“How many is too many?”
Roland considered, his faded blue eyes looking east. “More than you’d believe,” he said at last. “And, I hope, many more than they would.”
FIVE
Late that afternoon, Donald Callahan stood in front of the unfound door, trying to concentrate on Second Avenue in the year 1977. What he fixed upon was Chew Chew Mama’s, and how sometimes he and George and Lupe Delgado would go there for lunch.
“I ate the beef brisket whenever I could get it,” Callahan said, and tried to ignore the shrieking voice of his mother, rising from the cave’s dark belly. When he’d first come in with Roland, his eyes had been drawn to the books Calvin Tower had sent through. So many books! Callahan’s mostly generous heart grew greedy (and a bit smaller) at the sight of them. His interest didn’t last, however—just long enough to pull one at random and see it was The Virginian, by Owen Wister. It was hard to browse when your dead friends and loved ones were shrieking at you and calling you names.
His mother was currendy asking him why he had allowed a vampire, a filthy bloodsucker, to break the cross she had given him. “You was always weak in faith,” she said dolorously. “Weak in the faith and strong for the drink. I bet you’d like one right now, wouldn’t you?”
Dear God, would he ever. Whiskey. Ancient Age. Callahan felt sweat break on his forehead. His heart was beating double-time. No, triple-time.
“The brisket,” he muttered. “With some of that brown mustard splashed on top of it.” He could even see the plastic squeeze-botde the mustard came in, and remember the brand name. Plochman’s.
“What?” Roland asked from behind him.
“I said I’m ready,” Callahan said. “If you’re going to do it, for God’s love do it now.”
Roland cracked open the box. The chimes at once bolted through Callahan’s ears, making him remember the low men in their loud cars. His stomach shriveled inside his belly and outraged tears burst from his eyes.
But the door clicked open, and a wedge of bright sunshine slanted through, dispelling the gloom of the cave’s mouth.
Callahan took a deep breath and thought, Oh Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to Thee. And stepped into the summer of ’77.
SIX
It was noon, of course. Lunch time. And of course he was standing in front of Chew Chew Mama’s. No one seemed to notice his arrival. The chalked specials on the easel just outside the restaurant door read: HEY YOU, WELCOME TO CHEW-CHEW!
SPECIALS FOR JUNE 24
Beef stroganoff
Beef Brisket (W/Cabbage)
Rancho Grande Tacos
Chicken Soup
TRY OUR DUTCH APPLE PIE!
All right, one question was answered. It was the day after Eddie had come here. As for the next one…
Callahan put Forty-sixth Street at his back for the time being, and walked up Second Avenue. Once he looked behind him and saw the doorway to the cave following him as faithfully as the billy-bumbler followed the boy. He could see Roland sitting there, putting something in his ears to block the maddening tinkle of the chimes.
He got exactly two blocks before stopping, his eyes growing wide with shock, his mouth dropping open.
They had said to expect this, both Roland and Eddie, but in his heart Callahan hadn’t believed it. He’d thought he would find The Manhattan Restaurant of the Mind perfecdy intact on this perfect summer’s day, which was so different from the overcast Calla autumn he’d left. Oh, there might be a sign in the window reading gone on vacation, closed until august—something like that—but it would be there. Oh yes.
It wasn’t, though. At least not much of it. The storefront was a burnt-out husk surrounded by yellow tape reading police investigation. When he stepped a little closer, he could smell charred lumber, burnt paper, and… very faint… the odor of gasoline.
An elderly shoeshine-boy had set up shop in front of Station Shoes & Boots, nearby. Now he said to Callahan, “Shame, ain’t it? Thank God the place was empty.”
“Aye, say thankya. When did it happen?”
“Middle of the night, when else? You think them goombars is gonna come ‘trow their Molly Coh’tails in broad daylight? They ain’t geniuses, but they’re smarter than that.”
“Couldn’t it have been faulty wiring? Or maybe spontaneous combustion?”
The elderly shine-boy gave Callahan a cynical look. Oh, please, it said. He cocked a polish-smeared thumb at the smoldering ruin. “You see that yella tape? You think they put yella tape says perlice investigation around a place that spontaneously combust-you-lated? No way, my friend. No way Jose. Cal Tower was in hock to the bad boys. Up to his eyebrows. Everybody on the block knew it.” The shine-boy waggled his own eyebrows, which were lush and white and tangled. “I hate to think about his loss. He had some very vallable books in the back, there. Ver-ry vallable.”
Callahan thanked the shine-boy for his insights, then turned and started back down Second Avenue. He kept touching himself furtively, trying to convince himself that this was really happening. He kept taking deep breaths of the city air with its tang of hydrocarbons, and relished every city sound, from the snore of the buses (there were ads for Charlie’s Angels on some of them) to the pounding of the jackhammers and the
incessant honking of horns. As he approached Tower of Power Records, he paused for a moment, transfixed by the music pouring from the speakers over the doors. It was an oldie he hadn’t heard in years, one that had been popular way back in his Lowell days. Something about following the Pied Piper.
“Crispin St. Peters,” he murmured. “That was his name. Good God, say Man Jesus, I’m really here. I’m really in New York!”
As if to confirm this, a harried-sounding woman said, “Maybe some people can stand around all day, but some of us are walking here. Think yez could move it along, or at least get over to the side?”
Callahan spoke an apology which he doubted was heard (or appreciated if it was), and moved along. That sense of being in a dream—an extraordinarily vivid dream—persisted until he neared Forty-sixth Street. Then he began to hear the rose, and everything in his life changed.
SEVEN
At first it was little more than a murmur, but as he drew closer, he thought he could hear many voices, angelic voices, singing. Raising their confident, joyful psalms to God. He had never heard anything so sweet, and he began to run. He came to the fence and laid his hands against it. He began to weep, couldn’t help it.
He supposed people were looking at him, but he didn’t care. He suddenly understood a great deal about Roland and his friends, and for the first time felt a part of them. No wonder they were trying so hard to survive, and to go on! No wonder, when this was at stake! There was something on the other side of this fence with its tattered overlay of posters… something so utterly and completely wonderful…
A young man with his long hair held back in a rubber band and wearing a tipped-back cowboy hat stopped and clapped him briefly on the shoulder. “It’s nice here, isn’t it?” the hippie cowboy said. “I don’t know just why, but it really is. I come once a day. You want to know something?”
Callahan turned toward the young man, wiping at his streaming eyes. “Yes, I guess so.”
The young man brushed a hand across his brow, then his cheek. “I used to have the world’s worst acne. I mean, pizza-face wasn’t even in it, I was roadkill-face. Then I started coming here in late March or early April, and… everything cleared up.” The young man laughed. “The dermo guy my Dad sent me to says it’s the zinc oxide, but I think it’s this place. Something about this place. Do you hear it?”
Although Callahan’s voice was ringing with sweetly singing voices—it was like being in Notre Dame cathedral, and surrounded by choirs—he shook his head. Doing so was nothing more than instinct.
“Nah,” said the hippie in the cowboy hat, “me neither. But sometimes I think I do.” He raised his right hand to Callahan, the first two fingers extended in a V. “Peace, brother.”
“Peace,” Callahan said, and returned the sign.
When the hippie cowboy was gone, Callahan ran his hand across the splintery boards of the fence, and a tattered poster advertising War of the Zombies. What he wanted more than anything was to climb over and see the rose… possibly to fall on his knees and adore it. But the sidewalks were packed with people, and already he had attracted too many curious looks, some no doubt from people who, like the hippie cowboy, knew a bit about the power of this place. He would best serve the great and singing force behind this fence