He was the meanest dog for forty miles around (or so we heard), and ugly enough to stop a striking clock. The kids whispered legends about Choppers meanness. Some said he was half German shepherd, some said he was mostly boxer, and a kid from Castle View with the unfortunate name of Harry Horr claimed that Chopper was a Doberman pinscher whose vocal cords had been surgically removed so you couldnt hear him when he was on the attack. There were other kids who claimed Chopper was a maniacal Irish wolfhound and Milo Pressman fed him a special mixture of Gaines Meal and chicken blood. These same kids claimed that Milo didnt dare take Chopper out of his shack unless the dog was hooded like a hunting falcon. The most common story was that Pressman had trained Chopper not just to sic but to sic specific parts of the human anatomy. Thus an unfortunate kid who had illegally scaled the dump fence to pick up illicit treasures might hear Milo Pressman cry Chopper! Sic! Hand! And Chopper would grab that hand and hold on, ripping skin and tendons, powdering bones between his slavering jaws, until Milo told him to quit. It was rumored that Chopper could take an ear, an eye, a foot, or a leg ... and that a second offender who was surprised by Milo and the everloyal Chopper would hear the dread cry Chopper! Sic! Balls! And that kid would be a soprano for the rest of his life. Milo himself was more commonly seen and thus more commonly regarded. He was just a halfbright working joe who supplemented his small town salary by fixing things people threw away and selling them around town. There was no sign of either Milo or Chopper today. Chris and I watched Vem prime the pump while Teddy worked the handle frantically. At last he was rewarded with a flood of clear water. A moment later both of them had their heads under the trough, Teddy still pumping away a mile a minute. Teddys crazy, I said softly. Oh yeah, Chris said matteroffactly. He wont live to be twice the age he is now, I bet. His dad burnin his ears like that. Thats what did it. Hes crazy to dodge trucks the way he does. He cant see worth a shit, glasses or no glasses. You remember that time in the tree? Yeah. The year before, Teddy and Chris had been climbing the big pine tree behind my house. They were almost to the top and Chris said they couldnt go any further because all of the branches up there were rotten. Teddy got that crazy, stubborn look on his face and said fuck that, he had pine tar all over his hands and he was gonna go up until he could touch the top. Nothing Chris said could talk him out of it. So up he went, and he actually made ithe only weighed seventyfive pounds or so, remember. He stood there, clutching the top of the pine in one targummy hand, shouting that he was king of the world or some stupid thing like that, and then there was a sickening, rotted crack as the branch he was standing on gave way and he plummeted. What happened next was one of those things that make you sure there must be a God. Chris reached out, purely on reflex, and what he caught was a fistful of Teddy Duchamps hair. And although his wrist swelled up fat and he was unable to use his right hand very well for almost two weeks, Chris held him until Teddy, screaming and cursing, got his foot on a live branch thick enough to support his weight. Except for Chriss blind grab, he would have turned and crashed and smashed all the way to the foot of the tree, a hundred and twenty feet below. When they got down, Chris was grayfaced and almost puking with the fear reaction. And Teddy wanted to fight him for pulling his hair. They would have gone at it, too, if I hadnt been there to make peace. I dream about that every now and then, Chris said, and looked at me with strangely defenseless eyes. Except in this dream I have, I always miss him. I just get a couple of hairs and Teddy screams and down he goes. Weird, huh? Weird, I agreed, and for just one moment we looked in each others eyes and saw some of the true things that made us friends. Then we looked away again and watched Teddy and Vern throwing water at each other, screaming and laughing and calling each other pussies. Yeah, but you didnt miss him, I said. Chris Chambers never misses, am I right? Not even when the ladies leave the seat down, he said. He winked at me, formed an O with his thumb and forefinger, and spat a neat white bullet through it. Eat me raw, Chambers, I said. Through a Flavor Straw, he said, and we grinned at each other. Vem yelled Come on and get your water before it runs back down the pipe! Race you, Chris said. In this heat? Youre off your gourd. Come on, he said, still grinning. On my go. Okay. Go!  We raced, our sneakers digging up the hard, sunbaked dirt, our torsos leaning out ahead of our flying bluejeaned legs, our fists doubled. It was a dead heat, with both Vern on Chriss side and Teddy on mine holding up their middle fingers at the same moment. We collapsed laughing in the still, smoky odor of the place, and Chris tossed Vern his canteen. When it was full, Chris and I went to the pump and first Chris pumped for me and then I pumped for him, the shocking cold water sluicing off the soot and the heat all in a flash, sending our suddenly freezing scalps four months ahead into January. Then I refilled the lard can and we all walked over to sit down in the shade of the dumps only tree, a stunted ash forty feet from Milo Pressmans tarpaper shack. The tree was hunched slightly to the west, as if what it really wanted to do was pick up its roots the way an old lady would pick up her skirts and just get the hell out of the dump. The most! Chris said, laughing, tossing his tangled hair back from his brow. A blast, I said, nodding, still laughing myself. This is really a good time, Vern said simply, and he didnt just mean being offlimits inside the dump, or fudging our folks, or going on a hike up the railroad tracks into Harlow; he meant those things but it seems to me now that there was more, and that we all knew it. Everything was there and around us. We knew exactly who we were and exactly where we were going. It was grand. We sat under the tree for awhile, shooting the shit like we always didwho had the best ballteam (still the Yankees with Mantle and Maris, of course), what was the best car (55 Thunderbird, with Teddy holding out stubbornly for the 58 Corvette), who was the toughest guy in Castle Rock who wasnt in our gang (we all agreed it was Jamie Gallant, who gave Mrs. Ewing the finger and then sauntered out of her class with his hands in his pockets while she shouted at him), the best TV show (either The Untouchables or Peter Gunnboth Robert Stack as Eliot Ness and Craig Stevens as Gunn were cool), all that stuff. It was Teddy who first noticed that the shade of the ash tree was getting longer and asked me what time it was. I looked at my watch and was surprised to see it was quarter after two. Hey man, Vern said. Somebodys got to go for provisions. Dump opens at four. I dont want to still be here when Milo and Chopper make the scene. Even Teddy agreed. He wasnt afraid of Milo, who had a pot belly and was at least forty, but every kid in Castle Rock squeezed his balls between his legs when Choppers name was mentioned. Okay, I said. Odd man goes? Thats you, Gordie, Chris said, smiling. Odd as a cod. Sos your mother, I said, and gave them each a coin. Flip. Four coins glittered up into the sun. Four hands snatched them from the air. Four flat smacks on four grimy wrists. We uncovered. Two heads and two tails. We flipped again and this time all four of us had tails. Oh Jesus, thats a goocher, Vem said, not telling us anything we didnt know. Four heads, or a moon, was supposed to be extraordinarily good luck. Four tails was a goocher, and that meant very bad luck. Fuck that shit, Chris said. It doesnt mean anything. Go again. No, man, Vern said earnestly. A goocher, thats really bad. You remember when Clint Bracken and those guys got wiped out on Sirois Hill in Durham? Billy tole me they was flippin for beers and they came up a goocher just before they got into the car. And bang! they all get fuckin totalled. I dont like that. Sincerely. Nobody believes that crap about moons and goochers, Teddy said impatiently. Its baby stuff, Vern. You gonna flip or not? Vern flipped, but with obvious reluctance. This time he, Chris, and Teddy all had tails. I was showing Thomas Jefferson on a nickel. And I was suddenly scared. It was as if a shadow had crossed some inner sun. They still had a goocher, the three of them, as if dumb fate had pointed at them a second time. Abruptly I thought of Chris saying I just get a couple of hairs and Teddy screams and down he goes. Weird, huh? Three tails, one head. Then Teddy was laughing his crazy, cackling laugh and pointing at me and the feeling was gone. I heard that only fairies laugh like that, I said, and gave him the finger. Eeeeeeeeeeee, Gordie, Teddy laughed. Go get the provisions, you fuckin morphadite. I wasnt really sorry to be going. I was rested up and didnt mind going down the road to the Florida Market. Dont call me any of your mothers pet names, I said to Teddy. Eeeeeeeeeee, what a fuckin wet you are, Lachance. Go on, Gordie, Chris said. Well wait over by the tracks. You guys better not go without me, I said. Vern laughed. Goin without youd be like goin with Slitz instead of Budweisers, Gordie. Ah, shut up. They chanted together I dont shut up, I grow up. And when I look at you I throw up. Then your mother goes around the corner and licks it up, I said, and hauled ass out of there, giving them the finger over my shoulder as I went. I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, did you? 12 Different strokes for different folks, they say now, and thats cool. So if I say summer to you, you get one set of private, personal images that are all the way different from mine. Thats cool. But for me, summer is always going to mean running down the road to the Florida Market with change jingling in my pockets, the temperature in the gay nineties, my feet dressed in Keds. The word conjures an image of the GSWM railroad tracks running into a perspectivepoint in the distance, burnished so white under the sun that when you closed your eyes you could still see them there in the dark, only blue instead of white. But there was more to that summer than our trip across the river to look for Ray Brower, although that looms the largest. Sounds of The Fleetwoods singing, Come Softly to Me and Robin Luke singing Susie Darlin and Little Anthony popping the vocal on I Ran All the Way Home. Were they all hits in that summer of 1960? Yes and no. Mostly yes. In the long purple evenings when rock and roll from WLAM blurred into night baseball from WCOU, time shifted. I think it was all 1960 and that the summer went on for a space of years, held magically intact in a web of sounds the sweet hum of crickets, the machinegun roar of playingcards riffling against the spokes of some kids bicycle as he pedaled home for a late supper of cold cuts and iced tea, the flat Texas voice of Buddy Knox singing Come along and be my party doll, and Ill make love to you, to you, and the baseball announcers voice mingling with the song and with the smell of freshly cut grass Counts three and two now. Whitey Ford leans over ... shakes off the sign ... now hes got it ... Ford pauses ... pitches ... and there it goes! Williams got all of that one! Kiss it goodbye! RED SOX LEAD, THREE TO ONE! Was Ted Williams still playing for the Red Sox in 1960? You bet your ass he was.316 for my man Ted. I remember that very clearly. Baseball had become important to me in the last couple of years, ever since Id had to face the knowledge that baseball players were as much flesh and blood as I was. That knowledge came when Roy Campanellas car overturned and the papers screamed mortal news from the front pages his career was done, he was going to sit in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. How that came back to me, with that same sickening mortal thud, when I sat down to this typewriter one morning two years ago, turned on the radio, and heard that Thurman Munson had died while trying to land his airplane. There were movies to go see at the Gem, which has long since been torn down; science fiction movies like Gog with Richard Egan and westerns with Audie Murphy (Teddy saw every movie Audie Murphy made at least three times; he believed Murphy was almost a god) and war movies with John Wayne. There were games and endless bolted meals, lawns to mow, places to run to, walls to pitch pennies against, people to clap you on the back. And now I sit here trying to look through an IBM keyboard and see that time, trying to recall the best and the worst of that green and brown summer, and I can almost feel the skinny, scabbed boy still buried in this advancing body and hear those sounds. But the apotheosis of the memory and the time is Gordon Lachance running down the road to the Florida Market with change in his pockets and sweat running down his back. I asked for three pounds of hamburger and got some hamburger rolls, four bottles of Coke and a twocent churchkey to open them with. The owner, a man named George Dusset, got the meat and then leaned by his cash register, one hammy hand planted on the counter by the big bottle of hardcooked eggs, a toothpick in his mouth, his huge beer belly rounding his white teeshirt like a sail filled with a good wind. He stood right there as I shopped, making sure I didnt try to hawk anything. He didnt say a word until he was weighing up the hamburger. I know you. Youre Denny Lachances brother. Aint you? The toothpick journeyed from one comer of his mouth to the other, as if on ball bearings. He reached behind the cash register, picked up a bottle of SOK cream soda, and chugged it. Yes, sir. But Denny, he Yeah, I know. Thats a sad thing, kid. The Bible says In the midst of life, we are in death. Did you know that? Yuh. I lost a brother in Korea. You look just like Denny, people ever tell you that? Yuh. Spitting image. Yes, sir, sometimes, I said glumly. I remember the year he was AllConference. Halfback, he played. Yuh. Could he run? Father God and Sonny Jesus! Youre probably too young to remember. He was looking over my head, out through the screen door and into the blasting heat, as if he were having a beautiful vision of my brother. I remember. Uh, Mr. Dusset? What, kid? His eyes were still misty with memory; the toothpick trembled a little between his lips. Your thumb is on that scales. What? He looked down, astounded, to where the ball of his thumb was pressed firmly on the white enamel. If I hadnt moved away from him a little bit when he started talking about Dennis, the ground meat would have hidden it. Why, so it is. Yuh. I guess I just got thinkin about your brother, God love him. George Dusset signed a cross on himself. When he took his thumb off the scales, the needle sprang back six ounces. He patted a little more meat on top and then did the package up with white butchers paper. Okay, he said past the toothpick. Lets see what we got here. Three pounds of hamburg, thats a dollar fortyfour. Hamburg rolls, thats twentyseven. Four sodas, forty cents. One churchkey, two pence. Comes to ... He added it up on the bag he was going to put the stuff in. Twotwentynine. Thirteen, I said. He looked up at me very slowly, frowning. Huh? Twothirteen. You added it wrong. Kid, are you You added it wrong, I said. First you put your thumb on the scales and then you overcharged on the groceries, Mr. Dusset. I was gonna throw some Hostess Twinkies on top of that order but now I guess I wont. I spanged two dollars and thirteen cents down on the Schlitz placemat in front of him. He looked at the money, then at me. The frown was now tremendous, the lines on his face as deep as fissures. What are you, kid? he said in a low voice that was ominously confidential. Are you some kind of smartass? No, sir, I said. But you aint gonna jap me and get away with it. What would your mother say if she knew you was japping little kids? He thrust our stuff into the paper bag with quick stiff movements, making the Coke bottles clink together. He thrust the bag at me roughly, not caring if I dropped it and broke the sodas or not. His swarthy face was flushed and dull, the frown now frozen in place. Okay, kid. Here you go. Now what you do is you get the Christ out of my store. I see you in here again and I going to throw you out, me. Yuh. Smartass little sonofawhore. I wont come in again, I said, walking over to the screen door and pushing it open. The hot afternoon buzzed somnolently along its appointed course outside, sounding green and brown and full of silent light. Neither will none of my friends. I guess I got fifty or so. Your brother wasnt no smartass! George Dusset yelled. Fuck you! I yelled, and ran like hell down the road. I heard the screen door bang open like a gunshot and his bull roar came after me If you ever come in here again Ill fat your lip for you, you little punk! I ran until I was over the first hill, scared and laughing to myself, my heart beating out a triphammer pulse in my chest. Then I slowed to a fast walk, looking back over my shoulder every now and then to make sure he wasnt going to take after me in his car, or anything. He didnt, and pretty soon I got to the dump gate. I put the bag inside my shirt, climbed the gate, and monkeyed down the other side. I was halfway across the dump area when I saw something I didnt likeMilo Pressmans portholed 56 Buick was parked behind his tarpaper shack. If Milo saw me I was going to be in a world of hurt. As yet there was no sign of either him or the infamous Chopper, but all at once the chainlink fence at the back of the dump seemed very far away. I found myself wishing Id gone around the outside, but I was now too far into the dump to want to turn around and go back. If Milo saw me climbing the dump fence, Id probably be in dutch when I got home, but that didnt scare me as much as Milo yelling for Chopper to sic would. Scary violin music started to play in my head. I kept putting one foot in front of the other, trying to look casual, trying to look as if I belonged here with a paper grocery sack poking out of my shirt, heading for the fence between the dump and the railroad tracks. I was about fifty feet from the fence and just beginning to think that everything was going to be all right after all when I heard Milo shout Hey! Hey, you! Kid! Get away fn that fence! Get outta here! The smart thing to have done would have been to just agree with the guy and go around, but by then I was so keyed that instead of doing the smart thing I just broke for the fence with a wild yell, my sneakers kicking up dirt. Vem, Teddy, and Chris came out of the underbrush on the other side of the fence and stared anxiously through the chainlink. You come back here! Milo bawled. Come back here or Ill sic my dawg on you, goddammit! I did not exactly find that to be the voice of sanity and conciliation, and I ran even faster for the fence, my arms pumping, the brown grocery bag crackling against my skin. Teddy started to laugh his idiotic chortling laugh, eeeeeeeeee into the air like some reed instrument being played by a lunatic. Go, Gordie! Go! Vern screamed. And Milo yelled Sic im, Chopper! Go get im, boy! I threw the bag over the fence and Vem elbowed Teddy out of the way to catch it. Behind me I could hear Chopper coming, shaking the earth, blurting fire out of one distended nostril and ice out of the other, dripping sulphur from his champing jaws. I threw myself halfway up the fence with one leap, screaming. I made it to the top in no more than three seconds and simply leapedI never thought about it, never even looked down to see what I might land on. What I almost landed on was Teddy, who was doubled over and laughing like crazy. His glasses had fallen off and tears were streaming out of his eyes. I missed him by inches and hit the claygravel embankment just to his left. At the same instant, Chopper hit the chainlink fence behind me and let out a howl of mingled pain and disappointment. I turned around, holding one skinned knee, and got my first look at the famous Chopperand my first lesson in the vast difference between myth and reality. Instead of some huge hellhound with red, savage eyes and teeth jutting out of his mouth like straightpipes from a hotrod, I was looking at a mediumsized mongrel dog that was a perfectly common black and white. He was yapping and jumping fruitlessly, going up on his back legs to paw the fence. Teddy was now strutting up and down in front of the fence, twiddling his glasses in one hand, and inciting Chopper to ever greater rage. Kiss my ass, Choppie! Teddy invited, spittle flying from his lips. Kiss my ass! Bite shit! He bumped his fanny against the chainlink fence and Chopper did his level best to take Teddy up on his invitation. He got nothing for his pains but a good healthy nosebump. He began to bark crazily, foam flying from his snout. Teddy kept bumping his rump against the fence and Chopper kept lunging at it, always missing, doing nothing but racking out his nose, which was now bleeding. Teddy kept exhorting him, calling him by the somehow grisly diminutive Choppie, and Chris and Vern were lying weakly on the embankment, laughing so hard that they could now do little more than wheeze. And here came Milo Pressman, dressed in sweatstained fatigues and a New York Giants baseball cap, his mouth drawn down in distracted anger. Here, here! he was yelling. You boys stop ateasing that dawg! You hear me? Stop it right now! Bite it, Choppie! Teddy yelled, strutting up and down on our side of the fence like a mad Prussian reviewing his troops. Come on and sic me! Sic me! Chopper went nuts. I mean it sincerely. He ran around in a big circle, yelping and barking and foaming, rear feet spewing up tough little dry clods. He went around about three times, getting his courage up, I guess, and then he launched himself straight at the security fence. He must have been going thirty miles an hour when he hit it, I kid you nothis doggy lips were stretched back from his teeth and his ears were flying in the slipstream. The whole fence made a low, musical sound as the chainlink was not just driven back against the posts but sort of stretched back. It was like a zither noteyimmmmmmmm. A strangled yawp came out of Choppers mouth, both eyes came up blank and he did a totally amazing reverse snaproll, landing on his back with a solid thump that sent dust puffing up around him. He just lay there for a moment and then he crawled off with his tongue hanging crookedly from the left side of his mouth. At this, Milo himself went almost berserk with rage. His complexion darkened to a scary plum coloreven his scalp was purple under the short hedgehog bristles of his flattop haircut. Sitting stunned in the dirt, both knees of my jeans torn out, my heart still thudding from the nearness of my escape, I thought that Milo looked like a human version of Chopper. I know you! Milo raved. Youre Teddy Duchamp! I know all of you! Sonny, Ill beat your ass, teasing my dawg like that! Like to see you try! Teddy raved right back. Lets see you climb over this fence and get me, fatass! WHAT? WHAT DID YOU CALL ME? FATASS! Teddy screamed happily. LARDBUCKET! TUBBAGUTS! COME ON! COME ON! He was jumping up and down, fists clenched, sweat flying from his hair. TEACH YOU TO SIC YOUR STUPID DOG ON PEOPLE! COME ON! LIKE TO SEE YOU TRY! You little tinweasel peckerwood loonys son! Ill see your mother gets an invitation to go down and talk to the judge in court about what you done to my dawg! What did you call me? Teddy asked hoarsely. He had stopped jumping up and down. His eyes had gone huge and glassy, and his skin was the color of lead. Milo had called Teddy a lot of things, but he was able to go back and get the one that had struck home with no trouble at allsince then I have noticed again and again what a genius people have for that ... for finding the LOONY button down inside and not just pressing it but hammering on the fucker. Your dad was a loony, he said, grinning. Loony up in Togus, thats what. Craziern a shithouse rat. Craziern a buck with tickwood fever. Nuttiern a longtailed cat in a room fulla rockin chairs. Loony. No wonder youre actin the way you are, with a loony for a f YOUR MOTHER BLOWS DEAD RATS! Teddy screamed. AND IF YOU CALL MY DAD A LOONY AGAIN, ILL FUCKING KILL YOU, YOU COCKSUCKER! Loony, Milo said smugly. Hed found the button, all right. Loonys kid, loonys kid, your fathers got toys in the attic, kid, tough break. Vern and Chris had been getting over their laughing fit, perhaps getting ready to appreciate the seriousness of the situation and call Teddy off, but when Teddy told Milo that his mother blew dead rats, they went back into hysterics again, lying there on the bank, rolling from side to side, their feet kicking, holding their bellies. No more, Chris said weakly. No more, please, no more, I swear to God Im gonna bust! Chopper was walking around in a large, dazed figureeight behind Milo. He looked like the losing fighter about ten seconds after the ref has ended the match and awarded the winner a TKO. Meanwhile, Teddy and Milo continued their discussion of Teddys father, standing nose to nose, with the wire fence Milo was too old and too fat to climb between them. Dont you say nothing else about my dad! My dad stormed the beach at Normandy, you fucking wet end! Yeah, well, where is he now, you ugly little foureyed turd? Hes up to Togus, aint he? Hes up to Togus because HE WENT FUCKING SECTION EIGHT! Okay, thats it, Teddy said. Thats it, thats the end, Im gonna kill you. He threw himself at the fence and started up. You come on and try it, you slimy little bastard. Milo stood back, grinning and waiting. No! I shouted. I got to my feet, grabbed Teddy by the loose seat of his jeans, and pulled him off the fence. We both staggered back and fell over, him on top. He squashed my balls pretty good and I groaned. Nothing hurts like having your balls squashed, you know it? But I kept my arms locked around Teddys middle. Lemme up! Teddy sobbed, writhing in my arms. Lemme up, Gordie! Nobody ranks out my old man. LEMME UP GODDAMMIT LEMME UP! Thats just what he wants! I shouted in his ear. He wants to get you over there and beat the piss out of you and then take you to the cops! Huh? Teddy craned around to look at me, his face dazed. Never mind your smartmouth, kid, Milo said, advancing to the fence again with his hands curled into hamsized fists. Letim fight his own battles. Sure, I said. You only outweigh him by five hundred pounds. I know you, too, Milo said ominously. Your names Lachance. He pointed to where Vern and Chris were finally picking themselves up, still breathing fast from laughing so hard. And those guys are Chris Chambers and one of those stupid Tessio kids. All your fathers are going to get calls from me, except for the loony up to Togus. Youll go to the formatory, every one of you. Juvenile delinquents! He stood flat on his feet, big freckled hands held out like a guy who wanted to play One Potato Two Potato, breathing hard, eyes narrow, waiting for us to cry or say we were sorry or maybe give him Teddy so he could feed Teddy to Chopper. Chris made an O out of his thumb and index finger and spat neatly through it. Vern hummed and looked at the sky. Teddy said Come on, Gordie. Lets get away from this asshole before I puke. Oh, youre gonna get it, you foulmouthed little whoremaster. Waitll I get you to the Constable. We heard what you said about his father, I told him. Were all witnesses. And you sicced that dog on me. Thats against the law. Milo looked a trifle uneasy. You was trespassin. The hell I was. The dumps public property. You climbed the fence. Sure I did, after you sicced your dog on me, I said, hoping that Milo wouldnt recall that Id also climbed the gate to get in. Whatd you think I was gonna do? Stand there and let im rip me to pieces? Come on, you guys. Lets go. It stinks around here. Formatory, Milo promised hoarsely, his voice shaking.  Formatory for you wiseguys. Cant wait to tell the cops how you called a war vet a fuckin loony, Chris called back over his shoulder as we moved away. What did you do in the war, Mr. Pressman? NONE OF YOUR DAMN BUSINESS! Milo shrieked. YOU HURT MY DAWG! Put it on your t.s. slip and send it to the chaplain, Vern muttered, and then we were climbing the railroad embankment again. Come back here! Milo shouted, but his voice was fainter now and he seemed to be losing interest. Teddy shot him the finger as we walked away. I looked back over my shoulder when we got to the top of the embankment. Milo was standing there behind the security fence, a big man in a baseball cap with his dog sitting beside him. His fingers were hooked through the small chainlink diamonds as he shouted at us, and all at once I felt very sorry for himhe looked like the biggest thirdgrader in the world, locked inside the playground by mistake, yelling for someone to come and let him out. He kept on yelling for awhile and then he either gave up or we got out of range. No more was seen or heard of Milo Pressman and Chopper that day. 13 There was some discussionin righteous tones that were actually kind of forcedsoundingabout how we had shown that creepy Milo Pressman we werent just another bunch of pussies. I told how the guy at the Florida Market had tried to jap us, and then we fell into a gloomy silence, thinking it over. For my part, I was thinking that maybe there was something to that stupid goocher business after all. Things couldnt have turned out much worsein fact, I thought, it might be better to just keep going and spare my folks the pain of having one son in the Castle View Cemetery and one in South Windham Boys Correctional. I had no doubt that Milo would go to the cops as soon as the importance of the dump having been closed at the time of the incident filtered into his thick skull. When that happened, he would realize that I really had been trespassing, public property or not. Probably that gave him every right in the world to sic his stupid dog on me. And while Chopper wasnt the hellhound he was cracked up to be, he sure would have ripped the sitdown out of my jeans if I hadnt won the race to the fence. All of it put a big dark crimp in the day. And there was another gloomy idea rolling around inside my headthe idea that this was no lark after all, and maybe we deserved our bad luck. Maybe it was even God warning us to go home. What were we doing, anyway, going to look at some kid that had gotten himself all mashed up by a freight train? But we were doing it, and none of us wanted to stop. We had almost reached the trestle which carried the tracks across the river when Teddy burst into tears. It was as if a great inner tidal wave had broken through a carefully constructed set of mental dykes. No bullshitit was that sudden and that fierce. The sobs doubled him over like punches and he sort of collapsed into a heap, his hands going from his stomach to the mutilated gobs of flesh that were the remains of his ears. He went on crying in hard, violent bursts. None of us knew what the fuck to do. It wasnt crying like when you got hit by a line drive while you were playing shortstop or smashed on the head playing tackle football on the common or when you fell off your bike. There was nothing physically wrong with him. We walked away a little and watched him, our hands in our pockets. Hey, man ... Vern said in a very thin voice. Chris and I looked at Vern hopefully. Hey, man was always a good start. But Vern couldnt follow it up. Teddy leaned forward onto the crossties and put a hand over his eyes. Now he looked like he was doing the Allah bitSalami, salami, baloney, as Popeye says.


Except it wasnt funny. At last, when the force of his crying had trailed off a little, it was Chris who went to him. He was the toughest guy in our gang (maybe even tougher than Jamie Gallant, I thought privately), but he was also the guy who made the best peace. He had a way about it. Id seen him sit down on the curb next to a little kid with a scraped knee, a kid he didnt even fucking know, and get him talking about somethingthe Shrine Circus that was coming to town or Huckleberry Hound on TVuntil the kid forgot he was supposed to be hurt. Chris was good at it. He was tough enough to be good at it. Lissen, Teddy, what do you care what a fat old pile of shit like him said about your father? Huh? I mean, sincerely! That dont change nothing, does it? What a fat old pile of shit like him says? Huh? Huh? Does it? Teddy shook his head violently. It changed nothing. But to hear it spoken of in bright daylight, something he must have gone over and over in his mind while he was lying awake in bed and looking at the moon offcenter in one windowpane, something he must have thought about in his slow and broken way until it seemed almost holy, trying to make sense out of it, and then to have it brought home to him that everybody else had merely dismissed his dad as a loony ... that had rocked him. But it changed nothing. Nothing. He still stormed the beach at Normandy, right? Chris said. He picked up one of Teddys sweaty, grimy hands and patted it. Teddy nodded fiercely, crying. Snot was running out of his nose. Do you think that pile of shit was at Normandy? Teddy shook his head violently. NuhNuhNo! Do you think that guy knows you? NuhNo! No, bbbut Or your father? He one of your fathers buddies? NO! Angry, horrified. The thought. Teddys chest heaved and more sobs came out of it. He had pushed his hair away from his ears and I could see the round brown plastic button of the hearing aid set in the middle of his right one. The shape of the hearing aid made more sense than the shape of his ear, if you get what I mean. Chris said calmly Talk is cheap. Teddy nodded, still not looking up. And whatevers between you and your old man, talk cant change that. Teddys head shook without definition, unsure if this was true. Someone had redefined his pain, and redefined it in shockingly common terms. That would (loony) have to be examined (fucking section eight) later. In depth. On long sleepless nights. Chris rocked him. He was ranking you, man, he said in soothing cadences that were almost a lullaby. He was tryin to rank you over that friggin fence, you know it? No strain, man. No fuckin strain. He dont know nothin about your old man. He dont know nothin but stuff he heard from those rumdums down at The Mellow Tiger. Hes just dogshit, man. Right, Teddy? Huh? Right? Teddys crying was down to sniffles. He wiped his eyes, leaving two sooty rings around them, and sat up. Im okay, he said, and the sound of his own voice seemed to convince him. Yeah, Im okay. He stood up and put his glasses back ondressing his naked face, it seemed to me. He laughed thinly and swiped his bare arm across the snot of his upper lip. Fuckin crybaby, right? No, man, Vern said uncomfortably. If anyone was rankin out my dad Then you got to kill em! Teddy said briskly, almost arrogantly. Kill their asses. Right, Chris? Right, Chris said amiably, and clapped Teddy on the back. Right, Gordie? Absolutely, I said, wondering how Teddy could care so much for his dad when his dad had practically killed him, and how I couldnt seem to give much of a shit one way or the other about my own dad, when so far as I could remember, he had never laid a hand on me since I was three and got some bleach from under the sink and started to eat it. We walked another two hundred yards down the tracks and Teddy said in a quieter voice Hey, if I spoiled your good time, Im sorry. I guess that was pretty stupid shit back there at that fence. I aint sure I want it to be no good time, Vern said suddenly. Chris looked at him. You sayin you want to go back, man? No, huhuh! Verns face knotted in thought. But going to see a dead kidit shouldnt be a party, maybe. I mean, if you can dig it. I mean ... He looked at us rather wildly. I mean, I could be a little scared. If you get me. Nobody said anything and Vern plunged on I mean, sometimes I get nightmares. Like ... aw, you guys remember the time Danny Naughton left that pile of old funnybooks, the ones with the vampires and people gettin cut up and all that shit? Jeezumcrow, Id wake up in the middle of the night dreamin about some guy hangin in a house with his face all green or somethin, you know, like that, and it seems like theres somethin under the bed and if I dangled a hand over the side, that thing might, you know, grab me ... We all began to nod. We knew about the night shift. I would have laughed then, though, if you had told me that one day not too many years from then Id parlay all those childhood fears and nightsweats into about a million dollars. And I dont dare say anything because my friggin brother ... well, you know Billy ... hed broadcast it ... He shrugged miserably. So Im ascared to look at that kid cause if hes, you know, if hes really bad ... I swallowed and glanced at Chris. He was looking gravely at Vem and nodding for him to go on. If hes really bad, Vern resumed, Ill have nightmares about him and wake up thinkin its him under my bed, all cut up in a pool of blood like he just came out of one of those Saladmaster gadgets they show on TV, just eyeballs and hair, but movin somehow, if you can dig that, mooovin somehow, you know, and gettin ready to grab Jesus Christ, Teddy said thickly. What a fuckin bedtime story. Well I cant help it, Vern said, his voice defensive. But I feel like we hafta see him, even if there are bad dreams. You know? Like we hafta. But ... but maybe it shouldnt be no good time. Yeah, Chris said softly. Maybe it shouldnt. Vern said pleadingly You wont tell none of the other guys, will you? I dont mean about the nightmares, everybody has thoseI mean about wakin up and thinkin there might be somethin under the bed. Im too fuckin old for the boogeyman. We all said we wouldnt tell, and a glum silence fell over us again. It was only quarter to three, but it felt much later. It was too hot and too much had happened. We werent even over into Harlow yet. We were going to have to pick them up and lay them down if we were going to make some real miles before dark. We passed the railroad junction and a signal on a tall, rusty pole and all of us paused to chuck cinders at the steel flag on top, but nobody hit it. And around threethirty we came to the Castle River and the GSWM trestle which crossed it. 14 The river was better than a hundred yards across at that point in 1960; Ive been back to look at it since then, and found it had narrowed up quite a bit during the years between. Theyre always fooling with the river, trying to make it work better for the mills, and theyve put in so many dams that its pretty well tamed. But in those days there were only three dams on the whole length of the river as it ran across New Hampshire and half of Maine. The Castle was still almost free back then, and every third spring it would overflow its banks and cover Route 136 in either Harlow or Danvers Junction or both. Now, at the end of the driest summer western Maine had seen since the depression, it was still broad. From where we stood on the Castle Rock side, the bulking forest on the Harlow side looked like a different country altogether. The pines and spruces over there were bluish in the heathaze of the afternoon. The rails went across the water fifty feet up, supported by an underpinning of tarred wooden support posts and crisscrossing beams. The water was so shallow you could look down and see the tops of the cement plugs which had been planted ten feet deep in the riverbed to hold up the trestle. The trestle itself was pretty chintzythe rails ran over a long, narrow wooden platform of sixbyfours. There was a fourinch gap between each pair of these beams where you could look all the way down into the water. On the sides, there was no more than eighteen inches between the rail and the edge of the trestle. If a train came, it was maybe enough room to avoid getting plastered ... but the wind generated by a highballing freight would surely sweep you off to fall to a certain death against the rocks just below the surface of the shallow running water. Looking at the trestle, we all felt fear start to crawl around in our bellies ... and mixing uneasily with the fear was the excitement of a boss dare, a really big one, something you could brag on for weeks after you got home ... if you got home. That queer light was creeping back into Teddys eyes and I thought he wasnt seeing the GSWM train trestle at all but a long sandy beach, a thousand LSTs aground in the foaming waves, ten thousand GIs charging up the sand, combat boots digging. They were leaping rolls of barbed wire! Tossing grenades at pillboxes! Overrunning machinegun nests! We were standing beside the tracks where the cinders sloped away toward the rivers cutthe place where the embankment stopped and the trestle began. Looking down, I could see where the slope started to get steep. The cinders gave way to scraggly, toughlooking bushes and slabs of gray rock. Further down there were a few stunted firs with exposed roots writhing their way out of fissures in the plates of rock; they seemed to be looking down at their own miserable reflections in the running water. At this point, the Castle River actually looked fairly clean; at Castle Rock it was just entering Maines textilemill belt. But there were no fish jumping out there, although the river was clear enough to see bottomyou had to go another ten miles upstream and toward New Hampshire before you could see any fish in the Castle. There were no fish, and along the edges of the river you could see dirty collars of foam around some of the rocksthe foam was the color of old ivory. The rivers smell was not particularly pleasant, either; it smelled like a laundry hamper full of mildewy towels. Dragonflies stitched at the surface of the water and laid their eggs with impunity. There were no trout to eat them. Hell, there werent even any shiners. Man, Chris said softly. Come on, Teddy said in that brisk, arrogant way. Lets go. He was already edging his way out, walking on the sixbyfours between the shining rails. Say, Vern said uneasily, any of you guys know when the next trains due? We all shrugged. I said Theres the Route 136 bridge ... Hey, come on, gimme a break! Teddy cried. That means walkin five miles down the river on this side and then five miles back up on the other side ... itll take us until dark! If we use the trestle, we can get to the same place in ten minutes! But if a train comes, theres nowheres to go, Vern said. He wasnt looking at Teddy. He was looking down at the fast, bland river. Fuck there isnt! Teddy said indignantly. He swung over the edge and held one of the wooden supports between the rails. He hadnt gone out very farhis sneakers were almost touching the groundbut the thought of doing that same thing above the middle of the river with a fiftyfoot drop beneath and a train bellowing by just over my head, a train that would probably be dropping some nice hot sparks into my hair and down the back of my neck ... none of that actually made me feel like Queen for a Day. See how easy it is? Teddy said. He dropped to the embankment, dusted his hands, and climbed back up beside us. You tellin me youre gonna hang on that way if its a twohundredcar freight? Chris asked. Just sorta hang there by your hands for five or ten minutes? You chicken? Teddy shouted. No, just askin what youd do, Chris said, grinning. Peace, man. Go around if you want to! Teddy brayed. Who gives a fuck? Ill wait for you! Ill take a nap! One train already went by, I said reluctantly. And there probably isnt any more than one, two trains a day that go through Harlow. Look at this. I kicked the weeds growing up through the railroad ties with one sneaker. There were no weeds growing between the tracks which ran between Castle Rock and Lewiston. There. See? Teddy triumphant. But still, theres a chance, I added. Yeah, Chris said. He was looking only at me, his eyes sparkling. Dare you, Lachance. Dares go first. Okay, Chris said. He widened his gaze to take in Teddy and Vern. Any pussies here? NO! Teddy shouted. Vern cleared his throat, croaked, cleared it again, and said No in a very small voice. He smiled a weak, sick smile. Okay, Chris said ... but we hesitated for a moment, even Teddy, looking warily up and down the tracks. I knelt down and took one of the steel rails firmly in my hand, never minding that it was almost hot enough to blister the skin. The rail was mute. Okay, I said, and as I said it some guy polevaulted in my stomach. He dug his pole all the way into my balls, it felt like, and ended up sitting astride my heart. We went out onto the trestle single file Chris first, then Teddy, then Vern, and me playing tailend Charlie because I was the one who said dares go first. We walked on the platform crossties between the rails, and you had to look at your feet whether you were scared of heights or not. A misstep and you would go down to your crotch, probably with a broken ankle to pay. The embankment dropped away beneath me, and every step further out seemed to seal our decision more firmly ... and to make it feel more suicidally stupid. I stopped to look up when I saw the rocks giving way to water far beneath me. Chris and Teddy were a long way ahead, almost out over the middle, and Vern was tottering slowly along behind them, peering studiously down at his feet. He looked like an old lady trying out stilts with his head poked downward, his back hunched, his arms held out for balance. I looked back over my shoulder. Too far, man. I had to keep going now, and not only because a train might come. If I went back, Id be a pussy for life. So I got walking again. After looking down at that endless series of crossties for awhile, with a glimpse of running water between each pair, I started to feel dizzy and disoriented. Each time I brought my foot down, part of my brain assured me it was going to plunge through into space, even though I could see it was not. I became acutely aware of all the noises inside me and outside me, like some crazy orchestra tuning up to play. The steady thump of my heart, the bloodbeat in my ears like a drum being played with brushes, the creak of sinews like the strings of a violin that has been tuned radically upward, the steady hiss of the river, the hot hum of a locust digging into tight bark, the monotonous cry of a chickadee, and somewhere, far away, a barking dog. Chopper, maybe. The mildewy smell of the Castle River was strong in my nose. The long muscles in my thighs were trembling. I kept thinking how much safer it would be (probably faster, as well) if I just got down on my hands and knees and scuttered along that way. But I wouldnt do thatnone of us would. If the Saturday matinee movies down to the Gem had taught us anything, it was that Only Losers Crawl. It was one of the central tenets of the Gospel According to Hollywood. Good guys walk firmly upright, and if your sinews are creaking like overtuned violin strings because of the adrenaline rush going on in your body, and if the long muscles in your thighs are trembling for the same reason, why, so be it. I had to stop in the middle of the trestle and look up at the sky for awhile. That dizzy feeling had been getting worse. I saw phantom crosstiesthey seemed to float right in front of my nose. Then they faded out and I began to feel okay again. I looked ahead and saw I had almost caught up with Vern, who was slowpoking along worse than ever. Chris and Teddy were almost all the way across. And although Ive since written seven books about people who can do such exotic things as read minds and precognit the future, that was when I had my first and last psychic flash. Im sure thats what it was; how else to explain it? I squatted and made a fist around the rail on my left. It thrummed in my hand. It was thrumming so hard that it was like gripping a bundle of deadly metallic snakes. Youve heard it said His bowels turned to water? I know what that phrase meansexactly what it means. It may be the most accurate clich ever coined. Ive been scared since, badly scared, but Ive never been as scared as I was in that moment, holding that hot live rail. It seemed that for a moment all my works below throat level just went limp and lay there in an internal faint. A thin stream of urine ran listlessly down the inside of one thigh. My mouth opened. I didnt open it, it opened by itself, the jaw dropping like a trapdoor from which the hingepins had suddenly been removed. My tongue was plastered suffocatingly against the roof of my mouth. All my muscles were locked. That was the worst. My works went limp but my muscles were in a kind of dreadful lockbolt and I couldnt move at all. It was only for a moment, but in the subjective timestream, it seemed forever. All sensory input became intensified, as if some powersurge had occurred in the electrical flow of my brain, cranking everything up from a hundred and ten volts to twotwenty. I could hear a plane passing in the sky somewhere near and had time to wish I was on it, just sitting in a window seat with a Coke in my hand and gazing idly down at the shining line of a river whose name I did not know. I could see every little splinter and gouge in the tarred crosstie I was squatting on. And out of the corner of my eye I could see the rail itself with my hand still clutched around it, glittering insanely. The vibration from that rail sank so deeply into my hand that when I took it away it still vibrated, the nerveendings kicking each other over again and again, tingling the way a hand or foot tingles when it has been asleep and is starting to wake up. I could taste my saliva, suddenly all electric and sour and thickened to curds along my gums. And worst, somehow most horrible of all, I couldnt hear the train yet, could not know if it was rushing at me from ahead or behind, or how close it was. It was invisible. It was unannounced, except for that shaking rail. There was only that to advertise its imminent arrival. An image of Ray Brower, dreadfully mangled and thrown into a ditch somewhere like a rippedopen laundry bag, reeled before my eyes. We would join him, or at least Vern and I would, or at least I would. We had invited ourselves to our own funerals. The last thought broke the paralysis and I shot to my feet. I probably would have looked like a jackinthebox to anyone watching, but to myself I felt like a boy in underwater slow motion, shooting up not through five feet of air but rather up through five hundred feet of water, moving slowly, moving with a dreadful languidness as the water parted grudgingly. But at last I did break the surface. I screamed TRAIN! The last of the paralysis fell from me and I began to run. Verns head jerked back over his shoulder. The surprise that distorted his face was almost comically exaggerated, written as large as the letters in a Dick and Jane primer. He saw me break into my clumsy, shambling run, dancing from one horribly high crosstie to the next, and knew I wasnt joking. He began to run himself. Far ahead, I could see Chris stepping off the ties and onto the solid safe embankment and I hated him with a sudden bright green hate as juicy and as bitter as the sap in an April leaf. He was safe. That fucker was safe. I watched him drop to his knees and grab a rail. My left foot almost slipped into the yaw beneath me. I flailed with my arms, my eyes as hot as ball bearings in some runaway piece of machinery, got my balance, and ran on. Now I was right behind Vern. We were past the halfway point and for the first time I heard the train. It was coming from behind us, coming from the Castle Rock side of the river. It was a low rumbling noise that began to rise slightly and sort itself into the diesel thrum of the engine and the higher, more sinister sound of big grooved wheels turning heavily on the rails. Awwwwwwww, shit! Vern screamed. Run, you pussy! I yelled, and thumped him on the back. I cant! Ill fall! Run faster! AWWWWWWWWWSHIT! But he ran faster, a shambling scarecrow with a bare, sunburnt back, the collar of his shirt swinging and dangling below his butt. I could see the sweat standing out on his peeling shoulderblades, standing out in perfect little beads. I could see the fine down on the nape of his neck. His muscles clenched and loosened, clenched and loosened, clenched and loosened. His spine stood out in a series of knobs, each knob casting its own crescentshaped shadowI could see that these knobs grew closer together as they approached his neck. He was still holding his bedroll and I was still holding mine. Verns feet thudded on the crossties. He almost missed one, lunged forward with his arms out, and I whacked him on the back again to keep him going. Gordeee I cant AWWWWWWWWWSHEEEEEEYIT RUN FASTER, DICKFACE! I bellowed and was I enjoying this? Yeahin some peculiar, selfdestructive way that I have experienced since only when completely and utterly drunk, I was. I was driving Vern Tessio like a drover getting a particularly fine cow to market. And maybe he was enjoying his own fear in that same way, bawling like that selfsame cow, hollering and sweating, his ribcage rising and falling like the bellows of a blacksmith on a speedtrip, clumsily keeping his footing, lurching ahead. The train was very loud now, its engine deepening to a steady rumble. Its whistle sounded as it crossed the junction point where we had paused to chuck cinders at the railflag. I had finally gotten my hellhound, like it or not. I kept waiting for the trestle to start shaking under my feet. When that happened, it would be right behind us. GO FASTER, VERN! FAAASTER! Oh Gawd Gordie oh Gawd Gordie oh Gawd AWWWWWWWSHEEEEYIT! The freights electric horn suddenly spanked the air into a hundred pieces with one long loud blast, making everything you ever saw in a movie or a comic book or one of your own daydreams fly apart, letting you know what both the heroes and the cowards really heard when death flew at them WHHHHHHHONNNNNNNK! WHHHHHHHHONNNNNNNNK! And then Chris was below us and to the right, and Teddy was behind him, his glasses flashing back arcs of sunlight, and they were both mouthing a single word and the word was jump! but the train had sucked all the blood out of the word, leaving only its shape in their mouths. The trestle began to shake as the train charged across it. We jumped. Vern landed fulllength in the dust and the cinders and I landed right beside him, almost on top of him. I never did see that train, nor do I know if its engineer saw uswhen I mentioned the possibility that he hadnt seen us to Chris a couple of years later, he said They dont blow the horn like that just for chucks, Gordie. But he could have; he could have been blowing it just for the hell of it. I suppose. Right then, such fine points didnt much matter. I clapped my hands over my ears and dug my face into the hot dirt as the freight went by, metal squalling against metal, the air buffeting us. I had no urge to look at it. It was a long freight but I never looked at all. Before it had passed completely, I felt a warm hand on my neck and knew it was Chriss. When it was gonewhen I was sure it was goneI raised my head like a soldier coming out of his foxhole at the end of a daylong artillery barrage. Vern was still plastered into the dirt, shivering. Chris was sitting crosslegged between us, one hand on Verns sweaty neck, the other still on mine. When Vern finally sat up, shaking all over and licking his lips compulsively, Chris said What you guys think if we drink those Cokes? Could anybody use one besides me? We all thought we could use one. 15 About a quarter of a mile along on the Harlow side, the GSWM tracks plunged directly into the woods. The heavily wooded land sloped down to a marshy area. It was full of mosquitoes almost as big as fighterplanes, but it was cool ... blessedly cool. We sat down in the shade to drink our Cokes. Vern and I threw our shirts over our shoulders to keep the bugs off, but Chris and Teddy just sat naked to the waist, looking as cool and collected as two Eskimos in an icehouse. We hadnt been there five minutes when Vern had to go off into the bushes and take a squat, which led to a good deal of joking and elbowing when he got back. Train scare you much, Vern? No, Vern said. I was gonna squat when we got acrosst, anyway, I hadda take a squat, you know? Verrrrrrrn? Chris and Teddy chorused. Come on, you guys, I did. Sincerely. Then you wont mind if we examine the seat of your Jockeys for Hersheysquirts, willya? Teddy asked, and Vern laughed, finally understanding that he was getting ribbed. Go screw. Chris turned to me. That train scare you, Gordie? Nope, I said, and sipped my Coke. Not much, you sucker. He punched my arm. Sincerely! I wasnt scared at all. Yeah? You wasnt scared? Teddy was looking me over carefully. No. I was fuckin petrified. This slew all of them, even Vern, and we laughed long and hard. Then we just lay back, not goofing anymore, just drinking our Cokes and being quiet. My body felt warm, exercised, at peace with itself. Nothing in it was working crossgrain to anything else. I was alive and glad to be. Everything seemed to stand out with a special dearness, and although I never could have said that out loud I didnt think it matteredmaybe that sense of dearness was something I wanted just for myself. I think I began to understand a little bit that day what makes men become daredevils. I paid twenty dollars to watch Evel Kneivel attempt his jump over the Snake River Canyon a couple of years ago and my wife was horrified. She told me that if Id been born a Roman I would have been right there in the Colosseum, munching grapes and watching as the lions disemboweled the Christians. She was wrong, although it was hard for me to explain why (and, really, I think she thought I was just jiving her). I didnt cough up that twenty to watch the man die on coasttocoast closedcircuit TV, although I was quite sure that was exactly what was going to happen. I went because of the shadows that are always somewhere behind our eyes, because of what Bruce Springsteen calls the darkness on the edge of town in one of his songs, and at one time or another I think everyone wants to dare that darkness in spite of the jalopy bodies that some joker of a God gave us human beings. No ... not in spite of our jalopy bodies but because of them. Hey, tell that story, Chris said suddenly, sitting up. What story? I asked, although I guess I knew. I always felt uncomfortable when the talk turned to my stories, although all of them seemed to like themwanting to tell stories, even wanting to write them down ... that was just peculiar enough to be sort of cool, like wanting to grow up to be a sewer inspector or a Grand Prix mechanic. Richie Jenner, a kid who hung around with us until his family moved to Nebraska in 1959, was the first one to find out that I wanted to be a writer when I grew up, that I wanted to do that for my fulltime job. We were up in my room, just fooling around, and he found a bunch of handwritten pages under the comic books in a carton in my closet. Whats this? Richie asks. Nothin, I say, and try to grab them back. Richie held the pages up out of reach ... and I must admit that I didnt try very hard to get them back. I wanted him to read them and at the same time I didntan uneasy mix of pride and shyness that has never changed in me very much when someone asks to look. The act of writing itself is done in secret, like masturbationoh, I have one friend who has done things like write stories in the display windows of bookshops and department stores, but this is a man who is nearly crazy with courage, the kind of man youd like to have with you if you just happened to fall down with a heart attack in a city where no one knew you. For me, it always wants to be sex and always falls shortits always that adolescent handjob in the bathroom with the door locked. Richie sat right there on the end of my bed for most of the afternoon reading his way through the stuff I had been doing, most of it influenced by the same sort of comic books as the ones that had given Vern nightmares. And when he was done, Richie looked at me in a strange new way that made me feel very peculiar, as if he had been forced to reappraise my whole personality. He said Youre pretty good at this. Why dont you show these to Chris? I said no, I wanted it to be a secret, and Richie said Why? It aint pussy. You aint no queer. I mean, it aint poetry. Still, I made him promise not to tell anybody about my stories and of course he did and it turned out most of them liked to read the stuff I wrote, which was mostly about getting burned alive or some crook coming back from the dead and slaughtering the jury that had condemned him in Twelve Interesting Ways or a maniac that went crazy and chopped a lot of people into veal cutlets before the hero, Curt Cannon, cut the subhuman, screeching madman to pieces with round after round from his smoking .45 automatic. In my stories, there were always rounds. Never bullets. For a change of pace, there were the Le Dio stories. Le Dio was a town in France, and during 1942, a grim squad of tired American dogfaces were trying to retake it from the Nazis (this was two years before I discovered that the Allies didnt land in France until 1944). They went on trying to retake it, fighting their way from street to street, through about forty stories which I wrote between the ages of nine and fourteen. Teddy was absolutely mad for the Le Dio stories, and I think I wrote the last dozen or so just for himby then I was heartily sick of Le Dio and writing things like Mon Dieu and Cherchez le Boche! and Fermez le porte! In Le Dio, French peasants were always hissing to GI dogfaces to Fermez le porte! But Teddy would hunch over the pages, his eyes big, his brow beaded with sweat, his face twisting. There were times when I could almost hear aircooled Brownings and whistling 88s going off in his skull. The way he clamored for more Le Dio stories was both pleasing and frightening. Nowadays writing is my work and the pleasure has diminished a little, and more and more often that guilty, masturbatory pleasure has become associated in my head with the coldly clinical images of artificial insemination I come according to the rules and regs laid down in my publishing contract. And although no one is ever going to call me the Thomas Wolfe of my generation, I rarely feel like a cheat I get it off as hard as I can every fucking time. Doing less would, in an odd way, be like going faggotor what that meant to us back then. What scares me is how often it hurts these days. Back then I was sometimes disgusted by how damned good it felt to write. These days I sometimes look at this typewriter and wonder when its going to run out of good words. I dont want that to happen. I guess I can stay cool as long as I dont run out of good words, you know? Whats this story? Vern asked uneasily. It aint a horror story, is it, Gordie? I dont think I want to hear no horror stories. Im not up for that, man. No, it aint a horror, Chris said. Its really funny. Gross, but funny. Go on, Gordie. Hammer that fucker to us. Is it about Le Dio? Teddy asked. No, it aint about Le Dio, you psycho, Chris said, and rabbitpunched him. Its about this pieeatin contest. Hey, I didnt even write it down yet, I said. Yeah, but tell it. You guys want to hear it? Sure, Teddy said. Boss. Well, its about this madeup town. Gretna, I call it. Gretna, Maine.


Gretna? Vern said, grinning. What kind of name is that? There aint no Gretna in Maine. Shut up, fool, Chris said. He just toldja it was madeup, didnt he? Yeah, but Gretna, that sounds pretty stupid Lots of real towns sound stupid, Chris said. I mean, what about Alfred, Maine? Or Saco, Maine? Or Jerusalems Lot? Or CastlefuckinRock? There aint no castle here. Most town names are stupid. You just dont think so because youre used to em. Right, Gordie? Sure, I said, but privately I thought Vern was rightGretna was a pretty stupid name for a town. I just hadnt been able to think of another one. So anyway, theyre having their annual Pioneer Days, just like in Castle Rock Yeah, Pioneer Days, thats a fuckin blast, Vern said earnestly. I put my whole family in that jail on wheels they have, even fuckin Billy. It was only for half an hour and it cost me my whole allowance but it was worth it just to know where that sonofawhore was Will you shut up and let him tell it? Teddy hollered. Vern blinked. Sure. Yeah. Okay. Go on, Gordie, Chris said. Its not really much Naw, we dont expect much from a wet end like you, Teddy said, but tell it anyway. I cleared my throat. So anyway. Its Pioneer Days, and on the last night they have these three big events. Theres an eggroll for the little kids and a sackrace for kids that are like eight or nine, and then theres the pieeating contest. And the main guy of the story is this fat kid nobody likes named Davie Hogan. Like Charlie Hogans brother if he had one, Vern said, and then shrank back as Chris rabbitpunched him again. This kid, hes our age, but hes fat. He weighs like oneeighty and hes always gettin beat up and ranked out. And all the kids, instead of callin him Davie, they call him Lard Ass Hogan and rank him out wherever they get the chance. They nodded respectfully, showing the proper sympathy for Lard Ass, although if such a guy ever showed up in Castle Rock, we all would have been out teasing him and ranking him to the dogs and back. So he decides to take revenge because hes, like, fed up, you know? Hes only in the pieeating contest, but thats like the final event during Pioneer Days and everyone really digs it. The prize is five bucks So he wins it and gives the finger to everybody! Teddy said. Boss! No, its better than that, Chris said. Just shut up and listen. Lard Ass figures to himself, five bucks, whats that? If anybody remembers anything at all in two weeks, itll just be that fuckin pig Hogan outate everybody, well, it figures, lets go over his house and rank the shit out of him, only now well call him Pie Ass instead of Lard Ass. They nodded some more, agreeing that Davie Hogan was a thinking cat. I began to warm to my own story. But everybody expects him to enter the contest, you know. Even his mom and dad. Hey, they practically got that five bucks spent for him already. Yeah, right, Chris said. So hes thinkin about it and hating the whole thing, because being fat isnt really his fault. See, hes got these weird fuckin glands, somethin, and My cousins like that! Vern said excitedly. Sincerely! She weighs close to three hundred pounds! Supposed to be Hyboid Gland or somethin like that. I dunno about her Hyboid Gland, but what a fuckin blimp, no shit, she looks like a fuckin Thanksgiving turkey, and this one time Will you shut the fuck up, Vern? Chris cried violently. For the last time! Honest to God! He had finished his Coke and now he turned the hourglassshaped green bottle upside down and brandished it over Verns head. Yeah, right, Im sorry. Go on, Gordie. Its a swell story. I smiled. I didnt really mind Verns interruptions, but of course I couldnt tell Chris that; he was the selfappointed Guardian of Art. So hes turnin it over in his mind, you know, the whole week before the contest. At school, kids keep comin up to him and sayin Hey Lard Ass, how many pies ya gonna eat? Ya gonna eat ten? Twenty? Fuckin eighty? And Lard Ass, he says How should I know. I dont even know what kind they are. And see, theres quite a bit of interest in the contest because the champ is this grownup whose name is, uh, Bill Traynor, I guess. And this guy Traynor, he aint even fat. In fact, hes a real stringbean. But he can eat pies like a whiz, and the year before he ate six pies in five minutes. Whole pies? Teddy asked, awestruck. Right you are. And Lard Ass, hes the youngest guy to ever be in the contest. Go, Lard Ass! Teddy cried excitedly. Scoff up those fuckin pies! Tell em about the other guys in it, Chris said. Okay. Besides Lard Ass Hogan and Bill Traynor, there was Calvin Spier, the fattest guy in townhe ran the jewelry store Gretna Jewels, Vern said, and snickered. Chris gave him a black look. And then theres this guy whos a disc jockey at a radio station up in Lewiston, he aint exactly fat but hes sorta chubby, you know. And the last guy was Hubert Gretna the Third, who was the principal of Lard Ass Hogans school. He was eatin against his own princibal? Teddy asked. Chris clutched his knees and rocked back and forth joyfully. Aint that great? Go on, Gordie! I had them now. They were all leaning forward. I felt an intoxicating sense of power. I tossed my empty Coke bottle into the woods and scrunched around a little bit to get comfortable. I remember hearing the chickadee again, off in the woods, farther away now, lifting its monotonous, endless call into the sky deedeedeedee ... So he gets this idea, I said. The greatest revenge idea a kid ever had. The big night comesthe end of Pioneer Days. The pieeating contest comes just before the fireworks. The Main Street of Gretna has been closed off so people can walk around in it, and theres this big platform set up right in the street. Theres bunting hanging down and a big crowd in front. Theres also a photographer from the paper, to get a picture of the winner with blueberries all over his face, because it turned out to be blueberry pies that year. Also, I almost forgot to tell you this, they had to eat the pies with their hands tied behind their backs. So, dig it, they come up onto the platform ... 16 From The Revenge of Lard Ass Hogan, by Gordon Lachance. Originally published in Cavalier magazine, March, 1975. Used by permission. They came up onto the platform one by one and stood behind a long trestle table covered with a linen cloth. The table was stacked high with pies and stood at the edge of the platform. Above it were looped necklaces of bare 100watt bulbs, moths and nightfliers banging softly against them and haloing them. Above the platform, bathed in spotlights, was a long sign which read THE GREAT GRETNA PIEEAT OF 1960! To either side of this sign hung battered loudspeakers, supplied by Chuck Day of the Great Day Appliance Shop. Bill Travis, the reigning champion, was Chucks cousin. As each contestant came up, his hands bound behind him and his shirtfront open, like Sydney Carton on his way to the guillotine, Mayor Charbonneau would announce his name over Chucks PA system and tie a large white bib around his neck. Calvin Spier received token applause only; in spite of his belly, which was the size of a twentygallon waterbarrel, he was considered an underdog second only to the Hogan kid (most considered Lard Ass a comer, but too young and inexperienced to do much this year). After Spier, Bob Cormier was introduced. Cormier was a disc jockey who did a popular afternoon program at WLAM in Lewiston. He got a bigger hand, accompanied by a few screams from the teenaged girls in the audience. The girls thought he was cute. John Wiggins, principal of Gretna Elementary School, followed Cormier. He received a hearty cheer from the older section of the audienceand a few scattered boos from the fractious members of his student body. Wiggins managed to beam paternally and frown sternly down on the audience at the same time. Next, Mayor Charbonneau introduced Lard Ass. A new participant in the annual Great Gretna PieEat, but one we expect great things from in the future ... young Master David Hogan! Lard Ass got a big round of applause as Mayor Charbonneau tied on his bib, and as it was dying away, a rehearsed Greek chorus just beyond the reach of the 100watt bulbs cried out in wicked unison GogetemLardAss! There were muffled shrieks of laughter, running footsteps, a few shadows that no one could (or would) identify, some nervous laughter, some judicial frowns (the largest from Hizzoner Charbonneau, the most visible figure of authority). Lard Ass himself appeared to not even notice. The small smile greasing his thick lips and creasing his thick chops did not change as the Mayor, still frowning largely, tied his bib around his neck and told him not to pay any attention to fools in the audience (as if the Mayor had even the faintest inkling of what monstrous fools Lard Ass Hogan had suffered and would continue to suffer as he rumbled through life like a Nazi Tiger tank). The Mayors breath was warm and smelled of beer. The last contestant to mount the buntingdecorated stage drew the loudest and most sustained applause; this was the legendary Bill Travis, six feet five inches tall, gangling, voracious. Travis was a mechanic at the local Amoco station down by the railyard, a likeable fellow if there ever was one. It was common knowledge around town that there was more involved in the Great Gretna PieEat than a mere five dollarsat least, for Bill Travis there was. There were two reasons for this. First, people always came by the station to congratulate Bill after he won the contest, and most everyone who came to congratulate stayed to get his gastank filled. And the two garagebays were sometimes booked up for a solid month after the contest. Folks would come in to get a muffler replaced or their wheelbearings greased, and would sit in the theater chairs ranged along one wall (Jerry Maling, who owned the Amoco, had salvaged them from the old Gem Theater when it was torn down in 1957), drinking Cokes and Moxies from out of the machine and gassing with Bill about the contest as he changed sparkplugs or rolled around on a crawliewheelie under someones international Harvester pickup, looking for holes in the exhaust system. Bill always seemed willing to talk, which was one of the reasons he was so wellliked in Gretna. There was some dispute around town as to whether Jerry Maling gave Bill a flat bonus for the extra business his yearly feat (or yearly eat, if you prefer) brought in, or if he got an outandout raise. Whatever way it was, there could be no doubt that Travis did much better than most smalltown wrench jockies. He had a nicelooking twostory ranch out on the Sabbatus Road, and certain snide people referred to it as the house that pies built. That was probably an exaggeration, but Bill had it coming another waywhich brings us to the second reason there was more in it for Travis than just five dollars. The PieEat was a hot wagering event in Gretna. Perhaps most people only came to laugh, but a goodly minority also came to lay their money down. Contestants were observed and discussed by these bettors as ardently as thoroughbreds are observed and discussed by racing touts. The wagerers accosted contestants friends, relatives, even mere acquaintances. They pried out any and all details concerning the contestants eating habits. There was always a lot of discussion about that years official pieapple was considered a heavy pie, apricot a light one (although a contestant had to resign himself to a day or two of the trots after downing three or four apricot pies). That years official pie, blueberry, was considered a happy medium. Bettors, of course, were particularly interested in their mans stomach for blueberry dishes. How did he do on blueberry buckle? Did he favor blueberry jam over strawberry preserves? Had he been known to sprinkle blueberries on his breakfast cereal, or was he strictly a bananasandcream sort of fellow? There were other questions of some moment. Was he a fast eater who slowed down or a slow eater who started to speed up as things got serious or just a good steady allaround trencherman? How many hotdogs could he put away while watching a Babe Ruth League game down at the St. Doms baseball field? Was he much of a beerdrinker, and, if so, how many bottles did he usually put away in the course of an evening? Was he a belcher? It was believed that a good belcher was a bit tougher to beat over the long haul. All of this and other information was sifted, the odds laid, the bets made. How much money actually changed hands during the week or so following pienight I have no way of knowing, but if you held a gun to my head and forced me to guess, Id put it at close to a thousand dollarsthat probably sounds like a pretty paltry figure, but it was a lot of money to be passing around in such a small town fifteen years ago. And because the contest was honest and a strict timelimit of ten minutes was observed, no one objected to a competitor betting on himself, and Bill Travis did so every year. Talk was, as he nodded, smiling, to his audience on that summer night in 1960, that he had bet a substantial amount on himself again, and that the best he had been able to do this year was oneforfive odds. If youre not the betting type, let me explain it this way hed have to put two hundred and fifty dollars at risk to win fifty. Not a good deal at all, but it was the price of successand as he stood there, soaking up the applause and smiling easy, he didnt look too worried about it. And the defending champeen, Mayor Charbonneau trumpeted, Gretnas own Bill Travis! Hoo, Bill! How many you goin through tonight, Bill? You goin for ten, Billyboy? I got a twospot on you, Bill! Dont let me down, boy! Save me one of those pies, Trav! Nodding and smiling with all proper modesty, Bill Travis allowed the mayor to tie his bib around his neck. Then he sat down at the far right end of the table, near the place where Mayor Charbonneau would stand during the contest. From right to left, then, the eaters were Bill Travis, David Lard Ass Hogan, Bob Cormier, principal John Wiggins, and Calvin Spier holding down the stool on the far left. Mayor Charbonneau introduced Sylvia Dodge, who was even more of a contest figure than Bill Travis himself. She had been President of the Gretna Ladies Auxiliary for years beyond telling (since the First Manassas, according to some town wits), and it was she who oversaw the baking of each years pies, strictly subjecting each to her own rigorous quality control, which included a weighin ceremony on Mr. Bancicheks butchers scales down at the Freedom Marketthis to make sure that each pie weighed within an ounce of the others. Sylvia smiled regally down at the crowd, her blue hair twinkling under the hot glow of the lightbulbs. She made a short speech about how glad she was that so much of the town had turned out to celebrate their hardy pioneer forebears, the people who made this country great, for it was great, not only on the grassroots level where Mayor Charbonneau would be leading the local Republicans to the hallowed seats of town government again in November, but on the national level where the team of Nixon and Lodge would take the torch of freedom from Our Great and Beloved General and hold it high for Calvin Spiers belly rumbled noisilygoinnngg! There was laughter and even some applause. Sylvia Dodge, who knew perfectly well that Calvin was both a Democrat and a Catholic (either would have been forgivable alone, but the two combined, never), managed to blush, smile, and look furious all at the same time. She cleared her throat and wound up with a ringing exhortation to every boy and girl in the audience, telling them to always hold the red, white, and blue high, both in their hands and in their hearts, and to remember that smoking was a dirty, evil habit which made you cough. The boys and girls in the audience, most of whom would be wearing peace medallions and smoking not Camels but marijuana in another eight years, shuffled their feet and waited for the action to begin. Less talk, more eatin! someone in the back row called, and there was another burst of applauseit was heartier this time. Mayor Charbonneau handed Sylvia a stopwatch and a silver police whistle, which she would blow at the end of the ten minutes of allout pieeating. Mayor Charbonneau would then step forward and hold up the hand of the winner. Are you ready?? Hizzoners voice rolled triumphantly through the Great Day PA and off down Main Street. The five pieeaters declared they were ready. Are you SET?? Hizzoner enquired further. The eaters growled that they were indeed set. Downstreet, a boy set off a rattling skein of firecrackers. Mayor Charbonneau raised one pudgy hand and then dropped it. GO!!! Five heads dropped into five pieplates. The sound was like five large feet stamping firmly into mud. Wet chomping noises rose on the mild night air and then were blotted out as the bettors and partisans in the crowd began to cheer on their favorites. And no more than the first pie had been demolished before most people realized that a possible upset was in the making. Lard Ass Hogan, a seventoone underdog because of his age and inexperience, was eating like a boy possessed. His jaws machinegunned up crust (the contest rules required that only the top crust of the pie be eaten, not the bottom), and when that had disappeared, a huge sucking sound issued from between his lips. It was like the sound of an industrial vacuum cleaner going to work. Then his whole head disappeared into the pieplate. He raised it fifteen seconds later to indicate he was done. His cheeks and forehead were smeared with blueberry juice, and he looked like an extra in a minstrel show. He was donedone before the legendary Bill Travis had finished half of his first pie. Startled applause went up as the Mayor examined Lard Asss pieplate and pronounced it clean enough. He whipped a second pie into place before the pacemaker. Lard Ass had gobbled a regulationsize pie in just fortytwo seconds. It was a contest record. He went at the second pie even more furiously yet, his head bobbing and smooching in the soft blueberry filling, and Bill Travis threw him a worried glance as he called for his second blueberry pie. As he told friends later, he felt he was in a real contest for the first time since 1957, when George Gamache gobbled three pies in four minutes and then fainted dead away. He had to wonder, he said, if he was up against a boy or a demon. He thought of the money he had riding on this and redoubled his efforts. But if Travis had redoubled, Lard Ass had trebled. Blueberries flew from his second piedish, staining the tablecloth around him like a Jackson Pollock painting. There were blueberries in his hair, blueberries on his bib, blueberries standing out on his forehead as if, in an agony of concentration, he had actually begun to sweat blueberries. Done! he cried, lifting his head from his second piedish before Bill Travis had even consumed the crust on his new pie. Better slow down, boy, Hizzoner murmured. Charbonneau himself had ten dollars riding on Bill Travis. You got to pace yourself if you want to hold out. It was as if Lard Ass hadnt heard. He tore into his third pie with lunatic speed, jaws moving with lightning rapidity. And then But I must interrupt for a moment to tell you that there was an empty bottle in the medicine cabinet at Lard Ass Hogans house. Earlier, that bottle had been threequarters full of pearlyellow castor oil, perhaps the most noxious fluid that the good Lord, in His infinite wisdom, ever allowed upon or beneath the face of the earth. Lard Ass had emptied the bottle himself, drinking every last drop and then licking the rim, his mouth twisting, his belly gagging sourly, his brain filled with thoughts of sweet revenge. And as he rapidly worked his way through his third pie (Calvin Spier, dead last as predicted, had not yet finished his first), Lard Ass began to deliberately torture himself with grisly fantasies. He was not eating pies at all; he was eating cowflops. He was eating great big gobs of greasy grimy gopherguts. He was eating dicedup woodchuck intestines with blueberry sauce poured over them. Rancid blueberry sauce. He finished his third pie and called for his fourth, now one full pie ahead of the legendary Bill Travis. The fickle crowd, sensing a new and unexpected champ in the making, began to cheer him on lustily. But Lard Ass had no hope or intention of winning. He could not have continued at the pace he was currently setting if his own mothers life had been the prize. And besides, winning for him was losing; revenge was the only blue ribbon he sought. His belly groaning with castor oil, his throat opening and closing sickly, he finished his fourth pie and called for his fifth, the Ultimate PieBlueberries Become Electra, so to speak. He dropped his head into the dish, breaking the crust, and snuffled blueberries up his nose. Blueberries went down his shirt. The contents of his stomach seemed to suddenly gain weight. He chewed up pasty pastry crust and swallowed it. He inhaled blueberries. And suddenly the moment of revenge was at hand. His stomach, loaded beyond endurance, revolted. It clenched like a strong hand encased in a slick rubber glove. His throat opened. Lard Ass raised his head. He grinned at Bill Travis with blue teeth. Puke rumbled up his throat like a sixton Peterbilt shooting through a tunnel. It roared out of his mouth in huge blueandyellow glurt, warm and gaily steaming. It covered Bill Travis, who only had time to utter one nonsense syllable Goog! was what it sounded like. Women in the audience screamed. Calvin Spier, who had watched this unannounced event with a numb and surprised expression on his face, leaned conversationally over the table as if to explain to the gaping audience just what was happening, and puked on the head of Marguerite Charbonneau, the Mayors wife. She screamed and backed away, pawing futilely at her hair, which was now covered with a mixture of crushed berries, baked beans, and partially digested frankfurters (the latter two had been Cal Spiers dinner). She turned to her good friend Maria Lavin and threw up on the front of Marias buckskin jacket. In rapid succession, like a replay of the firecrackers Bill Travis blew a greatand seemingly superchargedjet of vomit out over the first two rows of spectators, his stunned face proclaiming to one and all, Man, I just cant believe Im doing this; Chuck Day, who had received a generous portion of Bill Traviss surprise gift, threw up on his Hush Puppies and then blinked at them wonderingly, knowing full well that stuff would never come off suede; John Wiggins, principal of Gretna Elementary, opened his bluelined mouth and said reprovingly Really, this has ... YURRK! As befitted a man of his breeding and position, he did it in his own pieplate; Hizzoner Charbonneau, who found himself suddenly presiding over what must have seemed more like a stomachflu hospital ward than a pieeating contest, opened his mouth to call the whole thing off and upchucked all over the microphone. Jesus save us! moaned Sylvia Dodge, and then her outraged supperfried clams, cole slaw, butterandsugar corn (two ears worth), and a generous helping of Muriel Harringtons Bosco chocolate cakebolted out the emergency exit and landed with a large wet splash on the back of the Mayors Robert Hall suitcoat. Lard Ass Hogan, now at the absolute apogee of his young life, beamed happily out over the audience. Puke was everywhere. People staggered around in drunken circles, holding their throats and making weak cawing noises. Somebodys pet Pekingese ran past the stage, yapping crazily, and a man wearing jeans and a Westernstyle silk shirt threw up on it, nearly drowning it. Mrs. Brockway, the Methodist ministers wife, made a long, basso belching noise which was followed by a gusher of degenerated roast beef and mashed potatoes and apple cobbler. The cobbler looked as if it might have been good when it first went down. Jerry Maling, who had come to see his pet mechanic walk away with all the marbles again, decided to get the righteous fuck out of this madhouse. He got about fifteen yards before tripping over a kids little red wagon and realizing he had landed in a puddle of warm bile. Jerry tossed his cookies in his own lap and told folks later he only thanked Providence he had been wearing his coveralls. And Miss Norman, who taught Latin and English Fundamentals at the Gretna Consolidated High School, vomited into her own purse in an agony of propriety. Lard Ass Hogan watched it all, his large face calm and beaming, his stomach suddenly sweet and steady with a warm balm it might never know againthat balm was a feeling of utter and complete satisfaction. He stood up, took the slightly tacky microphone from the trembling hand of Mayor Charbonneau, and said ... 17  I declare this contest a draw. Then he puts the mike down, walks off the back of the platform, and goes straight home. His mothers there, on account of she couldnt get a babysitter for Lard Asss little sister, who was only two. And as soon as he comes in, all covered with puke and piedrool, still wearing his bib, she says, Davie, did you win? But he doesnt say a fuckin word, you know. Just goes upstairs to his room, locks the door, and lays down on his bed. I downed the last swallow in Chriss Coke and tossed it into the woods. Yeah, thats cool, then what happened? Teddy asked eagerly. I dont know. What do you mean, you dont know? Teddy asked. It means its the end. When you dont know what happens next, thats the end. Whaaaat? Vern cried. There was an upset, suspicious look on his face, like he thought maybe hed just gotten rooked playing pennyup Bingo at the Topsham Fair. Whats all this happy crappy? Howd it come out? You have to use your imagination, Chris said patiently. No, I aint! Vern said angrily. Hes supposed to use his imagination! He made up the fuckin story! Yeah, what happened to the cat? Teddy persisted. Come on, Gordie, tell us. I think his dad was at the PieEat and when he came home he beat the living crap out of Lard Ass. Yeah, right, Chris said. I bet thats just what happened. And, I said, the kids went right on calling him Lard Ass. Except that maybe some of them started calling him PukeYerGuts, too. That ending sucks, Teddy said sadly. Thats why I didnt want to tell it. You could have made it so he shot his father and ran away and joined the Texas Rangers, Teddy said. How about that? Chris and I exchanged a glance. Chris raised one shoulder in a barely perceptible shrug. I guess so, I said. Hey, you got any new Le Dio stories, Gordie? Not just now. Maybe Ill think of some. I didnt want to upset Teddy, but I wasnt very interested in checking out what was happening in Le Dio, either. Sorry you didnt go for this one better. Nah, it was good, Teddy said. Right up to the end, it was good. All that pukin was really cool. Yeah, that was cool, really gross, Vern agreed. But Teddys right about the ending. It was sort of a gyp. Yeah, I said, and sighed. Chris stood up. Lets do some walking, he said. It was still bright daylight, the sky a hot, steely blue, but our shadows had begun to trail out long. I remember that as a kid, September days always seemed to end much too soon, catching me by surpriseit was as if something inside my heart expected it to always be June, with daylight lingering in the sky until almost ninethirty. What time is it, Gordie? I looked at my watch and was astonished to see it was after five. Yeah, lets go, Teddy said. But lets make camp before dark so we can see to get wood and stuff. Im getting hungry, too. Sixthirty, Chris promised. Okay with you guys? It was. We started to walk again, using the cinders beside the tracks now. Soon the river was so far behind us we couldnt even hear its sound. Mosquitoes hummed and I slapped one off my neck. Vern and Teddy were walking up ahead, working out some sort of complicated comicbook trade. Chris was beside me, hands in his pockets, shirt slapping against his knees and thighs like an apron. I got some Winstons, he said. Hawked em off my old mans dresser. One apiece. For after supper. Yeah? Thats boss. Thats when a cigarette tastes best, Chris said. After supper. Right. We walked in silence for awhile. Thats a really fine story, Chris said suddenly. Theyre just a little too dumb to understand. No, its not that hot. Its a mumbler. Thats what you always say. Dont give me that bullshit you dont believe. Are you gonna write it down? The story? Probably. But not for awhile. I cant write em down right after I tell em. Itll keep. What Vern said? About the ending being a gyp? Yeah? Chris laughed. Lifes a gyp, you know it? I mean, look at us. Nah, we have a great time. Sure, Chris said. All the fuckin time, you wet. I laughed. Chris did, too. They come outta you just like bubbles out of sodapop, he said after awhile. What does? But I thought I knew what he meant. The stories. That really bugs me, man. Its like you could tell a million stories and still only get the ones on top. Youll be a great writer someday, Gordie. No, I dont think so. Yeah, you will. Maybe youll even write about us guys if you ever get hard up for material. Have to be pretty fuckin hard up. I gave him the elbow. There was another period of silence and then he asked suddenly You ready for school? I shrugged. Who ever was? You got a little excited thinking about going back, seeing your friends; you were curious about your new teachers and what they would be likepretty young things just out of teachers college that you could rag or some old topkick that had been there since the Alamo. In a funny way you could even get excited about the long droning classes, because as the summer vacation neared its end you sometimes got bored enough to believe you could learn something. But summer boredom was nothing like the school boredom that always set in by the end of the second week, and by the beginning of the third week you got down to the real business Could you hit Stinky Fiske in the back of the head with your ArtGum while the teacher was putting The Principal Exports of South America on the board? How many good loud squeaks could you get off on the varnished surface of your desk if your hands were real sweaty? Who could cut the loudest farts in the locker room while changing up for phys ed? How many girls could you get to play Who Goosed the Moose during lunch hour? Higher learning, baby. Junior High, Chris said. And you know what, Gordie? By next June, well all be quits. What are you talking about? Why would that happen? Its not gonna be like grammar school, thats why. Youll be in the college courses. Me and Teddy and Vern, well all be in the shop courses, playing pocketpool with the rest of the retards, making ashtrays and birdhouses. Vern might even have to go into Remedial. Youll meet a lot of new guys. Smart guys. Thats just the way it works, Gordie. Thats how they got it set up. Meet a lot of pussies is what you mean, I said. He gripped my arm. No, man. Dont say that. Dont even think that. Theyll get your stories. Not like Vern and Teddy. Fuck the stories. Im not going in with a lot of pussies. No sir. If you dont, then youre an asshole. Whats asshole about wanting to be with your friends? He looked at me thoughtfully, as if deciding whether or not to tell me something. We had slowed down Vern and Teddy had pulled almost half a mile ahead. The sun, lower now, came at us through the overlacing trees in broken, dusty shafts, turning everything goldbut it was a tawdry gold, dimestore gold, if you can dig that. The tracks stretched ahead of us in the gloom that was just starting to gatherthey seemed almost to twinkle. Starpricks of light stood out on them here and there, as if some nutty rich guy masquerading as a common laborer had decided to embed a diamond in the steel every sixty yards or so.