by Stephen King
At the top of the stairs the policeman pushed a door open. A middle-aged woman in wire glasses and a black dress looked up from a typewriter placed sideways against the far wall. "Two more runaways," the policeman said. "Tell him we're here."
She nodded, picked up her telephone, and spoke a few words. "You may go in," the secretary said to them, her eyes wandering from Wolf to Jack and back again.
The cop pushed them across the anteroom and opened the door to a room twice as large, lined with books on one long wall, framed photographs and diplomas and certificates on another. Blinds had been lowered across the long windows opposite. A tall skinny man in a dark suit, a wrinkled white shirt, and a narrow tie of no discernible pattern stood up behind a chipped wooden desk that must have been six feet long. The man's face was a relief map of wrinkles, and his hair was so black it must have been dyed. Stale cigarette smoke hung visibly in the air. "Well, what have we got here, Franky?" His voice was startlingly deep, almost theatrical.
"Kids I picked up on French Lick Road, over by Thompson's place."
Judge Fairchild's wrinkles contorted into a smile as he looked at Jack. "You have any identification papers on you, son?"
"No sir," Jack said.
"Have you told Officer Williams here the truth about everything? He doesn't think you have, or you wouldn't be here."
"Yes sir," Jack said.
"Then tell me your story." He walked around his desk, disturbing the flat layers of smoke just over his head, and half-sat, half-leaned on the front corner nearest Jack. Squinting, he lit a cigarette--Jack saw the Judge's recessed pale eyes peering at him through the smoke and knew there was no charity in them.
It was the pitcher plant again.
Jack drew in a large breath. "My name is Jack Parker. He's my cousin, and he's called Jack, too. Jack Wolf. But his real name is Philip. He was staying with us in Daleville because his dad's dead and his mother got sick. I was just taking him back to Springfield."
"Simple-minded, is he?"
"A little slow," Jack said, and glanced up at Wolf. His friend seemed barely conscious.
"What's your mother's name?" the Judge asked Wolf. Wolf did not respond in any way. His eyes were clamped shut and his hands stuffed into his pockets.
"She's named Helen," Jack said. "Helen Vaughan."
The Judge eased himself off the desk and walked slowly over to Jack. "Have you been drinking, son? You're a little unsteady."
"No."
Judge Fairchild came to within a foot of Jack and bent down. "Let me smell your breath."
Jack opened his mouth and exhaled.
"Nope. No booze." The Judge straightened up again. "But that's the only thing you were telling the truth about, isn't it? You're trying to string me along, boy."
"I'm sorry we were hitching," Jack said, aware that he had to speak with great caution now. Not only might what he said determine whether he and Wolf were to be let free, but he was having a little trouble forming the words themselves--everything seemed to be happening with great slowness. As in the shed, the seconds had wandered off the metronome. "In fact, we hardly ever hitch because Wolf--Jack, that is--hates being in cars. We'll never do it again. We haven't done anything wrong, sir, and that really is the truth."
"You don't understand, sonny," the Judge said, and his far-off eyes gleamed again. He's enjoying this, Jack understood. Judge Fairchild moved slowly back behind his desk. "Hitching rides isn't the issue. You two boys are out on the road by yourself, coming from nowhere, going nowhere--real targets for trouble." His voice was like dark honey. "Now we have here in this country what we think is a most unusual facility--state-approved and state-funded, by the way--which might have been set up expressly for the benefit of boys like yourselves. It's called the Sunlight Gardener Scripture Home for Wayward Boys. Mr. Gardener's work with young fellows in trouble has been nothing short of miraculous. We've sent him some tough cases, and in no time at all he has those boys on their knees begging Jesus for forgiveness. Now I'd say that was pretty special, wouldn't you?"
Jack swallowed. His mouth felt drier than it had been in the shed. "Ah, sir, it's really urgent that we get to Springfield. Everybody's going to wonder--"
"I very much doubt that," said the Judge, smiling with all his wrinkles. "But I'll tell you what. As soon as you two wags are on your way to the Sunlight Home, I'll telephone Springfield and try to get the number of this Helen . . . Wolf, is it? Or is it Helen Vaughan?"
"Vaughan," Jack said, and a red-hot blush covered his face like a fever.
"Yes," the Judge said.
Wolf shook his head, blinking, and then put a hand on Jack's shoulder.
"Coming around are you, son?" the Judge asked. "Could you tell me your age?"
Wolf blinked again, and looked at Jack.
"Sixteen," Jack said.
"And you?"
"Twelve."
"Oh. I would have taken you for several years older. All the more reason for seeing you get help now before you get in real deep trouble, wouldn't you say, Franky?"
"Amen," the policeman said.
"You boys come back here in a month," said the Judge. "Then we'll see if your memory is any better. Why are your eyes so bloodshot?"
"They feel kind of funny," Jack said, and the policeman barked. He had laughed, Jack realized a second later.
"Take them away, Franky," the Judge said. He was already picking up the telephone. "You're going to be different boys thirty days from now. Depend on it."
While they walked down the steps of the redbrick Municipal Building, Jack asked Franky Williams why the Judge had asked for their ages. The cop paused on the bottom step and half-turned to glare up at Jack out of his blazing face. "Old Sunlight generally takes em in at twelve and turns em loose at nineteen." He grinned. "You tellin me you never heard him on the radio? He's about the most famous thing we got around here. I'm pretty sure they heard of old Sunlight Gardener even way over in Daleville." His teeth were small discolored pegs, irregularly spaced.
3
Twenty minutes later they were in farmland again.
Wolf had climbed into the back seat of the police car with surprisingly little fuss. Franky Williams had pulled his sap from his belt and said, "You want this again, you fuckin freak? Who knows, it might make you smart." Wolf had trembled, Wolf's nose had wrinkled up, but he had followed Jack into the car. He had immediately clapped his hand over his nose and begun breathing through his mouth. "We'll get away from this place, Wolf," Jack had whispered into his ear. "A couple of days, that's all, and we'll see how to do it." "No chatter" came from the front seat.
Jack was strangely relaxed. He was certain that they would find a way to escape. He leaned back against the plastic seat, Wolf's hand wrapped around his, and watched the fields go by.
"There she is," Franky Williams called from the front seat. "Your future home."
Jack saw a meeting of tall brick walls planted surrealistically amidst the fields. Too tall to see over, the walls around the Sunlight Home were topped with three strands of barbed wire and shards of broken glass set in cement. The car was now driving past exhausted fields bordered with fences in which strands of barbed and smooth wire alternated.
"Got sixty acres out here," Williams said. "And all of it is either walled or fenced--you better believe it. Boys did it themselves."
A wide iron gate interrupted the expanse of wall where the drive turned into the Home's property. As soon as the police car turned into the drive the gates swung open, triggered by some electronic signal. "TV camera," the policeman explained. "They're a-waitin for you two fresh fish."
Jack leaned forward and put his face to the window. Boys in denim jackets worked in the long fields to either side, hoeing and raking, pushing wheelbarrows.
"You two shitheads just earned me twenty bucks," Williams said. "Plus another twenty for Judge Fairchild. Ain't that great?"
21
The Sunlight Home
1
The Home loo
ked like something made from a child's blocks, Jack thought--it had grown randomly as more space was needed. Then he saw that the numerous windows were barred, and the sprawling building immediately seemed penal, rather than childish.
Most of the boys in the fields had put down their tools to watch the progress of the police car.
Franky Williams pulled up into the wide, rounded end of the drive. As soon as he had cut off his engine, a tall figure stepped through the front door and stood regarding them from the top of the steps, his hands knitted together before him. Beneath a full head of longish wavy white hair, the man's face seemed unrealistically youthful--as if these chipped, vitally masculine features had been created or at least assisted by plastic surgery. It was the face of a man who could sell anything, anywhere, to anybody. His clothes were as white as his hair: white suit, white shoes, white shirt, and a trailing white silk scarf around his neck. As Jack and Wolf got out of the back seat, the man in white pulled a pair of dark green sunglasses from his suitpocket, put them on, and appeared to examine the two boys for a moment before smiling--long creases split his cheeks. Then he removed the sunglasses and put them back in his pocket.
"Well," he said. "Well, well, well. Where would we all be without you, Officer Williams?"
"Afternoon, Reverend Gardener," the policeman said.
"Is it the usual sort of thing, or were these two bold fellows actually engaged in criminal activity?"
"Vagrants," said the cop. Hands on hips, he squinted up at Gardener as if all that whiteness hurt his eyes. "Refused to give Fairchild their right names. This one, the big one," he said, pointing a thumb at Wolf, "he wouldn't talk at all. I had to nail him in the head just to get him in the car."
Gardener shook his head tragically. "Why don't you bring them up here so they can introduce themselves, and then we'll take care of the various formalities. Is there any reason why the two of them should look so, ah, shall we say, 'befuddled'?"
"Just that I cracked that big one behind the ears."
"Ummmmm." Gardener stepped backward, steepling his fingers before his chest.
As Williams prodded the boys up the steps to the long porch, Gardener cocked his head and regarded his new arrivals. Jack and Wolf reached the top of the steps and moved tentatively onto the surface of the porch. Franky Williams wiped his forehead and huffed himself up beside them. Gardener was smiling mistily, but his eyes switched back and forth between the boys. The second after something hard, cold, and familiar jumped out of his eyes at Jack, the Reverend again twitched the sunglasses out of his pocket and put them on. The smile remained misty and delicate, but even wrapped as he was in a sense of false security, Jack felt frozen by that glance--because he had seen it before.
Reverend Gardener pulled the sunglasses below the bridge of his nose and peered playfully over the tops of the frames. "Names? Names? Might we have some names from you two gentlemen?"
"I'm Jack," the boy said, and then stopped--he did not want to say one more word until he had to. Reality seemed to fold and buckle about Jack for a moment: he felt that he had been jerked back into the Territories, but that now the Territories were evil and threatening, and that foul smoke, jumping flames, the screams of tortured bodies filled the air.
A powerful hand closed over his elbow and held him upright. Instead of the foulness and smoke, Jack smelled some heavy sweet cologne, applied too liberally. A pair of melancholy gray eyes were looking directly into his.
"And have you been a bad boy, Jack? Have you been a very bad boy?"
"No, we were just hitching, and--"
"I think you're a trifle stoned," said the Reverend Gardener. "We'll have to see that you get some special attention, won't we?" The hand released his elbow; Gardener stepped neatly away, and pushed the sunglasses up over his eyes again. "You do possess a last name, I imagine."
"Parker," Jack said.
"Yesss." Gardener whipped the glasses off his head, executed a dancing little half-turn, and was scrutinizing Wolf. He had given no indication whether he believed Jack or not.
"My," he said. "You're a healthy specimen, aren't you? Positively strapping. We'll certainly be able to find a use for a big strong boy like you around here, praise the Lord. And might I ask you to emulate Mr. Jack Parker here, and give me your name?"
Jack looked uneasily at Wolf. His head was bowed, and he was breathing heavily. A glistening line of slobber went from the corner of his mouth to his chin. A black smudge, half-dirt, half-grease, covered the front of the stolen Athletic Department sweatshirt. Wolf shook his head, but the gesture seemed to have no content--he might have been shaking away a fly.
"Name, son? Name? Name? Are you called Bill? Paul? Art? Sammy? No--something exceedingly foursquare, I'm sure. George, perhaps?"
"Wolf," said Wolf.
"Ah, that is nice." Gardener beamed at both of them. "Mr. Parker and Mr. Wolf. Perhaps you'll escort them inside, Officer Williams? And aren't we happy that Mr. Bast is in residence already? For the presence of Mr. Hector Bast--one of our stewards, by the way--means that we shall probably be able to outfit Mr. Wolf." He peered at the two boys over the frames of his sunglasses. "One of our beliefs here at the Scripture Home is that the soldiers of the Lord march best when they march in uniform. And Heck Bast is nearly as large as your friend Wolf, young Jack Parker. So from the points of view of both clothing and discipline you shall be very well served indeed. A comfort, yes?"
"Jack," Wolf said in a low voice.
"Yes."
"My head hurts, Jack. Hurts bad."
"Your little head pains you, Mr. Wolf?" Reverend Sunlight Gardener half-danced toward Wolf and gently patted his arm. Wolf snatched his arm away, his face working into an exaggerated reflex of disgust. The cologne, Jack knew--that heavy cloying odor would have been like ammonia in Wolf's sensitive nostrils.
"Never mind, son," said Gardener, seemingly unaffected by Wolf's withdrawal from him. "Mr. Bast or Mr. Singer, our other steward, will see to that inside. Frank, I thought I told you to get them into the Home."
Officer Williams reacted as if he had been jabbed in the back with a pin. His face grew more feverish, and he jerked his peculiar body across the porch to the front door.
Sunlight Gardener twinkled at Jack again, and the boy saw that all his dandified animation was only a kind of sterile self-amusement: the man in white was cold and crazy within. A heavy gold chain rattled out of Gardener's sleeve and came to rest against the base of his thumb. Jack heard the whistle of a whip cutting through the air, and this time he recognized Gardener's dark gray eyes.
Gardener was Osmond's Twinner.
"Inside, young fellows," Gardener said, half-bowing and indicating the open door.
2
"By the way, Mr. Parker," Gardener said, once they had gone in, "is it possible that we've met before? There must be some reason you look so familiar to me, mustn't there?"
"I don't know," Jack said, looking carefully around the odd interior of the Scripture Home.
Long couches covered with a dark blue fabric sat against the wall on the forest-green carpet; two massive leather-topped desks had been placed against the opposite wall. At one of the desks a pimply teenager glanced at them dully, then returned to the video screen before him, where a TV preacher was inveighing against rock and roll. The teenage boy seated at the adjoining desk straightened up and fixed Jack with an aggressive stare. He was slim and black-haired and his narrow face looked clever and bad-tempered. To the pocket of his white turtleneck sweater was pinned a rectangular nameplate of the sort worn by soldiers: SINGER.
"But I do think we have met each other somewhere, don't you, my lad? I assure you, we must have--I don't forget, I am literally incapable of forgetting, the face of a boy I have encountered. Have you ever been in trouble before this, Jack?"
Jack said, "I never saw you before."
Across the room, a massive boy had lifted himself off one of the blue couches and was now standing at attention. He too wore a white turtleneck sw
eater and a military nameplate. His hands wandered nervously from his sides to his belt, into the pockets of his blue jeans, back to his sides. He was at least six-three and seemed to weigh nearly three hundred pounds. Acne burned across his cheeks and forehead. This, clearly, was Bast.
"Well, perhaps it will come to me later," Sunlight Gardener said. "Heck, come up here and help our new arrivals at the desk, will you?"
Bast lumbered forward, scowling. He made a point of coming up very close to Wolf before he sidestepped past him, scowling more fiercely all the while--if Wolf had opened his eyes, which he did not, he would have seen no more than the ravaged moonscape of Bast's forehead and the mean small eyes, like a bear's eyes, bulging up at him from beneath crusty brows. Bast switched his gaze to Jack, muttered, "C'mon," and flapped a hand toward the desk.
"Registration, then take them up to the laundry for clothes," Gardener said in a flat voice. He smiled with chromelike brilliance at Jack. "Jack Parker," he said softly. "I wonder who you really are, Jack Parker. Bast, make sure everything is out of his pockets."
Bast grinned.
Sunlight Gardener drifted across the room toward an obviously impatient Franky Williams and languidly withdrew a long leather wallet from his jacket's inside pocket. Jack saw him begin to count money out into the policeman's hands.
"Pay attention, snotface," said the boy behind the desk, and Jack snapped around to face him. The boy was playing with a pencil, the smirk on his face an utterly inadequate disguise for what seemed to Jack's keyed-up perceptions his characteristic anger--a rage that bubbled far down within him, eternally stoked. "Can he write?"
"Jeez, I don't think so," Jack said.
"Then you'll have to sign in for him." Singer shoved two legal-sized sheets of paper at him. "Print on the top line, write on the bottom one. Where the X's are." He fell back into his chair, raising the pencil to his lips, and slumped eloquently into its corner. Jack supposed that was a trick learned from the very Reverend Sunlight Gardener.
JACK PARKER, he printed, and scrawled something like that at the bottom of the sheet. PHILIP JACK WOLF. Another scrawl, even less like his real handwriting.