Ralph poked McGovern in the back. Get up, fool, he said, and took the small bag Lois was carrying. He looked inside and saw three cans of beer. McGovern got to his feet. Sorry, Lois, he said. It was a combination of summer twilight and your beauty. I plead temporary insanity, in other words. Lois smiled at him, then turned to Ralph. I just heard what happened, she said, and I hurried over as fast as I could. I was in Ludlow all afternoon, playing nickeldime poker with the girls. Ralph didnt have to look at McGovern to know his left eyebrow  the one that said Poker with the girls! How wonderfully, perfectly Our Lois!  would be hoisted to its maximum altitude. Is Helen all right? Yes, Ralph said. Well, maybe not exactly all right  theyre keeping her in the hospital overnight  but shes not in any danger. And the baby? Fine. Staying with a friend of Helens. Well, come on up on the porch, you two, and tell me all about it. She linked one arm through McGoverns, the other through Ralphs, and led them back up the walk. They mounted the porch steps that way, like two elderly musketeers with the woman whose affections they had vied for in the days of their youth held safely between them, and as Lois sat down in her rocking chair, the streetlights went on along Harris Avenue, glimmering in the dusk like a double rope of pearls. 6 Ralph fell asleep that night bare instants after his head hit the pillow, and came wide awake again at 330 a.m. on Friday morning. He knew immediately there was no question of going back to sleep; he might as well proceed directly to the wingchair in the living room. He lay there a moment longer anyway, looking up into the dark and trying to catch the tail of the dream hed been having. He couldnt do it. He could only remember that Ed had been in it . . . and Helen . . . and Rosalie, the dog he sometimes saw limping up or down Harris Avenue before Pete the paperboy showed up. Dorrance was in it, too. Dont forget him. Yes, right. And as if a key had turned in a lock, Ralph suddenly remembered the strange thing Dorrance had said during the confrontation between Ed and the heavyset man last year . . . the thing Ralph hadnt been able to remember earlier this evening. He, Ralph, had been holding Ed back, trying to keep him pinned against the bent hood of his car long enough for reason to reassert itself, and Dorrance had said (I wouldnt) that Ralph ought to stop touching him. He said he couldnt see my hands anymore, Ralph muttered, swinging his feet out of bed. That was it. He sat where he was for a little while, head down, hair frizzed up wildly in back, his fingers laced loosely together between his thighs. At last he stepped into his slippers and shuffled into the living room. It was time to start waiting for the sun to come up. CHAPTER FOUR 1 Although cynics always sounded more plausible than the cockeyed optimists of the world, Ralphs experience had been that they were wrong at least as much of the time, if not more, and he was delighted to find that McGovern was wrong about Helen Deepneau  in her case, a single verse of The Beaten Up, BrokenHearted Blues seemed to have been enough. On Wednesday of the following week, just as Ralph was deciding hed better track down the woman Helen had spoken with in the hospital (Tillbury, her name had been  Gretchen Tillbury) and try to make sure Helen was okay, he received a letter from her. The return address was simple  just Helen and Nat, High Ridge  but it was enough to relieve Ralphs mind considerably. He sat down in his chair on the porch, tore the end off the envelope, and shook out two sheets of lined paper crammed with Helens backslanted handwriting. Dear Ralph, [the letter began], I suppose by now you must be thinking I decided to be mad at you after all, but I really didnt. Its just that were supposed to stay out of contact with everyone  by phone and letter  for the first few days. Rules of the house. I like this place very much, and so does Nat. Of course she does; there are at least six kids her age to crawl around with. As for me, I am finding more women who know what Ive been through than I ever would have believed. I mean, you see the TV shows  Oprah Talks With Women Who Love Men Who Use Them For Punching Bags  but when it happens to you, you cant help feeling that its happening in a way its never happened to anyone else, in a way thats brandnew to the world. The relief of knowing thats not true is the best thing thats happened to me in a long, long time . . . She talked about the chores to which she had been assigned  working in the garden, helping to repaint an equipment shed, washing the storm windows with vinegar and water  and about Nats adventures in learning to walk. The rest of the letter was about what had happened and what she intended to do about it, and it was here that Ralph for the first time really sensed the emotional turmoil Helen must be feeling, her worries about the future, and, counterbalancing these things, a formidable determination to do what was right for Nat . . . and for herself, too. Helen seemed to be just discovering that she also had a right to the right thing. Ralph was happy she had found out, but sad when he thought of all the dark times she must have trudged through in order to reach that simple insight. Im going to divorce him, [she wrote.] Part of my mind (it sounds like my mother when it talks) just about howls when I put it that bluntly, but Im tired of fooling myself about my situation. Theres a lot of therapy out here, the kind of thing where people sit around in a circle and use up about four boxes of Kleenex an hour, but it all seems to come back to seeing things plain. In my case, the plain fact is that the man I married has been replaced by a dangerous paranoid. That he can sometimes he loving and sweet isnt the point but a distraction. I need to remember that the man who used to bring me handpicked flowers now sometimes sits on the porch and talks to someone who isnt there, a man he calls the little bald doctor. Isnt that a beaut? I think I have an idea of how all this started, Ralph, and when I see you Ill tell you, if you really want to hear. I should be back at the house on Harris Avenue (for awhile, anyway) by midSeptember, if only to look for a job . . . but no more about that now, the whole subject scares me to death! I had a note from Ed  just a paragraph, but a great relief just the same  saying that he was staying at one of the cottages at the Hawking Labs compound in Fresh Harbor, and that he would honor the noncontact clause in the bail agreement. He said he was sorry for everything, but I didnt get any real sense of it, if he was. Its not that I was expecting tearstains on the letter or a package with his ear in it, but . . . I dont know. It was as if he wasnt really apologizing at all, but just getting on the record. Does that make sense? He also included a 750 check, which seems to indicate he understands his responsibilities. Thats good, but I think Id have been happier to hear he was getting help with his mental problems. That should be his sentence, you know eighteen months at hard therapy. I said that in group and several people laughed as if they thought I was joking. I wasnt. Sometimes I get these scary pictures in my head when I try to think of the future. I see us standing in line at Manna for a free meal, or me walking into the Third Street homeless shelter with Nat in my arms, wrapped in a blanket. When I think of that stuff I start to shake, and sometimes I cry. I know its stupid; Ive got a graduate degree in Library Science, for Gods sake, but I cant help it. And do you know what I hold onto when those bad pictures come? What you said after you took me behind the counter in the Red Apple and sat me down. You told me that I had a lot of friends in the neighborhood, and I was going to get through this. I know I have one friend, at least. One very true friend. The letter was signed Love, Helen. Ralph wiped tears from the corners of his eyes  he cried at the drop of a hat just lately, it seemed; it probably came from being so goddam tired  and read the PS she had crammed in at the bottom of the sheet and up the righthand margin Id love to have you come and visit, but men are off limits out here for reasons Im sure you will understand. They even want us to be quiet about the exact location! H. Ralph sat for a minute or two with Helens letter in his lap, looking out over Harris Avenue. It was the tag end of August now, still summer but the leaves of the poplars had begun to gleam silver when the wind stroked them and there was the first touch of coolness in the air. The sign in the window of the Red Apple said SCHOOL SUPPLIES OF ALL TYPES! CHECK HERE FIRST! And, out by the Newport town line, in some big old farmhouse where battered women went to try and start putting their lives back together, Helen Deepneau was washing storm windows, getting them ready for another long winter. He slid the letter carefully back into its envelope, trying to remember how long Ed and Helen had been married. Six or seven years, he thought. Carolyn would have known for sure. How much courage does it take to fire up your tractor and plow under a crop you spent six or seven years growing? he asked himself. How much courage to go on and do that after youve spent all that time finding out how to prepare the soil and when to plant and how much to water and when to reap? How much to just say, I have to quit these peas, peas are no good for me, I better try corn or beans. A lot, he said, wiping at the corners of his eyes again. A damn lot, thats what I think. Suddenly he wanted very badly to see Helen, to repeat what she so well remembered hearing and what he could barely remember saying Youll be okay, youll get through this, you have a lot of friends in the neighborhood. Take it to the bank, Ralph said. Hearing from Helen seemed to have taken a great weight off his shoulders. He got up, put her letter in his back pocket, and started up Harris Avenue toward the picnic area on the Extension. If he was lucky, he could find Faye Chapin or Don Veazie and play a little chess. 2 His relief at hearing from Helen did nothing to alleviate Ralphs insomnia; the premature waking continued, and by Labor Day he was opening his eyes around 245 a.m. By the tenth of September  the day when Ed Deepneau was arrested again, this time along with fifteen others  Ralphs average nights sleep had shrunk to roughly three hours and he had begun to feel quite a little bit like something on a slide under a microscope. Just a lonely lil protozoa, thats me, he thought as he sat in the wingback chair, staring out at Harris Avenue, and wished he could laugh. His list of surefire, nevermiss folk remedies continued to grow, and it had occurred to him more than once that he could write an amusing little book on the subject . . . if, that was, he ever got enough sleep to make organized thinking possible again. This late summer he was doing well to slide into matching socks each day, and his mind kept returning to his purgatorial efforts to find a CupASoup in the kitchen cabinet on the day Helen had been beaten. There had been no return to that level since, because he had managed at least some sleep every night, but Ralph was terribly afraid he would arrive there again  and perhaps places beyond there  if things didnt improve. There were times (usually sitting in the wingback chair at fourthirty in the morning) when he swore he could actually feel his brains draining. The remedies ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous. The best example of the former was a fullcolor brochure advertising the wonders of the Minnesota Institute for Sleep Studies in St Paul. A fair example of the latter was the Magic Eye, an allpurpose amulet sold through supermarket tabloids like the National Enquirer and Inside View. Sue, the countergirl at the Red Apple, bought one of these and presented it to him one afternoon. Ralph looked down at the badly painted blue eye staring up at him from the medallion (which he believed had probably started life as a pokerchip) and felt wild laughter bubbling up inside him. He somehow managed to suppress it until he had regained the safety of his own upstairs apartment across the street, and for that he was very grateful. The gravity with which Sue had given it to him  and the expensivelooking gold chain she had threaded through the eyelet on top  suggested it had cost her a fair amount of money. She had regarded Ralph with something close to awe since the day the two of them had rescued Helen. This made Ralph uncomfortable, but he had no idea what to do about it. In the meantime, he supposed it didnt hurt to wear the medallion so she could see the shape of it under his shirt. It didnt help him sleep, though. After taking his statement on Ralphs part in the Deepneaus domestic problems, Detective John Leydecker had pushed back his desk chair, laced his fingers together behind his not inconsiderable breadth of neck, and said that McGovern had told him Ralph suffered from insomnia. Ralph allowed that he did. Leydecker nodded, rolled his chair forward again, clasped his hands atop the litter of paperwork beneath which the surface of his desk was mostly buried, and looked at Ralph seriously. Honeycomb, he said. His tone of voice reminded Ralph of McGoverns tone when he had suggested that whiskey was the answer, and his reply now was exactly the same. I beg your pardon? My grandfather swore by it, Leydecker said. Little piece of honeycomb just before bedtime. Suck the honey out of the comb, chew the wax a little  like you would a wad of gum  then spit it out. Bees secrete some sort of natural sedative when they make honey. Put you right out. No kidding, Ralph said, simultaneously believing it was utter crap and believing every word. Where would a person get honeycomb, do you think? Nutra  the health food store out at the mall. Try it. By next week this time your troubles are going to be over. Ralph enjoyed the experiment  the comb honey was so sweetly powerful it seemed to suffuse his whole being  but he still woke at 310 a.m. after the first dosage, at 308 after the second, and at 307 after the third. By then the small piece of honeycomb hed purchased was gone, and he went out to Nutra right away for another one. Its value as a sedative might be nil, but it made a wonderful snack; he only wished he had discovered it earlier. He tried putting his feet in warm water. Lois bought him something called an AllPurpose Gel Wrap from a catalogue  you put it around your neck and it was supposed to take care of your arthritis as well as help you sleep (it did neither for Ralph, but he had only the mildest case of arthritis to begin with). Following a chance meeting with Trigger Vachon at the counter of Nickys Lunch, he tried camomile tea. That cammys a beaut, Trig told him. You gonna sleep great, Ralphie. And Ralph did . . . right up until 258 a.m., that was. Those were the folk cures and homeopathic remedies he tried. Ones he didnt included megavitamin packages which cost much more than Ralph could afford to spend on his fixed income, a yoga position called The Dreamer (as described by the postman, The Dreamer sounded to Ralph like a fine way to get a look at your own hemorrhoids), and marijuana. Ralph considered this last one very carefully before deciding it would very likely turn out to be an illegal version of the whiskey and honeycomb and the camomile tea. Besides, if McGovern found out Ralph was smoking pot, he would never hear the end of it. And through all these experiments a voice in his brain kept asking him if he really was going to have to get down to eye of newt and tongue of toad before he gave up and went to the doctor. That voice was not so much critical as genuinely curious. Ralph had become fairly curious himself. On September 10th, the day of the first Friends of Life demonstration at WomanCare, Ralph decided that he would try something from the drugstore . . . but not the Rexall downtown where hed gotten Carolyns prescriptions filled. They knew him down there, knew him well, and he didnt want Paul Durgin, the Rexall druggist, to see him buying sleepingpills. It was probably stupid  like going across town to buy rubbers  but that didnt change the way he felt. He had never traded at the Rite Aid across from Strawford Park, so that was where he meant to go. And if the drugstore version of newts eye and toads tongue didnt work, he really would go to the doctor. Is that true, Ralph? Do you really mean it? I do, he said out loud as he walked slowly down Harris Avenue in the bright September sunshine. Be damned if Ill put up with this much longer. Big talk, Ralph, the voice replied skeptically. Bill McGovern and Lois Chasse were standing outside the park, having what looked like an animated discussion. Bill looked up, saw him, and motioned for him to come over. Ralph went, not liking the combination of their expressions brighteyed interest on McGoverns face, distress and worry on Loiss. Have you heard about the thing out at the hospital? she asked as Ralph joined them. It wasnt at the hospital, and it wasnt a thing, McGovern said testily. It was a demonstration  thats what they called it, anyway  and it was at WomanCare, which is actually behind the hospital. They took a bunch of people to jail  somewhere between six and two dozen, nobody really seems to know yet. One of them was Ed Deepneau! Lois said breathlessly, and McGovern shot her a disgusted glance. He clearly believed that handling this piece of news had been his job. Ed! Ralph said, startled. Eds in Fresh Harbor! Wrong, McGovern said. The battered brown fedora he was wearing today gave him a slightly rakish look, like a newspaperman in a forties crime drama. Ralph wondered if the Panama was still lost or had merely been retired for the fall. Today hes once more cooling his heels in our picturesque city jail. What exactly happened? But neither of them really knew. At that point the story was little more than a rumor which had spread through the park like a contagious headcold, a rumor which was of particular interest in this part of town because Ed Deepneaus name was attached to it. Marie Callan had told Lois that there had been rockthrowing involved, and that was why the demonstrators had been arrested. According to Stan Eberly, who had passed the story on to McGovern shortly before McGovern ran into Lois, someone  it might have been Ed, but it might well have been one of the others  had Maced a couple of doctors as they used the walkway between WomanCare and the back entrance to the hospital. This walkway was technically public property, and had become a favorite haunt of antiabortion demonstrators during the seven years that WomanCare had been providing abortions on demand. The two versions of the story were so vague and conflicting that Ralph felt he could reasonably hope neither was true, that perhaps it was just a case of a few overenthusiastic people whod been arrested for trespassing, or something. In places like Derry, that kind of thing happened; stories had a way of inflating like beachballs as they were passed from mouth to mouth. Yet he couldnt shake the feeling that this time it would turn out to be more serious, mostly because both the Bill version and the Lois version included Ed Deepneau, and Ed was not your average antiabortion protestor. This was, after all, the guy who had pulled a clump of his wifes hair right out of her scalp, rearranged her dental work, and fractured her cheekbone simply because he had seen her name on a petition which mentioned WomanCare. This was the guy who seemed honestly convinced that someone calling himself the Crimson King  it would be a great name for a pro wrestler, Ralph thought  was running around Derry, and that his minions were hauling their unborn victims out of town on flatbed trucks (plus a few pickups with the fetuses stuffed into barrels marked WEEDGO). No, he had an idea that if Ed had been there, it had probably not been just a case of someone accidentally bonked on the head with a protest sign. Lets go up to my house, Lois proposed suddenly. Ill call Simone Castonguay. Her niece is the day receptionist at WomanCare. If anyone knows exactly what happened up there this morning, itll be Simone  shell have called Barbara. I was just on my way down to the supermarket, Ralph said. It was a lie, of course, but surely a very small one; the market stood next to the Rite Aid in the stripmall half a block down from the park. Why dont I stop in on my way back? All right, Lois said, smiling at him. Well expect you in a few minutes, wont we, Bill? Yes, McGovern said, and suddenly swept her into his arms. It was a bit of a reach, but he managed. In the meantime, Ill have you all to myself. Oh, Lois, how those sweet minutes will fly! Just inside the park, a group of young women with babies in strollers (a gossip of mothers, Ralph thought) had been watching them, probably attracted by Loiss gestures, which had a tendency to become grandiose when she was excited. Now, as McGovern bent Lois backward, looking down at her with the counterfeit ardor of a bad actor at the end of a stage tango, one of the mothers spoke to another and both laughed. It was a shrill, unkind sound that made Ralph think of chalk squealing on blackboards and forks dragged across porcelain sinks. Look at the funny old people, the laughter said. Look at the funny old people, pretending to be young again. Stop that, Bill! Lois said. She was blushing, and maybe not just because Bill was up to his usual tricks. Shed also heard the laughter from the park. McGovern undoubtedly had, too, but McGovern would believe they were laughing with him, not at him. Sometimes, Ralph thought wearily, a slightly inflated ego could be a protection. McGovern let her go, then removed his fedora and swept it across his waist as he made an exaggerated bow. Lois was too busy making sure that her silk blouse was still tucked into the waistband of her skirt all the way around to pay him much notice. Her blush was already fading, and Ralph saw she looked rather pale and not particularly well. He hoped she wasnt coming down with something. Come by, if you can, she told Ralph quietly. I will, Lois. McGovern slipped an arm around her waist, the gesture of affection both friendly and sincere this time, and they started up the street together. Watching them, Ralph was suddenly gripped by a strong sense of dj vu, as if he had seen them like that in some other place. Or some other life. Then, just as McGovern dropped his arm, breaking the illusion, it came to him Fred Astaire leading a darkhaired and rather plump Ginger Rogers out onto a smalltown movie set, where they would dance together to some tune by Jerome Kern or maybe Irving Berlin. Thats weird, he thought, turning back toward the little stripmall halfway down UpMile Hill. Thats very weird, Ralph. Bill McGovern and Lois Chasse are about as far from Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers as you can g Ralph? Lois called, and he turned back. There was one intersection and about a blocks worth of distance between them now. Cars zipped back and forth on Elizabeth Street, turning Ralphs view of them into a moderate stutter. What? he called back. You look better! More rested! Are you finally getting some sleep? Yes! he returned, thinking, Just another small lie, in another good cause. Didnt I say youd feel better once the seasons changed? See you in a little while! Lois wiggled her fingers at him, and Ralph was amazed to see bright blue diagonal lines stream back from the short but carefully shaped nails. They looked like contrails. What the fuck? He shut his eyes tight, then popped them open again. Nothing. Only Bill and Lois once again walking up the street toward Loiss house, their backs to him. No bright blue diagonals in the air, nothing like that Ralphs eyes dropped to the sidewalk and he saw that Lois and Bill were leaving tracks behind them on the concrete, tracks that looked exactly like the footprints in the old Arthur Murray learntodance instructions you used to be able to get by mailorder. Loiss were gray. McGoverns  larger but still oddly delicate  were a dark shade of olive green. They glowed on the sidewalk, and Ralph, who was standing on the far side of Elizabeth Street with his jaw hanging almost down to his breastbone, suddenly realized he could see little ribbands of colored smoke rising from them. Or perhaps it was steam. A city bus bound for Old Cape snored by, momentarily blocking his view, and when it passed the tracks were gone. There was nothing on the sidewalk but a message chalked inside a fading pink heart SAM  DEANIE 4EVER. Those tracks are not gone, Ralph; they were never there in the first place. You know that, dont you? Yes, he knew. The idea that Bill and Lois looked like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers had gotten into his head; progressing from that idea to a hallucination of phantom footprints leading up the sidewalk like tracks in an Arthur Murray dancediagram had a certain bizarre logic. Still, it was scary. His heart was beating too fast, and when he closed his eyes for a moment to try and calm down, he saw those marks trailing up from Loiss waving fingers like bright blue jet contrails. Ive got to get more sleep, Ralph thought. Ive got to. If I dont, Im apt to start seeing anything. Thats right, he muttered under his breath as he turned toward the drugstore again. Anything at all. 3 Ten minutes later, Ralph was standing at the front of the Rite Aid Pharmacy and looking at a sign which hung on chains from the ceiling. FEEL BETTER AT RITE AID! it said, seeming to suggest that feeling better was a goal attainable by any reasonable, hardworking consumer. Ralph had his doubts about that. This, Ralph decided, was retail drugdealing on a grand scale  it made the Rexall where he usually traded look like a tenement apartment by comparison. The fluorescentlit aisles seemed as long as bowling alleys and displayed everything from toaster ovens to jigsaw puzzles. After a little study, Ralph decided Aisle 3 contained most of the patent medicines and was probably his best bet. He made his way slowly through the area marked STOMACH REMEDIES, sojourned briefly in the kingdom of ANALGESICS, and quickly crossed the land of LAXATIVES. And there, between LAXATIVES and DECONGESTANTS, he stopped. This is it, folks  my last shot. After this theres only Dr Litchfield, and if he suggests chewing honeycomb or drinking camomile tea, Ill probably snap and itll take both nurses and the receptionist to pull me off him. SLEEPING AIDS, the sign over this section of Aisle 3 read. Ralph, never much of a patent medicine user (he would otherwise have arrived here much sooner, no doubt), didnt know exactly what hed expected, but it surely had not been this wild, almost indecent profusion of products. His eye slipped across the boxes (the majority were a soothing blue), reading the names. Most seemed strange and slightly ominous Compoz, Nytol, Sleepinal, ZPower, Sominex, Sleepinex, DrowZee. There was even a generic brand. You have to be kidding, he thought. None of these things are going to work for you. Its time to quit fucking around, dont you know that? When you start to see colored footprints on the sidewalk, its time to quit fucking around and go to the doctor. But on the heels of this he heard Dr Litchfield, heard him so clearly it was as if a tape recorder had turned on in the middle of his head Your wife is suffering from tension headaches, Ralph  unpleasant and painful, but not lifethreatening. I think we can take care of the problem. Unpleasant and painful, but not lifethreatening  yes, right, that was what the man had said. And then he had reached for his prescription pad and written out the order for the first bunch of useless pills while the tiny clump of alien cells in Carolyns head continued to send out its microbursts of destruction, and maybe Dr Jamal had been right, maybe it was too late even then, but maybe Jamal was full of shit, maybe Jamal was just a stranger in a strange land, trying to get along, trying not to make waves. Maybe this and maybe that; Ralph didnt know for sure and never would. All he really knew was that Litchfield hadnt been around when the final two tasks of their marriage had been set before them her job to die, his job to watch her do it. Is that what I want to do? Go to Litchfield and watch him reach for his prescription pad again? Maybe this time it would work, he argued to  with  himself. At the same time his hand stole out, seemingly of its own volition, and took a box of Sleepinex from the shelf. He turned it over, held it slightly away from his eyes so he could read the small print on the side panel, and ran his eye slowly down the list of active ingredients. He had no idea of how to pronounce most of the jawbreaking words, and even less of what they were or how they were supposed to help you sleep. Yes, he answered the voice. Maybe this time it would work. But maybe the real answer would be just to find another doc Help you? a voice asked from directly behind Ralphs shoulder. He was in the act of returning the box of Sleepinex to its place, meaning to take something that sounded a little less like a sinister drug in a Robin Cook novel, when the voice spoke. Ralph jumped and knocked a dozen assorted boxes of synthetic sleep onto the floor. Oh, sorry  clumsy! Ralph said, and looked over his shoulder. Not at all. My fault entirely. And before Ralph could do more than pick up two boxes of Sleepinex and one box of DrowZee gel capsules, the man in the white smock who had spoken to him had swept up the rest and was redistributing them with the speed of a riverboat gambler dealing a hand of poker. According to the gold ID bar pinned to his breast, this was JOE WYZER, RITE AID PHARMACIST. Now, Wyzer said, dusting off his hands and turning to Ralph with a friendly grin, lets start over. Can I help you? You look a little lost. Ralphs initial response  annoyance at being disturbed while having a deep and meaningful conversation with himself  was being replaced with guarded interest. Well, I dont know, he said, and gestured to the array of sleeping potions. Do any of these actually work? Wyzers grin widened. He was a tall, middleaged man with fair skin and thinning brown hair which he parted in the middle. He stuck out his hand, and Ralph had barely begun the polite reciprocatory gesture when his own hand was swallowed. Im Joe, the pharmacist said, and tapped the gold tunicpin with his free hand. I used to be Joe Wyze, but now Im older and Wyzer. This was almost certainly an ancient joke, but it had lost none of its savor for Joe Wyzer, who laughed uproariously. Ralph smiled a polite little smile with just the smallest touch of anxiety around its edges. The hand which had enfolded his was clearly a strong one, and he was afraid if the pharmacist squeezed hard, his hand might finish the day in a cast. He found himself wishing, at least momentarily, that hed taken his problem to Paul Durgin downtown after all. Then Wyzer gave his hand two energetic pumps and let go. Im Ralph Roberts. Nice to meet you, Mr Wyzer. Mutual. Now, concerning the efficacy of these fine products. Let me answer your question with one of my own, to wit, does a bear shit in a telephone booth? Ralph burst out laughing. Rarely, Id think, he said when he could say anything again. Correct. And I rest my case. Wyzer glanced at the sleeping aids, a wall done in shades of blue. Thank God Im a pharmacist and not a salesman, Mr Roberts; Id starve trying to peddle stuff door to door. Are you an insomniac? Im asking partly because youre investigating the sleeping aids, but mostly because you have that lean and holloweyed look.


Ralph said, Mr Wyzer, Id be the happiest man on earth if I could get five hours sleep some night, and Id settle for four. How longs it been going on, Mr Roberts? Or do you prefer Ralph? Ralphs fine. Good. And Im Joe. It started in April, I think. A month or six weeks after my wife died, anyway. Gee, Im sorry to hear you lost your wife. My sympathies. Thank you, Ralph said, then repeated the old formula. I miss her a lot, but I was glad when her suffering was over. Except now youre suffering. For . . . lets see. Wyzer counted quickly on his big fingers. Going on half a year now. Ralph suddenly found himself fascinated by those fingers. No jet contrails this time, but the tip of each one appeared to be wrapped in a bright silvery haze, like tinfoil you could somehow look right through. He suddenly found himself thinking of Carolyn again, and remembering the phantom smells she had sometimes complained of last fall  cloves, sewage, burning ham. Maybe this was the male equivalent, and the onset of his own brain tumor had been signaled not by headaches but by insomnia. Selfdiagnosis is a fools game, Ralph, so why dont you just quit it? He moved his eyes resolutely back to Wyzers big, pleasant face. No silvery haze there; not so much as a hint of a haze. He was almost sure of it. Thats right, he said. Going on half a year. It seems longer. A lot longer, actually. Any noticeable pattern? There usually is. I mean, do you toss and turn before you go to sleep, or Im a premature waker. Wyzers eyebrows went up. And read a book or three about the problem too, I deduce. If Litchfield had made a remark of this sort, Ralph would have read condescension into it. From Joe Wyzer he sensed not condescension but genuine admiration. I read what the library had, but there wasnt much, and none of it has helped much. Ralph paused, then added The truth is none of it has helped at all. Well, let me tell you what I know on the subject, and you just kind of flop your hand when I start heading into territory youve already explored. Whos your doctor, by the way? Litchfield. Uhhuh. And you usually trade at . . . where? The Peoples Drug out at the mall? The Rexall downtown? The Rexall. Youre incognito today, I take it. Ralph blushed . . . then grinned. Yeah, something like that. Uhhuh. And I dont need to ask if youve been to see Litchfield about your problem, do I? If you had, you wouldnt be exploring the wonderful world of patent medicines. Is that what these are? Patent medicines? Put it this way  Id feel a helluva lot more comfortable selling most of this crap off the back of a big red wagon with fancy yellow wheels. Ralph laughed, and the bright silvery cloud which had been gathering in front of Joe Wyzers tunic blew away when he did. That kind of salesmanship I might be able to get into, Wyzer said with a misty little grin. Id get a sweet little honeybun to do a dance in a sequined bra and a pair of harem pants . . . call her Little Egypt, like in that old Coasters song . . . shed be my warmup act. Plus Id have a banjopicker. In my experience, theres nothing like a good dose of banjo music to put people in a buying mood. Wyzer looked off past the laxatives and analgesics, enjoying this gaudy daydream. Then he looked back at Ralph again. For a premature waker like you, Ralph, this stuff is entirely useless. Youd be better off with a shot of booze or one of those wave machines they sell through the catalogues, and looking at you, Id guess you probably tried em both. Yes. Along with about two dozen other oldtimertested home remedies. Ralph laughed again. He was coming to like this guy a lot. Try four dozen and youll be in the ballpark. Well, youre an industrious bugger, Ill give you that, Wyzer said, and waved a hand at the blue boxes. These things are nothing but antihistamines. Essentially theyre trading on a sideeffect  antihistamines make people sleepy. Check out a box of Comtrex or Benadryl down there in Decongestants and itll say you shouldnt take it if youre going to be driving or operating heavy machinery. For people who suffer from occasional sleeplessness, a Sominex every now and then may work. It gives them a nudge. But they wouldnt work for you in any case, because your problem isnt getting to sleep, its staying asleep . . . correct? Correct. Can I ask you a delicate question? Sure. I guess so. Do you have a problem with Dr Litchfield regarding this? Maybe have some doubts about his ability to understand how really pissy your insomnia is making you feel? Yes, Ralph said gratefully. Do you think I should go see him? Try to explain that to him so hell understand? To this question Wyzer would of course respond in the affirmative, and Ralph would finally make the call. And it would be, should be Litchfield  he saw that now. It was madness to think of hooking up with a new doctor at his age. Can you tell Dr Litchfield youre seeing things? Can you tell him about the blue marks you saw shooting up from the tips of Lois Chasses fingers? The footprints on the sidewalk, like the footprints in an Arthur Murray dancediagram? The silvery stuff around the tips of Joe Wyzers fingers? Are you really going to tell Litchfield that stuff? And if youre not, if you cant, why are you going to see him in the first place, no matter what this guy recommends? Wyzer, however, surprised him by going in an entirely different direction. Are you still dreaming? Yes. Quite a lot, in fact, considering that Im down to about three hours sleep a night. Are they coherent dreams  dreams that consist of perceivable events and have some kind of narrative flow, no matter how kooky  or are they just jumbled images? Ralph remembered a dream hed had the night before. He and Helen Deepneau and Bill McGovern had been having a threesided game of Frisbee in the middle of Harris Avenue. Helen had a pair of huge, clunky saddle shoes on her feet; McGovern was wearing a sweatshirt with a vodka bottle on it. ABSOLUTLY THE BEST, the sweatshirt proclaimed. The Frisbee had been bright red with fluorescent green stripes. Then Rosalie the dog had shown up. The faded blue bandanna someone had hung around her neck was flapping as she limped toward them. All at once she had leaped into the air, snatched the Frisbee, and gone running off with it in her mouth. Ralph wanted to give chase, but McGovern said, Relax, Ralph, were getting a whole case of them for Christmas. Ralph turned to him, intending to point out that Christmas was over three months away and to ask what the hell they were going to do if they wanted to play Frisbee between then and now, but before he could, the dream had either ended or gone on to some other, less vivid, mindmovie. If I understand what youre saying, Ralph replied, my dreams are coherent. Good. I also want to know if theyre lucid dreams. Lucid dreams fulfill two requirements. First, you know youre dreaming. Second, you can often influence the course the dream takes  youre more than just a passive observer. Ralph nodded. Sure, I have those, too. In fact, I seem to have a lot of them lately. I was just thinking of one I had last night. In it this stray dog I see on the street from time to time ran off with a Frisbee some friends of mine and I were playing with. I was mad that she broke up the game, and I tried to make her drop the Frisbee just by sending her the thought. Sort of a telepathic command, you know? He uttered a small, embarrassed chuckle, but Wyzer only nodded matteroffactly. Did it work? Not this time, Ralph said, but I think I have made that sort of thing work in other dreams. Only I cant be sure, because most of the dreams I have seem to fade away almost as soon as I wake up. Thats the case with everyone, Wyzer said. The brain treats most dreams as disposable matter, storing them in extreme shortterm memory. You know a lot about this, dont you? Insomnia interests me very much. I did two research papers on the link between dreams and sleep disorders when I was in college. Wyzer glanced at his watch. Its my breaktime. Would you like to have a cup of coffee and a piece of apple pie with me? Theres a place just two doors down, and the pie is fantastic. Sounds good, but maybe Ill settle for an orange soda. Ive been trying to cut down on my coffee intake. Understandable but completely useless, Wyzer said cheerfully. Caffeine is not your problem, Ralph. No, I suppose not . . . but what is? To this point Ralph had been quite successful at keeping the misery out of his voice, but now it crept back in. Wyzer clapped him on the shoulder and looked at him kindly. That, he said, is what were going to talk about. Come on. CHAPTER FIVE 1 Think of it this way, Wyzer recommenced five minutes later. They were in a New Agey sort of diner called Day Break, Sun Down. The place was a little too ferny for Ralph, who believed in oldfashioned diners that gleamed with chrome and smelled of grease, but the pie was good, and while the coffee was not up to Lois Chasses standards  Lois made the best cup he had ever tasted  it was hot and strong. Which way is that? Ralph asked. There are certain things mankind  womankind, too  keeps striving for. Not the stuff that gets written up in the history and civics books, either, at least for the most part; Im talking fundamentals here. A roof to keep the rain out. Three hots and a cot. A decent sexlife. Healthy bowels. But maybe the most fundamental thing of all is what youve been missing, my friend. Because theres really nothing in the world that can measure up to a good nights sleep, is there? Boy, you got that right, Ralph said. Wyzer nodded. Sleep is the overlooked hero and the poor mans physician. Shakespeare said its the thread that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care, Napoleon called it the blessed end of night, and Winston Churchill  one of the great insomniacs of the twentieth century  said it was the only relief he ever got from his deep depressions. I put all that stuff in my papers, but what all the quotes come down to is what I just said nothing in the whole wide world can measure up to a good nights sleep. Youve had the problem yourself, havent you? Ralph asked suddenly. Is that why you . . . well . . . why youre taking me under your wing? Joe Wyzer grinned. Is that what Im doing? I think so, yes. Hey, I can live with that. The answer is yes. Ive suffered from slowsleep insomnia ever since I was thirteen. Its why I ended up doing not just one research paper on the subject but two. How are you doing with it these days? Wyzer shrugged. So far its been a pretty good year. Not the best, but Ill take it. For a couple of years in my early twenties, the problem was acute  Id go to bed at ten, fall asleep around four, get up at seven, and drag myself through the day feeling like a bit player in someone elses nightmare. This was so familiar to Ralph that his back and upper arms broke out in goosebumps. Here comes the most important thing I can tell you, Ralph, so listen up. I am. The thing you have to hang onto is that youre still basically okay, even though you feel like shit a lot of the time. All sleep is not created equal, you see  theres good sleep and bad sleep. If youre still having coherent dreams, and, maybe even more importantly, lucid dreams, youre still having good sleep. And because of that, a scrip for sleeping pills could be about the worst thing in the world for you right now. And I know Litchfield. Hes a nice enough guy, but he loves that prescription pad. Say it twice, Ralph told him, thinking of Carolyn. If you tell Litchfield what you told me while we were walking down here, hes going to prescribe a benzodiazepine  probably Dalmane or Restoril, maybe Halcion or even Valium. Youll sleep, but youll pay a price. Benzodiazepines are habitforming, theyre respiratory depressants, and worst of all, for guys like you and me, they significantly reduce REM sleep. Dreaming sleep, in other words. Hows your pie? I only ask because youve hardly touched it. Ralph took a big bite and swallowed it without tasting. Good, he said. Now tell me why you have to have dreams to make your sleep good sleep. If I could answer that, Id retire from the pillpushing business and go into business as a sleep guru. Wyzer had finished his pie and was now using the pad of his index finger to pick up the larger crumbs left on his plate. REM stands for rapid eye movements, of course, and the terms REM sleep and dreaming sleep have become synonymous in the public mind, but nobody really knows just how the eye movements of sleepers relate to the dreams they are having. It seems unlikely that the eye movements indicate watching or tracking, because sleep researchers see a lot of it even in dreams test subjects later describe as fairly static  dreams of conversations, for instance, like the one were having now. Similarly, no one really knows why there seems to be a clear relationship between lucid, coherent dreams and overall mental health the more dreams of that sort a person has, the better off he seems to be, the less he has, the worse. Theres a real scale there. Mental healths a pretty general phrase, Ralph said skeptically. Yeah. Wyzer grinned. Makes me think of a bumper sticker I saw a few years back  SUPPORT MENTAL HEALTH OR ILL KILL YOU. Anyway, were talking about some basic, measurable components cognitive ability, problemsolving ability, by both inductive and deductive methods, ability to grasp relationships, memory My memory is lousy these days, Ralph said. He was thinking of his inability to remember the number of the cinema complex and his long hunt through the kitchen cabinet for the last CupASoup envelope. Yeah, youre probably suffering some shortterm memory loss, but your fly is zipped, your shirt is on rightside out, and I bet if I asked you what your middle name is, you could tell me. Im not belittling your problem  Id be the last person in the world to do that  but I am asking you to change your point of view for a minute or two. To think of all the areas in your life where youre still perfectly functional. All right. These lucid and coherent dreams  do they just indicate how well youre functioning, like a gas gauge in a car, or do they actually help you function? No one knows for sure, but the most likely answer is a little of both. In the late fifties, around the time the doctors were phasing out the barbiturates  the last really popular one was a fun drug called Thalidomide  a few scientists even tried to suggest that the good sleep weve been beating our gums about and dreams arent related. And? The tests dont support the hypothesis. People who stop dreaming or suffer from constant dream interruptions have all sorts of problems, including loss of cognitive ability and emotional stability. They also start to suffer perceptual problems like hyperreality. Beyond Wyzer, at the far end of the counter, sat a fellow reading a copy of the Derry News. Only his hands and the top of his head were visible. He was wearing a rather ostentatious pinkyring on his left hand. The headline at the top of the front page read ABORTION RIGHTS ADVOCATE AGREES TO SPEAK IN DERRY NEXT MONTH. Below it, in slightly smaller type, was a subhead ProLife Groups Promise Organized Protests. In the center of the page was a color picture of Susan Day, one that did her much more justice than the flat photographs on the poster he had seen in the window of Secondhand Rose, Secondhand Clothes. In those she had looked ordinary, perhaps even a bit sinister; in this one she was radiant. Her long, honeyblonde hair had been pulled back from her face. Her eyes were dark, intelligent, arresting. Hamilton Davenports pessimism had been misplaced, it seemed. Susan Day was coming after all. Then Ralph saw something which made him forget all about Ham Davenport and Susan Day. A grayblue aura had begun to gather around the hands of the man reading the newspaper, and around the justvisible crown of his head. It seemed particularly bright around the onyx pinkyring he wore. It did not obscure but seemed to clarify, turning the ringstone into something that looked like an asteroid in a really realistic sciencefiction movie What did you say, Ralph? Hmm? Ralph drew his gaze away from the newspaper readers pinkyring with an effort. I dont know . . . was I talking? I guess I asked you what hyperreality is. Heightened sensory awareness, Wyzer said. Like taking an LSD trip without having to ingest any chemicals. Oh, Ralph said, watching as the bright grayblue aura began to form complicated, runic patterns on the nail of the finger Wyzer was using to mash up crumbs. At first they looked like letters written in frost . . . then sentences written in fog . . . then odd, gasping faces. He blinked and they were gone. Ralph? You still there? Sure, you bet. But listen, Joe  if the folk remedies dont work and the stuff in Aisle 3 doesnt work and the prescription drugs could actually make things worse instead of better, what does that leave? Nothing, right? You going to eat the rest of that? Wyzer said, pointing at Ralphs plate. Chilly grayblue light drifted off the tip of his finger like Arabic letters written in dry ice vapor. Nope. Im full. Be my guest. Wyzer pulled Ralphs plate to him. Dont give up so fast, he said. I want you to come back to the pharm with me so I can give you a couple of business cards. My advice, as your friendly neighborhood drugpusher, is that you give these guys a try. What guys? Ralph watched, fascinated, as Wyzer opened his mouth to receive the last bite of pie. Each of his teeth was lit with a fierce gray glow. The fillings in his molars glowed like tiny suns. The fragments of crust and apple filling on his tongue crawled with (lucid Ralph lucid) light. Then Wyzer closed his mouth to chew, and the glow was gone. James Roy Hong and Anthony Forbes. Hong is an acupuncturist with offices on Kansas Street. Forbes is a hypnotist with a place over on the east side  Hesser Street, I think. And before you yell quack Im not going to yell quack, Ralph said quietly. His hand rose to touch the Magic Eye, which he was still wearing under his shirt. Believe me, Im not. Okay, good. My advice is that you try Hong first. The needles look scary, but they only hurt a little, and hes got something going there. I dont know what the hell it is or how it works, but I do know that when I went through a bad patch two winters ago, he helped me a lot. Forbes is also good  so Ive heard  but Hongs my pick. Hes busy as hell, but I might be able to help you there. What do you say? Ralph saw a bright gray glow, no thicker than a thread, slip from the corner of Wyzers eye and slide down his cheek like a supernatural tear. It decided him. I say lets go. Wyzer clapped him on the shoulder. Good man! Lets pay up and get out of here. He produced a quarter. Flip you for the check? 2 Halfway back to the pharmacy, Wyzer stopped to look at a poster which had been put up in the window of an empty storefront between the Rite Aid and the diner. Ralph only glanced at it. He had seen it before, in the window of Secondhand Rose, Secondhand Clothes. Wanted for murder, Wyzer marvelled. People have lost all goddam sense of perspective, do you know it? Yes, Ralph said. If we had tails, I think most of us would spend all day chasing them and trying to bite them off. The posters bad enough, Wyzer said indignantly,but look at this! He was pointing at something beside the poster, something which had been written in the dirt which coated the outside of the empty display window. Ralph leaned close to read the short message. KILL THIS CUNT, it said. Below the words was an arrow pointing at the lefthand photo of Susan Day. Jesus, Ralph said quietly. Yeah, Wyzer agreed. He pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped away the message, leaving in place of the words a bright silvery fanshape which Ralph knew only he could see. 3 He followed Wyzer to the rear of the pharmacy and stood in the doorway of an office not much bigger than a publictoilet cubicle while Wyzer sat on the only piece of furniture  a high stool that would have looked at home in Ebenezer Scrooges countinghouse  and phoned the office of James Roy Hong, acupuncturist. Wyzer pushed the phones speaker button so Ralph could follow the conversation. Hongs receptionist (someone named Audra who seemed to know Wyzer on a basis a good deal warmer than a merely professional one) at first said Dr Hong could not possibly see a new patient until after Thanksgiving. Ralphs shoulders slumped. Wyzer raised an open palm in his direction  Wait a minute, Ralph  and then proceeded to talk Audra into finding (or perhaps creating) an opening for Ralph in early October. That was almost a month away, but a lot better than Thanksgiving. Thanks, Audra, Wyzer said. We still on for dinner Friday night? Yes, she said. Now turn off the damned speaker, Joe  I have something thats for your ears only. Wyzer did it, listened, laughed until tears  to Ralph they looked like gorgeous liquid pearls  stood in his eyes. Then he smooched twice into the phone and hung up. Youre all set, he said, handing Ralph a small white card with the time and date of the appointment written on the back. October fourth, not great, but really the best she could do. Audras good people. Its fine. Heres Anthony Forbess card, in case you want to call him in the interim. Thanks, Ralph said, taking the second card. I owe you. The only thing you owe me is a return visit so I can find out how it went. Im concerned. There are doctors who wont prescribe anything for insomnia, you know. They like to say that no one ever died from lack of sleep, but Im here to tell you thats crap. Ralph supposed this news should have frightened him, but he felt pretty steady, at least for the time being. The auras had gone away  the bright gray gleams in Wyzers eyes as hed laughed at whatever Hongs receptionist had said had been the last. He was starting to think they had just been a mental fugue brought on by a combination of extreme tiredness and Wyzers mention of hyperreality. There was another reason for feeling good  he now had an appointment with a man who had helped this man through a similar bad patch. Ralph thought hed let Hong stick needles into him until he looked like a porcupine, if the treatment allowed him to sleep until the sun came up. And there was a third thing the gray auras hadnt actually been scary. They had been sort of . . . interesting. People die from lack of sleep all the time, Wyzer was saying, although the medical examiner usually ends up writing suicide on the causeofdeath line, rather than insomnia. Insomnia and alcoholism have a lot in common, but the major thing is this theyre both diseases of the heart and mind, and when theyre allowed to run their course they usually gut the spirit long before theyre able to destroy the body. So yeah  people do die from lack of sleep. This is a dangerous time for you, and you have to take care of yourself. If you start to feel really wonky, call Litchfield. Do you hear me? Dont stand on ceremony. Ralph grimaced. I think Id be more apt to call you. Wyzer nodded as if he had absolutely expected this. The number under Hongs is mine, he said. Surprised, Ralph looked down at the card again. There was a second number there, marked J.W. Day or night, Wyzer said. Really. You wont disturb my wife; weve been divorced since 1983. Ralph tried to speak and found he couldnt. All that came out was a choked, meaningless little sound. He swallowed hard, trying to clear the obstruction in his throat. Wyzer saw he was struggling and clapped him on the back. No bawling in the store, Ralph  it scares away the big spenders. You want a Kleenex? No, Im okay. His voice was slightly watery, but audible and mostly under control. Wyzer cast a critical eye on him. Not yet, but you will be. Wyzers big hand swallowed Ralphs once more, and this time Ralph didnt worry about it. For the time being, try to relax. And remember to be grateful for the sleep you do get. Okay. Thanks again. Wyzer nodded and walked back to the prescription counter. 4 Ralph walked back down Aisle 3, turned left at the formidable condom display, and went out through a door with THANK YOU FOR SHOPPING AT RITE AID declared above the pushbar. At first he thought there was nothing unusual about the fierce brightness that made him squint his eyes almost shut  it was midday, after all, and perhaps the drugstore had been a little darker than he had realized. Then he opened his eyes wide again, and his breath came to a dead stop in his throat. A look of thunderstruck amazement spread over his face. It was the expression an explorer might wear when, after pushing his way through just one more nondescript tangle of bushes, he finds himself looking at some fabulous lost city or brainbusting geological feature  a cliff of diamonds, perhaps, or a spiral waterfall. Ralph shrank back against the blue mailbox standing to one side of the drugstores entrance, still not breathing, his eyes shuttling jerkily from left to right as the brain behind them tried to understand the wonderful and terrible news it was receiving. The auras were back, but that was a little like saying Hawaii was a place where you didnt have to wear your overcoat. This time the light was everywhere, fierce and flowing, strange and beautiful. Ralph had had only one experience in his entire life which was remotely similar to this. During the summer of 1941, the year hed turned eighteen, hed been riding his thumb from Derry to his uncles place in Poughkeepsie, New York, a distance of about four hundred miles. An early evening thunderstorm at the end of his second day on the road had sent him scurrying for the nearest available shelter  a decrepit barn swaying drunkenly at the end of a long hayfield. He had spent more of that day walking than riding, and had fallen soundly asleep in one of the barns longabandoned horse stalls even before the thunder had stopped blasting the sky overhead. Hed awakened at midmorning the next day after a solid fourteen hours of sleep and had looked around in utter wonder, not even sure, in those first few moments, where he was. He only knew it was some dark, sweetsmelling place, and that the world above and on all sides of him had been split open with brilliant seams of light. Then he had remembered taking shelter in the barn, and it came to him that this strange vision had been caused by the cracks in the barns walls and roof combined with the bright summer sunlight . . . only that, and nothing more. Yet hed sat there in mute wonder for at least five minutes just the same, a wideeyed teenage boy with hay in his hair and his arms dusted with chaff; he sat there looking up at the tidal gold of dustmotes spinning lazily in the slanting, crosshatching rays of the sun. He remembered thinking it had been like being in church. This was that experience to the tenth power. And the hell of it was simply this he could not describe exactly what had happened, and how the world had changed, to make it so wonderful. Things and people, particularly the people, had auras, yes, but that was only where this amazing phenomenon began. Things had never been so brilliant, so utterly and completely there. The cars, the telephone poles, the shopping carts in the Kart Korral in front of the supermarket, the frame apartment buildings across the street  all these things seemed to pop out at him like 3D images in an old film. All at once this dingy little stripmall on Witcham Street had become wonderland, and although Ralph was looking right at it, he was not sure what he was looking at, only that it was rich and gorgeous and fabulously strange. The only things he could isolate were the auras surrounding the people going in and out of stores, stowing packages in their trunks, or getting in their cars and driving away. Some of these auras were brighter than others, but even the dimmest were a hundred times brighter than his first glimpses of the phenomenon. But its what Wyzer was talking about, no doubt of that. Its hyperreality, and what youre looking at is no more there than the hallucinations of people who are under the influence of LSD. What youre seeing is just another symptom of your insomnia, no more and no less. Look at it, Ralph, and marvel over it as much as you want  it is marvellous  just dont believe it. He didnt need to tell himself to marvel, however  there were marvels everywhere. A bakery truck was backing out of a slot in front of Day Break, Sun Down, and a bright maroon substance  it was almost the color of dried blood  came from its tailpipe. It was neither smoke nor vapor but had some of the characteristics of each. This brightness rose in gradually attenuating spikes, like the lines of an EEG readout. Ralph looked down at the pavement and saw the tread of the vans tires printed on the concrete in that same maroon shade. The van speeded up as it left the parking lot, and the ghostly graphtrail emerging with its exhaust turned the bright red of arterial blood as it did. There were similar oddities everywhere, phenomena which intersected in slanting paths and made Ralph think again of how the light had come slanting through the cracks in the roof and walls of that longago barn. But the real wonder was the people, and it was around them that the auras seemed most clearly defined and real. A bagboy came out of the supermarket, pushing a cartload of groceries and walking in a nimbus of such brilliant white that it was like a travelling spotlight. The aura of the woman beside him was dingy by comparison, the graygreen of cheese which has begun to mould. A young girl called to the bagboy from the open window of a Subaru and waved; her left hand left bright contrails, as pink as cotton candy, in the air as it moved. They began to fade almost as soon as they appeared. The bagboy grinned and waved back; his hand left a fantail of yellowishwhite behind. To Ralph it looked like the fin of a tropical fish. This also began to fade, but more slowly. Ralphs fear at this confused, shining vision was considerable, but for the time being, at least, fear had taken a back seat to wonder, awe, and simple amazement. It was more beautiful than anything he had ever seen in his life. But its not real, he cautioned himself. Remember that, Ralph. He promised himself he would try, but for the time being that cautioning voice seemed very far away. Now he noticed something else there was a line of that lucid brightness emerging from the head of every person he could see. It trailed upward like a ribbon of bunting or brightly colored crepe paper until it attenuated and disappeared. For some people the point of disappearance was five feet above the head; for others it was ten or fifteen. In most cases the color of the bright, ascending line matched the rest of the aura  bright white for the bagboy, graygreen in the case of the female customer beside him, for instance  but there were some striking exceptions. Ralph saw a rustred line rising from a middleaged man who was striding along in the middle of a darkblue aura, and a woman with a lightgray aura whose ascending line was an amazing (and slightly alarming) shade of magenta. In some cases  two or three, not a lot  the rising lines were almost black. Ralph didnt like those, and he noticed that the people to whom these balloonstrings (they were named just that simply and quickly in his mind) belonged invariably looked unwell. Of course they do. The balloonstrings are an indicator of health . . . and illhealth, in some cases. Like the Kirlian auras people were so fascinated with back in the late sixties and early seventies.


Ralph, another voice warned, you are not really seeing these things, okay? I mean, I hate to be a bore, but But wasnt it at least possible that the phenomenon was real? That his persistent insomnia, coupled with the stabilizing influence of his lucid, coherent dreams, had afforded him a glimpse of a fabulous dimension just beyond the reach of ordinary perception? Quit it, Ralph, and right now. You have to do better than that, or youll end up in the same boat as poor old Ed Deepneau. Thinking of Ed kicked off some association  something hed said on the day hed been arrested for beating his wife  but before Ralph could isolate it, a voice spoke almost at his left elbow. Mom? Mommy? Can we get the Honey Nut Cheerios again? Well see once we get inside, hon. A young woman and a little boy passed in front of him, walking handinhand. It was the boy, who looked to be four or five, who had spoken. His mother was walking in an envelope of almost blinding white. The balloonstring rising out of her blonde hair was also white and very wide  more like the ribbon on a fancy gift box than a string. It rose to a height of at least twenty feet and floated out slightly behind her as she walked. It made Ralph think of things bridal  trains, veils, gauzy billows of skirt. Her sons aura was a healthy dark blue verging on violet, and as the two of them walked past, Ralph saw a fascinating thing. Tendrils of aura were also rising from their clasped hands white from the woman, dark blue from the boy. They twined in a pigtail as they rose, faded, and disappeared. Motherandson, motherandson, Ralph thought. There was something perfectly, simply symbolic about those bands, which were wrapped around each other like woodbine climbing a garden stake. Looking at them made his heart rejoice  corny, but it was exactly how he felt. Motherandson, whiteandblue, motherand Mom, whats that man looking at? The blonde womans glance at Ralph was brief, but he saw the way her lips thinned down and pressed together before she turned away. More importantly, he saw the brilliant aura which surrounded her suddenly darken, close in, and pick up spiraling tints of dark red. Thats the color of fright, Ralph thought. Or maybe anger. I dont know, Tim. Come on, stop dawdling. She began to move him along faster, her ponytailed hair flipping back and forth and leaving small fans of gray tinged with red in the air. To Ralph they looked like the arcs that wipers sometimes left on dirty windshields. Hey, Mom, get a life! Quit pulling! The little boy had to trot in order to keep up. Thats my fault, Ralph thought, and an image of how he must have looked to the young mother flashed into his mind old guy, tired face, big purplish pouches under his eyes. Hes standing  hunching  by the mailbox outside the Rite Aid Pharmacy, staring at her and her little boy as if they were the most remarkable things in the world. Which you just about are, maam, if you but knew it. To her he must have looked like the biggest pervo of all time. He had to get rid of this. Real or hallucination, it didnt matter  he had to make it quit. If he didnt somebody was going to call either the cops or the men with the butterfly nets. For all he knew, the pretty mother could be making the bank of payphones just inside the markets main doors her first stop. He was just asking himself how one thought away something which was all in ones mind to begin with when he realized it had already happened. Psychic phenomenon or sensory hallucination, it had simply disappeared while hed been thinking about how awful he must have looked to the pretty young mother. The day had gone back to its previous Indian summery brilliance, which was wonderful but still a long way from that pellucid, allpervading glow. The people crisscrossing the parking lot of the stripmall were just people again no auras, no balloonstrings, no fireworks. Just people on their way to buy groceries in the Shop n Save, or to pick up their last batch of summer pictures at PhotoMat, or to grab a takeout coffee from Day Break, Sun Down. Some of them might even be ducking into the Rite Aid for a box of Trojans or, God bless us and keep us, a SLEEPING AID. Just your ordinary, everyday citizens of Derry going about their ordinary, everyday business. Ralph released pentup breath in a gusty sigh and braced himself for a wave of relief. Relief did come, but not in the tidal wave he had expected. There was no sense of having drawn back from the brink of madness in the nick of time; no sense of having been close to any sort of brink. Yet he understood perfectly well that he couldnt live for long in a world that bright and wonderful without endangering his sanity; it would be like having an orgasm which lasted for hours. That might be how geniuses and great artists experienced things, but it was not for him; so much juice would blow his fuses in short order, and when the men with the butterfly nets rolled up to give him a shot and take him away, he would probably be happy to go. The most readily identifiable emotion he was feeling just now wasnt relief but a species of pleasant melancholy which he remembered sometimes experiencing after sex when he was a very young man. This melancholy was not deep but it was wide, seeming to fill the empty places of his body and mind the way a receding flood leaves a scrim of loose, rich topsoil. He wondered if he would ever have such an alarming, exhilarating moment of epiphany again. He thought the chances were fairly good . . . at least until next month, when James Roy Hong got his needles into him, or perhaps until Anthony Forbes started swinging his gold pocket watch in front of his eyes and telling him he was getting . . . very . . . sleepy. It was possible that neither Hong nor Forbes would have any success in curing his insomnia, but if one of them did, Ralph guessed he would stop seeing auras and balloonstrings after his first good nights sleep. And, after a month or so of restful nights, he would probably forget this had ever happened. As far as he was concerned, that was a perfectly good reason to feel a touch of melancholy. You better get moving, buddy  if your new friend happens to look out the drugstore window and sees you still standing here like a dope, hell probably send for the men with the nets himself. Call Dr Litchfield, more like it, Ralph muttered, and cut across the parking lot toward Harris Avenue. 5 He poked his head through Loiss front door and called, Yo! Anybody home? Come on in, Ralph! Lois called back. Were in the living room! Ralph had always imagined a hobbithole would be a lot like Lois Chasses little house half a block or so down the hill from the Red Apple  neat and crowded, a little too dark, perhaps, but scrupulously clean. And he guessed a hobbit like Bilbo Baggins, whose interest in his ancestors was eclipsed only by his interest in what might be for dinner, would have been enchanted by the tiny living room, where relatives looked down from every wall. The place of honor, on top of the television, was held by a tinted studio photograph of the man Lois always referred to as Mr Chasse. McGovern was sitting hunched forward on the couch with a plate of macaroni and cheese balanced on his bony knees. The television was on and a gameshow was clattering through the bonus round. What does she mean, were in the living room? Ralph asked, but before McGovern could answer, Lois came in with a steaming plate in her hands. Here, she said. Sit down, eat. I talked with Simone, and she said itll probably be on News at Noon. Gee, Lois, you didnt have to do this, he said, taking the plate, but his stomach demurred strongly when he got his first smell of onions and mellow cheddar. He glanced at the clock on the wall  just visible between photos of a man in a raccoon coat and a woman who looked as if vododeeohdo might have been in her vocabulary  and was astounded to see it was five minutes of twelve. I didnt do anything but stick some leftovers into the microwave, she said. Someday, Ralph, Ill cook for you. Now sit down. Not on my hat, though, McGovern said, without taking his eyes from the bonus round. He picked the fedora up off the couch, dropped it on the floor beside him, and went back to his own portion of the casserole, which was disappearing rapidly. This is very tasty, Lois. Thank you. She paused long enough to watch one of the contestants bag a trip to Barbados and a new car, then hurried back into the kitchen. The screaming winner faded out and was replaced by a man in wrinkled pajamas, tossing and turning in bed. He sat up and looked at the clock on the nightstand. It said 318 a.m., a time of day with which Ralph had become very familiar. Cant sleep? an announcer asked sympathetically. Tired of lying awake night after night? A small glowing pill came gliding in through the insomniacs bedroom window. To Ralph it looked like the worlds smallest flying saucer, and he wasnt surprised to see that it was blue. Ralph sat down beside McGovern. Although both men were quite slim (scrawny might actually have described Bill better), between them they used up most of the couch. Lois came in with her own plate and sat down in the rocker by the window. Over the canned music and studio applause that marked the end of the gameshow, a womans voice said, This is Lisette Benson. Topping our News at Noon, a wellknown womens rights advocate agrees to speak in Derry, sparking a protest  and six arrests  at a local clinic. Well also have Chris Altobergs weather and Bob McClanahan on sports. Stay tuned. Ralph forked a bite of macaroni and cheese into his mouth, looked up, and saw Lois watching him. All right? she asked. Delicious, he said, and it was, but he thought that right now a big helping of FrancoAmerican spaghetti served cold right out of the can would have tasted just as good. He wasnt just hungry; he was ravenous. Seeing auras apparently burned a lot of calories. What happened, very briefly, was this, McGovern said, swallowing the last of his own lunch and putting the plate down next to his hat. About eighteen people showed up outside WomanCare at eightthirty this morning, while people were arriving for work. Loiss friend Simone says theyre calling themselves The Friends of Life, but the core group are the assorted fruits and nuts that used to go by the name of Daily Bread. She said one of them was Charles Pickering, the guy the cops caught apparently getting ready to firebomb the joint late last year. Simones niece said the police only arrested four people. It looks like she was a little low. Was Ed really with them? Ralph asked. Yes, Lois said, and he got arrested, too. At least no one got Maced. That was just a rumor. No one got hurt at all. This time, McGovern added darkly. The News at Noon logo appeared on Loiss hobbitsized color TV, then dissolved into Lisette Benson. Good afternoon, she said. Topping our news on this beautiful latesummer day, prominent writer and controversial womens rights advocate Susan Day agrees to speak at the Civic Center next month, and the announcement of her speech sparks a demonstration at WomanCare, the Derry womens resource center and abortion clinic which has so polarized There they go with that abortion clinic stuff again! McGovern exclaimed. Jesus! Hush! Lois said in a peremptory tone not much like her usual tentative murmur. McGovern gave her a surprised look and hushed.  John Kirkland at WomanCare, with the first of two reports, Lisette Benson was finishing, and the picture switched to a reporter doing a standup outside a long, low brick building. A super at the bottom of the screen informed viewers that this was a LIVEEYE REPORT. A strip of windows ran along one side of WomanCare. Two of them were broken, and several others were smeared with red stuff that looked like blood. Yellow policeline tape had been strung between the reporter and the building; three uniformed Derry cops and one plainclothesman stood in a little group on the far side of it. Ralph was not very surprised to recognize the detective as John Leydecker. They call themselves The Friends of Life, Lisette, and they claim their demonstration this morning was a spontaneous outpouring of indignation prompted by the news that Susan Day  the woman radical prolife groups nationwide call Americas Number One BabyKiller  is coming to Derry next month to speak at the Civic Center. At least one Derry police officer believes thats not quite the way it was, however. Kirklands report went to tape, beginning with a closeup of Leydecker, who seemed resigned to the microphone in his face. There was no spontaneity about this, he said. Clearly a lot of preparation went into it. Theyve probably been sitting on advance word of Susan Days decision to come here and speak for most of the week, just getting ready and waiting for the news to break in the paper, which it did this morning. The camera went to a twoshot. Kirkland was giving Leydecker his most penetrating Geraldo look. What do you mean a lot of preparation? he asked. Most of the signs they were carrying had Ms Days name on them. Also, there were over a dozen of these. A surprisingly human emotion slipped through Leydeckers policemanbeinginterviewed mask; Ralph thought it was distaste. He raised a large plastic evidence bag, and for one horrified instant Ralph was positive that there was a mangled and bloody baby inside. Then he realized that, whatever the red stuff might be, the body in the evidence bag was a dolls body. They didnt buy these at Kmart, Leydecker told the TV reporter. I guarantee you that. The next shot was a longlens closeup of the smeared and broken windows. The camera panned them slowly. The stuff on the smeared ones looked more like blood than ever, and Ralph decided he didnt want the last two or three bites of his macaroni and cheese. The demonstrators came with babydolls whose soft bodies had been injected with what police believe to be a mixture of Karo syrup and red foodcoloring, Kirkland said in voiceover. They flung the dolls at the side of the building as they chanted antiSusan Day slogans. Two windows were broken, but there was no major damage. The camera stopped, centering on a gruesomely smeared pane of glass. Most of the dolls split open, Kirkland was saying, splattering a substance that looked enough like blood to badly frighten the employees who witnessed the bombardment. The shot of the redsmeared window was replaced by one of a lovely darkhaired woman in slacks and a pullover. Oooh, look, its Barbie! Lois cried. Golly, I hope Simones watching! Maybe I ought to It was McGoverns turn to say hush. I was terrified, Barbara Richards told Kirkland. At first I thought they were really throwing dead babies, or maybe fetuses theyd gotten hold of somehow. Even after Dr Warper ran through, yelling they were only dolls, I still wasnt sure. You said they were chanting? Kirkland asked. Yes. What I heard most clearly was Keep the Angel of Death out of Derry. The report now reverted to Kirkland in his live standup mode. The demonstrators were ferried from WomanCare to Derry Police Headquarters on Main Street around nine oclock this morning, Lisette. I understand that twelve were questioned and released; six others were arrested on charges of malicious mischief, a misdemeanor. So it seems that another shot in Derrys continuing war over abortion has been fired. This is John Kirkland, Channel Four news. Another shot in  McGovern began, and threw up his hands. Lisette Benson was back on the screen. We now go to Anne Rivers, who talked less than an hour ago to two of the socalled Friends of Life who were arrested in this mornings demonstration. Anne Rivers was standing on the steps of the Main Street copshop with Ed Deepneau on one side and a tall, sallow, goateed individual on the other. Ed was looking natty and downright handsome in a gray tweed jacket and navy slacks. The tall man with the goatee was dressed as only a liberal with daydreams of what he might think of as the Maine proletariat could dress faded jeans, faded blue workshirt, wide red firemans suspenders. It took Ralph only a second to place him. It was Dan Dalton, owner of Secondhand Rose, Secondhand Clothes. The last time Ralph had seen him, he had been standing behind the hanging guitars and birdcages in his shop window, flapping his hands at Ham Davenport in a gesture that said Who gives a shit what you think? But it was Ed his eyes were drawn back to, of course, Ed who looked natty and put together in more ways than one. McGovern apparently felt the same. My God, I cant believe its the same man, he murmured. Lisette, the goodlooking blonde was saying, with me I have Edward Deepneau and Daniel Dalton, both of Derry, two of those arrested in this mornings demonstration. Thats correct, gentlemen? You were arrested? They nodded, Ed with the barest twinkle of humor, Dalton with dour, jutjawed determination. The gaze the latter fixed on Anne Rivers made him look  to Ralph, at least  as if he were trying to remember which abortion clinic he had seen her hurrying into, head down and shoulders hunched. Have you been released on bail? We were released on our own recognizance, Ed answered. The charges were minor. It was not our intention to hurt anyone, and no one was hurt. We were arrested only because the Godless entrenched powerstructure in this town wants to make an example of us, Dalton said, and Ralph thought he saw a minute wince momentarily tighten Eds face. A therehegoesagain expression. Anne Rivers swung the mike back to Ed. The major issue here isnt philosophical but practical, he said. Although the people who run WomanCare like to concentrate on their counselling services, therapy services, free mammograms and other such admirable functions, theres another side to the place. Rivers of blood run out of WomanCare Innocent blood! Dalton cried. His eyes glowed in his long, lean face, and Ralph had a disturbing insight all over eastern Maine, people were watching this and deciding that the man in the red suspenders was crazy, while his partner seemed like a pretty reasonable fellow. It was almost funny. Ed treated Daltons interjection as the prolife equivalent of Hallelujah, giving it a single respectful beat before speaking again. The slaughter at WomanCare has been going on for nearly eight years now, Ed told her. Many people  especially radical feminists like Dr Roberta Warper, WomanCares chief administrator  like to gild the lily with phrases like early termination, but what shes talking about is abortion, the ultimate act of abuse against women by a sexist society. But is lobbing dolls loaded with fake blood against the windows of a private clinic the way to put your views before the public, Mr Deepneau? For a moment  just a moment, there and gone  the twinkle of good humor in Eds eyes was replaced by a flash of something much harder and colder. For that one moment Ralph was again looking at the Ed Deepneau who had been ready to take on a truckdriver who outweighed him by a hundred pounds. Ralph forgot that what he was watching had been taped an hour ago and was afraid for the slim blonde, who was almost as pretty as the woman to whom her interview subject was still married. Be careful, young lady, Ralph thought. Be careful and be afraid. Youre standing next to a very dangerous man. Then the flash was gone and the man in the tweed coat was once more just an earnest young fellow who had followed his conscience to jail. Once more it was Dalton, now nervously snapping his suspenders like big red rubber bands, who looked a few sandwiches shy of a picnic. What were doing is what the socalled good Germans failed to do in the thirties, Ed was saying. He spoke in the patient, lecturely tones of a man who has been forced to point this out over and over . . . mostly to those who should already know it. They were silent and six million Jews died. In this country a similar holocaust Over a thousand babies every day, Dalton said. His former shrillness had departed. He sounded horrified and desperately tired. Many of them are ripped from the wombs of their mothers in pieces, with their little arms waving in protest even as they die. Oh good God, McGovern said. Thats the most ridiculous thing I have ever Hush, Bill! Lois said.  purpose of this protest? Rivers was asking Dalton. As you probably know, Dalton said,the City Council has agreed to reexamine the zoning regulations that allow WomanCare to operate where it does and how it does. They could vote on the issue as early as November. The abortion rights people are afraid the Council might throw sand in the gears of their deathmachine, so theyve summoned Susan Day, this countrys most notorious proabortion advocate, to try and keep the machine running. We are marshalling our forces The pendulum of the microphone swung back to Ed. Will there be more protests, Mr Deepneau? she asked, and Ralph suddenly had an idea she might be interested in him in a way which was not strictly professional. Hey, why not? Ed was a goodlooking guy, and Ms Rivers could hardly know that he believed the Crimson King and his Centurions were in Derry, joining forces with the babykillers at WomanCare. Until the legal aberration which opened the door to this slaughter has been corrected, the protests will continue, Ed replied. And well go on hoping that the histories of the next century will record that not all Americans were good Nazis during this dark period of our history. Violent protests? Its violence we oppose. The two of them were now maintaining strong eye contact, and Ralph thought Anne Rivers had what Carolyn would have called a case of hot thighs. Dan Dalton was standing off to one side of the screen, all but forgotten. And when Susan Day comes to Derry next month, can you guarantee her safety? Ed smiled, and in his minds eye Ralph saw him as he had been on that hot August afternoon less than a month ago  kneeling with one hand planted on either side of Ralphs shoulders and breathing They burn the fetuses over in Newport into his face. Ralph shivered. In a country where thousands of children are sucked from the wombs of their mothers by the medical equivalent of industrial vacuum cleaners, I dont believe anyone can guarantee anything, Ed replied. Anne Rivers looked at him uncertainly for a moment, as if deciding whether or not she wanted to ask another question (maybe for his telephone number), and then turned back to face the camera. This is Anne Rivers, at Derry Police Headquarters, she said. Lisette Benson reappeared, and something in the bemused cast of her mouth made Ralph think that perhaps he hadnt been the only one to sense the attraction between interviewer and interviewee. Well be following this story all day,she said. Be sure to tune in at six for further updates. In Augusta, Governor Greta Powers responded to charges that she may have Lois got up and pushed the Off button on the TV. She simply stared at the darkening screen for a moment, then sighed heavily and sat down. I have blueberry compote, she said, but after that, do either of you want any? Both men shook their heads. McGovern looked at Ralph and said, That was scary. Ralph nodded. He kept thinking of how Ed had gone striding back and forth through the spray thrown by the lawnsprinkler, breaking the rainbows with his body, pounding his fist into his open palm. How could they let him out on bail and then interview him on the news as if he was a normal human being? Lois asked indignantly. After what he did to poor Helen? My God, that Anne Rivers looked ready to invite him home to dinner! Or to eat crackers in bed with her, Ralph said dryly. The assault charge and this stuff today are entirely different matters, McGovern said, and you can bet your boots the lawyer or lawyers these yoyos have got on retainer will be sure to keep it that way. And even the assault charge was only a misdemeanor, Ralph reminded her. How can assault be a misdemeanor? Lois asked. Im sorry, but I never did understand that part. Its a misdemeanor when you only do it to your wife, McGovern said, hoisting his satiric eyebrow. Its the American way, Lo. She twisted her hands together restlessly, took Mr Chasse down from the television, looked at him for a moment, then put him back and resumed twisting her hands. Well, the laws one thing, she said, and Id be the first to admit that I dont understand it all. But somebody ought to tell them hes crazy. That hes a wifebeater and hes crazy. You dont know how crazy, Ralph said, and for the first time he told them the story of what had happened the previous summer, out by the airport. It took about ten minutes. When he finished, neither of them said anything  they only looked at him with wide eyes. What? Ralph asked uneasily. You dont believe me? You think I imagined it? Of course I believe it, Lois said. I was just . . . well . . . stunned. And frightened. Ralph, I think maybe you ought to pass that story on to John Leydecker, McGovern said. I dont think he can do a goddam thing with it, but considering Eds new playmates, I think its information he should have. Ralph thought it over carefully, then nodded and pushed himself to his feet. No time like the present, he said. Want to come, Lois? She thought it over, then shook her head. Im tired out, she said. And a little  what do the kids call it these days?  a little freaked. I think Ill put my feet up for a bit. Take a nap. You do that, Ralph said. You do look a little tuckered. And thanks for feeding us. Impulsively, he bent over her and kissed the corner of her mouth. Lois looked up at him with startled gratitude. 6 Ralph turned off his own television a little over six hours later, as Lisette Benson finished the evening news and handed off to the sports guy. The demonstration at WomanCare had been bumped to the number two slot  the evenings big story was the continuing allegations that Governor Greta Powers had used cocaine as a grad student  and there was nothing new, except that Dan Dalton was now being identified as the head of the Friends of Life. Ralph thought figurehead was probably a better word. Was Ed actually in charge yet? If he wasnt, Ralph guessed he would be before long  Christmas at the latest. A potentially more interesting question was what Eds employers thought about Eds legal adventures up the road in Derry. Ralph had an idea they would be a lot less comfortable with what had gone on today than with last months domestic abuse charge; he had read only recently that Hawking Labs would soon become the fifth such research center in the Northeast to be working with fetal tissue. They probably wouldnt applaud the information that one of their research chemists had been arrested for chucking dolls filled with fake blood at the side of a clinic that did abortions. And if they knew how crazy he really was Whos going to tell them, Ralph? You? No. That was a step further than he was willing to go, at least for the time being. Unlike going down to the police station with McGovern to talk to John Leydecker about the incident last summer, it felt like persecution. Like writing KILL THIS CUNT beside a picture of a woman with whose views you didnt agree. Thats bullshit, and you know it. I dont know anything, he said, getting up and going to the window. Im too tired to know anything. But as he stood there, looking across the street at two men coming out of the Red Apple with a sixpack apiece, he suddenly did know something, remembered something that drew a cold line up his back. This morning, when he had come out of the Rite Aid and been overwhelmed by the auras  and a sense of having stepped up to some new level of awareness  he had reminded himself again and again to enjoy but not to believe; that if he failed to make that crucial distinction, he was apt to end up in the same boat as Ed Deepneau. That thought had almost opened the door on some associative memory, but the shifting auras in the parking lot had pulled him away from it before it had been able to kick all the way in. Now it came to him Ed had said something about seeing auras, hadnt he? No  he might have meant auras, but the word he actually used was colors. Im almost positive of that. It was right after he talked about seeing the corpses of babies everyplace, even on the roofs. He said Ralph watched the two men get into a beatup old van and thought that he would never be able to remember Eds words exactly; he was just too tired. Then, as the van drove off trailing a cloud of exhaust that reminded him of the bright maroon stuff hed seen coming from the tailpipe of the bakery truck that noon, another door opened and the memory did come. He said that sometimes the world is full of colors, Ralph told his empty apartment, but that at some point they all started turning black. I think that was it. It was close, but was it everything? Ralph thought there had been at least a little more to Eds spiel, but he couldnt remember what. And did it matter, anyway? His nerves suggested strongly that it did  the cold line up his back had both widened and deepened. Behind him, the telephone rang. Ralph turned and saw it sitting in a bath of baleful red light, dark red, the color of nosebleeds and (cocks fighting cocks) roostercombs. No, part of his mind moaned. Oh no, Ralph, dont get going on this again Each time the phone rang, the envelope of light got brighter. During the intervals of silence, it darkened. It was like looking at a ghostly heart with a telephone inside it. Ralph closed his eyes tightly, and when he opened them again, the red aura around the telephone was gone. No, you just cant see it right now. Im not sure, but I think you might have willed it away. Like something in a lucid dream. As he crossed the room to the telephone, he told himself  and in no uncertain terms  that that idea was as crazy as seeing the auras in the first place. Except it wasnt, and he knew it wasnt. Because if it was crazy, how come it had taken only one look at that roosterred halo of light to make him sure that it was Ed Deepneau calling? Thats crap, Ralph. You think its Ed because Eds on your mind . . . and because youre so tired your heads getting funny. Go on, pick it up, youll see. Its not the telltale heart, not even the telltale phone. Its probably some guy wanting to sell you subscriptions or the lady at the bloodbank, wondering why you havent been in lately. Except he knew better. Ralph picked up the phone and said hello. 7 No answer. But someone was there; Ralph could hear breathing. Hello? he asked again. There was still no immediate answer, and he was about to say Im hanging up now when Ed Deepneau said, I called about your mouth, Ralph. Its trying to get you in trouble. The line of cold between his shoulderblades was no longer a line; now it was a thin plate of ice covering him from the nape of his neck to the small of his back. Hello, Ed. I saw you on the news today. It was the only thing he could think of to say. His hand did not seem to be holding the phone so much as to be cramped around it. Never mind that, old boy. Just pay attention. Ive had a visit from that wide detective who arrested me last month  Leydecker. He just left, in fact. Ralphs heart sank, but not as far as he might have feared. After all, Leydeckers going to see Ed wasnt that surprising, was it? He had been very interested in Ralphs story of the airport confrontation in the summer of 92. Very interested indeed. Did he? Ralph asked evenly. Detective Leydecker has the idea that I think people  or possibly supernatural beings of some sort  are trucking fetuses out of town in flatbeds and pickup trucks. What a scream, huh? Ralph stood beside the sofa, pulling the telephone cord restlessly through his fingers and realizing that he could see dull red light creeping out of the wire like sweat. The light pulsed with the rhythms of Eds speech.