from the grooves of a Bruce Springsteen record–although Springsteen was yet to be
heard from when I published the story in the college literary magazine (where it ran
between a poem called Images of Me and an essay on student parietals written entirely in the lower case). It is the work of a young man every bit as insecure as he was inexperienced. And yet it was the first story I ever wrote that felt like my story–
the first one that really felt whole, after five years of trying. The first one that might still be able to stand up, even with its props taken away. Ugly but alive. Even now
when I read it, stifling a smile at its pseudo-toughness and its pretensions, I can see the true face of Gordon Lachance lurking just behind the lines of print, a Gordon
Lachance younger than the one living and writing now, one certainly more idealistic
than the best-selling novelist who is more apt to have his paperback contracts
reviewed than his books, but not so young as the one who went with his friends that
day to see the body of a dead kid named Ray Brewer. A Gordon Lachance halfway
along in the process of losing the shine. No, it’s not a very good story–its author was too busy listening to other voices to listen as closely as he should have to the one
coming from inside. But it was the first time I had ever really used the places I knew and the things I felt in a piece of fiction, and there was a kind of dreadful exhilaration in seeing things that had bothered me for years come out in a new form, a form over
which I had imposed control. It had been years since that childhood idea of Denny
being in the closet of his spookily preserved room had occurred to me; I would have
honestly believed I had forgotten it Yet there it is in Stud City, only slightly changed…
but controlled.
I’ve resisted the urge to change it a lot more, to rewrite it, to juice it up–and
that urge was fairly strong, because I find the story quite embarrassing now. But there are still things in it I like, things that would be cheapened by changes made by this
later Lachance, who has the first threads of grey in his hair. Things, like that image of the shadows on Johnny’s white tee-shirt or that of the rain-ripples on Jane’s naked
body, that seem better than they have any right to be.
Also, it was the first story I never showed to my mother and father. There was
too much Denny in it. Too much Castle Rock. And most of all, too much 1960. You
always know the truth, because when you cut yourself or someone else with it, you
bleed.
9
My room was on the second floor, and it must have been at least ninety degrees up
there.
It would be a hundred and ten by afternoon, even with all the windows open. I
was really glad I wasn’t sleeping there that night, and the thought of where we were
going made me excited all over again. I made two blankets into a bedroll and tied it
with my old belt. I collected all my money, which was sixty-eight cents. Then I was
ready to go.
I went down the back stairs to avoid meeting my Dad in front of the house, but
I hadn’t needed to worry; he was still out in the garden with the hose, making useless rainbows in the air and looking through them.
I walked down Summer Street and cut through a vacant lot to Carbine–where
the offices of the Castle Call stand today. I was headed up Carbine towards the
clubhouse when a car pulled over to the kerb and Chris got out. He had his old Boy
Scout pack in one hand and two blankets rolled up and tied with clothesrope in the other.
‘Thanks, mister,’ he said, and trotted over to join me as the car pulled away.
His Boy Scout canteen was slung around his neck and under one arm so that it finally