The Stand, Page 83

  The malignancy drew him. It was a dark carnival--Ferris wheels with their lights out revolving above a black landscape, a never-ending sideshow filled with freaks like himself, and in the main tent the lions ate the spectators. What called to him was this discordant music of chaos.

  He opened his journal and by starlight wrote firmly:

  * * *

  August 12, 1990 (early morning).

  It is said that the two great human sins are pride and hate. Are they? I elect to think of them as the two great virtues. To give away pride and hate is to say you will change for the good of the world. To embrace them, to vent them, is more noble; that is to say that the world must change for the good of you. I am on a great adventure.

  HAROLD EMERY LAUDER

  * * *

  He closed the book. He went into the house, put the book in its hole in the hearth, and carefully replaced the hearthstone. He went into the bathroom, set his Coleman lamp on the sink so that it illuminated the mirror, and for the next fifteen minutes he practiced smiling. He was getting very good at it.

  CHAPTER 51

  Ralph's posters announcing the August 18 meeting went up all over Boulder. There was a great deal of excited conversation, most of it having to do with the good and bad qualities of the seven-person ad hoc committee.

  Mother Abagail went to bed exhausted before the light was even gone from the sky. The day had been a steady stream of callers, all of them wanting to know what her opinion was. She allowed as how she thought most of the choices for the committee were pretty good. The people were anxious to know if she would serve on a more permanent committee, if one should be formed at the big meeting. She replied that that would be a spot too tiring, but she sure would give a committee of elected representatives whatever help she could, if people wanted her to help out. She was assured again and again that any permanent committee that refused her help would be turned out en masse, and that right early. Mother Abagail went to bed tired but satisfied.

  So did Nick Andros that night. In one day, by virtue of a single poster turned out on a hand-crank mimeograph machine, the Free Zone had been transformed from a loose group of refugees into potential voters. They liked it; it gave them the sense of a place to stand after a long period of free fall.

  That afternoon Ralph drove him out to the power plant. He, Ralph, and Stu agreed to hold a preliminary meeting at Stu and Frannie's place the day after next. It would give all seven of them another two days to listen to what people were saying.

  Nick smiled and cupped his own useless ears.

  "Lip-reading's even better," Stu said. "You know, Nick, I'm starting to think we're really going to get somewhere with those blown motors. That Brad Kitchner's a regular bear for work. If we had ten like him, we'd have this whole town running perfect by the first of September."

  Nick gave him a thumb-and-forefinger circle and they walked inside together.

  That afternoon Larry Underwood and Leo Rockway walked west on Arapahoe Street toward Harold's house. Larry was wearing the knapsack he had worn all the way across the country, but all that was in it now was the bottle of wine and a half dozen Paydays.

  Lucy was out with a party of half a dozen people who had taken two wrecking trucks and were beginning to clear the streets and roads in and around Boulder of stalled vehicles. Trouble was, they were working on their own--it was a sporadic operation that only ran when a few people felt like getting together and doing it. A wrecking bee instead of a quilting bee, Larry thought, and his eye caught one of the posters headed MASS MEETING, this one nailed to a telephone pole. Maybe that would be the answer. Hell, people around here wanted to work; what they needed was somebody to coordinate things and tell them what to do. He thought that, most of all, they wanted to wipe away the evidence of what had happened here this early summer (and could it be late summer already?) the way you would use an eraser to wipe dirty words off a blackboard. Maybe we can't do it from one end of America to the other, Larry thought, but we should be able to do it here in Boulder before snow flies, if Mother Nature cooperates.

  A tinkle of glass made him turn. Leo had lobbed a large stone from someone's rock garden through the rear window of an old Ford. A bumper sticker on the back deck of the Ford's trunk read: GET YO ASS UP THE PASS--COLD CREEK CANYON.

  "Don't do that, Joe."

  "I'm Leo."

  "Leo," he corrected. "Don't do that."

  "Why not?" Leo asked complacently, and for a long time Larry couldn't think of a satisfactory answer.

  "Because it makes an ugly sound," he said finally.

  "Oh. Okay."

  They walked on. Larry put his hands in his pockets. Leo did likewise. Larry kicked a beercan. Leo swerved out of his way to kick a stone. Larry began to whistle a tune. Leo made a whispering chuffling sound in accompaniment. Larry ruffled the kid's hair and Leo looked up at him with those odd Chinese eyes and grinned. And Larry thought: For Christ's sake, I'm falling in love with him. Pretty far out.

  They came to the park Frannie had mentioned, and across from it was a green house with white shutters. There was a wheelbarrow full of bricks on the cement path leading up to the front door, and next to it was a garbage can lid filled with that do-it-yourself mortar-mix to which you just add water. Squatting beside it, his back to the street, was a broad-shouldered dude with his shirt off and the peeling remnants of a bad sunburn. He had a trowel in one hand. He was building a low and curving brick wall around a flower bed.

  Larry thought of Fran saying: He's changed...I don't know how or why or even if it's for the best...and sometimes I'm afraid.

  Then he stepped forward, saying it just the way he had planned on his long days crossing the country: "Harold Lauder, I presume?"

  Harold jerked with surprise, then turned with a brick in one hand and his mortar-dripping trowel in the other, half-raised, like a weapon. Out of the corner of his eye, Larry thought he saw Leo flinch backward. His first thought was, sure enough, Harold didn't look at all as he had imagined. His second thought had to do with the trowel: My God, is he going to let me have it with that thing? Harold's face was grimly set, his eyes narrow and dark. His hair fell in a lank wave across his sweaty forehead. His lips were pressed together and almost white.

  And then there was a transformation so sudden and complete that Larry was never quite able to believe afterward that he had seen that tense, unsmiling Harold, the face of a man more apt to use a trowel to wall someone up in a basement niche than to construct a garden wall around a flower bed.

  He smiled, a broad and harmless grin that made deep dimples at the corners of his mouth. His eyes lost their menacing cast (they were bottle-green, and how could such clear and feckless eyes have seemed menacing, or even dark?). He stuck the trowel blade-down into the mortar--chunk!--wiped his hands on the hips of his jeans, and advanced with his hand out. Larry thought: My God, he's just a kid, younger than I am. If he's eighteen yet I'll eat the candles on his last birthday cake.

  "Don't think I know you," Harold said, grinning, as they shook. He had a firm grip. Larry's hand was pumped up and down exactly three times and let go. It reminded Larry of the time he had shaken hands with George Bush back when the old bushwhacker had been running for President. It had been at a political rally, which he had attended on the advice of his mother, given many years ago. If you can't afford a movie, go to the zoo. If you can't afford the zoo, go see a politician.

  But Harold's grin was contagious, and Larry grinned back. Kid or not, politician's handshake or not, the grin impressed him as completely genuine, and after all this time, after all those candy wrappers, here was Harold Lauder, in the flesh.

  "No, you don't," Larry said. "But I'm acquainted with you."

  "Is that so!" Harold exclaimed, and his grin escalated. If it got any broader, Larry thought with amusement, the ends would meet around at the back of his skull and the top two thirds of his head would just topple off.

  "I followed you across the country from Maine," Larry said.
<
br />   "No fooling! You did, really?"

  "Really did." He unslung his packsack. "Here, I've got some stuff for you." He took out the bottle of Bordeaux and put it in Harold's hand.

  "Say, you shouldn't have," Harold said, looking at the bottle with some astonishment. "Nineteen forty-seven?"

  "A good year," Larry said. "And these."

  He put nearly half a dozen Paydays in Harold's other hand. One of them slipped through his fingers and onto the grass. Harold bent to pick it up, and as he did, Larry caught a glimpse of that earlier expression.

  Then Harold bobbed back up, smiling. "How did you know?"

  "I followed your signs ... and your candy wrappers."

  "Well I be go to hell. Come on in the house. We ought to have a jaw, as my dad was fond of saying. Would your boy drink a Coke?"

  "Sure. Wouldn't you, L"

  He looked around, but Leo was no longer beside him. He was all the way back on the sidewalk and looking down at some cracks in the pavement as if they were of great interest to him.

  "Hey, Leo! Want a Coke?"

  Leo muttered something Larry couldn't hear.

  "Talk up!" he said, irritated. "What did God give you a voice for? I asked you if you wanted a Coke."

  Barely audible, Leo said: "I think I'll go see if Nadine-mom's back."

  "What the hell? We just got here!"

  "I want to go back!" Leo said, looking up from the cement. The sun flashed too strongly back from his eyes and Larry thought, What in God's name is this? He's almost crying.

  "Just a sec," he said to Harold.

  "Sure," Harold said, grinning. "Sometimes kids're shy. I was."

  Larry walked over to Leo and hunkered down, so they would be at eye-level. "What's the matter, kiddo?"

  "I just want to go back," Leo said, not meeting his gaze. "I want Nadine-mom."

  "Well, you ..." He paused helplessly.

  "Want to go back." He looked up briefly at Larry. His eyes flickered over Larry's shoulder toward where Harold stood in the middle of his lawn. Then down at the cement again. "Please."

  "You don't like Harold?"

  "I don't know ... he's all right ... I just want to go back."

  Larry sighed. "Can you find your way?"

  "Sure."

  "Okay. But I sure wish you'd come in and have a Coke with us. I've been waiting to meet Harold a long time. You know that, don't you?"

  "Ye-es ..."

  "And we could walk back together."

  "I'm not going in that house," Leo hissed, and for a moment he was Joe again, the eyes going blank and savage.

  "Okay," Larry said hastily. He stood up. "Go straight home. I'll check to see if you did. And stay out of the street."

  "I will." And suddenly Leo blurted in that small, hissing whisper: "Why don't you come back with me? Right now? We'll go together. Please, Larry? Okay?"

  "Jeez, Leo, what--"

  "Never mind," Leo said. And before Larry could say anything more, Leo was hurrying away. Larry stood watching him until he was out of sight. Then he turned back to Harold with a troubled frown.

  "Say, that's all right," Harold said. "Kids are funny."

  "Well, that one sure is, but I guess he's got a right. He's been through a lot."

  "I'll bet he has," Harold replied, and just for an instant Larry felt distrust, felt that Harold's quick sympathy for a boy he had never met was as ersatz as powdered eggs.

  "Well, come in," Harold said. "You know, you're just about my first company. Frannie and Stu have been out a few times, but they hardly count." His grin became a smile, a slightly sad smile, and Larry felt sudden pity for this boy--because a boy was all he was, really. He was lonely and here stood Larry, same old Larry, never a good word for anyone, judging him on vapors. It wasn't fair. It was time for him to stop being so goddam mistrustful.

  "Glad to," he answered.

  The living room was small but comfortable. "I'm going to put in some new furniture when I get around to it," Harold said. "Modern. Chrome and leather. As the commercial says, 'Fuck the budget. I've got MasterCard.' "

  Larry laughed heartily.

  "There are some good glasses in the basement, I'll just get them. I think I'll pass on the candybars, if that's all right with you--I'm off the sweets, trying to lose weight, but we've got to try the wine, this is a special occasion. You came all the way across the country from Maine behind us, huh, and following my--our--signs. That's really something. You'll have to tell me all about it. Meanwhile, try that green chair. It's the best of a bad lot."

  Larry had one final doubtful thought during this outpouring: He even talks like a politician--smooth and quick and glib.

  Harold left, and Larry sat down in the green chair. He heard a door open and then Harold's heavy tread descending a flight of stairs. He looked around. Nope, not one of the world's great living rooms, but with a shag rug and some nice modern furniture, it might be fine. The best feature was the stone fireplace and chimney. Lovely work, carefully done by hand. But there was one loose stone on the hearth. It looked to Larry as if it had come out and had been put back a little carelessly. Leaving it like that would be like leaving one piece out of the jigsaw puzzle or a picture hanging crooked on the wall.

  He got up and picked the stone out of the hearth. Harold was still rummaging around downstairs. Larry was about to put it back in when he saw there was a book down in the hole, its front now lightly powdered with rockdust, not enough to obscure the single word stamped there in gold leaf: LEDGER.

  Feeling slightly ashamed, as if he had been prying intentionally, he put the rock back in place just as Harold's footfalls began to ascend the stairs again. This time the fit was perfect, and when Harold came back into the living room with a balloon glass in each hand, Larry was seated in the green chair again.

  "I took a minute to rinse them out in the downstairs sink," Harold said. "They were a bit dusty."

  "They look fine," Larry said. "Look, I can't swear that Bordeaux hasn't gone over. We might be helping ourselves to vinegar."

  "Nothing ventured," Harold said, grinning, "nothing gained."

  That grin made him feel uncomfortable, and Larry suddenly found himself thinking about the ledger--was it Harold's, or had it belonged to the house's previous owner? And if it was Harold's, what in the world might be written in there?

  They cracked the bottle of Bordeaux and found, to their mutual pleasure, that it was just fine. Half an hour later they were both pleasantly squiffed, Harold a little more so than Larry. Even so, Harold's grin remained; broadened, in fact.

  His tongue loosened a bit by wine, Larry said: "Those posters. The big meeting on the eighteenth. How come you didn't get on that committee, Harold? I would have thought a guy like you would have been a natural."

  Harold's smile became large, beatific. "Well, I'm awfully young. I suppose they thought I didn't have experience enough."

  "I think it's a goddam shame." But did he? The grin. The dark, barely glimpsed expression of suspicion. Did he? He didn't know.

  "Well, who knows what lies in the future?" Harold said, grinning broadly. "Every dog has its day."

  Larry left around five o'clock. His parting from Harold was friendly; Harold shook his hand, grinned, told him to come back often. But Larry had somehow gotten the feeling that Harold could give a shit if he never came back.

  He walked slowly down the cement path to the sidewalk and turned to wave, but Harold had already gone back inside. The door was shut. It had been very cool in the house because the venetian blinds were drawn, and inside that had seemed all right, but standing outside it occurred to him suddenly that it was the only house he'd been inside in Boulder where the blinds and curtains were drawn. But of course, he thought, there were still plenty of houses in Boulder where the shades were drawn. They were the houses of the dead. When they got sick, they had drawn their curtains against the world. They had drawn them and died in privacy, like any animal in its last extremity prefers to do. The living-- maybe in s
ubconscious acknowledgment of that fact of death--threw their shutters and their curtains wide.

  He had a slight headache from the wine, and he tried to tell himself that the chill he felt came from that, part of a little hangover, righteous punishment administered for guzzling good wine as if it was cheap muscatel. But that wouldn't quite get it--no, it wouldn't. He stared up and down the street and thought: Thank God for tunnel vision. Thank God for selective perception. Because without it, we might as well all be in a Lovecraft story.

  His thoughts became confused. He became suddenly convinced that Harold was peeping at him from between the slats of his blinds, his hands opening and closing in a strangler's grip, his grin turned into a leer of hatred ... Every dog has its day. At the same time he was remembering the night in Bennington, sleeping on the stage of the bandshell, waking up to the horrible feeling that someone was there ... and then hearing (or only dreaming it?) the dusty sound of bootheels moving off to the west.

  Stop it. Stop freaking yourself out.

  Boot Hill, his mind free-associated. Chrissake, just stop it, wish I'd never thought about the dead people, the dead people behind all those closed blinds and pulled drapes and shut curtains, in the dark, like in the tunnel, the Lincoln Tunnel, Christ, what if they all started to move, to stir around, Holy God, cut it out--

  And suddenly he found himself thinking of a trip to the Bronx Zoo with his mother when he had been small. They had gone into the monkey -house and the smell in there had hit him like a physical thing, a fist driven not just at his nose but into it. He had turned to bolt out of there, but his mother had stopped him.

  Just breathe normal, Larry, she had said. In five minutes you won't notice that nasty smell at all.

  So he had stayed, not believing her, just fighting not to puke (even at the age of seven, he had hated to puke worse than anything), and it turned out she was right. When he looked down at his watch the next time, he saw that they had been in the monkey-house for half an hour, and he couldn't understand why the ladies who came in the door were suddenly clapping their hands over their noses and looking disgusted. He said as much to his mother, and Alice Underwood had laughed.