Read Online Roadwork by Stephen King, Richard Bachman - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Stephen King, Richard Bachman
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strangers’ houses. That’s what we are. The March of Time, Freddy. That’s what it is. Forty waiting for fifty waiting for sixty. Waiting for a nice hospital bed and a nice nurse to stick a nice catheter inside you. Freddy, forty is the end of being young. Well, actually thirty’s the end of being young, forty is where you stop fooling yourself. I don’t want to grow old in a strange place.
He was crying again, sitting in his cold dark car and crying like a baby.
George, it’s more than the highway, more than the move. I know what’s wrong with you.
Shut up, Fred. I warn you.
But Fred wouldn’t shut up and that was bad. If he couldn’t control Fred anymore, how would he ever get any peace?
It’s Charlie, isn’t it, George? You don’t want to bury him a second time.
“It’s Charlie,” he said aloud, his voice thick and strange with tears. “And it’s me. I can’t. I really can’t ...”
He hung his head over and let the tears come, his face screwed up and his fists plastered into his eyes like any little kid you ever saw who lost his candy-nickle out the hole in his pants.
When he finally drove on, he was husked out. He felt dry. Hollow, but dry. Perfectly calm. He could even look at the dark houses on both sides of the street where people had already moved out with no tremor.
We’re living in a graveyard now, he thought. Mary and I, in a graveyard. Just like Richard Boone in I Bury the Living. The lights were on at the Arlins’, but they were leaving on the fifth of December. And the Hobarts had moved last weekend. Empty houses.
Driving up the asphalt of his own driveway (Mary was upstairs; he could see the mild glow of her reading lamp) he suddenly found himself thinking of something Tom Granger had said a couple of weeks before. He would talk to Tom about that. On Monday.
November 25, 1973
He was watching the Mustangs-Chargers game on the color TV and drinking his private drink, Southern Comfort and Seven-Up. It was his private drink because people laughed when he drank it in public. The Chargers were ahead 27-3 in the third quarter. Rucker had been intercepted three times. Great game, huh, Fred? It sure is, George. I don’t see how you stand the tension.
Mary was asleep upstairs. It had warmed up over the weekend, and now it was drizzling outside. He felt sleepy himself. He was three drinks along.
There was a time-out, and a commercial came on. The commercial was Bud Wilkenson telling about how this energy crisis was a real bitch and everybody should insulate their attics and also make sure that the fireplace flue was closed when you weren’t toasting marshmallows or burning witches or something. The logo of the company presenting the commercial came on at the end; the logo showed a happy tiger peeking at you over a sign that said:
EXXON
He thought that everyone should have known the evil days were coming when Esso changed its name to Exxon. Esso slipped comfortably out of the mouth like the sound of a man relaxing in a hammock. Exxon sounded like the name of a warlord from the planet Yurir.
“Exxon demands that all puny Earthlings throw down their weapons,” he said. “Off the pig, puny Earthmen.” He snickered and made himself another drink. He didn’t even have to get up; the Southern Comfort, a forty-eight-ounce bottle of Seven-Up, and a plastic bowl of ice were all sitting on a small round table by his chair.
Back to the game. The Chargers punted. Hugh Fednach, the Mustangs’ deep man, collected the football and ran it out to the Mustangs’ 31. Then, behind the steely-eyed generalship of Hank Rucker, who might have seen the Heisman trophy once in a newsreel, the Mustangs mounted a six-yard drive. Gene Voreman punted. Andy Cocker of the Chargers returned the ball to the Mustangs’ 46. And so it goes, as Kurt Vonnegut had so shrewdly pointed out. He had read all of Kurt Vonnegut’s books. He liked them mostly because they were funny. On the news last week it had been
He was crying again, sitting in his cold dark car and crying like a baby.
George, it’s more than the highway, more than the move. I know what’s wrong with you.
Shut up, Fred. I warn you.
But Fred wouldn’t shut up and that was bad. If he couldn’t control Fred anymore, how would he ever get any peace?
It’s Charlie, isn’t it, George? You don’t want to bury him a second time.
“It’s Charlie,” he said aloud, his voice thick and strange with tears. “And it’s me. I can’t. I really can’t ...”
He hung his head over and let the tears come, his face screwed up and his fists plastered into his eyes like any little kid you ever saw who lost his candy-nickle out the hole in his pants.
When he finally drove on, he was husked out. He felt dry. Hollow, but dry. Perfectly calm. He could even look at the dark houses on both sides of the street where people had already moved out with no tremor.
We’re living in a graveyard now, he thought. Mary and I, in a graveyard. Just like Richard Boone in I Bury the Living. The lights were on at the Arlins’, but they were leaving on the fifth of December. And the Hobarts had moved last weekend. Empty houses.
Driving up the asphalt of his own driveway (Mary was upstairs; he could see the mild glow of her reading lamp) he suddenly found himself thinking of something Tom Granger had said a couple of weeks before. He would talk to Tom about that. On Monday.
November 25, 1973
He was watching the Mustangs-Chargers game on the color TV and drinking his private drink, Southern Comfort and Seven-Up. It was his private drink because people laughed when he drank it in public. The Chargers were ahead 27-3 in the third quarter. Rucker had been intercepted three times. Great game, huh, Fred? It sure is, George. I don’t see how you stand the tension.
Mary was asleep upstairs. It had warmed up over the weekend, and now it was drizzling outside. He felt sleepy himself. He was three drinks along.
There was a time-out, and a commercial came on. The commercial was Bud Wilkenson telling about how this energy crisis was a real bitch and everybody should insulate their attics and also make sure that the fireplace flue was closed when you weren’t toasting marshmallows or burning witches or something. The logo of the company presenting the commercial came on at the end; the logo showed a happy tiger peeking at you over a sign that said:
EXXON
He thought that everyone should have known the evil days were coming when Esso changed its name to Exxon. Esso slipped comfortably out of the mouth like the sound of a man relaxing in a hammock. Exxon sounded like the name of a warlord from the planet Yurir.
“Exxon demands that all puny Earthlings throw down their weapons,” he said. “Off the pig, puny Earthmen.” He snickered and made himself another drink. He didn’t even have to get up; the Southern Comfort, a forty-eight-ounce bottle of Seven-Up, and a plastic bowl of ice were all sitting on a small round table by his chair.
Back to the game. The Chargers punted. Hugh Fednach, the Mustangs’ deep man, collected the football and ran it out to the Mustangs’ 31. Then, behind the steely-eyed generalship of Hank Rucker, who might have seen the Heisman trophy once in a newsreel, the Mustangs mounted a six-yard drive. Gene Voreman punted. Andy Cocker of the Chargers returned the ball to the Mustangs’ 46. And so it goes, as Kurt Vonnegut had so shrewdly pointed out. He had read all of Kurt Vonnegut’s books. He liked them mostly because they were funny. On the news last week it had been
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