by Stephen King
Was it all right? I had asked. And she had replied, Do it again and I'll tell you.
"Hey, freshie." From right behind me, making me jump. "Want to play some music tonight?"
At first I didn't recognize him. The lanky, long-haired teenager who had recruited me to play rhythm guitar in Chrome Roses was now bald on top, gray on the sides, and sporting a gut that hung over his tight-cinched trousers. I stared at him, my little paper bowl of Jell-O drooping in one hand.
"Norm? Norm Irving?"
He grinned widely enough to flash gold teeth at the back of his mouth. I dropped my Jell-O and hugged him. He laughed and hugged me back. We told each other that we looked great. We told each other it had been too long. And of course we talked about the old days. Norm said he'd gotten Hattie Greer pregnant and married her. It only lasted a few years, but after a period of post-divorce acrimony, they had decided to put the past aside and be friends. Their daughter, Denise, was now pushing forty, and owned her own hair salon in Westbrook.
"Free and clear, too, bank all paid off. I got two boys by my second wife, but between you and me, Deenie's my darlin. Hattie's got one by her second husband." He leaned closer, smiling grimly. "In and out of jail. Kid's not worth the powder to blow him to hell."
"What about Kenny and Paul?"
Kenny Laughlin, our bass player, had also married his Chrome Roses sweetie, and they were still married. "He owns an insurance agency in Lewiston. Doin good. He's here tonight. You didn't see him?"
"No." Although maybe I had, and just hadn't recognized him. And maybe he hadn't recognized me.
"As for Paul Bouchard . . ." Norm shook his head. "He was climbing in Acadia State Park and took a fall. Lived two days, then passed away. 1990, that was. Probably a mercy. Docs said he would have been paralyzed from the neck down, if he'd lived. What they call a quad."
For a moment I imagined our old drummer pulling through. Lying in bed with a machine to help him breathe and watching Pastor Danny on TV. I shook the thought away. "What about Astrid? Do you know where she is?"
"Downeast somewhere. Castine? Rockland?" He shook his head. "Don't remember. I know she dropped out of college to get married, and her folks were pissed at her. Probably double pissed when she got divorced. I think she runs a restaurant, one of those lobster shack things, but don't quote me. You guys had it bad, didn't you?"
"Yes," I said. "We sure did."
He nodded. "Young love. Nothin on earth like it. Not sure I'd want to see her these days, because the old Soda Burger was steppin dynamite back then. Steppin nitro. Wasn't she?"
"Yes," I said, thinking of the ruined cabin next to Skytop. And the iron rod. How it glowed red when the lightning struck it. "Yes, she was."
For a moment we said nothing, then he clapped me on the shoulder. "Anyway, what do you think? Gonna gig with us? You better say yes, because the band's gonna be fuckin lame if you say no."
"You're in the band? The Castle Rock All-Stars? Kenny too?"
"Sure. We don't play much anymore--not like the old days--but no way we could turn this one down."
"Did my brother Terry put you up to this?"
"He might've thought you'd come up for a tune or two, but no. He just wanted a band from the old days, and me and Kenny are about the only ones from back then who are still alive, still hanging around this shit-all neck of the woods, and still playing. Our rhythm guy's a carpenter from Lisbon Falls, and last Wednesday he fell off a roof and broke both legs."
"Ouch," I said.
"His ouch is my gain," Norm Irving said. "We were gonna play as a trio, which, as you know, sucks the bird. Three out of four Chrome Roses ain't bad, considering we played our last gig at the PAL hop up-the-city over thirty-five years ago. So come on. Reunion tour, and all that."
"Norm, I don't have a guitar."
"I got three in the truck," he said. "You can take your pick. Just remember, we still start with 'Hang On Sloopy.'"
*
We trooped onstage to enthusiastic, alcohol-fueled applause. Kenny Laughlin, as thin as ever but now sporting several less than lovely moles on his face, looked up from adjusting the strap on his Fender P-Bass and dapped me. I wasn't nervous, as I had been the first time I stood on this stage with a guitar in my hands, but I did feel as if I were having a particularly vivid dream.
Norm adjusted his mike one-handed, just as he always had, and addressed the audience waiting to bust a few of their old-time rock-and-roll moves. "It says Castle Rock All-Stars on the drumkit, folks, but tonight we've got a special guest on rhythm, and for the next couple of hours, we're Chrome Roses again. Kick it in, Jamie."
I thought of kissing Astrid under the fire escape. I thought of Norm's rusty microbus and of his father, Cicero, sitting on the busted-down sofa in his old trailer, rolling dope in Zig-Zag papers and telling me if I wanted to get my license first crack out of the basket, I'd better cut my fucking hair. I thought of playing teen dances at the Auburn RolloDrome, and how we never stopped when the inevitable fights broke out between the kids from Edward Little and Lisbon High, or those from Lewiston High and St. Dom's; we just turned it up louder. I thought of how life had been before I realized I was a frog in a pot.
I shouted: "One, two, you-know-what-to-do!"
We kicked it in.
Key of E.
All that shit starts in E.
*
In the seventies, we might have played until one-o'clock curfew, but this was no longer the seventies, and by eleven o'clock we were dripping sweat and exhausted. That was okay; on Terry's orders, the beer and wine had been whisked away at ten, and with no more firewater, the crowd thinned out fast. Most of those remaining had resumed their seats, content to listen but too exhausted to dance.
"You're a hell of a lot better than you used to be, freshie," Norm said as we racked our instruments.
"So are you." Which was as much a lie as you look great. At fourteen I never would have believed the day would come when I'd be a better rock guitarist than Norman Irving, but that day had come. He gave me a smile to say he knew what was better left unspoken. Kenny joined us, and the three remaining members of Chrome Roses huddled in a hug we would have called "faggot stuff" when we were in high school.
Terry joined us, along with Terry Jr., his eldest son. My brother looked tired, but he also looked supremely happy. "Listen, Con and his friend took a bunch of folks who were too loaded to drive back to Castle Rock. Will you haul a bunch of Harlow folks in the King Cab, if I lend you Terry Jr. to copilot?"
I said I'd be happy to, and after a final so-long to Norm and Kenny (accompanied by those weird limp-fish handshakes peculiar to musicians), I gathered up my load of drunkies and set off. For awhile my nephew gave me instructions I hardly needed, even in the dark, but by the time I offloaded the last two or three couples out on Stackpole Road, he had ceased. I looked over and saw the kid was leaning against the passenger window, fast asleep. I woke him when we got back to the home place on Methodist Road. He kissed my cheek (which touched me more deeply than he could know), and stumbled into the house, where he would probably sleep until noon on Sunday, as adolescents are prone to do. I wondered if he would do so in my old room, and decided probably not; he'd be quartered in the new addition. Time changes everything, and maybe that's okay.
I hung the King Cab's keys on the rack in the hall, headed out to my rental car, and spied lights in the barn. I walked over, peeped in, and there was Terry. He had changed out of his party duds and into a coverall. His newest toy, a Chevy SS from the late sixties or early seventies, gleamed under the hanging lights like a blue jewel. He was Simonizing it.
He looked up when I came in. "Can't sleep just yet. Too much excitement. I'll buff on this baby for awhile, then toddle off to bed."
I ran my hand up the hood. "It's beautiful."
"Now it is, but you should have seen it when I picked it up at auction down in Portsmouth. Looked like junk to most of the buyers there, but I thought I could bring it back."
&n
bsp; "Revive it," I said. Not really talking to Terry.
He gave me a thoughtful look, then shrugged. "You could call it that, I guess, and once I drop a new tranny in er, it'll be most of the way there. Not much like the old Road Rockets, is it?"
I laughed. "You remember when the first one went ass over teapot at the Speedway?"
Terry rolled his eyes. "First lap. Fucking Duane Robichaud. I think he got his license at Sears and Roebuck."
"Is he still around?"
"Nah, dead ten years. Ten at least. Brain cancer. By the time they found it, poor bastard never had a chance."
Suppose I were a neurosurgeon, Jacobs had said that day at The Latches. Suppose I told you your chances of dying were twenty-five percent. Wouldn't you still go ahead?
"That's tough."
He nodded. "Remember what we used to say when we were kids? 'What's tough? Life. What's Life? A magazine. How much does it cost? Fifteen cents. I only got a dime. That's tough. What's tough? Life.' Around and around it went."
"I remember. Back then we thought it was a joke." I hesitated. "Do you think of Claire very much, Terry?"
He tossed his polishing rag into a bucket and went to the sink to wash his hands. There had been nothing but one faucet back in the day--just cold--but now there were two. He turned them on, grabbed a cake of Lava, and began to soap up. All the way to the elbows, just as Dad had taught us.
"Every damn day. I think of Andy, too, but less often. That was what you call the natural order of things, I guess, although he might have lived a little longer if he hadn't been so fond of his knife and fork. What happened to Claire, though . . . that was just fucking wrong. You know?"
"Yes."
He leaned against the hood of the SS, looking at nothing in particular. "Remember how beautiful she was?" He shook his head slowly. "Our beautiful sister. That bastard--that beast--cheated her out of all the years she still had coming, then took the coward's way out." He swiped a hand across his face. "We shouldn't talk about Claire. It makes me emotional."
It made me emotional, too. Claire, who had been just enough older for me to see her as a kind of backup Mom. Claire, our beautiful sister, who never hurt anyone.
We walked across the dooryard, listening to the crickets sing in the high grass. They always sing the loudest in late August and early September, as if they know summer is ending.
Terry stopped at the foot of the steps, and I saw his eyes were still wet. He'd had a good day, but a long and stressful one, just the same. I had been wrong to bring up Claire at the end of it.
"Stay the night, little bro. The couch is a pullout."
"No," I said. "I promised Connie I'd have breakfast with him and his partner at the Inn in the morning."
"Partner," he said, and rolled his eyes. "Right."
"Now, now, Terence. Don't go all twentieth century on me. These days they could get married in a dozen states, if they wanted. Including this one."
"Oh, I don't mind that, who marries who ain't none of mine, but partner ain't what that guy is, no matter what Connie may think. I know a freeloader when I see one. Christ, he's half Con's age."
That made me think of Brianna, who was less than half my age.
I gave Terry a hug and a peck on the cheek. "I'll see you tomorrow. Lunch, before I head back to the airport."
"You got it. And Jamie? You played the spots off that guitar tonight."
I thanked him and walked to my car. I was opening the door when he spoke my name. I turned back.
"Do you remember Reverend Jacobs's last Sunday in the pulpit? When he gave what we used to call the Terrible Sermon?"
"Yes," I said. "Very well."
"We were all so shocked at the time, and we chalked it up to the grief he was feeling over the loss of his wife and son. But you know what? When I think of Claire, I think I'd like to find him and shake his hand." Terry's arms--brawny, like our father's--were folded over his coverall. "Because what I think now is that he was brave to say those things. What I think now is that every word was right."
*
Terry might have gotten rich, but he was still thrifty, and we ate catered leftovers for Sunday lunch. For most of it, I held Cara Lynne on my lap, feeding her tiny bits of things. When it was time for me to go and I handed her back to Dawn, the baby held her arms out to me.
"No, honey," I said, kissing that incredibly smooth forehead. "I have to go."
She only had a dozen words or so--one of them was now my name--but I've read that their understanding is much greater, and she knew what I was telling her. The little face wrinkled up, she held her arms out again, and tears filled those blue eyes that were the same shade as my mother's and my dead sister's.
"Go quick," Con said, "or you'll have to adopt her."
So I went. Back to my rental car, back to Portland Jetport, back to Denver International, back to Nederland. But I kept thinking of those chubby outstretched arms, and those tear-filled Morton Blue eyes. She was just a year old, but she had wanted me to stay longer. That's how you know you're home, I think, no matter how far you've gone from it or how long you've been in some other place.
Home is where they want you to stay longer.
*
During March of 2014, after most of the ski-bunnies had left Vail, Aspen, Steamboat Springs, and our own Eldora Mountain--came news of a monster blizzard approaching. Our piece of the famed Polar Vortex had dropped four feet on Greeley already.
I hung in at Wolfjaw for most of the day, helping Hugh and Mookie batten down the studios and the big house. I stayed until the wind began to pick up and the first flurries started to scatter down from the leaden skies. Then Georgia came out, dressed in a barncoat, earmuffs, and a Wolfjaw Ranch gimme cap. She was in full scold-mode.
"You send those guys home," she told Hugh. "Unless you want them stuck side o' the road somewhere until June."
"Like the Donner Party," I said. "But I'd never eat Mookie. Too tough."
"Go on, you two, scat," Hugh said. "Just double-check the studio doors on your way down to the road."
We did so, and checked the barn for good measure. I even took the time to dole out apple slices, although Bartleby, my favorite, had died three years ago. By the time I dropped Mookie off at his rooming house, it was snowing hard and the wind was blowing thirty or more. Downtown Nederland was deserted, the traffic lights swinging and drifts already piling up in the doorways of shops that had closed early for the day.
"Get home fast!" Mookie shouted to be heard over the wind. He had knotted his bandanna over his mouth and nose, making him look like an elderly outlaw.
I did as he said, the wind shouldering at my car like a bad-tempered bully the whole way. It pushed me even harder as I made my way up the walk, clutching my collar to my face, which was clean-shaven and unprepared for what Colorado winter felt like when it decided to get serious. I had to use both hands to yank the foyer door shut once I was inside.
I checked my mailbox and saw a single letter. I pulled it out, and one glance was enough to tell me who it was from. Jacobs's handwriting had grown shaky and spidery, but was still recognizable. The only surprise was the return address: General Delivery, Motton, Maine. Not quite my hometown, but right next door. Too close for comfort, in my opinion.
I tapped the envelope against my palm and almost obeyed my first impulse, which was to rip it to pieces, open the door, and scatter the shreds to the wind. I still imagine doing that--every day, sometimes every hour--and wonder what might have changed if I'd done so. Instead, I turned it over. There, written in the same unsteady hand, was a single sentence: You will want to read this.
I didn't, but tore it open, anyway. I pulled out a single sheet of paper wrapped around a smaller envelope. Written on the face of this second envelope was Read my letter before opening this one. So I did.
God help me, so I did.
March 4, 2014
Dear Jamie,
I have obtained both of your e-mail addresses, business and personal (as you
know, I have my methods), but I am an old man now, with an old man's ways, and believe that important personal business should be conducted by letter and, when possible, by hand. As you can see, "by hand" is still possible for me, although for how much longer I do not know. I had a minor stroke in the fall of 2012, and another one, rather more serious, last summer. I hope you will excuse the execrable state of my handwriting.
I have another reason for reaching out to you by letter. It's all too easy to delete e-mails, a bit more difficult to destroy a letter someone has labored over with pen and ink. I will add a line to the back of the envelope to increase the chances of your reading this. If I get no reply, I will have to send an emissary, and that I do not want to do, as time is short.
An emissary. I didn't like the sound of that.
When we last met, I asked you to serve as my assistant. You refused. I am asking again, and this time I am confident you will agree. You must agree, as my work is now in its final stage. All that remains is one last experiment. I am sure it will succeed, but I dare not proceed alone. I need help, and, just as important, I need a witness. Believe me when I say that you have a stake in this experiment almost as great as my own.
You think you will say no, but I know you quite well, my old friend, and I believe that after you read the enclosed letter, you will change your mind.
All best regards,
Charles D. Jacobs
The wind howled; the sound of snow hitting the panes of the door was like fine sand. The road to Boulder would be closed soon, if it wasn't already. I held the smaller envelope, thinking something happened. I didn't want to know what, but it felt too late to turn back now. I sat on the stairs leading to my apartment and opened the enclosure as a particularly savage gust of wind shook the building. The handwriting was as shaky as Jacobs's, sloping down the page, but I knew it at once. Of course I did; I had received love letters, some of them quite hot, in this same hand. My stomach went soft, and for a moment I thought I might pass out. I lowered my head, the hand not holding the letter covering my eyes and squeezing my temples. When the faintness passed, I was almost sorry.
