'I'm going to start screaming if you don't,' Richard said.
'Well,' Jack said, 'I'm trying to save my mother's life.' As he uttered it, this sentence seemed to him filled with a wondrous clarity.
'How the hell are you going to do that?' Richard exploded. 'Your mother probably has cancer. As my father has been pointing out to you, she needs doctors and science . . . and you hit the road? What are you going to use to save your mother, Jack? Magic?'
Jack's eyes began to burn. 'You got it, Richard old chum.' He raised his arm and pressed his already damp eyes into the fabric at the crook of his elbow.
'Oh hey, calm down, hey really . . .' Richard said, tugging frantically at his sweater. 'Don't cry, Jack, come on, please, I know it's a terrible thing, I didn't mean to . . . it was just that - ' Richard had crossed the room instantly and without noise, and was now awkwardly patting Jack's arm and shoulder.
'I'm okay,' Jack said. He lowered his arm. 'It's not some crazy fantasy, Richard, no matter how it looks to you.' He sat up straight. 'My father called me Travelling Jack, and so did an old man in Arcadia Beach.' Jack hoped he was right about Richard's sympathy opening internal doors; when he looked at Richard's face, he saw that it was true. His friend looked worried, tender, four-square.
Jack began his story.
5
Around the two boys the life of Nelson House went on, both calm and boisterous in the manner of boarding schools, punctuated with shouts and roars and laughter. Footsteps padded past the door but did not stop. From the room above came regular thumps and an occasional drift of music Jack finally recognized as a record by Blue Oyster Cult. He began by telling Richard about the Daydreams. From the Daydreams he went to Speedy Parker. He described the voice speaking to him from the whirling funnel in the sand. And then he told Richard of how he had taken Speedy's 'magic juice' and first flipped into the Territories.
'But I think it was just cheap wine, wino wine,' Jack said. 'Later, after it was all gone, I found out that I didn't need it to flip. I could just do it by myself.'
'Okay,' Richard said noncommittally.
He tried to truly represent the Territories to Richard: the cart-track, the sight of the summer palace, the timelessness and specificity of it. Captain Farren; the dying Queen, which brought him to Twinners; Osmond. The scene at All-Hands' Village; the Outpost Road which was the Western Road. He showed Richard his little collection of sacred objects, the guitar-pick and marble and coin. Richard merely turned these over in his fingers and gave them back without comment. Then Jack relived his wretched time in Oatley. Richard listened to Jack's tales of Oatley silent but wide-eyed.
Jack carefully omitted Morgan Sloat and Morgan of Orris from his account of the scene at the Lewisburg rest area on I-70 in western Ohio.
Then Jack had to describe Wolf as he had first seen him, that beaming giant in Oshkosh B'Gosh bib overalls, and he felt his tears building again behind his eyes. He did actually startle Richard by weeping while he told about trying to get Wolf into cars, and confessed his impatience with his companion, fighting not to weep again, and was fine for a long time - he managed to get through the story of Wolf's first Change without tears or a constricted throat. Then he struck trouble again. His rage kept him talking freely until he got to Ferd Janklow, and then his eyes grew hot again.
Richard said nothing for a long time. Then he stood up and fetched a clean handkerchief from a bureau drawer. Jack noisily, wetly blew his nose.
'That's what happened,' Jack said. 'Most of it, anyhow.'
'What have you been reading? What movies have you been seeing?'
'Fuck you,' Jack said. He stood up and walked across the room to get his pack, but Richard reached out and put his hand around Jack's wrist. 'I don't think you made it all up. I don't think you made any of it up.'
'Don't you?'
'No. I don't know what I do think, actually, but I'm sure you're not telling me deliberate lies.' He dropped his hand. 'I believe you were in the Sunlight Home, I believe that, all right. And I believe that you had a friend named Wolf, who died there. I'm sorry, but I cannot take the Territories seriously, and I cannot accept that your friend was a werewolf.'
'So you think I'm nuts,' Jack said.
'I think you're in trouble. But I'm not going to call my father, and I'm not going to make you leave now. You'll have to sleep in the bed here tonight. If we hear Mr. Haywood coming around to do bed checks, you'll be able to hide under the bed.'
Richard had taken on a faintly executive air, and he put his hands on his h*ps and glanced critically around his room. 'You have to get some rest. I'm sure that's part of the problem. They worked you half to death in that horrible place, and your mind got twisted, and now you need to rest.'