“Duddits,” he says. “Duddits, it’s us. Jonesy…”
He hands the phone to Henry. “Hi, Duddits, it’s Henry…”
Henry hands the phone to Pete. “Hi, Duds, it’s Pete, stop crying now, it’s all right…”
Pete hands the phone to Beaver, who looks around, then stretches the phone as far toward the corner as the cord will allow. Cupping his hand over the mouthpiece so the old men by the stove (not to mention his own old man, of course) won’t hear him, he sings the first two lines of the lullaby. Then he falls quiet, listening. After a moment he flashes the rest of them a thumb-and-forefinger circle. Then he hands the phone back to Henry.
“Duds? Henry again. It was just a dream, Duddits. It wasn’t real. Okay? It wasn’t real and it’s over. Just…” Henry listens. Jonesy takes the opportunity to strip off his flannel shirt. The tee-shirt beneath is soaked right through.
There are a billion things in the world Jonesy doesn’t know-what kind of link he and his friends share with Duddits, for one-but he knows he can’t stay in here in Gosselin’s much longer. He feels like he’s in the goddam stove, not just looking at it. Those old farts around the checkerboard must have ice in their bones.
Henry is nodding. “That’s right, like a scary movie.” He listens, frowning. “No, you didn’t. None of us did. We didn’t hurt him. We didn’t hurt any of them.”
And just like that-bingo-Jonesy knows they did. They didn’t mean to, exactly, but they did. They were scared Richie would make good on his threat to get them… and so they got him first.
Pete is holding out his hand and Henry says, “Pete wants to talk to you, Dud.”
He hands the phone to Pete and Pete is telling Duddits to just forget it, be chilly, Willy, they’ll be home soon and they’ll all play the game, they’ll have fun, they’ll have a fuckin roll, but in the meantime-
Jonesy raises his eyes and sees one of the signs over the phone has changed. The one on the left still says PLEASE LIMIT ALL CALLS TO 5 MINS, but the one on the right now says WHY NOT GO OUTSIDE IT’s COOLER. And that’s a good idea, such a good idea. No reason not to, either-the Duddits situation is clearly under control.
But before he can make his move, Pete is holding the phone out to him and saying, “He wants to talk to you, Jonesy.”
For a moment he almost bolts anyway, thinking to hell with Duddits, to hell with all of them. But these are his friends, together they all caught the same terrible dream, did something they didn’t mean to do
(liar fuckin liar you meant it you did)
and their eyes hold him where he is in spite of the heat, which is now clamped around his chest like a suffocating pad. Their eyes insist that he’s a part of this and mustn’t leave while Duddits is still on the phone. It’s not how you play the game.
It’s our dream and it’s not over yet, their eyes insist-Henry’s most of all. It’s been going on since the day we found him there behind Tracker Brothers, down on his knees and all but naked. He sees the line and now we see it, too. And although we may perceive it in different ways, part of us will always see the line. We’ll see it until the day we die.
There’s something else in their eyes, too, something that will haunt them, all unacknowledged, until the day they die, and cast its shadow over even their happiest days. The fear of what they did. What they did in the unremembered part of their shared dream.
That’s what keeps him where he is and makes him take the telephone even though he is sweltering, roasting, fucking melting. “duddits,” he says, and even his voice sounds hot. “It’s really okay. I’m gonna let you talk to Henry again, it’s super-hot in here and I have to get a breath of fresh-” Duddits interrupts him, his voice strong and urgent. “Oh-oh-ow! Ohee, oh-oh-ow! Ay! Ay! Isser AY!”
They have always understood his gabble from the very first, and Jonesy understands it now:
Don’t go out! Jonesy, don’t go out! Gray! Gray! Mister GRAY!
Jonesy’s mouth drops open. He looks past the heat-shimmering stove, down the aisle where Beaver’s hungover father is now making a listless examination of the canned beans, past Mrs Gosselin at the old scrolled cash register, and out the front window. That window is dirty, and it’s filled with signs advertising everything from Winston cigarettes and Moosehead Ale to church suppers and Fourth of July picnics that happened back when the peanut-farmer was still President… but there’s still enough glass for him to look through and see the thing that’s waiting for him outside. It’s the thing that came up behind him while he was trying to hold the bathroom door closed, the thing that has snatched his body. A naked gray figure standing beside the Citgo pump on its toeless feet, staring at him with its black eyes. And Jonesy thinks: It’s not how they really are, it’s just the way we see them.
As if to emphasize this, Mr Gray raises one of his hands and brings it down. From the tips of his three fingers, little specks of reddish-gold float upward like thistle.
Byrus, Jonesy thinks.
As if it were a magic word in a fairy-tale, everything freezes. Gosselin’s Market becomes a still-life. Then the color drains out of it and it becomes a sepia-toned photograph. His friends are growing transparent and fading before his eyes. Only two things still seem real: the heavy black receiver of the pay phone, and the heat. The stifling heat.
“Ay UH!” Duddits cries into his ear. Jonesy hears a long, choking intake of breath which he remembers so well; it is Duddits readying himself to speak as clearly as he possibly can. “Ownzy! Ownzy, ake UH! Ake UH! Ake
2
up! Wake up! Jonesy, ake up!
Jonesy raised his head and for a moment could see nothing. His hair, heavy and sweat-clotted, hung in his eyes. He brushed it away, hoping for his own bedroom-either the one at Hole in the Wall, or, even better, the one back home in Brookline-but no such luck. He was still in the office at Tracker Brothers. He’d fallen asleep at the desk and had dreamed of how they’d called Duddits all those years ago. That had been real enough, but not the stuporous heat. If anything, Old Man Gosselin had always kept his place cold; he was chintzy that way. The heat had crept into his dream because it was hot in here, Christ, it had to be a hundred degrees, maybe a hundred and ten.
Furnace has gone nuts, he thought, and got up. Or maybe the place is on fire. Either way, I have to get out. Before I roast.
Jonesy went around the desk, barely registering the fact that the desk had changed, barely registering the feel of something brushing the top of his head as he burned toward the door. He was reaching for the knob with one hand and the lock with the other when he remembered Duddits in the dream, telling him not to go out, Mr Gray was out there waiting.
And he was. Right outside this door. Waiting in the storehouse of memories, to which he now had total access.
Jonesy spread his sweaty fingers on the wood of the door. His hair fell down over his eyes again, but he barely noticed. “Mr Gray,” he whispered. “Are you out there? You are, aren’t you?”
No response, but Mr Gray was, all right. He was standing with his hairless rudiment of a head cocked and his glass-black eyes fixed on the doorknob, waiting for it to turn. Waiting for Jonesy to come bursting out. And then-?
Goodbye annoying human thoughts. Goodbye distracting and disturbing human emotions.
Goodbye Jonesy.
“Mr Gray, are you trying to smoke me out?”
Still no answer. Jonesy didn’t need one. Mr Gray had access to all the controls, didn’t he? Including the ones that controlled his temperature. How high had he pushed it? Jonesy didn’t know, but he knew it was still going up. The band around his chest was hotter and heavier than ever, and he could hardly breathe. His temples were pounding.
The window. What about the window?
Feeling a burst of hope, Jonesy turned in that direction, putting his back to the door. The window was dark now-so much for the eternal afternoon in October of 1978-and the driveway which ran up the side of Tracker Brothers was buried under shifting drifts of snow. Never, even as a child, had snow looked so inviting to Jonesy. He saw himself bursting through the window like Errol Flynn in some old pirate movie, saw himself charging into the snow and then throwing himself into it, bathing his burning face in its blessed white chill-