Whatever he and Lois did, they would have to do it in the next sixty to ninety minutes. The clock was ticking.
[“Come on, Lois. We have to get moving.
[“Are we going back to the Civic Center?”] [“No, not to start with. I think that to start with, we ought to… Ralph discovered that he simply couldn’t wait to hear what he had to say. Where did he think they ought to go to start with? Back to Derry Home? The Red Apple? His house? Where did you go when you needed to find a couple of well-meaning but far from allknowing fellows who had gotten you and your few close friends into a world of hurt and trouble? Or could you reasonably expect them to find you?
They might not want to find you, sweetheart. In fact, they might actually be hiding from You.
[“Ralph, are you sure you reHe suddenly thought of Rosalie, and knew.
[“The park, Lois. Strawford Park. That’s where we have to go.
But we need to make a stop on the way.”] He led her along the Cyclone fence, and soon they heard the lazy sound of interwoven voices.
Ralph could smell roasting hotdogs as well, and after the fetid stench of Atropos’s den, the smell was ambrosial. A minute or two later, he and Lois stepped to the edge of the little picnic area near Runway 3.
Dorrance was there, standing at the heart of his amazing, multicolored aura and watching as a light plane drifted down toward the runway. Behind him Faye Chapin and Don Veazie were sitting at one of the picnic tables with a chessboard between them and a half finished bottle of Blue Nun near to hand. Stan and Georgina Eberly were drinking beer and twiddling forks with hotdogs impaled upon them in the heat-shimmer-to Ralph that shimmer was a strangely dry pink, like coral-colored sand-above the picnic area’s barbecue pit.
For a moment Ralph simply stood where he was, struck dumb by their beauty-the ephemeral, powerful beauty that was, he supposed, what Short-Time life was mostly about. A snatch of song, something at least twenty-five years old, occurred to him: We are stardust, we are golden.
Dorrance’s aura was different-fabulously different-but even the most prosaic of the others glittered like rare and infinitely desirable gemstones.
[“Oh, Ralph, do you see? Do you see how beautiful they are?”] [“Yes. “I
[“What a shame they don’t know."’]
But was it? In light of all that had happened, Ralph wasn’t so sure.
And he had an idea-a vague but strong intuition he could never have put into words-that perhaps real beauty was something unrecognized by the conscious self, a work that was always in progress, a thing of being rather than seeing.
“Come on, dumbwit, make your move,” a voice said. Ralph jerked, first thinking the voice was speaking to him, but it was Faye, talking to Don Veazie. “You’re slower’n old creepin Jesus-.”
“Never mind,” Don said. “I’m thinking.”
“Think till hell freezes over, Slick, and it’s still gonna be mate in six moves.”
Don poured some wine into a paper cup and rolled his eyes. “oh boogersnot! “he cried. “I didn’t realize I was playin chess with Boris Spassky! I thought it was just plain old Faye Chapin! I apologize all to hell and gone!”
“That’s a riot, Don. An act like that, you could take it on the road and make a million dollars. You won’t have to wait long to do it, either-you can start just six moves from now.”
“Ain’t you smart,” Don said. “You just don’t know when to-”
“Hush.” Georgina Eberly said in a sharp tone. “What was that?
It sounded like something blew up!”
“That” was Lois, sucking a flood of vibrant rainforest green from Georgina’s aura.
Ralph raised his right hand, curled it into a tube around his lips, and began to inhale a similar stream of bright blue light from Stan Eberly’s aura. He felt fresh energy fill him at once; it was as if fluorescent lights were going on in his brain. But that vast sunken ship, which was really no more or less than four months’ worth of mostly sleepless nights, was still there, and still trying to suck him down to the place where it was.
The decision was still right there, too-not yet made one way or the other, but only deferred.
Stan was also looking around. No matter how much of his aura Ralph took (and he had drawn off a great deal, it seemed to him), the source remained as densely bright as ever. Apparently what they had been told about the all-but-endless reservoirs of energy surrounding each human being had been the exact, literal truth.
“Well,” Stan said, “I did hear something-”
“I didn’t,” Faye said.
“Coss not, you’re deaf as dirt,” Stan replied. “Stop interruptin for just one minute, can’tcha? I started to say it wasn’t a fuel-tank, because there ain’t no fire or smoke. Can’t be that Don farted, either, cause there ain’t no squirrels droppin dead out of the trees with their fur burnt off. I guess it musta been one of those big Air National Guard trucks backfirin. Don’t worry, darling, I’ll pertect ya.”
“Pertect this,” Georgina said, slapping one hand into the crook of her elbow and curling her fist at him. She was smiling, however.
“Oh boy,” Faye said. “Take a peek at Old Dor.”
They all looked at Dorrance, who was smiling and waving in the direction of the Harris Avenue Extension.
“Who do you see there, old fella?” Don Veazie asked with a grin.
“Ralph and Lois,” Dorrance said, smiling radiantly. “I see Ralph and Lois. They just came out from under the old tree!”
“Yep,” Stan said. He shaded his eyes, then pointed directly at them.
This delivered a wallop to Ralph’s nervous system which only abated when he realized Stan was just pointing where Dorrance was waving. “And look! There’s Glenn Miller coming out right behind em!
Goddam! “Georgia threw an elbow and Stan stepped away nimbly, grinning.
[“Hello, Ralph! Hello, Lois."’] [“Dorrance! We’re going to Strawford Park! Is that right?”] Dorrance, grinning happily: [“I don’t know, it’s all Long-Time business now, and I’m through with it. I’m going back home soon and read Walt Whitman. It’s going to be a windy night, and Whitman’s always best when the wind blows.”] Lois, sounding nearly frantic: [“Dorrance, help us!”] Doris grin faltered, and he looked at her solemnly.
[“I can’t. It’s passed out of my hands. Whatever’s done will have to be done by you and Ralph now.”] “Ugh,” Georgina said. “I hate it when he stares that way. You could almost believe he really does see someone.” She picked up her long-handled barbecue fork and began to toast her hbtdog again.
“Has anybody seen Ralph and Lois, by the way?”
“No,” Don said.
“They’re shacked up in one of those X-rated motels down the coast with a case of beer and a bottle of Johnson’s Baby Oil,” Stan said.
“The giant-economy-size bottle. I toldia that yesterday.”
“Filthy old man,” Georgina said, this time throwing the elbow with a little more force and a lot more accuracy.