Skeleton bag

Author: Stephen King (USA)
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-06-01
Features: On the second morning at nine o'clock, I filled a plastic bottle with some grape juice, walked down Main Street, and started a long-distance walk south. The sky was clear, and the temperature was already high. The street was very quiet—the kind of quiet only a full Saturday can bring, half loneliness and half exhaustion. Two or three fishermen parked their boats on the distant lake surface. The lake was so still that there wasn't a sound of a motorboat's engine or the laughter and play of children. I passed a few small villas on the embankment, though they might have been occupied at this time of the year, the only signs of life were a few swimsuits hanging on the railing of the Parsons' patio and a half-deflated, bright green sea horse float on the Bechdel's dock. But did the gray little villa of the Parsons still belong to the Parsons? The Bechdels—their windows facing the lake and mountains like a movie theater screen—their funny circular summer camp still belonged to the Bechdels? Of course, it was impossible to tell. There could have been many changes in four years. I walked like this without really thinking about anything—this was a trick I often used during my writing periods. Moving the body, resting the mind, letting the little guys in the basement do their work. I passed the camps where Joe and I had once drunk, had barbecues, and occasionally played cards, absorbing the tranquility of the surrounding air like a sponge while drinking grape juice and wiping sweat from my forehead with my arm, then waiting for thoughts to occur on their own. The first thought that came to mind was that the crying of the child at night seemed more real than the phone call from Max De. Did I really receive a call from a wealthy, ill-tempered computer tycoon on the very first full night back in T town? Did that old man really call me a "scammer" on the phone? (Based on what I told him, I was, but that doesn't matter) I knew it was true, but compared to it, I was more inclined to believe in the existence of the "Blackwater Lake ghost"—perhaps others at the camp called it the "mysterious crying boy." When I was almost finished with the bottle of grape juice, the second thought came to me—I should call Marty De and tell her everything that had happened. It was a natural impulse, but not a good idea. I was too old to believe in simple stories like "the poor little woman and the cruel stepfather"—this time, the story had just switched to a cruel stepfather. This summer, I had my own plans and didn't want to get involved in the increasingly ugly dispute between the computer tycoon and the poor girl in the RV. De had offended me—I had to admit, quite seriously—but maybe he wasn't targeting me, just the situation. Hey, some people just enjoy offending others for no reason. Do I really need to get into it with him? No, I didn't. I saved "Little Red Riding Hood," I accidentally touched her mother's small but firm breasts, and I knew that "Kyra" means "ladylike" in Greek. That was enough. Any more would have been too much—please, for God's sake. I stopped walking, and my mind did too, suddenly realizing I had walked all the way to Wallingford, a wooden building locals often called the "country club." It was—a six-hole golf course, a stable, a riding ring, a restaurant, a bar, a clubhouse that could accommodate thirty or forty people, with eight or nine small cabins scattered around it. It even had a two-lane bowling alley, though the pins had to be set up by you and your opponent taking turns. Wallingford was built in the early days of World War I, a little later than Sarah-Lafayette, but not too late. A long pier extended to a smaller building known as the "Sunset Bar," where Wallingford's summer tourists often went for drinks at the end of the day, while others ordered a "Bloody Mary" at the start of the day. I looked in that direction and realized I wasn't alone. On the porch of the waterfront bar, a woman stood watching me. When I saw her, I almost jumped up. My mood wasn't great at the time, which might have had something to do with it. But I think no matter how good my mood was, she would have startled me. Part of it was because she was motionless, and part of it was because she was incredibly thin, but the main reason was her face. Have you ever seen Edward Munch's "The Scream"? Well, imagine that screaming face at rest, mouth closed, eyes alertly fixed outside the frame. Then you'll know what this woman looked like, standing at the top of the dock with long fingers resting on the railing. But I have to tell you, my reaction wasn't Edward Munch's painting; it was Mrs. Duvall. She looked to be about seventy years old, wearing a black one-piece swimsuit with black shorts over it. This combination was surprisingly formal, like a variation of the ever-timeless black cocktail dress. Her skin was as pale as cream, except for the parts above her flat stomach and the sides of her bony shoulders, where large brown liver spots covered the area. Her face had prominent, skull-like cheekbones and bony, puffy foreheads, making it look like a sharp wedge. Below the forehead, her eyes were deep-set in shadowed eye sockets, almost invisible. Sparse white hair hung straight from her ears down to the sides of her slightly tilted chin. God, she was so thin, I thought. She was nothing but a bag—here, I shivered violently, as if someone had shocked me. I didn't want her to notice that—I mean, what kind of day was this! To make a man shiver with disgust and a grimace at the very start of the day—I raised my hand and waved, forcing a smile. Good morning, lady over at the waterfront bar. Good morning, you old skeleton bag, you almost made me wet my pants, but it's okay these days, I forgive you. How are you doing? I felt like my smile was harder to make than crying. She didn't wave back. I felt like a fool—in this town, there wasn't a number one fool, and we took turns being it—the handshake ended in an awkward half-bow, and I started walking back. After taking only five steps, I couldn't help but turn back; the feeling of being watched was so strong, as if a hand were pressing between my shoulder blades. The dock where she had been standing was now empty. I squinted my eyes—the reaction was that she must have gone into the shadows of the bar, but she wasn't there. Instead, she had vanished like a ghost. She went into the bar, honey, Joe's voice said. You know, right? I mean, you know, right? "Yes," I muttered to myself, often talking to myself that summer. "Yes, maybe she really did go in. Maybe she was walking stealthily." Yeah, like Mrs. Duvall. I turned back again and looked, but the road had turned slightly away from the lake, and from here, Wallingford and the Sunset Bar were no longer visible. Really, I thought, this was better. On the way back, I mentally listed all the strange things that had happened since coming back to Sarah-Lafayette: recurring dreams, sunflowers, radio labels, the crying at night. I felt that my encounter with Marty and Kyra, along with the phone call from Mr. Computer that followed, also one of the strange things... though in a different sense than the crying child at night. So, the fact that we were in and not Blackwater Lake when Joanna died—did that count as a strange thing too? I didn't know. I didn't even remember why I included it. In the fall and winter of 1993, I was busy adapting The Red Men into a TV script. In February 1994, I started writing Misery, pouring almost all my energy into the book. And besides, suggesting going to T town, suggesting going to Sarah "was always Joe who brought it up." I said it to the air, and when I heard my own voice, I immediately realized how right it was. We both loved the lake house, but every time, it was Joe who suggested, "Hey, Irishman, let's go to T town for a few days." She could have said it anytime, but in the year before she died, she never did. And I never thought of saying it for her. It seemed as if I had forgotten Sarah-Lafayette completely, even as summer approached. Was I really that focused on writing? It seemed not. Was there another reason? Something was deeply wrong, but I didn't know what. For no reason at all. It made me think of Sarah Teedwell and the lyrics to one of her songs. Her songs were never recorded, but I had a recording of Blind Lemon Jefferson covering one of her songs. One verse went: It's nothing but a barn dance, sweetie, it's nothing but a circle dance to let me kiss your sweet lips, sweetie, I found you, you're my baby. I liked the song and often imagined what it would sound like if it weren't sung by that old folk singer's rich voice but by a woman—Sarah Teedwell. I bet she would sing it even sweeter. Friend, I bet she could sing with a light, rhythmic touch. I reached the lakefront in front of my house, looked around, and saw no one (though I had just heard the sound of a speedboat's engine draining water this morning), so I took off my clothes to my underwear and swam to the raft. I didn't climb onto the raft but lay on the water next to it, holding the ladder with one hand and lazily kicking my feet. It was very comfortable, but what should I do with the rest of the day? I decided to clean my office on the second floor. After finishing, I might go to Joe's workshop, if I hadn't lost my courage by then. I swam back, easily kicking the water, my head floating on the surface, the lake flowing over my body like cool silk. I felt like a otter. As I neared the shore, I lifted my face, dripping with water, and saw a woman standing on Main Street looking at me. She was as thin as the one I had seen in Wallingford, but this one was green—green, pointing north like a forest goddess from ancient legend. I gasped, swallowing a lot of water, and coughed. Standing in chest-deep water, I wiped my eyes, which were full of water, and then laughed (though with a hint of doubt). The woman was green because she was originally a birch tree, growing slightly north of the ties where my house connected to Main Street. Even though my eyes were no longer blurry, the "face" formed by the leaves around the mottled white trunk still gave me the creeps. Since there was no wind, the face was completely still (just like the woman in the black shorts and swimsuit), but on breezy days, it would smile or frown, even laugh. Behind it stood a sickly-looking pine tree. A bare branch pointed north, and I took it for a bony hand pointing north. This wasn't the first time I had been scared out of my wits. I always saw things, that's all. When you've written enough stories, every shadow on the floor seems like a footprint, and every line in the dust seems to convey mysterious messages. Of course, this clearly didn't help me distinguish which of these strange events really happened at Sarah-Lafayette and which were just part of my strange imagination. I quickly scanned the surroundings and found that the area of the lake was still empty (though it didn't stay that way for long; soon, the hum of two more boats' engines joined the sound on the lake), so I awkwardly took off my wet underwear, wrung it out, and laid it on top of my shorts and T-shirt, then walked up the ties, naked, holding it to my chest. I pretended to be the butler Bently, bringing breakfast and the newspaper to Sir Peter Wincott. By the time I got back to the house, I was laughing like an idiot. P112-P116