by Stephen King
I had no intention of going near my family in Maine. They were too close to Goat Mountain as it was.
“You’re a kid,” he said moodily. “Come this fall, I’m going to have a year for every trombone that led the big parade. Mookie pulling the pin this spring was bad enough. If you went for good, I’d probably have to close this place down.”
He heaved a sigh.
“I should have had kids, someone to take over when I’m gone, but does that sort of thing happen? Rarely. When you say you hope they’ll pick up the reins of the family business, they say ‘Sorry, Dad, me and that dope-smoking kid you hated me hanging out with in high school are going to California to make surfboards equipped with WiFi.’”
“Now that you’ve got that out of your system . . .”
“Yeah, yeah, go back to your roots, by all means. Play pat-a-cake with your little niece and help your brother rebuild his latest classic car. You know how summers are here.”
I certainly did: slower than dirt. Summer means full employment even for the shittiest bands, and when bands are playing live music in bars and at four dozen summerfests in Colorado and Utah, they don’t buy much recording time.
“George Damon will be in,” I said. “He’s come out of retirement in a big way.”
“Yeah,” Hugh said. “The only guy in Colorado who can make ‘I’ll Be Seeing You’ sound like ‘God Bless America.’”
“Perhaps in the world. Hugh, you haven’t had any more of those prismatics, have you?”
He gave me a curious look. “No. What brought that on?”
I shrugged.
“I’m fine. Up a couple of times every night to squirt half a teacup of pee, but I guess that’s par for the course at my age. Although . . . you want to hear a funny thing? Only to me it’s more of a spooky thing.”
I wasn’t sure I did, but thought I ought to. It was early June. Jacobs hadn’t called yet, but he would. I knew he would.
“I’ve been having this recurring dream. In it I’m not here at Wolfjaw, I’m in Arvada, in the house where I grew up. Someone starts knocking on the door. Except it’s not just knocking, it’s pounding. I don’t want to answer it, because I know it’s my mother, and she’s dead. Pretty stupid, because she was alive and healthy as a horse back in the Arvada days, but I know it, just the same. I go down the hall, not wanting to, but my feet just keep moving—you know how dreams are. By then she’s really whamming on the door, beating on it with both fists, it sounds like, and I’m thinking of this horror story we had to read in English when I was in high school. I think it was called ‘August Heat.’”
Not “August Heat,” I thought. “The Monkey’s Paw.” That’s the one with the door-pounding in it.
“I reach for the knob, and then I wake up, all in a sweat. What do you make of that? My subconscious, trying to get me ready for the big exit scene?”
“Maybe,” I agreed, but my head had left the conversation. I was thinking about another door. A small one covered with dead ivy.
• • •
Jacobs called on July first. I was in one of the studios, updating the Apple Pro software. When I heard his voice, I sat down in front of the control board and looked through the window into a soundproof rehearsal room that was empty except for a disassembled drumkit.
“The time has almost come for you to keep your promise,” he said. His voice was mushy, as if he’d been drinking, although I’d never seen him take anything stronger than black coffee.
“All right.” My voice was calm enough. Why not? It was the call I had been expecting. “When do you want me to come?”
“Tomorrow. The day after at the latest. I suspect you won’t want to stay with me at the resort, at least to start with—”
“You suspect right.”
“—but I’ll need you no more than an hour away. When I call, you come.”
That made me think of another spooky story, one titled “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad.”
“All right,” I said. “But Charlie?”
“Yes?”
“You get two months of my time, and that’s it. When Labor Day rolls around, we’re quits no matter what happens.”
Another pause, but I could hear his breathing. It sounded labored, making me think of how Astrid had sounded in her wheelchair. “That’s . . . acceptable.” Acsheptable.
“Are you okay?”
“Another stroke, I’m afraid.” Shtroke. “My speech isn’t as clear as it once was, but I assure you my mind is as clear as ever.”
Pastor Danny, heal thyself, I thought, and not for the first time.
“Bit of news for you, Charlie. Robert Rivard is dead. The boy from Missouri? He hung himself.”
“I’m shorry to hear that.” He didn’t sound sorry, and didn’t waste time asking for details. “When you arrive, call me and tell me where you are. And remember, no more than an hour away.”
“Okay,” I said, and broke the connection.
I sat there in the unnaturally quiet studio for several minutes, looking at the framed album covers on the walls, then dialed Jenny Knowlton, in Rockland. She answered on the first ring.
“How’s our girl doing?” I asked.
“Fine. Putting on weight and walking a mile a day. She looks twenty years younger.”
“No aftereffects?”
“Nothing. No seizures, no sleepwalking, no amnesia. She doesn’t remember much about the time we spent at Goat Mountain, but I think that’s sort of a blessing, don’t you?”
“What about you, Jenny? Are you okay?”
“Fine, but I ought to go. We’re awfully busy at the hospital today. Thank God I’ve got vacation coming up.”
“You won’t go off somewhere and leave Astrid alone, will you? Because I don’t think that would be a good id—”
“No, no, certainly not!” There was something in her voice. Something nervous. “Jamie, I’ve got a page. I have to go.”
I sat in front of the darkened control panel. I looked at the album covers—actually CD covers these days, little things the size of postcards. I thought about a time not too long after I’d gotten my first car as a birthday present, that ’66 Ford Galaxie. Riding with Norm Irving. Him pestering me to put the pedal to the metal on the two-mile stretch of Route 9 we called the Harlow Straight. So we could see what she’d do, he said. At eighty, the front end began to shimmy, but I didn’t want to look like a wuss—at seventeen, not looking like a wuss is very important—so I kept my foot down. At eighty-five the shimmy smoothed out. At ninety, the Galaxie took on a dreamy, dangerous lightness as its contact with the road lessened, and I realized I’d reached the edge of control. Careful not to touch the brake—I knew from my father that could mean disaster at high speed—I let off the gas and the Galaxie began to slow.
I wished I could do that now.
• • •
The Embassy Suites near the Jetport had seemed all right when I’d been there the night after Astrid’s miracle recovery, so I checked in again. It had crossed my mind to do my waiting at the Castle Rock Inn, but the chances of running into an old acquaintance—Norm Irving, for instance—were too great. If that happened, it would almost certainly get back to my brother Terry. He’d want to know why I was in Maine, and why I wasn’t staying with him. Those were questions I didn’t want to answer.
The time passed. On July Fourth, I watched the fireworks from Portland Promenade with several thousand other people, all of us ooh-ing and ahh-ing as the peonies and chrysanthemums and diadems exploded overhead and were doubled in Casco Bay, where they swayed on the waves. In the days that followed, I went to the zoo in York, the Seashore Trolley Museum in Kennebunkport, and the lighthouse at Pemaquid Point. I toured the Portland Museum of Art, where three generations of Wyeths were on view, and took in a matinee performance of The Buddy Holly Story at Ogunquit Playhouse—the
lead singer/actor was good, but no Gary Busey. I ate “lobstah” until I never wanted to see another one. I took long walks along the rocky shore. Twice a week I visited Books-A-Million in the Maine Mall and bought paperbacks which I read in my room until I was sleepy. I took my cell with me everywhere, waiting for Jacobs to call, and the call didn’t come. On a couple of occasions I thought of calling him, and told myself I was out of my mind to even consider it. Why kick a sleeping dog?
The weather was picture-perfect, with low humidity, innocent skies, and temperatures in the low seventies, day after day. There were showers, usually at night. One evening I heard TV weatherman Joe Cupo call it “considerate rain.” He added that it was the most beautiful summer he’d seen in his thirty-five years of broadcasting.
The All-Star game was played in Minneapolis, the regular baseball season resumed, and as August approached, I began to hope that I might make it back to Colorado without ever seeing Charlie. It crossed my mind that he might have had a fourth stroke, this time a cataclysmic one, and I kept an eye on the obituary page in the Portland Press Herald. Not exactly hoping, but . . .
Fuck that, I was. I was hoping.
During the local news on July 25th, Joe Cupo regretfully informed me and the rest of his southern Maine viewing audience that all good things must end, and the heatwave currently baking the Midwest would be moving into New England over the weekend. Temperatures would be in the mid-nineties during the entire last week of July, and August didn’t look much better, at least to start with. “Check those air-conditioning units, folks,” Cupo advised. “They don’t call em the dog days for nothing.”
Jacobs called that evening. “Sunday,” he said. “I’ll expect you no later than nine in the morning.”
I told him I’d be there.
• • •
Joe Cupo was right about the heat. It moved in Saturday afternoon, and when I got into my rental car at seven thirty on Sunday morning, the air was already thick. The roads were empty, and I made good time to Goat Mountain. On my way up to the main gate, I noticed that the spur leading to Skytop was open again, the stout wooden gate pulled back.
Sam the security guard was waiting for me, but no longer in uniform. He was sitting on the dropped tailgate of a Tacoma pickup, dressed in jeans and eating a bagel. He put it carefully on a napkin when I pulled up, and strolled over to my car.
“Hello there, Mr. Morton. You’re early.”
“No traffic,” I said.
“Yeah, in summer this is the best time of day to travel. The Massholes’ll be out in force later, headed for the beaches.” He looked at the sky, where blue was already fading to hazy white. “Let em bake and work on their skin cancer. I plan to be home, watching the Sox and soaking up the AC.”
“Shift over soon?”
“No more shifts here for any of us,” he said. “Once I call Mr. Jacobs and tell him you’re on your way, that’s it. Job over.”
“Well, enjoy the rest of the summer.” I stuck out my hand.
He shook it. “Any idea what he’s up to? I can keep a secret; I’m bonded, you know.”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
He gave me a wink as if to say we both knew better, then waved me on. Before I went around the first curve, I watched in the rearview mirror as he grabbed his bagel, slammed the Tacoma’s tailgate shut, and got in behind the wheel.
That’s it. Job over.
I wished I could say the same.
• • •
Jacobs came slowly and carefully down the porch steps to meet me. In his left hand was a cane. The twist of his mouth was more severe than ever. I saw a single car in the parking lot, and it was one I recognized: a trim little Subaru Outback. On the back deck was a sticker reading SAVE ONE LIFE, YOU’RE A HERO. SAVE A THOUSAND AND YOU’RE A NURSE. My heart sank.
“Jamie! Wonderful to see you!” See came out she. He offered the hand not holding the cane. It was obviously an effort, but I ignored it.
“If Astrid is here, she leaves, and leaves this minute,” I said. “If you think I’m bluffing, just try me.”
“Calm yourself, Jamie. Astrid is a hundred and thirty miles from here, continuing her recovery in her cozy little nest just north of Rockland. Her friend Jenny has kindly agreed to aid me while I complete my work.”
“I somehow doubt that kindness had much to do with it. Correct me if I’m wrong.”
“Come inside. It’s hot out here already. You can move your car to the parking lot later.”
He was slow going up the steps even with the cane, and I had to steady him when he tottered. The arm I grasped was hardly more than a bone. By the time we got to the top, he was gasping.
“I need to rest a minute,” he said, and sank into one of the Shaker-style rockers that lined the porch.
I sat on the rail and regarded him.
“Where’s Rudy? I thought he was your nurse.”
Jacobs favored me with his peculiar smile, now more one-sided than ever. “Shortly after my session with Miss Soderberg in the East Room, both Rudy and Norma tendered their resignations. You just can’t get good help these days, Jamie. Present company excepted, of course.”
“So you hired Knowlton.”
“I did, and believe me, I traded up. She’s forgotten more about nursing than Rudy Kelly ever knew. Give me a hand, would you?”
I helped him to his feet, and we went inside to where it was cool.
“There’s juice and breakfast pastries in the kitchen. Help yourself to whatever you want, and join me in the main parlor.”
I skipped the pastries but poured myself a small glass of OJ from a carafe in the huge refrigerator. When I put it back, I inventoried the supplies and saw enough for ten days or so. Two weeks if they were stretched. Was that how long we were going to be here, or would either Jenny Knowlton or myself be making a grocery run to Yarmouth, which was probably the closest town with a supermarket?
The guard service was finished. Jacobs had replaced the nurse—which didn’t completely surprise me, given Jacobs’s own increasingly iffy condition—but not the housekeeper, which meant (among other things) that Jenny must also have been cooking his meals and, perhaps, changing his bed. It was just the three of us, or so I thought then.
We turned out to be a quartet.
• • •
The main parlor was all glass on the north side, giving a view of Longmeadow and Skytop. I couldn’t see the cabin, but I could glimpse that iron pole jutting up toward the hazy sky. Looking at it, things finally began to come together in my mind . . . but slowly, even then, and Jacobs held back the one vital piece that would have made the picture crystal clear. You might say I should have seen it anyway, all the pieces were there, but I was a guitar player, not a detective, and when it came to deductive reasoning, I was never the fastest greyhound on the track.
“Where is Jenny?” I asked. Jacobs had taken the sofa; I sat down opposite him in a wingback chair that tried to swallow me whole.
“Occupied.”
“With what?”
“None of your beeswax now, although it will be shortly.” He leaned forward with his hands clasped on the head of the cane, looking like a predatory bird. One that would soon be too old to fly. “You have questions. I understand that better than you think, Jamie—I know that inquisitiveness is a large part of what brought you here. You will have answers in time, but probably not today.”
“When?”
“Hard to tell, but soon. In the meantime, you will cook our meals and come if I ring.”
He showed me a white box—not so different in appearance from the one I’d used that day in the East Room, except this one had a button instead of a slide switch, and an embossed trade name: Notiflex. He pushed the button and chimes went off, echoing from all the large downstairs rooms.
“I won’t need you to help me go to the toile
t—that I can still do myself—but I’ll need you standing by when I’m in the shower, I’m afraid. In case I slip. There’s a prescription gel you’ll rub into my back, hips, and thighs twice a day. Oh, and you’ll have to bring many of my meals to my suite of rooms. Not because I’m lazy, or because I want to turn you into my personal butler, but because I tire easily and need to conserve my strength. I have one more thing to do. It’s a large thing, a vitally important thing, and when the time comes, I must be strong enough to do it.”
“Happy to make and serve the meals, Charlie, but as far as the nursing part goes, I assumed Jenny Knowlton would be the one to—”
“She’s occupied, as I told you, so you must take over her . . . why are you looking at me like that?”
“I was remembering the day I met you. I was only six, but it’s a clear memory. I made a mountain in the dirt—”
“So you did. It’s a clear memory for me, too.”
“—and I was playing with my soldiers. A shadow fell over me. I looked up and it was you. What I was thinking is that your shadow has been over me for my whole life. What I ought to do is drive away from here right now and get out from under it.”
“But you won’t.”
“No. I won’t. But I’ll tell you something. I also remember the man you were—how you got right down on your knees with me and joined in the game. I remember your smile. When you smile now, all I see is a sneer. When you talk now, all I hear is orders: do this, do that, and I’ll tell you why later. What became of you, Charlie?”
He struggled up from the sofa, and when I moved to help, he waved me away. “If you have to ask that, a smart boy grew up to be a stupid man. At least when I lost my wife and son, I didn’t turn to drugs.”
“You had your secret electricity. That was your drug.”
“Thank you for that valuable insight, but since this discussion has no point, let’s end it, shall we? Several of the rooms on the second floor are made up. I’m sure you’ll find one to your taste. I’d like an egg salad sandwich for lunch, a glass of skim milk, and an oatmeal-raisin cookie. The roughage is good for my bowels, I’m told.”