Bag of Bones   ::   Кинг Стивен

Most of it, I think, was that therewas just too much Jo still in my head and heart. There was no room for anyone else, even after four years. It was sorrow like cholesterol, and if you think that’s funny or weird, be grateful.

“What about friends?” Frank asked, at last beginning to eat his strawberry shortcake. “You’ve got friends you see, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I said. “Plenty of friends.” Which was a lie, but I did have lots of crosswords to do, lots of books to read, and lots of movies to watch on my VCR at night; I could practically recite the FBI warning about unlawful copying by heart. When it came to real live people, the only ones I called when I got ready to leave Derry were my doctor and my dentist, and most of the mail I sent out that June consisted of change-of address cards to magazines like Harper’s and National Geographic. “Frank,” I said, “you sound like a Jewish mother.”

“Sometimes when I’m with you IJEL like a Jewish mother,” he said. “One who believes in the curative powers of baked potatoes instead of matzo balls. You look better than you have in a long time, finally put on some weight, I think—”

“Too much.”

“Bullshit, you looked like Ichabod Crane when you came for Christmas.

Also, you’ve got some sun on your face and arms.”

“I’ve been walking a lot.”

“So you look better… except for your eyes. Sometimes you get this look in your eyes, and I worry about you every time I see it. I think Jo would be glad someone’s worrying.”

“What look is that?” I asked.

“Your basic thousand-yard stare. Want the truth? You look like someone who’s caught on something and can’t get loose.”

I left Derry at three-thirty, stopped in Rumford for supper, then drove slowly on through the rising hills of western Maine as the sun lowered.

I had planned my times of departure and arrival carefully, if not quite consciously, and as I passed out of Motton and into the unincorporated township of TR-90, I became aware of the heavy way my heart was beating.

There was sweat on my face and arms in spite of the car’s air conditioning. Nothing on the radio sounded right, all the music like screaming, and I turned it off.

I was scared, and had good reason to be. Even setting aside the peculiar cross-pollination between the dreams and things in the real world (as I was able to do quite easily, dismissing the cut on my hand and the sunflowers growing through the boards of the back stoop as either coincidence or so much psychic fluff), I had reason to be scared.