Though 206 Wyemore, the house directly behind the Dunnings’, was occupied, the one next to it on the left-202-looked like an answered prayer. The gray paint was fresh and the shingles were new, but the shutters were closed up tight. On the freshly raked lawn was a yellow-and-green sign I’d seen all over town: FOR SALE BY DERRY HOME REAL ESTATE SPECIALISTS. This one invited me to call Specialist Keith Haney and discuss financing. I had no intention of doing that, but I parked my Sunliner in the newly asphalted driveway (someone was going all-out to sell this one) and walked into the backyard, head up, shoulders back, big as Billy-be-damned. I had discovered many things while exploring my new environment, and one of them was that if you acted like you belonged in a certain place, people thought you did.
The backyard was nicely mowed, the leaves raked away to showcase the velvety green. A push lawnmower had been stored under the garage overhang with a swatch of green tarpaulin tucked neatly over the rotary blades. Beside the cellar bulkhead was a doghouse with a sign on it that showed Keith Haney at his don’t-miss-a-trick best: YOUR POOCH BELONGS HERE. Inside was a pile of unused leaf-bags with a garden trowel and a pair of hedge clippers to hold them down. In 2011, the tools would have been locked away; in 1958, someone had taken care to see they were out of the rain and called it good. I was sure the house was locked, but that was okay. I had no interest in breaking and entering.
At the far end of 202 Wyemore’s backyard was a hedge about six feet tall. Not quite as tall as I was, in other words, and although it was luxuriant, a man could force his way through easily enough if he didn’t mind a few scratches. Best of all, when I walked down to the far right corner, which was behind the garage, I was able to look on a diagonal into the backyard of the Dunning house. I saw two bicycles. One was a boy’s Schwinn, leaning on its kickstand. The other, lying on its side like a dead pony, was Ellen Dunning’s. There was no mistaking the training wheels.
There was also a litter of toys. One of them was Harry Dunning’s Daisy air rifle.
If you’ve ever acted in an amateur stage company-or directed student theatricals, which I had several times while at LHS-you’ll know what the days leading up to Halloween were like for me. At first, rehearsals have a lazy feel. There’s improvisation, joking, horseplay, and a good deal of flirting as sexual polarities are established. If someone flubs a line or misses a cue in those early rehearsals, it’s an occasion for laughter. If an actor shows up fifteen minutes late, he or she might get a mild reprimand, but probably nothing more.
Then opening night begins to seem like an actual possibility instead of a foolish dream. Improv falls away. So does the horseplay, and although the jokes remain, the laughter that greets them has a nervous energy that was missing before. Flubbed lines and missed cues begin to seem exasperating rather than amusing. An actor arriving late for rehearsal once the sets are up and opening night is only days away is apt to get a serious reaming from the director.
The big night comes. The actors put on their costumes and makeup. Some are outright terrified; all feel not quite prepared. Soon they will have to face a roomful of people who have come to see them strut their stuff. What seemed distant in the days of bare-stage blocking has come after all. And before the curtain goes up, some Hamlet, Willy Loman, or Blanche DuBois will have to rush into the nearest bathroom and be sick. It never fails.
Trust me on the sickness part. I know.
In the small hours of Halloween morning, I found myself not in Derry but on the ocean. A stormy ocean. I was clinging to the rail of a large vessel-a yacht, I think-that was on the verge of foundering. Rain driven by a howling gale was sheeting into my face. Huge waves, black at their bases and a curdled, foamy green on top, rushed toward me. The yacht rose, twisted, then plummeted down again with a wild corkscrewing motion.
I woke from this dream with my heart pounding and my hands still curled from trying to hold onto the rail my brain had dreamed up. Only it wasn’t just my brain, because the bed was still going up and down. My stomach seemed to have come unmoored from the muscles that were supposed to hold it in place.
