Second Avenue , he thought. Then: My God -
Before he could finish the thought, he saw Eddie Dean standing outside of the Barcelona Luggage store, looking dazed and more than a little out of place in old jeans, a deerskin shirt, and deerskin moccasins. His hair was clean, but it hung to his shoulders in a way that suggested no professional had seen to it in quite some time. Jake realized he himself didn't look much better; he was also wearing a deerskin shirt and, on his lower half, the battered remains of the Dockers he'd had on the day he left home for good, setting sail for Brooklyn, Dutch Hill, and another world.
Good thing no one can see us , Jake thought, then decided that wasn't true. If people could see them, they'd probably get rich on spare change before noon. The thought made him grin. "Hey, Eddie," he said. "Welcome home."
Eddie nodded, looking bemused. "See you brought your friend."
Jake reached down and gave Oy an affectionate pat. "He's my version of the American Express Card. I don't go home without him."
Jake was about to go on - he felt witty, bubbly, full of amusing things to say - when someone came around the corner, passed them without looking (as everyone else had), and changed everything. It was a kid wearing Dockers that looked like Jake's because they were Jake's . Not the pair he had on now, but they were his, all right. So were the sneakers. They were the ones Jake had lost in Dutch Hill. The plaster-man who guarded the door between the worlds had torn them right off his feet.
The boy who had just passed them was John Chambers, it was him , only this version looked soft and innocent and painfully young. How did you survive ? he asked his own retreating back. How did you survive the mental stress of losing your mind, and running away from home, and that horrible house in Brooklyn ? Most of all, how did you survive the doorkeeper? You must be tougher than you look .
Eddie did a doubletake so comical that Jake laughed in spite of his own shocked surprise. It made him think of those comic-book panels where Archie or Jughead is trying to look in two directions at the same time. He looked down and saw a similar expression on Oy's face. Somehow that made the whole thing even funnier.
"What the f**k ?" Eddie asked.
"Instant replay," Jake said, and laughed harder. It came out sounding goofy as shit, but he didn't care. He felt goofy. "It's like when we watched Roland in the Great Hall of Gilead, only this is New York and it's May 31st, 1977! It's the day I took French Leave from Piper! Instant replay, baby!"
"French - ?" Eddie began, but Jake didn't give him a chance to finish. He was struck by another realization. Except struck was too mild a word. He was buried by it, like a man who just happens to be on the beach when a tidal wave rolls in. His face blazed so brightly that Eddie actually took a step back.
"The rose!" he whispered. He felt too weak in the diaphragm to speak any louder, and his throat was as dry as a sandstorm. "Eddie, the rose !"
"What about it?"
"This is the day I see it!" He reached out and touched Eddie's forearm with a trembling hand. "I go to the bookstore... then to the vacant lot. I think there used to be a delicatessen - "
Eddie was nodding and beginning to look excited himself. "Tom and Jerry's Artistic Deli, corner of Second and Forty-sixth - "
"The deli's gone but the rose is there! That me walking down the street is going to see it, and we can see it, too !"
At that, Eddie's own eyes blazed. "Come on, then," he said. "We don't want to lose you. Him. Whoever the f**k."
"Don't worry," Jake said. "I know where he's going."
TWO
The Jake ahead of them - New York Jake, spring-of-1977 Jake - walked slowly, looking everywhere, clearly digging the day. Mid-World Jake remembered exactly how that boy had felt: the sudden relief when the arguing voices in his mind
(I died!) (I didn't!)
had finally stopped their squabbling. Back by the board fence that had been, where the two businessmen had been playing tic-tac-toe with a Mark Cross pen. And, of course, there had been the relief of being away from the Piper School and the insanity of his Final Essay for Ms. Avery's English class. The Final Essay counted a full twenty-five per cent toward each student's final grade, Ms. Avery had made that perfectly clear, and Jake's had been gibberish. The fact that his teacher had later given him an A+ on it didn't change that, only made it clear that it wasn't just him; the whole world was losing its shit, going nineteen.
Being out from under all that - even for a little while - had been great. Of course he was digging the day.
Only the day's not quite right , Jake thought - the Jake walking along behind his old self. Something about it ...
He looked around but couldn't figure it out. Late May, bright summer sun, lots of strollers and window-shoppers on Second Avenue, plenty of taxis, the occasional long black limo; nothing wrong with any of this.
Except there was.
Everything was wrong with it.