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Bag of Bones :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 211 из 425Things happened during that week, but until I met Max Devore on The Street the following Friday—the seventeenth of July, it would have been—the most important thing was that I continued to work on a novel which would, if finished, be called My Childhood Friend. Perhaps we always think what was lost was the best… or would have been the best. I don’t know for sure. What I do know is that my real life that week had mostly to do with Andy Drake, John Shackleford, and a shadowy figure standing in the deep background. Raymond Garraty, John Shackle-ford’s childhood friend.
A man who sometimes wore a baseball cap. During that week, the manifestations in the house continued, but at a lower level—there was nothing like that bloodcurdling scream. Sometimes Bunter’s bell rang, and sometimes the fruit and vegetable magnets would re-form themselves into a circle… never with words in the middle, though; not that week.
One morning I got up and the sugar cannister was overturned, making me think of Mattie’s story about the flour. Nothing was written in the spill, but there was a squiggle-as though something had tried to write and failed. If so, I sympathized. I knew what that was like.
My depo before the redoubtable Elmer Durgin was on Friday the tenth. On the following Tuesday I took The Street down to Warrington’s softball field, hoping for my own peek at Max Devore. It was going on six o’clock when I got within hearing range of the shouts, cheers, and batted balls.
A path marked with rustic signs (curlicued W’s burned into oak arrows)
led past an abandoned boathouse, a couple of sheds, and a gazebo half-buried in blackberry creepers. I eventually came out in deep center field. A litter of potato-chip bags, candy-wrappers, and beer cans suggested that others sometimes watched the games from this vantage-point. I couldn’t help thinking about Jo and her mysterious friend, the guy in the old brown sportcoat, the burly guy who had slipped an arm around her waist and led her away from the game, laughing, back toward The Street. Twice over the weekend I’d come close to calling Bonnie Amudson, seeing if maybe I could chase that guy down, put a name on him, and both times I had backed off. Sleeping dogs, I told myself each time. Sleeping dogs, Michael. I had the area beyond deep center to myself that evening, and it felt like the right distance from home plate, considering the man who usually parked his wheelchair behind the backstop had called me a liar and I had invited him to store my telephone number where the sunshine grows dim. I needn’t have worried in any case.
A man who sometimes wore a baseball cap. During that week, the manifestations in the house continued, but at a lower level—there was nothing like that bloodcurdling scream. Sometimes Bunter’s bell rang, and sometimes the fruit and vegetable magnets would re-form themselves into a circle… never with words in the middle, though; not that week.
One morning I got up and the sugar cannister was overturned, making me think of Mattie’s story about the flour. Nothing was written in the spill, but there was a squiggle-as though something had tried to write and failed. If so, I sympathized. I knew what that was like.
My depo before the redoubtable Elmer Durgin was on Friday the tenth. On the following Tuesday I took The Street down to Warrington’s softball field, hoping for my own peek at Max Devore. It was going on six o’clock when I got within hearing range of the shouts, cheers, and batted balls.
A path marked with rustic signs (curlicued W’s burned into oak arrows)
led past an abandoned boathouse, a couple of sheds, and a gazebo half-buried in blackberry creepers. I eventually came out in deep center field. A litter of potato-chip bags, candy-wrappers, and beer cans suggested that others sometimes watched the games from this vantage-point. I couldn’t help thinking about Jo and her mysterious friend, the guy in the old brown sportcoat, the burly guy who had slipped an arm around her waist and led her away from the game, laughing, back toward The Street. Twice over the weekend I’d come close to calling Bonnie Amudson, seeing if maybe I could chase that guy down, put a name on him, and both times I had backed off. Sleeping dogs, I told myself each time. Sleeping dogs, Michael. I had the area beyond deep center to myself that evening, and it felt like the right distance from home plate, considering the man who usually parked his wheelchair behind the backstop had called me a liar and I had invited him to store my telephone number where the sunshine grows dim. I needn’t have worried in any case.