Jack tried to touch him.
Richard shook him off and stepped away, brushing tears from his cheeks with the backs of his hands.
'Wasn't so grown-up then,' he said, smiling. Trying to. 'Nothing was so grown-up then, was it, Jack?'
'No,' Jack said, and now he found he was crying himself.
Oh Richard. Oh my dear one.
'No,' Richard said, smiling, looking around at the encroaching woods and brushing the tears away with the dirty backs of his hands, 'nothing was so grown-up back then. In the old days, when we were just kids. Back when we all lived in California and nobody lived anywhere else.'
He looked at Jack, trying to smile.
'Jack, help me,' he said. 'I feel like my leg is caught in some stuh-stupid truh-truh-hap and I . . . I . . .'
Then Richard fell on his knees with his hair in his tired face, and Jack got down there with him, and I can bear to tell you no more - only that they comforted each other as well as they could, and, as you probably know from your own bitter experience, that is never quite good enough.
8
'The fence was new back then,' Richard said when he could continue speaking. They had walked on a ways. A whippoorwill sang from a tall sturdy oak. The smell of salt in the air was stronger. 'I remember that. And the sign - CAMP READINESS, that's what it said. There was an obstacle course, and ropes to climb, and other ropes that you hung on to and then swung over big puddles of water. It looked sort of like boot-camp in a World War Two movie about the Marines. But the guys using the equipment didn't look much like Marines. They were fat, and they were all dressed the same - gray sweat-suits with CAMP READINESS written on the chest in small letters, and red piping on the sides of the sweat-pants. They all looked like they were going to have heart-attacks or strokes any minute. Maybe both at the same time. Sometimes we stayed overnight. A couple of times we stayed the whole weekend. Not in the Quonset hut; that was like a barracks for the guys who were paying to get in shape.'
'If that's what they were doing.'
'Yeah, right. If that's what they were doing. Anyway, we stayed in a big tent and slept on cots. It was a blast.' Again, Richard smiled wistfully. 'But you're right, Jack - not all the guys shagging around the place looked like businessmen trying to get in shape. The others - '
'What about the others?' Jack asked quietly.
'Some of them - a lot of them - looked like those big hairy creatures in the other world,' Richard said in a low voice Jack had to strain to hear. 'The Wolfs. I mean, they looked sort of like regular people, but not too much. They looked . . . rough. You know?'
Jack nodded. He knew.
'I remember I was a little afraid to look into their eyes very closely. Every now and then there'd be these funny flashes of light in them . . . like their brains were on fire. Some of the others . . .' A light of realization dawned in Richard's eyes. 'Some of the others looked like that substitute basketball coach I told you about. The one who wore the leather jacket and smoked.'
'How far is this Point Venuti, Richard?'
'I don't know, exactly. But we used to do it in a couple of hours, and the train never went very fast. Running speed, maybe, but not much more. It can't be much more than twenty miles from Camp Readiness, all told. Probably a little less.'
'Then we're maybe fifteen miles or less from it. From - '
(from the Talisman)
'Yeah. Right.'
Jack looked up as the day darkened. As if to show that the pathetic fallacy wasn't so pathetic after all, the sun now sailed behind a deck of clouds. The temperature seemed to drop ten degrees and the day seemed to grow dull - the whippoorwill fell silent.
9
Richard saw the sign first - a simple whitewashed square of wood painted with black letters. It stood on the left side of the tracks, and ivy had grown up its post, as if it had been here for a very long time. The sentiment, however, was quite current. It read: GOOD BIRDS MAY FLY; BAD BOYS MUST DIE. THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE: GO HOME.
'You can go, Richie,' Jack said quietly. 'It's okay by me. They'll let you go, no sweat. None of this is your business.'
'I think maybe it is,' Richard said.
'I dragged you into it.'
'No,' Richard said. 'My father dragged me into it. Or fate dragged me into it. Or God. Or Jason. Whoever it was, I'm sticking.'
'All right,' Jack said. 'Let's go.'
As they passed the sign, Jack lashed out with one foot in a passably good kung-fu kick and knocked it over.
'Way to go, chum,' Richard said, smiling a little.
'Thanks. But don't call me chum.'