Joyland (25 page)

I thanked her and went to the elevator—one of those huge ones big enough to admit a gurney. It was slower than old cold death, which gave me plenty of time to wonder what I was doing here. If Eddie needed a visit from a park employee, it should have been Fred Dean, not me, because Fred was the guy in charge that fall. Yet here I was. They probably wouldn’t let me see him, anyway.

But after checking his chart, the head nurse gave me the okay. “He maybe sleeping, though.”

“Any idea about his—?” I tapped my head.

“Mental function? Well . . . he was able to give us his name.”

That sounded hopeful.

He was indeed asleep. With his eyes shut and that day’s late-arriving sun shining on his face, the idea that he might have been Linda Gray’s date a mere four years ago was even more ludicrous. He looked at least a hundred, maybe a hundred and twenty. I saw I needn’t have brought his gloves, either. Someone had bandaged his hands, probably after treating the psoriasis with something a little more powerful than whatever OTC cream he’d been using on them. Looking at those bulky white mittens made me feel a queer, reluctant pity.

I crossed the room as quietly as I could, and put the gloves in the closet with the clothes he’d been wearing when he was brought in. That left me with the other thing—a photograph that had been pinned to the wall of his cluttered, tobacco-smelling little shack next to a yellowing calendar that was two years out of date. The photo showed Eddie and a plain-faced woman standing in the weedy front yard of an anonymous tract house. Eddie looked about twenty-five. He had his arm around the woman. She was smiling at him. And—wonder of wonders—he was smiling back.

There was a rolling table beside his bed with a plastic pitcher and a glass on it. This I thought rather stupid; with his hands bandaged the way they were, he wasn’t going to be pouring anything for a while. Still, the pitcher could serve one useful purpose. I propped the photo against it so he’d see it when he woke up. With that done, I started for the door.

I was almost there when he spoke in a whispery voice that was a long way from his usual ill-tempered rasp. “Kiddo.”

I returned—not eagerly—to his bedside. There was a chair in the corner, but I had no intention of pulling it over and sitting down. “How you feeling, Eddie?”

“Can’t really say. Hard to breathe. They got me all taped up.”

“I brought you your gloves, but I see they already . . .” I nodded at his bandaged hands.

“Yeah.” He sucked in air. “If anything good comes out of this, maybe they’ll fix ’em up. Fuckin itch all the time, they do.” He looked at the picture. “Why’d you bring that? And what were you doin in my doghouse?”

“Lane told me to put your gloves in there. I did, but then I thought you might want them. And you might want the picture. Maybe she’s someone you’d want Fred Dean to call?”

“Corinne?” He snorted. “She’s been dead for twenty years. Pour me some water, kiddo. I’m as dry as ten-year dogshit.”

I poured, and held the glass for him, and even wiped the corner of his mouth with the sheet when he dribbled. It was all a lot more intimate than I wanted, but didn’t seem so bad when I remembered that I’d been soul-kissing the miserable bastard only hours before.

He didn’t thank me, but when had he ever? What he said was, “Hold that picture up.” I did as he asked. He looked at it fixedly for several seconds, then sighed. “Miserable scolding backbiting cunt. Walking out on her for Royal American Shows was the smartest thing I ever did.” A tear trembled at the corner of his left eye, hesitated, then rolled down his cheek.

“Want me to take it back and pin it up in your doghouse, Eddie?”

“No, might as well leave it. We had a kid, you know. A little girl.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. She got hit by a car. Three years old she was, and died like a dog in the street. That miserable cunt was yakking on the phone instead of watching her.” He turned his head aside and closed his eyes. “Go on, get outta here. Hurts to talk, and I’m tired. Got a elephant sitting on my chest.”

“Okay. Take care of yourself.”

He grimaced without opening his eyes. “That’s a laugh. How e’zacly am I s’posed to do that? You got any ideas? Because I haven’t. I got no relatives, no friends, no savings, no
in-
surance. What am I gonna do now?”

“It’ll work out,” I said lamely.

“Sure, in the movies it always does. Go on, get lost.”

This time I was all the way out the door before he spoke again.

“You shoulda let me die, kiddo.” He said it without melodrama, just as a passing observation. “I coulda been with my little girl.”

When I walked back into the hospital lobby I stopped dead, at first not sure I was seeing who I thought I was seeing. But it was her, all right, with one of her endless series of arduous novels open in front of her. This one was called
The Dissertation.

“Annie?”

She looked up, at first wary, then smiling as she recognized me. “Dev! What are you doing here?”

“Visiting a guy from the park. He had a heart attack today.”

“Oh, my God, I’m so sorry. Is he going to be all right?”

She didn’t invite me to sit down next to her, but I did, anyway. My visit to Eddie had upset me in ways I didn’t understand, and my nerves were jangling. It wasn’t unhappiness and it wasn’t sorrow. It was a queer, unfocused anger that had something to do with the foul taste of jalapeno peppers that still seemed to linger in my mouth. And with Wendy, God knew why. It was wearying to know I wasn’t over her, even yet. A broken arm would have healed quicker. “I don’t know. I didn’t talk to a doctor. Is
Mike
all right?”

“Yes, it’s just a regularly scheduled appointment. A chest X-ray and a complete blood count. Because of the pneumonia, you know. Thank God he’s over it now. Except for that lingering cough, Mike’s fine.” She was still holding her book open, which probably meant she wanted me to go, and that made me angrier. You have to remember that was the year
everyone
wanted me to go, even the guy whose life I’d saved.

Which is probably why I said,
“Mike
doesn’t think he’s fine. So who am I supposed to believe here, Annie?”

Her eyes widened with surprise, then grew distant. “I’m sure I don’t care who or what you believe, Devin. It’s really not any of your business.”

“Yes it is.” That came from behind us. Mike had rolled up in his chair. It wasn’t the motorized kind, which meant he’d been turning the wheels with his hands. Strong boy, cough or no cough. He’d buttoned his shirt wrong, though.

Annie turned to him, surprised. “What are you doing here? You were supposed to let the nurse—”

“I told her I could do it on my own and she said okay. Its just a left and two rights from radiology, you know. I’m not blind, just dy—”

“Mr. Jones was visiting a friend of his, Mike.” So now I had been demoted back to Mr. Jones. She closed her book with a snap and stood up. “He’s probably anxious to get home, and I’m sure you must be ti—”

“I want him to take us to the park.” Mike spoke calmly enough, but his voice was loud enough to make people look around.
“Us.”

“Mike, you know that’s not—”

“To Joyland. To
Joy . . .
Land.” Still calm, but louder still. Now everyone was looking. Annie’s cheeks were flaming. “I want you both to take me.” His voice rose louder still.
“I want you to take me to Joyland before I die.”

Her hand covered her mouth. Her eyes were huge. Her words, when they came, were muffled but understandable. “Mike . . . you’re not going to
die,
who told you . . .” She turned on me. “Do I have you to thank for putting that idea in his head?”

“Of course not.” I was very conscious that our audience was growing—it now included a couple of nurses and a doctor in blue scrubs and booties—but I didn’t care. I was still angry. “
He
told
me.
Why would that surprise you, when you know all about his intuitions?”

That was my afternoon for provoking tears. First Eddie, now Annie. Mike was dry-eyed, though, and he looked every bit as furious as I felt. But he said nothing as she grabbed the handles of his wheelchair, spun it around, and drove it at the door. I thought she was going to crash into them, but the magic eye got them open just in time.

Let them go,
I thought, but I was tired of letting women go. I was tired of just letting things happen to me and then feeling bad about them.

A nurse approached me. “Is everything all right?”

“No,” I said, and followed them out.

Annie had parked in the lot adjacent to the hospital, where a sign announced THESE TWO ROWS RESERVED FOR THE HANDICAPPED. She had a van, I saw, with plenty of room for the folded-up wheelchair in back. She had gotten the passenger door open, but Mike was refusing to get out of the chair. He was gripping the handles with all his strength, his hands dead white.

“Get in!” she shouted at him.

Mike shook his head, not looking at her.

“Get in, dammit
!”

This time he didn’t even bother to shake his head.

She grabbed him and yanked. The wheelchair had its brake on and tipped forward. I grabbed it just in time to keep it from going over and spilling them both into the open door of the van.

Annie’s hair had fallen into her face, and the eyes peering through it were wild: the eyes, almost, of a skittish horse in a thunderstorm.
“Let go! This is all your fault! I never should, have
—”

“Stop,” I said. I took hold of her shoulders. The hollows there were deep, the bones close to the surface. I thought,
She’s been too busy stuffing calories into him to worry about herself.

“LET ME G—”

“I don’t want to take him away from you,” I said. “Annie, that’s the last thing I want.”

She stopped struggling. Warily, I let go of her. The novel she’d been reading had fallen to the pavement in the struggle. I bent down, picked it up, and put it into the pocket on the back of the wheelchair.

“Mom.” Mike took her hand. “It doesn’t have to be the last good time.”

Then I understood. Even before her shoulders slumped and the sobs started, I understood. It wasn’t the fear that I’d stick him on some crazy-last ride and the burst of adrenaline would kill him. It wasn’t fear that a stranger would steal the damaged heart she loved so well. It was a kind of atavistic belief—a
mother’s
belief—that if they never started doing certain last things, life would go on as it had: morning smoothies at the end of the boardwalk, evenings with the kite at the end of the boardwalk, all of it in a kind of endless summer. Only it was October now and the beach was deserted. The happy screams of teenagers on the Thunderball and little kids shooting down the Splash & Crash water slide had ceased, there was a nip in the air as the days drew down. No summer is endless.

She put her hands over her face and sat down on the passenger seat of the van. It was too high for her, and she almost slid off. I caught her and steadied her. I don’t think she noticed.

“Go on, take him,” she said. “I don’t give a fuck. Take him parachute-jumping, if you want. Just don’t expect me to be a part of your . . . your
boys’ adventure.”

Mike said, “I can’t go without you.”

That got her to drop her hands and look at him. “Michael, you’re all I’ve got. Do you understand that?”

“Yes,” he said. He took one of her hands in both of his. “And you’re all
I’ve
got.”

I could see by her face that the idea had never crossed her mind, not really.

“Help me get in,” Mike said. “Both of you, please.”

When he was settled (I don’t remember fastening his seatbelt, so maybe this was before they were a big deal), I closed the door and walked around the nose of the van with her.

“His chair,” she said distractedly. “I have to get his chair.”

“I’ll put it in. You sit behind the wheel and get yourself ready to drive. Take a few deep breaths.”

She let me help her in. I had her above the elbow, and I could close my whole hand around her upper arm. I thought of telling her she couldn’t live on arduous novels alone, and thought better of it. She had been told enough this afternoon.