Wow! Didn't forget that, did you? You did? Well, that's okay, Alan, because I'm here to remind you! And remind you! And remind you!
He lifted his briefcase and looked fixedly at the seat. Yes, the stain was there, and yes, he had shouted at Todd. Todd, why do you always have to be so clumsy? Something like that, no big deal, but not the sort of thing you would ever say if you knew your kid had less than a month left to live.
It occurred to him that the beers weren't the real problem; it was this car, which had never been properly cleaned out. He had spent the day riding with the ghosts of his wife and his younger son.
He leaned over and popped the glove compartment to get his citation book-carrying that, even when he was headed down to Portland to spend the day testifying in court, was an unbreakable habit-and reached inside. His hand struck some tubular object, and it fell out onto the floor of the station wagon with a little thump.
He put his citation book on top of his briefcase and then bent over to get whatever it was he had knocked out of the glove compartment. He held it up so it caught the glow of the arc-sodium light and stared at it a long time, feeling the old dreadful ache of loss and sorrow steal into him. Polly's arthritis was in her hands; his, it seemed, was in his heart, and who could say which of them had gotten the worst of it?
The can had belonged to Todd, of course-Todd, who would have undoubtedly lived in the Auburn Novelty Shop if he had been allowed.
The boy had been entranced with the cheapjack arcana sold there: joy buzzers, sneezing powder, dribble glasses, soap that turned the user's hands the color of volcanic ash, plastic dog turds.
This thing is still here. Nineteen months they've been dead, and it's still here. How in the hell did I miss i't? Christ.
Alan turned the round can over in his hands, remembering how the boy had pleaded to be allowed to buy this particular item with his allowance money, how Alan himself had demurred, quoting his own father's proverb: the fool and his money soon parted. And how Annie had overruled him in her gentle way.
Listen to you, Mr. Amateur Magician, sounding like a Puritan. I love it! Where do you think he got this?" nsane love of gags and tricks in the first place? No one in my family ever kept a framed picture of Houdiny' on the wall, believe me. Do you want to tell me you didn't buy a dribble glass or two in the hot, wild days of your youth? That you wouldn't have just about died to own the old snake-in-the-can-of-nuts trick if you'd come across one in a display case somewhere?
He, hemming and hawing, sounding more and more like a pompous stuffed-shirt windbag. Finally he'd had to raise a hand to his mouth to hide a grin of embarrassment. Annie had seen it, however. Annie always did. That had been her gift... and more than once it had been his salvation. Her sense of humor-and her sense of perspective as well-had always been better than his.
Sharper.
Let him have it, Alan-he'll only be young once. And it is sort Of funny.
So he had. And@nd three weeks after that he spilled his milkshake on the seat and four weeks after that he was dead! They were both dead! Wow.' Imagine that! Time surely does fly by, doesn't it, Alan!
But don't worry.' Don't worry, because I'll keep reminding you! Yes, sir! I'll keep reminding you, because that's my J'Oh and I mean to do it!
The can was labeled TASTEE-MUNCH MIXED NUTS. Alan twisted off the top and five feet of compressed green snake leaped out, struck the windshield, and rebounded into his lap. Alan looked at it, heard his dead son's laughter inside his head, and began to cry. His weeping was undramatic, silent and exhausted. It seemed that his tears had a lot in common with the possessions of his dead loved ones; you never got to the end of them. There were too many, and just when you started to relax and think that it was finally over, the joint was clean, you found one more. And one more. And one more.
Why had he let Todd buy the goddam thing? Why was it still in the goddam glove compartment? And why had he taken the goddam wagon in the first place?
He pulled his handkerchief out of his back pocket and mopped the tears from his face. Then, slowly, he jammed the snake-just cheap green crepe-paper with a metal spring wound up inside itback into the bogus mixed-nuts can. He screwed on the top and bounced the can thoughtfully on his hand.
Throw the goddam thing away.
But he didn't think he could do that. Not tonight, at least. He tossed the joke-the last one Todd had ever bought in what he considered the world's finest store back into the glove compartment and slammed the hatch shut. Then he took hold of the doorhandle again, grabbed his briefcase, and got out.
He breathed deeply of the early-evening air, hoping it would help.