Joyland (26 page)

I folded the wheelchair and stowed it in the cargo compartment, taking longer with the job than I needed to, giving her time to compose herself. When I went back to the driver’s side, I half-expected to find the window rolled up, but it was still down. She had wiped her eyes and nose, and pushed her hair into some semblance of order.

I said, “He can’t go without you, and neither can I.”

She spoke to me as if Mike weren’t there and listening. “I’m so afraid for him, all the time. He sees so much, and so much of it hurts him. That’s what the nightmares are about, I know it. He’s such a great kid. Why can’t he just get well? Why this? Why
this?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

She turned to kiss Mike’s cheek. Then she turned back to me. Drew in a deep, shaky breath and let it out. “So when do we go?” she asked.

The Return of the King
was surely not as arduous as
The Dissertation,
but that night I couldn’t have read
The Cat in the Hat.
After eating some canned spaghetti for supper (and largely ignoring Mrs. Shoplaw’s pointed observations about how some young people seem determined to mistreat their bodies), I went up to my room and sat by the window, staring out at the dark and listening to the steady beat-and-retreat of the surf.

I was on the verge of dozing when Mrs. S. knocked lightly on my door and said, “You’ve got a call, Dev. It’s a little boy.”

I went down to the parlor in a hurry, because I could think of only one little boy who might call me.

“Mike?”

He spoke in a low voice. “My mom is sleeping. She said she was tired.”

“I bet she was,” I said, thinking of how we’d ganged up on her.

“I know we did,” Mike said, as if I had spoken the thought aloud. “We had to.”

“Mike . . . can you read minds? Are you reading mine?”

“I don’t really know,” he said. “Sometimes I see things and hear things, that’s all. And sometimes I get ideas. It was my idea to come to Grampa’s house. Mom said he’d never let us, but I knew he would. Whatever I have, the special thing, I think it came from him. He heals people, you know. I mean, sometimes he fakes it, but sometimes he really does.”

“Why did you call, Mike?”

He grew animated. “About Joyland! Can we really ride the merry-go-round and the Ferris wheel?”

“I’m pretty sure.”

“Shoot in the shooting gallery?”

“Maybe. If your mother says so. All this stuff is contingent on your mother’s approval. That means—”

“I know what it means.” Sounding impatient. Then the child’s excitement broke through again. “That is so awesome!”

“None of the fast rides,” I said. “Are we straight on that? For one thing, they’re buttoned up for the winter.” The Carolina Spin was, too, but with Lane Hardy’s help, it wouldn’t take forty minutes to get it running again. “For another—”

“Yeah, I know, my heart. The Ferris wheel would be enough for me. We can see it from the end of the boardwalk, you know. From the top, it must be like seeing the world from my kite.”

I smiled. “It is like that, sort of. But remember, only if your mom says you can. She’s the boss.”

“We’re
going
for her. She’ll know when we get there.” He sounded eerily sure of himself. “And it’s for you, Dev. But mostly it’s for the girl. She’s been there too long. She wants to leave.”

My mouth dropped open, but there was no danger of drooling; my mouth had gone entirely dry. “How—” Just a croak. I swallowed again. “How do you know about her?”

“I don’t know, but I think she’s why I came. Did I tell you it’s not white?”

“You did, but you said you didn’t know what that meant. Do you now?”

“Nope.” He began to cough. I waited it out. When it cleared, he said, “I have to go. My mom’s getting up from her nap. Now she’ll be up half the night, reading.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I really hope she lets me go on the Ferris wheel.”

“It’s called the Carolina Spin, but people who work there just call it the hoister.” Some of them—Eddie, for instance—actually called it the chump-hoister, but I didn’t tell him that. “Joyland folks have this kind of secret talk. That’s part of it.”

“The hoister. I’ll remember. Bye, Dev.”

The phone clicked in my ear.

This time it was Fred Dean who had the heart attack.

He lay on the ramp leading to the Carolina Spin, his face blue and contorted. I knelt beside him and started chest compressions. When there was no result from that, I leaned forward, pinched his nostrils shut, and jammed my lips over his. Something tickled across my teeth and onto my tongue. I pulled back and saw a black tide of baby spiders pouring from his mouth.

I woke up half out of bed, the covers pulled loose and wound around me in a kind of shroud, heart pumping, clawing at my own mouth. It took several seconds for me to realize there was nothing in there. Nonetheless, I got up, went to the bathroom, and drank two glasses of water. I may have had worse dreams than the one that woke me at three o’clock on that Tuesday morning, but if so, I can’t remember them. I re-made my bed and laid back down, convinced there would be no more sleep for me that night. Yet I had almost dozed off again when it occurred to me that the big emotional scene the three of us had played out at the hospital yesterday might have been for nothing.

Sure, Joyland was happy to make special arrangements for the lame, the halt, and the blind—what are now called “special needs children”—during the season, but the season was over. Would the park’s undoubtedly expensive insurance policy still provide coverage if something happened to Mike Ross in October? I could see Fred Dean shaking his head when I made my request and saying he was very sorry, but—

It was chilly that morning, with a strong breeze, so I took my car, parking beside Lane’s pickup. I was early, and ours were the only vehicles in Lot A, which was big enough to hold five hundred cars. Fallen leaves tumbled across the pavement, making an insectile sound that reminded me of the spiders in my dream.

Lane was sitting in a lawn chair outside Madame Fortuna’s shy (which would soon be disassembled and stored for the winter), eating a bagel generously smeared with cream cheese. His derby was tilted at its usual insouciant angle, and there was a cigarette parked behind one ear. The only new thing was the denim jacket he was wearing. Another sign, had I needed one, that our Indian summer was over.

“Jonesy, Jonesy, lookin lonely. Want a bagel? I got extra.”

“Sure,” I said. “Can I talk to you about something while I eat it?”

“Come to confess your sins, have you? Take a seat, my son.” He pointed to the side of the fortune-telling booth, where another couple of folded lawn chairs were leaning.

“Nothing sinful,” I said, opening one of the chairs. I sat down and took the brown bag he was offering. “But I made a promise and now I’m afraid I might not be able to keep it.”

I told him about Mike, and how I had convinced his mother to let him come to the park—no easy task, given her fragile emotional state. I finished with how I’d woken up in the middle of the night, convinced Fred Dean would never allow it. The only thing I didn’t mention was the dream that had awakened me.

“So,” Lane said when I’d finished. “Is she a fox? The mommy?”

“Well . . . yeah. Actually she is. But that isn’t the reason—”

He patted my shoulder and gave me a patronizing smile I could have done without. “Say nummore, Jonesy, say nummore.”

“Lane, she’s ten years older than I am!”

“Okay, and if I had a dollar for every babe I ever took out who was ten years
younger,
I could buy me a steak dinner at Hanratty’s in the Bay. Age is just a number, my son.”

“Terrific. Thanks for the arithmetic lesson. Now tell me if I stepped in shit when I told the kid he could come to the park and ride the Spin and the merry-go-round.”

“You stepped in shit,” he said, and my heart sank. Then he raised a finger.
“But.”

“But?”

“Have you set a date for this little field trip yet?”

“Not exactly. I was thinking maybe Thursday.” Before Erin and Tom showed up, in other words.

“Thursday’s no good. Friday, either. Will the kid and his foxy mommy still be here next week?”

“I guess so, but—”

“Then plan on Monday or Tuesday.”

“Why wait?”

“For the paper.” Looking at me as if I were the world’s biggest idiot.

“Paper . . . ?”

“The local rag. It comes out on Thursday. When your latest lifesaving feat hits the front page, you’re going to be Freddy Dean’s fair-haired boy.” Lane tossed the remains of his bagel into the nearest litter barrel—two points—and then raised his hands in the air, as if framing a newspaper headline. “ ‘Come to Joyland! We not only sell fun, we save lives!’ ” He smiled and tilted his derby the other way. “Priceless publicity. Fred’s gonna to owe you another one. Take it to the bank and say thanks.”

“How would the paper even find out? I can’t see Eddie Parks telling them.” Although if he did, he’d probably want them to make sure the part about how I’d practically crushed his ribcage made Paragraph One.

He rolled his eyes. “I keep forgetting what a Jonesy-come-lately you are to this part of the world. The only articles anybody actually reads in that catbox-liner are the Police Beat and the Ambulance Calls. But ambulance calls are pretty dry. As a special favor to you, Jonesy, I’ll toddle on down to the
Banner
office on my lunch break and tell the rubes all about your heroism. They’ll send someone out to interview you pronto.”

“I don’t really want—”

“Oh gosh, a Boy Scout with a merit badge in modesty. Save it. You want the kid to get a tour of the park, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then do the interview. Also smile pretty for the camera.”

Which—if I may jump ahead—is pretty much what I did.

As I was folding up my chair, he said: “Our Freddy Dean might have said fuck the insurance and risked it anyway, you know. He doesn’t look it, but he’s carny-from-carny himself. His father was a low-pitch jack-jaw on the corn circuit. Freddy told me once his pop carried a Michigan bankroll big enough to choke a horse.”

I knew low-pitch, jack-jaw, and corn circuit, but not Michigan bankroll. Lane laughed when I asked him. “Two twenties on the outside, the rest either singles or cut-up green paper. A great gag when you want to attract a tip. But when it comes to Freddy himself, that ain’t the point.” He re-set his derby yet again.

“What is?”

“Carnies have a weakness for good-looking points in tight skirts and kids down on their luck. They also have a strong allergy to rube rules. Which includes all the bean-counter bullshit.”

“So maybe I wouldn’t have to—”

He raised his hands to stop me. “Better not to have to find out. Do the interview.”