Joyland (19 page)

When I pulled up opposite the taxi stand, she put her hands on the sides of my face and kissed my mouth. It was a long and thoroughly thorough kiss.

“If Tom hadn’t been there,
I
would have made you forget that stupid girl,” she said.

“But he was,” I said.

“Yes. He was. Stay in touch, Dev.”

“Remember what I asked you to do. If you get a chance, that is.”

“I’ll remember. You’re a sweet man.”

I don’t know why, but that made me feel like crying. I smiled instead. “Also, admit it, I made one hell of a Howie.”

“That you did. Devin Jones, savior of little girls.”

For a moment I thought she was going to kiss me again, but she didn’t. She slid out of my car and ran across the street to the taxis, skirt flying. I sat there until I saw her climb into the back of a Yellow and drive away. Then I drove away myself, back to Heaven’s Beach, and Mrs. Shoplaw’s, and my autumn at Joyland—both the best and worst autumn of my life.

Were Annie and Mike Ross sitting at the end of the green Victorian’s boardwalk when I headed down the beach to the park on that Tuesday after Labor Day? I remember the warm croissants I ate as I walked, and the circling gulls, but of them I can’t be completely sure. They became such an important part of the scenery—such a landmark—that it’s impossible to pinpoint the first time I actually noticed their presence. Nothing screws with memory like repetition.

Ten years after the events I’m telling you about, I was (for my sins, maybe) a staff writer on
Cleveland
magazine. I used to do most of my first-draft writing on yellow legal pads in a coffee shop on West Third Street, near Lakefront Stadium, which was the Indians’ stomping grounds back then. Every day at ten, this young woman would come in and get four or five coffees, then take them back to the real estate office next door. I couldn’t tell you the first time I saw her, either. All I know is that one day I
saw
her, and realized that she sometimes glanced at me as she went out. The day came when I returned that glance, and when she smiled, I did, too. Eight months later we were married.

Annie and Mike were like that; one day they just became a real part of my world. I always waved, the kid in the wheelchair always waved back, and the dog sat watching me with his ears cocked and the wind ruffling his fur. The woman was blonde and beautiful—high cheekbones, wide-set blue eyes, and full lips, the kind that always look a little bruised. The boy in the wheelchair wore a White Sox cap that came down over his ears. He looked very sick. His smile was healthy enough, though. Whether I was going or coming, he always flashed it. Once or twice he even flashed me the peace sign, and I sent it right back. I had become part of his landscape, just as he had become part of mine. I think even Milo, the Jack Russell, came to recognize me as part of the landscape. Only Mom held herself apart. Often when I passed, she never even looked up from whatever book she was reading. When she did she didn’t wave, and she certainly never flashed the peace sign.

I had plenty to occupy my time at Joyland, and if the work wasn’t as interesting and varied as it had been during the summer, it was steadier and less exhausting. I even got a chance to reprise my award-winning role as Howie, and to sing a few more choruses of “Happy Birthday to You” in the Wiggle-Waggle Village, because Joyland was open to the public for the first three weekends in September. Attendance was way down, though, and I didn’t jock a single tipsed ride. Not even the Carolina Spin, which was second only to the merry-go-round as our most popular attraction.

“Up north in New England, most parks stay open weekends until Halloween,” Fred Dean told me one day. We were sitting on a bench and eating a nourishing, vitamin-rich lunch of chili burgers and pork rinds. “Down south in Florida, they run year-round. We’re in a kind of gray zone. Mr. Easterbrook tried pushing for a fall season back in the sixties—spent a bundle on a big advertising blitz—but it didn’t work very well. By the time the nights start getting nippy, people around here start thinking about county fairs and such. Also, a lot of our vets head south or out west for the winter.” He looked down the empty expanse of Hound Dog Way and sighed. “This place gets kind of lonely this time of year.”

“I like it,” I said, and I did. That was my year to embrace loneliness. I sometimes went to the movies in Lumberton or Myrtle Beach with Mrs. Shoplaw and Tina Ackerley, the librarian with the goo-goo-googly eyes, but I spent most evenings in my room, re-reading
The Lord of the Rings
and writing letters to Erin, Tom, and my dad. I also wrote a fair amount of poetry, which I am now embarrassed even to think about. Thank God I burned it. I added a new and satisfyingly grim record to my small collection
—The Dark Side of the Moon.
In the Book of Proverbs we are advised that “as a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.” That autumn I returned to
Dark Side
again and again, only giving Floyd the occasional rest so I could listen to Jim Morrison once more intone, “This is the end, beautiful friend.” Such a really bad case of the twenty-ones—I know, I know.

At least there was plenty at Joyland to occupy my days. The first couple of weeks, while the park was still running part-time, were devoted to fall cleaning. Fred Dean put me in charge of a small crew of gazoonies, and by the time the CLOSED FOR THE SEASON sign went up out front, we had raked and cut every lawn, prepared every flowerbed for winter, and scrubbed down every joint and shy. We slapped together a prefab corrugated metal shed in the backyard and stored the food carts (called grub-rollers in the Talk) there for the winter, each popcorn wagon, Sno-Cone wagon, and Pup-a-Licious wagon snugged under its own green tarp.

When the gazoonies headed north to pick apples, I started the winterizing process with Lane Hardy and Eddie Parks, the ill-tempered vet who ran Horror House (and Team Doberman) during the season. We drained the fountain at the intersection of Joyland Avenue and Hound Dog Way, and had moved on to Captain Nemo’s Splash & Crash—a much bigger job—when Bradley Easterbrook, dressed for traveling in his black suit, came by.

“I’m off to Sarasota this evening,” he told us. “Brenda Rafferty will be with me, as usual.” he smiled, showing those horse teeth of his. “I’m touring the park and saying my thank-yous. To those who are left, that is.

“Have a wonderful winter, Mr. Easterbrook,” Lane said.

Eddie muttered something that sounded to me like
eat a wooden ship,
but was probably
have a good trip.

“Thanks for everything,” I said.

He shook hands with the three of us, coming to me last. “I hope to see you again next year, Jonesy. I think you’re a young man with more than a little carny in his soul.”

But he didn’t see me the following year, and nobody saw him. Mr. Easterbrook died on New Year’s Day, in a condo on John Ringling Boulevard, less than half a mile from where the famous circus winters.

“Crazy old bastid,” Parks said, watching Easterbrook walk to his car, where Brenda was waiting to receive him and help him in.

Lane gave him a long, steady look, then said: “Shut it, Eddie.”

Eddie did. Which was probably wise.

One morning, as I walked to Joyland with my croissants, the Jack Russell finally trotted down the beach to investigate me.

“Milo, come back!” the woman called.

Milo turned to look at her, then looked back at me with his bright black eyes. On impulse, I tore a piece from one of my pastries, squatted, and held it out to him. Milo came like a shot.

“Don’t you feed him!” the woman called sharply.

“Aw, Mom, get over it,” the boy said.

Milo heard her and didn’t take the shred of croissant . . . but he did sit up before me with his front paws held out. I gave him the bite.

“I won’t do it again,” I said, getting up, “but I couldn’t let a good trick go to waste.”

The woman snorted and went back to her book, which was thick and looked arduous. The boy called, “We feed him all the time. He never puts on weight, just runs it off.”

Without looking up from her book, Mom said: “What do we know about talking to strangers, Mike-O?”

“He’s not exactly a stranger when we see him every day,” the boy pointed out. Reasonably enough, at least from my point of view.

“I’m Devin Jones,” I said. “From down the beach. I work at Joyland.”

“Then you won’t want to be late.” Still not looking up.

The boy shrugged at me—
whattaya gonna do,
it said. He was pale and as bent-over as an old man, but I thought there was a lively sense of humor in that shrug and the look that went with it. I returned the shrug and walked on. The next morning I took care to finish my croissants before I got to the big green Victorian so Milo wouldn’t be tempted, but I waved. The kid, Mike, waved back. The woman was in her usual place under the green umbrella, and she had no book, but—as per usual—she didn’t wave to me. Her lovely face was closed.
There is nothing here for you,
it said.
Go on down to your trumpery amusement park and leave us alone.

So that was what I did. But I continued to wave, and the kid waved back. Morning and night, the kid waved back.

The Monday after Gary “Pop” Allen left for Florida—bound for Alston’s All-Star Carnival in Jacksonville, where he had a job waiting as shy-boss—I arrived at Joyland and found Eddie Parks, my least favorite old timer, sitting in front of Horror House on an apple-box. Smoking was
verboten
in the park, but with Mr. Easterbrook gone and Fred Dean nowhere in evidence, Eddie seemed to feel it safe to flout the rule. He was smoking with his gloves on, which would have struck me as strange if he ever took them off, but he never seemed to.

“There you are, kiddo, and only five minutes late.” Everyone else called me either Dev or Jonesy, but to Eddie I was just
kiddo,
and always would be.

“I’ve got seven-thirty on the nose,” I said, tapping my watch.

“Then you’re slow. Why don’t you drive from town, like everybody else? You could be here in five minutes.”

“I like the beach.”

“I don’t give a tin shit what you like, kiddo, just get here on time. This isn’t like one of your college classes, when you can duck in and out anytime you want to. This is a
job,
and now that the Head Beagle is gone, you’re gonna work like it’s a job.”