although it only had one thing to say: Hello, old friend.
He thought Canny .
He thought Mama .
He thought of Tommy going to school by now. Always assuming good old Uncle Randy hadn’t killed him.
He thought, The only one who can put on the brakes is you .
This thought had come to him many times before, but now it was followed by a newone. You don’t have to live this way if you don’t want to. You can, of course . . . but you don’t have to .
That voice was so strange, so unlike any of his usual mental dialogues, that he thought at first he must be picking it up from someone else—he could do that, but he rarely got uninvited transmissions anymore. He had learned to shut them off.Nevertheless he looked up the aisle, almost positivehe would see someone looking back at him. No one was. Everyone was sleeping, talking with their seatmates, or staring out at the gray New England day.
You don’t have to live this way if you don’t want to .
If only that were true. Nevertheless, he tightened the cap on the bottle and put it on the seat beside him. Twice he picked it up. The first time he put it down. The second time he reachedinto the bag and unscrewed the cap again, but as he did, the bus pulled into the New Hampshire welcome area just across the state line. Dan filed into the Burger King with the rest of the passengers, pausing only long enough to toss the paper bag into one of the trash containers. Stenciled on the side of the tall green can were the words IF YOU NO LONGER NEED IT, LEAVE IT HERE.
Wouldn’t that be nice, Dan thought, hearing the clink as it landed. Oh God, wouldn’t that be nice .
2
An hour and a half later, the bus passed a sign reading WELCOME TO FRAZIER, WHERE THERE’S A REASON FOR EVERY SEASON! And, below that, HOME OF TEENYTOWN!
The bus stopped at the Frazier Community Center to take on passengers, and from the empty seat next to Dan, where the bottle had rested for the first partof the trip, Tony spoke up. Here was a voice Dan recognized, although Tony hadn’t spoken so clearly in years.
( this is the place )
As good as any, Dan thought.
He grabbed his duffel from the overhead rack and got off. He stood on the sidewalk and watched the bus pull away. To the west, the White Mountains sawed at the horizon. In all his wanderings he had avoided mountains, especially the jaggedmonsters that broke the country in two. Now he thought, I’ve come back to the high country after all. I guess I always knew I would . But these mountains were gentler than the ones that still sometimes haunted his dreams, and he thought he could live with them, at least for a little while. If he could stop thinking about the kid in the Braves t-shirt, that is. If he could stop using the booze.There came a time when you realized that moving on was pointless. That you took yourself with you wherever you went.
A snow flurry, fine as wedding lace, danced across the air. He could see that the shops lining the wide main street catered mostly to the skiers who’d come in December and the summer people who’d come in June. There would probably be leaf-peepers in September and October, too,but this was what passed for spring in northern New England, an edgy eight weeks chrome-plated with cold and damp. Frazier apparently hadn’t figured out a reason for this season yet, because the main drag—Cranmore Avenue—was all but deserted.
Dan slung the duffel over his shoulder and strolled slowly north. He stopped outside a wrought-iron fence to look at a rambling Victorian home flanked onboth sides by newer brick buildings. These were connected to the Victorian by covered walkways. There was a turret at the top of the mansion on the left side, but none on the right, giving the place a queerly unbalanced look that Dan sort of liked. It was as if the big old girl were saying Yeah, part of me fell off. What the fuck. Someday it’ll happen to you. He started to smile. Then the smiledied.
Tony was in the window of the
He thought Canny .
He thought Mama .
He thought of Tommy going to school by now. Always assuming good old Uncle Randy hadn’t killed him.
He thought, The only one who can put on the brakes is you .
This thought had come to him many times before, but now it was followed by a newone. You don’t have to live this way if you don’t want to. You can, of course . . . but you don’t have to .
That voice was so strange, so unlike any of his usual mental dialogues, that he thought at first he must be picking it up from someone else—he could do that, but he rarely got uninvited transmissions anymore. He had learned to shut them off.Nevertheless he looked up the aisle, almost positivehe would see someone looking back at him. No one was. Everyone was sleeping, talking with their seatmates, or staring out at the gray New England day.
You don’t have to live this way if you don’t want to .
If only that were true. Nevertheless, he tightened the cap on the bottle and put it on the seat beside him. Twice he picked it up. The first time he put it down. The second time he reachedinto the bag and unscrewed the cap again, but as he did, the bus pulled into the New Hampshire welcome area just across the state line. Dan filed into the Burger King with the rest of the passengers, pausing only long enough to toss the paper bag into one of the trash containers. Stenciled on the side of the tall green can were the words IF YOU NO LONGER NEED IT, LEAVE IT HERE.
Wouldn’t that be nice, Dan thought, hearing the clink as it landed. Oh God, wouldn’t that be nice .
2
An hour and a half later, the bus passed a sign reading WELCOME TO FRAZIER, WHERE THERE’S A REASON FOR EVERY SEASON! And, below that, HOME OF TEENYTOWN!
The bus stopped at the Frazier Community Center to take on passengers, and from the empty seat next to Dan, where the bottle had rested for the first partof the trip, Tony spoke up. Here was a voice Dan recognized, although Tony hadn’t spoken so clearly in years.
( this is the place )
As good as any, Dan thought.
He grabbed his duffel from the overhead rack and got off. He stood on the sidewalk and watched the bus pull away. To the west, the White Mountains sawed at the horizon. In all his wanderings he had avoided mountains, especially the jaggedmonsters that broke the country in two. Now he thought, I’ve come back to the high country after all. I guess I always knew I would . But these mountains were gentler than the ones that still sometimes haunted his dreams, and he thought he could live with them, at least for a little while. If he could stop thinking about the kid in the Braves t-shirt, that is. If he could stop using the booze.There came a time when you realized that moving on was pointless. That you took yourself with you wherever you went.
A snow flurry, fine as wedding lace, danced across the air. He could see that the shops lining the wide main street catered mostly to the skiers who’d come in December and the summer people who’d come in June. There would probably be leaf-peepers in September and October, too,but this was what passed for spring in northern New England, an edgy eight weeks chrome-plated with cold and damp. Frazier apparently hadn’t figured out a reason for this season yet, because the main drag—Cranmore Avenue—was all but deserted.
Dan slung the duffel over his shoulder and strolled slowly north. He stopped outside a wrought-iron fence to look at a rambling Victorian home flanked onboth sides by newer brick buildings. These were connected to the Victorian by covered walkways. There was a turret at the top of the mansion on the left side, but none on the right, giving the place a queerly unbalanced look that Dan sort of liked. It was as if the big old girl were saying Yeah, part of me fell off. What the fuck. Someday it’ll happen to you. He started to smile. Then the smiledied.
Tony was in the window of the
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