Roland said nothing.
“You see that, don’t you?” Eddie was looking at Rolandwith harsh, questioning eyes.
“I see.”
“He was always scared, but he always came back.”
Roland thought it would have been better for Eddie,maybe better for both of them in the
long run, if Henry hadjust kept showing his heels that day. . . or on one of the others.But
people like Henry never did. People like Henry alwayscame back, because people like
Henry knew how to use trust.It was the only thing people like Henry did know how to
use.First they changed trust into need, then they changed need intoa drug, and once that
was done, they—what was Eddie’s wordfor it?— push. Yes. They pushed it.
“I think I’ll turn in,” the gunslinger said.
The next day Eddie went on, but Roland already knew it all. Henry hadn’t played sports in
high school because Henrycouldn’t stay after for practice. Henry had to take care of
Eddie.The fact that Henry was scrawny and uncoordinated anddidn’t much care for sports
in the first place had nothing to dowith it, of course; Henry would have made a wonderful
base- ball pitcher or one of those basketball jumpers, their motherassured them both time
and again. Henry’s grades were badand he needed to repeat a number of subjects—but that
wasn’tbecause Henry was stupid; Eddie and Mrs. Dean both knew Henry was just as smart
as lickety-split. But Henry had tospend the time he should have spent studying or doing
home- work taking care of Eddie (the fact that this usually took placein the Dean living
room, with both boys sprawled on the sofa watching TV or wrestling around on the floor
somehowseemed not to matter). The bad grades meant Henry hadn’t been able to be
accepted into anything but NYU, and theycouldn’t afford it because the bad grades
precluded any schol- arships, and then Henry got drafted and then it was Viet Nam,where
Henry got most of his knee blown off, and the pain wasbad, and the drug they gave him for
it had a heavy morphinebase, and when he was better they weaned him from the drug,only
they didn’t do such a good job because when Henry got back to New York there was still a
monkey on his back, ahungry monkey waiting to be fed, and after a month or two hehad
gone out to see a man, and it had been about four monthslater, less than a month after their
mother died, when Eddiefirst saw his brother snorting some white powder off a
mirror.Eddie assumed it was coke. Turned out it was heroin. And ifyou traced it all the way
back, whose fault was it?
Roland said nothing, but heard the voice of Cort in hismind: Fault always lies in the same
place, my fine babies: withhim weak enough to lay blame.
When he discovered the truth, Eddie had been shocked,then angry. Henry had responded
not by promising to quit snorting but by telling Eddie he didn’t blame him for beingmad, he
knew Nam had turned him into a worthless shitbag, he was weak, he would leave, that was
the best thing, Eddiewas right, the last thing he needed was a filthy junkie around,messing
up the place. He just hoped Eddie wouldn’t blamehim too much. He had gotten weak, he
admitted it; somethingin Nam had made him weak, had rotted him out the same waythe
moisture rotted the laces of your sneakers and the elastic of your underwear. There was
also something in Nam thatapparently rotted out your heart, Henry told him tearily. Hejust hoped that Eddie would remember all the years he hadtried to be strong.
For Eddie.
For Mom.
So Henry tried to leave. And Eddie, of course, couldn’t lethim. Eddie was consumed with
guilt. Eddie had seen thescarred horror that had once been an unmarked leg, a knee thatwas
now more Teflon than bone. They had a screaming matchin the hall, Henry standing there
in an old pair of khakis withhis packed duffle bag in one hand and purple rings under his
eyes, Eddie wearing nothing but a pair of yellowing jockeyshorts, Henry saying you don’t
need me around, Eddie, I’mpoison to you and I know it, and Eddie yelling back You
ain’tgoing nowhere, get your ass back inside, and that’s how it wentuntil Mrs. McGursky
came out of her place and yelled Go or stay, it’s nothing to me, but you better decide one way or the other pretty quick or I’m calling the police. Mrs. McGurskyseemed about to add a
few more admonishments, but just thenshe saw that Eddie was wearing nothing but a pair
of skivvies. She added: And you’re not decent, Eddie Dean! before pop- ping backinside. It was like watching a Jack-in-the-box inreverse. Eddie looked at Henry. Henry looked at
Eddie. Look like Angel-Baby done put on a few pounds, Henry said in alow voice, and then they were howling with laughter, holding onto each other and pounding each other and
Henry cameback inside and about two weeks later Eddie was snorting thestuff too and he
couldn’t understand why the hell he had madesuch a big deal out of it, after all, it was
only snorting, shit, itgot you off, and as Henry (who Eddie would eventually come to think of as the great sage and eminent junkie) said, in aworld that was clearly going to hell
head-first, what was so lowabout getting high?
Time passed. Eddie didn’t say how much. The gunslingerdidn’t ask. He guessed that Eddie
knew there were a thousandexcuses for getting high but no reasons, and that he had kepthis
habit pretty well under control. And that Henry had alsomanaged to keep his under control.
Not as well as Eddie, butenough to keep from coming completely unravelled.
Becausewhether or not Eddie understood the truth (down deep Roland believed Eddie did),
Henry must have: their positions hadreversed themselves. Now Eddie held Henry’s hand
crossingstreets.
The day came when Eddie caught Henry not snorting butskin-popping. There had been
another hysterical argument, an almost exact repeat of the first one, except it had been
inHenry’s bedroom. It ended in almost exactly the same way,with Henry weeping and
offering that implacable, inarguabledefense that was utter surrender, utter admission:
Eddie wasright, he wasn’t fit to live, not fit to eat garbage from the gutter.He would go.
Eddie would never have to see him again. He just hoped he would remember all the . . .
It faded into a drone that wasn’t much different from therocky sound of the breaking waves
as they trudged up thebeach. Roland knew the story and said nothing. It was Eddie who
didn’t know the story, an Eddie who was really clear- headed for the first time in maybe ten
years or more. Eddiewasn’t telling the story to Roland; Eddie was finally telling thestory to
himself.
That was all right. So far as the gunslinger could see, timewas something they had a lot of.
Talk was one way to fill it.
Eddie said he was haunted by Henry’s knee, the twistedscar tissue up and down his leg (of
course that was all healed now, Henry barely even limped. . . except when he and
Eddiewere quarrelling; then the limp always seemed to get worse); he was haunted by all
the things Henry had given up for him,and haunted by something much more pragmatic:
Henrywouldn’t last out on the streets. He would be like a rabbit letloose in a jungle filled
with tigers. On his own, Henry wouldwind up in jail or Bellevue before a week was out.
So he begged, and Henry finally did him the favor ofconsenting to stick around, and six
months after that Eddiealso had a golden arm. From that moment things had begun tomove
in the steady and inevitable downward spiral which hadended with Eddie’s trip to the
Bahamas and Roland’s sudden intervention in his life.
Another man, less pragmatic and more introspective thanRoland, might have asked (to
himself, if not right out loud),Why this one? Why this man to start? Why a man who seems
topromise weakness or strangeness or even outright doom?
Not only did the gunslinger never ask the question; itnever even formulated itself in his
mind. Cuthbert would haveasked; Cuthbert had questioned everything, had been poi- soned
with questions, had died with one in his mouth. Nowthey were gone, all gone. Cort’s last
gunslingers, the thirteen survivors of a beginning class that had numbered fifty-six,were all
dead. All dead but Roland. He was the last gunslinger,going steadily on in a world that had
grown stale and sterileand empty.
Thirteen,he remembered Cort saying on the day beforethe Presentation Ceremonies. This
is an evil number. And onthe following day, for the first time in thirty years, Cort hadnot been present at the Ceremonies. His final crop of pupils had gone to his cottage to first
kneel at his feet, presentingdefenseless necks, then to rise and receive his
congratulatorykiss and to allow him to load their guns for the first time. Nineweeks later,