Joyland (13 page)

In spite of all this, I wasn’t sleeping for shit. Sometimes I’d lie on my bed, clap my elderly, taped-up headphones over my ears, and listen to my Doors records. (I was particularly partial to such cheerful tunes as “Cars Hiss By My Window,” “Riders on the Storm,” and—of course—“The End.”) When Jim Morrison’s voice and Ray Manzarek’s mystic, chiming organ weren’t enough to sedate me, I’d creep down the outside staircase and walk on the beach. Once or twice I
slept
on the beach. At least there were no bad dreams when I did manage to get under for a little while. I don’t remember dreaming that summer at all.

I could see bags under my eyes when I shaved in the morning, and sometimes I’d feel lightheaded after a particularly strenuous turn as Howie (birthday parties in the overheated bedlam of Howdy House were the worst), but that was normal; Mr. Easterbrook had told me so. A little rest in the boneyard always put me right again. On the whole, I thought I was
representing
, as they say nowadays. I learned different on the first Monday in July, two days before the Glorious Fourth.

My team—Beagle—reported to Pop Allen’s shy first thing, as always, and he gave us our assignments as he laid out the popguns. Usually our early chores involved toting boxes of prizes (MADE IN TAIWAN stamped on most of them) and flashing shys until Early Gate, which was what we called opening. That morning, however, Pop told me that Lane Hardy wanted me. This was a surprise; Lane rarely showed his face outside the boneyard until twenty minutes or so before Early Gate. I started that way, but Pop yelled at me.

“Nah, nah, he’s at the simp-hoister.” This was a derogatory term for the Ferris wheel he would have known better than to use if Lane had actually been there. “Beat feet, Jonesy. Got a lot to do today.”

I beat feet, but saw no one at the Spin, which stood tall, still, and silent, waiting for the day’s first customers,

“Over here,” a woman called. I turned to my left and saw Rozzie Gold standing outside her star-studded fortune-telling shy, all kitted out in one of her gauzy Madame Fortuna rigs. On her head was an electric blue scarf, the knotted tail of which fell almost to the small of her back. Lane was standing beside her in
his
usual rig: faded straight-leg jeans and a skin-tight strappy tee-shirt perfect for showing off his fully loaded guns. His derby was tilted at the proper wiseguy angle. Looking at him, you’d believe he didn’t have a brain in his head, but he had plenty.

Both dressed for show, and both wearing bad-news faces. I ran quickly through the last few days, trying to think of anything I’d done that might account for those faces. It crossed my mind that Lane might have orders to lay me off . . . or even fire me. But at the height of the summer? And wouldn’t that be Fred Dean’s or Brenda Rafferty’s job? Also, why was Rozzie here?

“Who died, guys?” I asked.

“Just as long as it isn’t you,” Rozzie said. She was getting into character for the day and sounded funny: half Brooklyn and half Carpathian Mountains.

“Huh?”

“Walk with us, Jonesy,” Lane said, and immediately started down the midway, which was largely deserted ninety minutes before Early Gate: no one around but a few members of the janitorial staff—gazoonies, in the Talk, and probably not a green card among them—sweeping up around the concessions: work that should have been done the night before. Rozzie made room for me between them when I caught up. I felt like a crook being escorted to the pokey by a couple of cops.

“What’s this about?”

“You’ll see,” Rozzie/Fortuna said ominously and pretty soon I did. Next to Horror House—the two connected, actually—was Mysterio’s Mirror Mansion. Next to the agent’s booth was a regular mirror with a sign over it reading SO YOU WON’T FORGET HOW YOU
REALLY
LOOK. Lane took me by one arm, Rozzie by the other. Now I really did feel like a perp being brought in for booking. They placed me in front of the mirror.

“What do you see?” Lane asked.

“Me,” I said, and then, because that didn’t seem to be the answer they wanted: “Me needing a haircut.”

“Look at your clothes, silly boy,” Rozzie said, pronouncing the last two words
seely poy.

I looked. Above my yellow workboots I saw jeans (with the recommended brand of rawhide gloves sticking out of the back pocket), and above my jeans was a blue chain bray workshirt, faded but reasonably clean. On my head was an admirably battered Howie dogtop, the finishing touch that means so much.

“What about them?” I said. I was starting to get a little mad.

“Kinda hangin on ya, aren’t they?” Lane said. “Didn’t used to. How much weight you lost?”

“Jesus, I don’t know. Maybe we ought to go see Fat Wally.” Fat Wally ran the guess-your-weight joint.

“Is not funny,” Fortuna said. “You can’t wear that damn dog costume half the day under the hot summer sun, then swallow two more salt pills and call it a meal. Mourn your lost love all you want, but eat while you do it.
Eat,
dammit!”

“Who’s been talking to you? Tom?” No, it wouldn’t have been him. “Erin. She had no business—”

“No one has been talking to me,” Rozzie said. She drew herself up impressively. “I have the sight.”

“I don’t know about the sight, but you’ve got one hell of a nerve.”

All at once she reverted to Rozzie. “I’m not talking about psychic sight, kiddo, I’m talking about ordinary woman-sight. You think I don’t know a lovestruck Romeo when I see one? After all the years I’ve been gigging palms and peeping the crystal?
Hah
!” She stepped forward, her considerable breastworks leading the way. “I don’t care about your love life; I just don’t want to see you taken to the hospital on July Fourth—when it’s supposed to hit ninety-five in the shade, by the way—with heat prostration or something worse.”

Lane took off his derby, peered into it, and re-set it on his head cocked the other way. “What she won’t come right out and say because she has to protect her famous crusty reputation is we all like you, kid. You learn fast, you do what’s asked of you, you’re honest, you don’t make no trouble, and the kids love you like mad when you’re wearing the fur. But you’d have to be blind not to see something’s wrong with you. Rozzie thinks girl trouble. Maybe she’s right. Maybe she ain’t.”

Rozzie gave him a haughty dare-you-doubt-me stare.

“Maybe your parents are getting a divorce. Mine did, and it damn near killed me. Maybe your big brother got arrested for selling dope—”

“My mother’s dead and I’m an only child,” I said sulkily.

“I don’t care what you are in the straight world,” he said. “This is Joyland. The
show.
And you’re one of us. Which means we got a right to care about you, whether you like it or not. So get something to eat.”

“Get a
lot
to eat,” Rozzie said. “Now, noon, all day.
Every
day. And try to eat something besides fried chicken where, I tell you what, there’s a heart attack in every drumstick. Go in Rock Lobster and tell them you want a take-out of fish and salad. Tell them to make it a double. Get your weight up so you don’t look like the Human Skeleton in a ten-in-one.” She turned her gaze on Lane. “It’s a girl, of course it is. Anybody can see that.”

“Whatever it is, stop fucking
pining,
” Lane said.

“Such language to use around a lady,” Rozzie said. She was sounding like Fortuna again. Soon she’d come out with
Ziss is vat za spirits vant,
or something equivalent.

“Ah, blow it out,” Lane said, and walked back toward the Spin.

When he was gone, I looked at Rozzie. She really wasn’t much in the mother-figure department, but right then she was what I had. “Roz, does
everyone
know?”

She shook her head. “Nah. To most of the old guys, you’re just another greenie jack-of-all-trades . . . although not as green as you were three weeks ago. But many people here like you, and they see something is wrong. Your friend Erin, for one. Your friend Tom for another.” She said
friend
like it rhymed with
rent.
“I am another friend, and as a friend I tell you that you can’t fix your heart. Only time can do that, but you can fix your body. Eat!”

“You sound like a Jewish mother joke,” I said.

“I
am
a Jewish mother, and believe me, it’s no joke.”

“I’m
the joke,” I said. “I think about her all the time.”

“That you can’t help, at least for now. But you must turn your back on the other thoughts that sometimes come to you.”

I think my mouth dropped open. I’m not sure. I know I stared. People who’ve been in the business as long as Rozzie Gold had been back then—they are called
mitts
in the Talk, for their palmistry skills—have their ways of picking your brains so that what they say sounds like the result of telepathy, but usually it’s just close observation.

Not always, though.

“I don’t understand.”

“Give those morbid records a rest, do you understand that?” She looked grimly into my face, then laughed at the surprise she saw there. “Rozzie Gold may be just a Jewish mother and grandmother, but Madame Fortuna sees much.”

So did my landlady, and I found out later—after seeing Rozzie and Mrs. Shoplaw having lunch together in Heavens Bay on one of Madame Fortuna’s rare days off—that they were close friends who had known each other for years. Mrs. Shoplaw dusted my room and vacuumed the floor once a week; she would have seen my records. As for the rest—those famous suicidal ideations that sometimes came to me—might not a woman who had spent most of her life observing human nature and watching for psychological clues (called
tells
both in the Talk and big-league poker) guess that a sensitive young man, freshly dumped, might entertain thoughts of pills and ropes and riptide undertows?

“I’ll eat,” I promised. I had a thousand things to do before Early Gate, but mostly I was just anxious to be away from her before she said something totally outrageous like
Her name is Vendy, and you still think of her ven you mess-turbate.

“Also, drink big glass of milk before you go to bed.” She raised an admonitory finger. “No coffee; milk. Vill help you sleep.”

“Worth a try,” I said.

She went back to Roz again. “The day we met, you asked if I saw a beautiful woman with dark hair in your future. Do you remember that?”

“Yes.”

“What did I say?”

“That she was in my past.”

Rozzie gave a single nod, hard and imperious. “So she is. And when you want to call her and beg for a second chance—you will, you will—show a little spine. Have a little self-respect. Also remember that the long-distance is expensive.”

Tell me something I don’t know,
I thought. “Listen, I really have to get going, Roz. Lots to do.”

“Yes, a busy day for all of us. But before you go, Jonesy—have you met the boy yet? The one with the dog? Or the girl who wears the red hat and carries the doll? I told you about them, too, when we met.”

“Roz, I’ve met a billion kids in the last—”

“You haven’t, then. Okay. You will.” She stuck out her lower lip and blew, stirring the fringe of hair that stuck out from beneath her scarf. Then she seized my wrist. “I see danger for you, Jonesy. Sorrow and danger.”

I thought for a moment she was going to whisper something like
Beware the dark stranger! He rides a unicycle!
Instead, she let go of me and pointed at Horror House. “Which team turns that unpleasant hole? Not yours, is it?”

“No, Team Doberman.” The Dobies were also responsible for the adjacent attractions; Mysterio’s Mirror Mansion and the Wax Museum. Taken together, these three were Joyland’s half-hearted nod to the old carny spook-shows.

“Good. Stay out of it. It’s haunted, and a boy with bad thoughts needs to be visiting a haunted house like he needs arsenic in his mouthwash.
Kapish
?”

“Yeah.” I looked at my watch.

She got the point and stepped back. “Watch for those kids. And watch your step, boychick. There’s a shadow over you.”

Lane and Rozzie gave me a pretty good jolt, I’ll admit it. I didn’t stop listening to my Doors records—not immediately, at least—but I made myself eat more, and started sucking down three milkshakes a day. I could feel fresh energy pouring into my body as if someone had turned on a tap, and I was very grateful for that on the afternoon of July Fourth. Joyland was tipsed and I was down to wear the fur ten times, an all-time record.