JК
Bag of Bones :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 101 из 425I couldn’t even remember why that was. In the fall and winter of 1993 I’d been fiddling with a screenplay for The Red-Shirt Man. In February of ’94 I got going on All the Vy from the 7bp, and that absorbed most of my attention. Besides, deciding to go west to the TR, west to Sara…
“That was Jo’s job,” I told the day, and as soon as I heard the words I understood how true they were. We’d both loved the old girl, but saying “Hey Irish, let’s get our asses over to the TR for a few days” had been Jo’s job. She might say it any time… except in the year before her death she hadn’t said it once. And I had never thought to say it for her. Had somehow forgotten all about Sara Laughs, it seemed, even when summer came around. Was it possible to be that absorbed in a writing project? It didn’t seem likely… but what other explanation was there?
Something was very wrong with this picture, but I didn’t know what it was. Not from nothin. That made me think of Sara Tidwell, and the lyrics to one of her songs. She had never been recorded, but I owned the Blind Lemon Jefferson version of this particular tune. One verse went:
It ain’t nuthin but a barn-dance sugar It ain’t nuthin but a round-and-round Let me kiss you on your sweet lips sugar You the good thing that I Jund.
I loved that song, and had always wondered how it would have sounded coming out of a woman’s mouth instead of from that whiskey-voiced old troubadour. Out of Sara Tidwell’s mouth. I bet she sang sweet. And boy, I bet she could swing it. I had gotten back to my own place again. I looked around, saw no one in the immediate vicinity (although I could now hear the day’s first ski-boat burring away downwater), stripped to my underpants, and swam out to the float. I didn’t climb it, only lay beside it holding onto the ladder with one hand and lazily kicking my feet. It was nice enough, but what was I going to do with the rest of the day? I decided to spend it cleaning my work area on the second floor. When that was done, maybe I’d go out and look around in Jo’s studio. if I didn’t lose my courage, that was. I swam back, kicking easily along, raising my head in and out of water which flowed along my body like cool silk. I felt like an otter. I was most of the way to the shore when I raised my dripping face and saw a woman standing on The Street, watching me. She was as thin as the one I’d seen down at Warrington’s… but this one was green. Green and pointing north along the path like a dryad in Some old legend. I gasped, swallowed water, coughed it back out. I stood up in chest-deep water and wiped my streaming eyes.
“That was Jo’s job,” I told the day, and as soon as I heard the words I understood how true they were. We’d both loved the old girl, but saying “Hey Irish, let’s get our asses over to the TR for a few days” had been Jo’s job. She might say it any time… except in the year before her death she hadn’t said it once. And I had never thought to say it for her. Had somehow forgotten all about Sara Laughs, it seemed, even when summer came around. Was it possible to be that absorbed in a writing project? It didn’t seem likely… but what other explanation was there?
Something was very wrong with this picture, but I didn’t know what it was. Not from nothin. That made me think of Sara Tidwell, and the lyrics to one of her songs. She had never been recorded, but I owned the Blind Lemon Jefferson version of this particular tune. One verse went:
It ain’t nuthin but a barn-dance sugar It ain’t nuthin but a round-and-round Let me kiss you on your sweet lips sugar You the good thing that I Jund.
I loved that song, and had always wondered how it would have sounded coming out of a woman’s mouth instead of from that whiskey-voiced old troubadour. Out of Sara Tidwell’s mouth. I bet she sang sweet. And boy, I bet she could swing it. I had gotten back to my own place again. I looked around, saw no one in the immediate vicinity (although I could now hear the day’s first ski-boat burring away downwater), stripped to my underpants, and swam out to the float. I didn’t climb it, only lay beside it holding onto the ladder with one hand and lazily kicking my feet. It was nice enough, but what was I going to do with the rest of the day? I decided to spend it cleaning my work area on the second floor. When that was done, maybe I’d go out and look around in Jo’s studio. if I didn’t lose my courage, that was. I swam back, kicking easily along, raising my head in and out of water which flowed along my body like cool silk. I felt like an otter. I was most of the way to the shore when I raised my dripping face and saw a woman standing on The Street, watching me. She was as thin as the one I’d seen down at Warrington’s… but this one was green. Green and pointing north along the path like a dryad in Some old legend. I gasped, swallowed water, coughed it back out. I stood up in chest-deep water and wiped my streaming eyes.