by Stephen King
"The Yellow Card Man's the personification of the obdurate past," Al said. "You know that, don't you?"
Yes, I knew that.
"He thought you'd die from the beating, but you didn't. He thought you'd die of the infections, but you didn't. Now he's walling off those memories--the vital ones--because he knows it's his last hope of stopping you."
"How can he? He's dead."
Al shook his head. "No, that's me."
"Who is he? What is he? And how can he come back to life? He cut his own throat and the card turned black! I saw it!"
"Dunno, buddy. All I know is that he can't stop you if you refuse to stop. You have to get at those memories."
"Help me, then!" I shouted, and grabbed the hard claw of his hand. "Tell me the guy's name! Is it Chapman? Manson? Both of those ring a bell, but neither one seems right. You got me into this, so help me!"
At that point in the dream Al opens his mouth to do just that, but the Yellow Card Man intervenes. If we're on Main Street, he comes out of the greenfront or the Kennebec Fruit. If it's the cemetery, he rises from an open grave like a George Romero zombie. If in the diner, the door bursts open. The card he wears in the hatband of his fedora is so black it looks like a rectangular hole in the world. He's dead and decomposing. His ancient overcoat is splotched with mold. His eye-sockets are writhing balls of worms.
"He can't tell you nothing because it's double-money day!" the Yellow Card Man who is now the Black Card Man screams.
I turn back to Al, only Al has become a skeleton with a cigarette clamped in its teeth, and I wake up, sweating. I reach for the memories but the memories aren't there.
Deke brought me the newspaper stories about the impending Kennedy visit, hoping they would jog something loose. They didn't. Once, while I was lying on the couch (I was just coming out of one of my sudden sleeps), I heard the two of them arguing yet again about calling the police. Deke said an anonymous tip would be disregarded and one that came with a name attached would get all of us in trouble.
"I don't care!" Sadie shouted. "I know you think he's nuts, but what if he's right? How are you going to feel if Kennedy goes back to Washington from Dallas in a box?"
"If you bring the police in, they'll focus on Jake, sweetie. And according to you, he killed a man up in New England before he came here."
Sadie, Sadie, I wish you hadn't told him that.
She stopped arguing, but she didn't give up. Sometimes she tried to surprise it out of me, the way you can supposedly surprise someone out of the hiccups. It didn't work.
"What am I going to do with you?" she asked sadly.
"I don't know."
"Try to come at it some other way. Try to sneak up on it."
"I have. I think the guy was in the Army or the Marines." I rubbed at the back of my head, where the ache was starting again. "But it might have been the Navy. Shit, Christy, I don't know."
"Sadie, Jake. I'm Sadie."
"Isn't that what I said?"
She shook her head and tried to smile.
On the twelfth, the Tuesday after Veterans Day, the Morning News ran a long editorial about the impending Kennedy visit and what it meant for the city. "Most residents seem ready to welcome the young and inexperienced president with open arms," the piece said. "Excitement is running high. Of course it doesn't hurt that his pretty and charismatic wife will be along for the ride."
"More dreams about the Yellow Card Man last night?" Sadie asked when she came in. She'd spent the holiday in Jodie, mostly to water her houseplants and to "show the flag," as she put it.
I shook my head. "Honey, you've been here a lot more than you've been in Jodie. What's the status of your job?"
"Miz Ellie put me on part-time. I'm getting by, and when I go with you . . . if we go . . . I guess I'll just have to see what happens."
Her gaze shifted away from me and she busied herself lighting a cigarette. Watching her take too long tamping it on the coffee table and then fiddling with her matches, I realized a dispiriting thing: Sadie was also having her doubts. I'd predicted a peaceful end to the Missile Crisis, I had known Dick Tiger was going down in the fifth . . . but she still had her doubts. And I didn't blame her. If our positions had been reversed, I would have been having mine.
Then she brightened. "But I've got a heck of a good standin, and I bet you can guess who."
I smiled. "Is it . . ." I couldn't get the name. I could see him--the weathered, suntanned face, the cowboy hat, the string tie--but that Tuesday morning I couldn't even get close. My head started to ache in the back, where it had hit the baseboard--but what baseboard, in what house? It was so abysmally fucked up not to know.
Kennedy's coming in ten days and I can't even remember that old guy's fucking name.
"Try, Jake."
"I am," I said. "I am, Sadie!"
"Wait a sec. I've got an idea."
She laid her smoldering cigarette in one of the ashtray grooves, got up, went out the front door, closed it behind her. Then she opened it and spoke in a voice that was comically gruff and deep, saying what the old guy said each time he came to visit: "How you doin today, son? Takin any nourishment?"
"Deke," I said. "Deke Simmons. He was married to Miz Mimi, but she died in Mexico. We had a memorial assembly for her."
The headache was gone. Just like that.
Sadie clapped her hands and ran to me. I got a long and lovely kiss.
"See?" she said when she drew back. "You can do this. It's still not too late. What's his name, Jake? What's the crazy bugger's name?"
But I couldn't remember.
On November sixteenth, the Times Herald published the Kennedy motorcade route. It would start at Love Field and end at the Trade Mart, where he would speak to the Dallas Citizens Council and their invited guests. The nominal purpose of his speech was to salute the Graduate Research Center and congratulate Dallas on its economic progress over the last decade, but the Times Herald was happy to inform those who didn't already know that the real reason was pure politics. Texas had gone for Kennedy in 1960, but '64 was looking shaky in spite of having a good old Johnson City boy on the ticket. Cynics still called the vice president "Landslide Lyndon," a reference to his 1948 Senate bid, a decidedly hinky affair he won by eighty-seven votes. That was ancient history, but the nickname's longevity said a lot about the mixed feelings Texans had about him. Kennedy's job--and Jackie's, of course--was to help Landslide Lyndon and Texas governor John Connally fire up the faithful.
"Look at this," Sadie said, tracing a fingertip along the route. "Blocks and blocks of Main Street. Then Houston Street. There are high buildings all along that part. Is the man going to be on Main Street? He just about has to be, don't you think?"
I hardly listened, because I'd seen something else. "Look, Sadie, the motorcade's going to go along Turtle Creek Boulevard!"
Her eyes blazed. "Is that where it's going to happen?"
I shook my head doubtfully. Probably not, but I knew something about Turtle Creek Boulevard, and it had to do with the man I'd come to stop. As I considered this, something floated to the surface.
"He was going to hide the rifle and come back for it later."
"Hide it where?"
"It doesn't matter, because that part already happened. That part's the past." I put my hands over my face because the light in the room was suddenly too bright.
"Stop thinking about it now," she said, and snatched the newspaper story away. "Relax, or you'll get one of your headaches and need one of those pills. They make you all sloppy."
"Yes," I said. "I know."
"You need coffee. Strong coffee."
She went into the kitchen to make it. When she came back, I was snoring. I slept for almost three hours, and might have remained in the Land of Nod even longer, but she shook me awake. "What's the last thing you remember about coming to Dallas?"
"I don't remember it."
"Where did you stay? A hotel? A motor court? A rented room?"
For a moment I had a hazy memo
ry of a courtyard and many windows. A doorman? Maybe. Then it was gone. The headache was cranking up again.
"I don't know. All I remember is crossing the state line on Highway 20 and seeing a sign for barbecue. And that was miles from Dallas."
"I know, but we don't have to go that far, because if you were on 20, you stayed on 20." She glanced at her watch. "It's too late today, but tomorrow we're going for a Sunday drive."
"It probably won't work." But I felt a flicker of hope, just the same.
She stayed the night, and the next morning we left Dallas on what residents called the Honeybee Highway, headed east toward Louisiana. Sadie was at the wheel of my Chevy, which was fine once the jimmied ignition switch had been replaced. Deke had taken care of that. She drove as far as Terrell, then pulled off 20 and turned around in the potholed dirt parking lot of a side-o'-the-road church. Blood of the Redeemer, according to the message board on the fading lawn. Below the name, there was message in white stick-on letters. It was supposed to say HAVE YOU READ THE WORD OF ALMIGHTY GOD TODAY, but some of the letters had fallen off, leaving AVE YOU REA THE WORD OF AL IGHTY GOD TOD Y.
She looked at me with some trepidation. "Can you drive back, honey?"
I was pretty sure I could. It was a straight shot, and the Chevy was an automatic. I wouldn't need to use my stiff left leg at all. The only thing was . . .
"Sadie?" I asked her as I settled behind the wheel for the first time since August and ran the seat as far back as it would go.
"Yes?"
"If I fall asleep, grab the wheel and turn off the key."
She smiled nervously. "Oh, believe me."
I checked for traffic and pulled out. At first I didn't dare go much above forty-five, but it was a Sunday noon, and we had the road pretty much to ourselves. I began to relax.
"Clear your mind, Jake. Don't try to remember anything, just let it happen."
"I wish I had my Sunliner," I said.
"Make believe it is your Sunliner, then, and just let it go where it wants to go."
"Okay, but . . ."
"No buts. It's a beautiful day. You're coming into a new place, and you don't have to worry about Kennedy being assassinated, because that's a long time from now. Years."
Yes, it was a nice day. And no, I didn't fall asleep, although I was plenty tired--I hadn't been out for this long since the beating. My mind kept returning to the little side-o'-the-road church. Very likely a black church. They probably swung the hymns in a way the white folks never would, and read THE WORD OF AL IGHTY GOD with lots of hallelujah and praise Jesus.
We were coming into Dallas now. I made lefts and rights--probably more rights, because my left arm was still weak and turning that way hurt, even with the power steering. Soon I was lost in the side streets.
I'm lost, all right, I thought. I need someone to give me directions the way that kid did in New Orleans. To the Hotel Moonstone.
Only it hadn't been the Moonstone; it had been the Monteleone. And the hotel where I'd stayed when I came to Dallas was . . . it was . . .
For a moment I thought it was going to waft away, as even Sadie's name sometimes still did. But then I saw the doorman, and all those glittering windows looking down on Commerce Street, and it clicked home.
I had stayed at the Adolphus Hotel. Yes. Because it was close to . . .
It wouldn't come. That part was still blocked off.
"Honey? All right?"
"Yes," I said. "Why?"
"You kind of jumped."
"It's my leg. Cramping up a little."
"None of this looks familiar?"
"No," I said. "None of it."
She sighed. "Another idea bites the dust. I guess we better go back. Want me to drive?"
"Maybe you better." I limped around to the passenger seat, thinking Adolphus Hotel. Write that down when you get back to Eden Fallows. So you won't forget.
When we were back in the little three-room efficiency with the ramps, the hospital bed, and the grab-handles on either side of the toilet, Sadie told me I ought to lie down for a little while. "And take one of your pills."
I went into the bedroom, took off my shoes--a slow process--and lay down. I didn't take a pill, though. I wanted to keep my mind clear. I had to keep it clear from now on. Kennedy and Dallas were just five days apart.
You stayed in the Adolphus Hotel because it was close to something. What?
Well, it was close to the motorcade route that had been published in the paper, which narrowed things down to . . . gee, no more than two thousand buildings. Not to mention all the statues, monuments, and walls a putative sniper could hide behind. How many alleys along the route? Dozens. How many overpasses with clear fire lines down to passby-points on West Mockingbird Lane, Lemmon Avenue, Turtle Creek Boulevard? The motorcade was going to travel all of those. How many more on Main Street and Houston Street?
You need to remember either who he is or where he's going to shoot from.
If I got one of those things, I'd get the other. I knew this. But what my mind kept returning to was that church on Route 20 where we'd turned around. Blood of the Redeemer on the Honeybee Highway. Many people saw Kennedy as a redeemer. Certainly Al Templeton had. He--
My eyes widened and I stopped breathing.
In the other room the telephone rang and I heard Sadie answer, keeping her voice pitched low because she thought I was asleep.
THE WORD OF AL IGHTY GOD.
I remembered the day I had seen Sadie's full name with part of it blocked out, so all I could read was "Doris Dun." This was a harmonic of that magnitude. I closed my eyes and visualized the church signboard. Then I visualized putting my hand over IGHTY GOD.
What I was left with was THE WORD OF AL.
Al's notes. I had his notebook!
But where? Where was it?
The bedroom door opened. Sadie looked in. "Jake? Are you asleep?"
"No," I said. "Just lying quiet."
"Did you remember anything?"
"No," I said. "Sorry."
"There's still time."
"Yes. New things are coming back to me every day."
"Honey, that was Deke. There's a bug going around school and he's caught a good case of it. He asked if I could come in tomorrow and Tuesday. Maybe Wednesday, too."
"Go in," I said. "If you don't, he'll try to do it himself. And he's not a young guy anymore." In my mind, four words flashed on and off like bar neon: THE WORD OF AL, THE WORD OF AL, THE WORD OF AL.
She sat down next to me on the bed. "Are you sure?"
"I'll be fine. Plenty of company, too. DAVIN comes in tomorrow, remember." DAVIN was Dallas Area Visiting Nurses. Their main job in my case was to make sure I wasn't raving, which might indicate that my brain was bleeding after all.
"Right. Nine o'clock. It's on the calendar, in case you forget. And Dr. Ellerton--"
"Coming for lunch. I remember."
"Good, Jake. That's good."
"He said he'd bring sandwiches. And milkshakes. Wants to fatten me up."
"You need fattening up."
"Plus therapy on Wednesday. Leg-torture in the morning, arm-torture in the afternoon."
"I don't like leaving you so close to . . . you know."
"If something occurs to me, I'll call you, Sadie."
She took my hand and bent close enough so I could smell her perfume and the faint aroma of tobacco on her breath. "Do you promise?"
"Yes. Of course."
"I'll be back on Wednesday night at the latest. If Deke can't come in on Thursday, the library will just have to stay closed."
"I'll be fine."
She kissed me lightly, started out of the room, then turned back. "I almost hope Deke's right and this whole thing is a delusion. I can't bear the idea that we know and still might not be able to stop it. That we might just be sitting in the living room and watching on television when somebody--"
"I'll remember," I said.
"Will you, Jake?"
"I have to."
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She nodded, but even with the shades drawn, I could read the doubt on her face. "We can still have supper before I go. You close your eyes and let that pill do its work. Get some sleep."
I closed my eyes, sure I wouldn't sleep. And that was okay, because I needed to think about the Word of Al. After a little while I could smell something cooking. It smelled good. When I'd first come out of the hospital, still puking or shitting every ten minutes, all smells had revolted me. Now things were better.
I began to drift. I could see Al sitting across from me in one of the diner booths, his paper cap tilted over his left eyebrow. Photos of smalltown bigwigs looked down at us, but Harry Dunning was no longer on the wall. I had saved him. Perhaps the second time I'd saved him from Vietnam, as well. There was no way to be sure.
Still holding you back, isn't he, buddy? Al asked.
Yes. He still is.
But you're close now.
Not close enough. I have no idea where I put that goddam notebook of yours.
You put it someplace safe. Does that narrow it down any?
I started to say no, then thought: The Word of Al is safe. Safe. Because--
I opened my eyes, and for the first time in what felt like weeks, a big smile creased my face.
It was in a safe deposit box.
The door opened. "Are you hungry? I kept it warm."
"Huh?"
"Jake, you've been asleep for over two hours."
I sat up and swung my legs onto the floor. "Then let's eat."
CHAPTER 27
1
11/17/63 (Sunday)
Sadie wanted to do the dishes after the meal she called supper and I called dinner, but I told her to go on and pack her overnight case instead. It was small and blue, with rounded corners.
"Your knee--"
"My knee can stand up to a few dishes. You need to hit the road now if you want a full night's sleep."
Ten minutes later the dishes were done, my fingertips were pruney, and Sadie stood at the door. With her little bag in her hands and her hair curling around her face, she had never looked prettier to me.
"Jake? Tell me one good thing about the future."
Surprisingly few things came. Cell phones? No. Suicide bombers? Probably not. Melting ice caps? Perhaps another time.
Then I grinned. "I'll give you two for the price of one. The cold war is over and the president is a black man."
She started to smile, then saw I wasn't joking. Her mouth dropped open. "Are you telling me there's a Negro in the White House?"
