '

'I. . . I almost do. . . ' Looking both confused and scared, Richie subsided.

'Are you saying this thing isn't evil? ' Eddie asked Mike abruptly. He was staring at the

scars as if hypnotized. 'That it's just some part of the. . . the natural order? '

'It's no part of a natural order we understand or condone, ' Mike said, rebuttoning his shirt, 'and I see no reason to operate on any other basis than the one we do understand: that It kills, kills children, and that's wrong. Bill understood that before any of us. Do you remember,

Bill? '

'I remember that I wanted to kill It, ' Bill said, and for the first time (and ever after) he heard the pronoun gain proper-noun status in his own voice. 'But I didn't have much of a worldview on the subject, if you see what I mean — I just wanted to kill It because It killed George. '

'And do you still? '

Bill considered this carefully. He looked down at his spread hands on the table and remembered George in his yellow slicker, his hood up, the paper boat with its thin glaze of paraffin in one hand. He looked up at Mike.

'M-M-More than ever, ' he said.

Mike nodded as if this were exactly what he had expected. 'It left Its mark on us. It worked Its will on us, just as It has worked Its will on this whole town, day in and day out, even during those long periods when It is asleep or hibernating or whatever It does between Its more. . . more lively periods. ' Mike raised one finger.

'But if It worked Its will on us, at some point, in some way, we aho worked our will on It. We stopped It before It was done — I know we did. Did we weaken It? Hurt It? Did we, in fact, almost kill It? I think we did. I think we came so close to killing It that we went away thinking we had. '

'But you don't remember that part either, do you? ' Ben asked.

'No. I can remember everything up until August 15th 1958 with almost perfect clarity. But from then until September 4th or so, when school was called in again, everything is a total blank. It isn't murky or hazy; it is just completely gone. With one exception: I seem to remember Bill screaming about something called the dead-lights. '

Bill's arm jerked convulsively. It struck one of his empty beer bottles, and the bottle shattered on the floor like a bomb.

'Did you cut yourself? ' Beverly asked. She had half-risen.

'No, ' he said. His voice was harsh and dry. His arms had broken out in gooseflesh. It seemed that his skull had somehow grown; he could feel (the deadlights)

it pressing out against the stretched skin of his face in steady numbing throbs.

'I'll pick up the — '

'No, just sit down. ' He wanted to look at her and couldn't. He couldn't take his eyes off Mike.

'Do you remember the deadlights, Bill? ' Mike asked softly.

'No, ' he said. His mouth felt the way it did when the dentist got a little too enthusiastic with the novocaine.

'You will. '

'I hope to God I don't. '

'You will anyway, ' Mike said. 'But for now. . . no. Not me, either. Do any of you? ' One by one they shook their heads.

'But we did something, ' Mike said quietly. 'At some point we were able to exercise some sort of group will. At some point we achieved some special understanding, whether conscious or unconscious. ' He stirred restlessly. 'God, [ wish Stan was here. I have a feeling that Stan, with his ordered mind, might have had some idea. '

'Maybe he did, ' Beverly said. 'Maybe that's why he killed himself. Maybe he understood that if there was magic, it wouldn't work for grown-ups. '

'I think it could, though, ' Mike said. 'Because there's one other thing we six have in common. I wonder if any of you have realized what that is. ' It was Bill's turn to open his mouth and then shut it again.

'Go on, ' Mike said. 'You know what it is. I can see it on your face. '

'I'm not sure I know, ' Bill replied, 'but I think w-we're all childless. Is that ih-it? ' There was a moment of shocked silence.

'Yeah, ' Mike said. 'That's it. '

'Jesus Christ Almighty! ' Eddie spoke up indignantly. 'What in the world does that have to do with the price of beans in Peru? What gave you the idea that everyone in the world has to have kids? That's nuts! '

'Do you and your wife have children? ' Mike asked.

'If you've been keeping track of us all the way you said, then you know goddam well we don't. But I still say it doesn't mean a damn thing. '

'Have you tried to have children? '

'We don't use birth control, if that's what you mean. ' Eddie spoke with an oddly moving dignity, but his cheeks were flushed. 'It just so happens that my wife is a little. . . Oh hell. She's a lot overweight. We went to see a doctor and she told us my wife might never have kids if she didn't lose some weight. Does that make us criminals? ' 'Take it easy, Eds, ' Richie soothed, and leaned toward him.

'Don't call me Eds and don't you dare pinch my cheek! ' he cried, rounding on Richie. 'You know I hate that! I always hated it! ' Richie recoiled, blinking.

'Beverly? ' Mike asked. 'What about you and Tom? '

'No children, ' she said. 'Also no birth control. Tom wants kids. . . and so do I, of course, ' she added hastily, glancing around at them quickly. Bill thought her eyes seemed overbright, almost the eyes of an actress giving a good performance. 'It just hasn't happened yet. ' 'Have you had those tests? ' Ben asked her.

'Oh yes, of course, ' she said, and uttered a light laugh that was almost a titter. And in one of those leaps of comprehension that sometimes come to people who are gifted with both curiosity and insight, Bill suddenly understood a great deal about Beverly and her husband Tom, alias the Greatest Man in the World. Beverly had gone to have fertility tests. His guess was that the Greatest Man in the World had refused to entertain even for a moment the notion that there might be something wrong with the sperm being manufactured in the Sacred Sacs.

'What about you and your wife, Big Bill? ' Rich asked. 'Been trying? ' They all looked at him curiously. . . because his wife was someone they knew. Audra was by no means the best-known or the best-loved actress in the world, but she was certainly part of the celebrity coinage that had somehow replaced talent as a medium of exchange in the latter half of the twentieth century; there had been a picture of her in People magazine when she cut her hair short, and during a particularly boring stretch in New York (the play she had been planning to do Off Broadway fell through) she had done a week-long stint on Holly wood Squares, over her agent's strenuous objections. She was a stranger whose lovely face was known to them. He thought Beverly looked particularly curious.

'We've been trying off and on for the last six years, ' Bill said. 'For the last eight months or so it's been off, because of the movie we were doing — Attic Room, it's called. '

'You know, we run a little entertainment syndic every day from five-fifteen in the afternoon until five-thirty, ' Richie said. 'Seein' Stars, it's called. They had a feature on that damned movie just last week — Husband and Wife Working Happily Together kind of thing.

They said both of your names and I never made the connection. Funny, isn't it? '

'Very, ' Bill said. 'Anyway, Audra said it would be just our luck if she caught pregnant while we were in preproduction and she had to do ten weeks of strenuous acting and being morning-sick at the same time. But we want kids, yes. And we've tried quite hard. ' 'Had fertility tests? ' Ben asked.

'Uh-huh. Four years ago, in New York. The doctors discovered a very small benign tumor in Audra's womb, and they said it was a lucky thing because, although it wouldn't have prevented her from getting pregnant, it might have caused a tubal pregnancy. She and I are both fertile, though. '

Eddie repeated stubbornly, 'It doesn't prove a goddam thing. ' 'Suggestive, though, ' Ben murmured.

'No little accidents on your front, Ben? ' Bill asked. He was shocked and amused to find that his mouth had very nearly called Ben Haystack instead.

'I've never been married, I've always been careful, and there have been no paternity suits, '

Ben said. 'Beyond that I don't think there's any real way of telling. '

'You want to hear a funny story? ' Richie asked. He was smiling, but htere was no smile in his eyes.

'Sure, ' Bill said. 'You were always good at the funny stuff, Richie. '

'Your face and me own buttocks, boyo, ' Richie said in the Irish Cop's Voice. It was a great Irish Cop's Voice. You've improved out of all measure, Richie, Bill thought. As a kid, you couldn't do an Irish Cop no matter how you busted your brains. Except once. . . or twice. . .

when

(the deadlights) was that?

'Your face and me own buttocks; just keep rememb 'rin that com-pay-ri-son, me foine bucko. '

Ben Hanscom suddenly held his nose and cried in a high quavering boyish voice: 'Beepbeep, Richie! Beep-beep! Beep-beep! '

After a moment, laughing, Eddie held his own nose and joined in. Beverly did the same.

'Awright! Awright! ' Richie cried, laughing himself. 'Awright, I give up! Chrissake! '

'Oh man, ' Eddie said. He collapsed back in his chair, laughing so hard he was almost crying. 'We gotcha that time, Trashmouth. Way to go, Ben. ' Ben was smiling but he looked a little bewildered.

'Beep-beep, ' Bev said, and giggled. 'I forgot all about that. We always used to beep you, Richie. '

'You guys never appreciated true talent, that's all, ' Richie said comfortably. As in the old days, you could knock him off-balance, but he was like one of those inflatable Joe Palooka dolls with sand in the base — he floated upright again almost at once. 'That was one of your little contributions to the Losers' Club, wasn't it, Haystack? '

'Yeah, I guess it was. '

'What a man! ' Richie said in a trembling, awestruck voice and then began to salaam over the table, nearly sticking his nose in his tea-cup each time he went down. 'What a man! Oh chillun, what a man! '

'Beep-beep, Richie, ' Ben said solemnly, and then exploded laughter in a hearty baritone utterly unlike his wavering childhood voice. 'You're the same old roadrunner. '

You guys want to hear this story or not? ' Richie asked. 'I mean, no big deal one way or the other. Beep away if you want to. I can take abuse. I mean, you're looking at a man who once did an interview with Ozzy Osbourne. '

'Tell it, ' Bill said. He glanced over at Mike and saw that Mike looked happier — or more at rest — since the luncheon had begun. Was it because he saw the almost unconscious knittingtogether that was happening, the sort of easy falling — back into old roles that almost never happened when old chums got together? Bill thought so. And he thought, If there are certain preconditions for the belief in magic that makes it possible to use the magic, then maybe those preconditions will inevitably arrange themselves. It was not a very comforting thought.

It made him feel like a man strapped to the nosecone of a guided missile. Beep-beep indeed.

'Well, ' Richie was saying, 'I could make this long and sad or I could give you the Blondie and Dagwood comic-strip version, but I'll settle for something in the middle. The year after I moved out to California I met a girl, and we fell pretty hard for each other. Started living together. She was on the pill at first, but it made her feel sick almost all the time. She talked about getting an IUD, but I wasn't too crazy about that — the first stories about how they might not be completely safe were just starting to come out in the papers.

'We had talked a lot about kids, and had pretty well decided we didn't want them even if we decided to legalize the relationship. Irresponsible to bring kids into such a shitty, dangerous, overpopulated world. . . and blah-blah-blah, babble-babble-babble, let's go out and put a bomb in the men's room of the Bank of America and then come on back to the crashpad and smoke some dope and talk about the difference between Maoism and

Trotskyism, if you see what I mean.

'Or maybe I'm being too hard on both of us. Shit, we were young and reasonably idealistic. The upshot was that I got my wires cut, as the Beverly Hills crowd puts it with their unfailing vulgar chic. The operation went with no problem and I had no adverse aftereffects. There can be, you know. I had a friend whose balls swelled up to roughly the size of the tires on a 1959 Cadillac. I was gonna give him a pair of suspenders and a couple of barrels for his birthday — sort of a designer truss — but they went down before then. '

'All put with your customary tact and dignity, ' Bill remarked, and Beverly began to laugh again.

Richie offered a large, sincere smile. 'Thank you, Bill, for those words of support. The word " fuck" was used two hundred and six times in your last book. I counted. '

'Beep-beep, Trashmouth, ' Bill said solemnly, and they all laughed. Bill found it nearly impossible to believe they had been talking about dead children less than ten minutes ago.

'Press onward, Richie, ' Ben said. 'The hour groweth late. '

'Sandy and I lived together for two and a half years, ' Richie went on. 'Came really close to getting married twice. As things turned out, I guess we saved ourselves a lot of heartache and all that community-property bullshit by keeping it simple. She got an offer to join a corporate law-firm in Washington around the same time I got an offer to come to KLAD as a weekend jock — not much, but a foot in the door. She told me it was her big chance and I had to be the most insensitive male chauvinist oinker in the United States to be dragging my feet, and furthermore she'd had it with California anyway. I told her I also had a chance. So we thrashed it out, and we trashed each other out, and at the end of all the thrashing and trashing Sandy went.

'About a year after that I decided to try and get the vasectomy reversed. No real reason for it, and I knew from the stuff I'd read that the chances were pretty spotty, but I thought what the hell. '

'You were seeing someone steadily then? ' Bill asked.

'No — that's the funny part of it, ' Richie said, frowning. 'I just woke up one day with this. . . I dunno, this hobbyhorse about getting it reversed. '

'You must have been nuts, ' Eddie said. 'General anesthetic instead of a local? Surgery?

Maybe a week in the hospital afterward? '

'Yeah, the doctor told me all of that stuff, ' Richie replied. 'And I told him I wanted to go ahead anyway. I don't know why. The doc asked me if I understood the aftermath of the operation was sure to be painful while the result was only going to be a coin-toss at best. I said I did. He said okay, and I asked him when — my attitude being the sooner the better, you know. So he says hold your horses, son, hold your horses, the first step is to get a sperm sample just to make sure the reversal operation is necessary. I said, " Come on, I had the exam after the vasectomy. It worked. " He told me that sometimes the vasa reconnected spontaneously. " Yo mamma! " I says. " Nobody ever told me that. " He said the chances were very small — infinitesimal, really — but because the operation was so serious, we ought to check it out. So I popped into the men's room with a Frederick's of Hollywood catalogue and jerked off into a Dixie cup — ' 'Beep-beep, Richie, ' Beverly said.

'Yeah, you're right, ' Richie said. 'The part about the Frederick's catalogue is a lie — you never find anything that good in a doctor's office. Anyway, the doc called me three days later and asked me which I wanted first, the good news or the bad news. '" Gimme the good news first, " I said.

'" The good news is the operation won't be necessary, " he said. " The bad news is that anybody you've been to bed with over the last two or three years could hit you with a paternity suit pretty much at will. "

'" Are you saying what I think you're saying? " I asked him.

'" I'm telling you that you aren't shooting blanks and haven't been for quite awhile now, " he said. " Millions of little wigglies in your sperm sample. Your days of going gaily in bareback with no questions asked have temporarily come to an end, Richard.

'I thanked him and hung up. Then I called Sandy in Washington.

'" Rich! " she says to me, ' and Richie's voice suddenly became the voice of this girl Sandy whom none of them had ever met. It was not an imitation or even a likeness, exactly; it was more like an auditory painting. ' " It's great to hear from you! I got married! "

'" Yeah, that's great, " I said. " You should have let me know. I would have sent you a blender. "

'She goes, " Same old Richie, always full of gags. "

'So I said " Sure, same old Richie, always full of gags. By the way, Sandy, you didn't happen to have a kid or anything after you left LA, did you? Or maybe an unscheduled d and c, or something? "

'" That gag isn't so funny, Rich, " she said, and I had a brainwave that she was getting ready to hang up on me, so I told her what happened. She started laughing, only this time it was real hard — she was laughing the way I always used to laugh with you guys, like somebody had told her the world's biggest bellybuster. So when she finally starts slowing down I ask her what in God's name is funny. " It's just so wonderful, " she said. " This time the joke's on you. After all these years the joke is finally on Records Tozier. How many bastards have you sired since I came east, Rich? "

'" I take it that means you still haven't experienced the joys of motherhood? " I ask her.

'" I'm due in July, " she says. " Were there any more questions? "

'" Yeah, " I go. " When did you change your mind about the immorality of bringing children into such a shitty world? "

'" When I finally met a man who wasn't a shit, " she answers, and hangs up. '

Bill began to laugh. He laughed until tears rolled down his cheeks. 'Yeah, ' Richie said. 'I think she cut it off quick so she'd really get the last word, but she could have hung on the line all day. I know when I've been aced. I went back to the doctor a week later and asked him if he could be a little clearer on the odds against that sort of spontaneous regeneration. He said he'd talked with some of his colleagues about the matter. It turned out that in the three-year period 1980-82, the California branch of the AMA logged twenty-three reports of spontaneous regeneration. Six of those turned out to be simply botched operations. Six others were either hoaxes or cons — guys looking to take a bite out of some doctor's bank account.

So. . . eleven real ones in three years. '

'Eleven out of how many? ' Beverly asked.

'Twenty-eight thousand six hundred and eighteen, ' Richie said calmly.

Silence around the table.

'So I went and beat Irish Sweepstakes odds, ' Richie said, 'and still no kid to show for it.

That give you any good chucks, Eds? '

Eddie began stubbornly: 'It still doesn't prove — '

'No, ' Bill said, 'it doesn't prove a thing. But it certainly suggests a link. The question is, what do we do now? Have you thought about that, Mike? '

'I've thought about it, sure, ' Mike said, 'but it was impossible to decide anything until you all got together again and talked, the way you've been doing. There was no way I could predict how this reunion would go until it actually happened. ' He paused for a long time, looking thoughtfully at them.

'I've got one idea, ' he said, 'but before I tell you what it is, I think we have to agree on whether or not we have business to do here. Do we want to try again to do what we tried to do once before? Do we want to try to kill It again? Or do we just divide the check up six ways and go back to what we were doing? '

'It seems as if — ' Beverly began, but Mike shook his head at her. He wasn't done.

'You have to understand that our chances of success are impossible to predict. I know they're not good, just as I know they would have been a little better if Stan was here, too. Still not real good, but better. With Stan gone, the circle we made that day is broken. I don't really think we can destroy It_for even send It away for a little while, as we did before, with a broken circle. I think It will kill us, one by one by one, and probably in some extremely horrible ways. As children we made a complete circle in some way I don't understand even now. I think that, if we agree to go ahead, we'll have to try to form a smaller circle. I don't know if that can be done. I believe it might be possible to think we'd done it, only to discover — when it was too late — well. . . that it was too late. '

Mike regarded them again, eyes sunken and tired in his brown face. 'So I think we need to take a vote. Stay and try it again, or go home. Those are the choices. I got you here on the strength of an old promise I wasn't even sure you'd remember, but I can't hold you here on the strength of that promise. The results of that would be worse and more of it. '

He looked at Bill, and in that moment Bill understood what was coming. He dreaded it, was helpless to stop it, and then, with the same feeling of relief he imagined must come to a suicide when he takes his hands off the wheel of the speeding car and simply uses them to cover his eyes, he accepted it. Mike had gotten them here, Mike had laid it all neatly out for them. . . and now he was relinquishing the mantle of leadership. He intended that mantle to go back to the person who had worn it in 1958. 'What do you say, Big Bill? Call the question. '

'Before I do, ' Bill said, 'd-does everyone understand the question? You were going to say something, Bev. '

She shook her head.

'All right; I g-guess the question is, do we stay and fight or do we forget the whole thing?

Those in favor of staying? '

No one at the table moved at all for perhaps five seconds, and Bill was reminded of auctions he had attended where the price on an item suddenly soared into the stratosphere and those who didn't want to bid anymore almost literally played statues; one was afraid to scratch an itch or wave a fly off the end of one's nose for fear the auctioneer would take it for another five grand or twenty-five.

Bill thought of Georgie, Georgie who had meant no one any harm, who had only wanted to get out of the house after being cooped up all week, Georgie with his color high, his newspaper boat in one hand, snapping the buckles of his yellow rainslicker with die other, Georgie thanking him. . . and then bending over and kissing Bill's fever-heated cheek:

Thanks, Bill. It's a neat boat.

He felt the old rage rise in him, but he was older now and his perspective was wider. It wasn't just Georgie now. A horrid slew of names marched through his head: Betty Ripsom, found frozen into the ground, Cheryl Lamonica, fished out of the Kenduskeag, Matthew Clements, torn from his tricycle, Veronica Grogan, nine years old and found in a sewer, Steven Johnson, Lisa Albrecht, all the others, and God only knew how many of the missing.

He raised his hand slowly and said, 'Let's kill It. This time let's really kill It. '

For a moment his hand hung there alone, like the hand of the only kid in class who knows the right answer, the one all the other kids hate. Then Richie sighed, raised his own hand, and said: 'What the hell. It can't be any worse than interviewing Ozzy Osbourne. '

Beverly raised her hand. Her color was back now, but in hectic patches that flared along her cheekbones. She looked both tremendously excited and scared to death.

Mike raised his hand.

Ben raised his.

Eddie Kaspbrak sat back in his chair, looking as if he wished he could actually melt into it and thus disappear. His face, thin and delicate-looking, was miserably afraid as he looked first right and then left and then back to Bill. For a moment Bill felt sure Eddie was simply going to push back his chair, rise, and bolt from the room without looking back. Then he raised one hand in the air and grasped his aspirator tightly in the other.

'Way to go, Eds, ' Richie said. 'We're really gonna have ourselves some chucks this time, I bet. '

'Beep-beep, Richie, ' Eddie said in a wavering voice.

The Losers Get Dessert

'So what's your one idea, Mike? ' Bill asked. The mood had been broken by Rose, the hostess, who had come in with a dish of fortune cookies. She looked around at the six people who had their hands in the air with a carefully polite lack of curiosity. They lowered them hastily, and no one said anything until Rose was gone again.

'It's simple enough, ' Mike said, 'but it might be pretty damn dangerous, too. '

'Spill it, 'Richie said.

'I think we ought to split up for the rest of the day. I think each of us ought to go back to the place in Derry he or she remembers best. . . outside the Barrens, that is. I don't think any of us should go there — not yet. Think of it as a series of walking-tours, if you like. ' 'What's the purpose, Mike? ' Ben asked.

'I'm not entirely sure. You have to understand that I'm going pretty much on intuition here

— '

'But this has got a good beat and you can dance to it, ' Richie said.

The others smiled. Mike did not; he nodded instead. 'That's as good a way of putting it as any. Going on intuition is like picking up a beat and dancing to it. Using intuition is a hard thing for grownups to do, and that's the main reason I think it might be the right thing for us to do. Kids, after all, operate on it about eighty percent of the time, at least until they're fourteen or so. '

'You're talking about plugging back into the situation, ' Eddie said.

'I suppose so. Anyway, that's my idea. If no specific place to go comes to you, just follow your feet and see where they take you. Then we meet tonight, at the library, and talk over what happened. '

'If anything happens, ' Ben said.

'Oh, I think things will. '

'What sort of things? ' Bill asked.

Mike shook his head. 'I have no idea. I think whatever happens is apt to be unpleasant. I think it's even possible that one of us may not turn up at the library tonight. No reason for thinking that. . . except that intuition thing again. ' Silence greeted this.

'Why alone? ' Beverly asked finally. 'If we're supposed to do this as a group, why do you want us to start alone, Mike? Especially if the risk really turns out to be as high as you think it might be? '

'I think I can answer that, ' Bill said. 'Go ahead, Bill, ' Mike said.

⇐ Предыдущая 33 34 35 36 373839 40 41 42 Следующая ⇒