The Dead Zone

Slightly dazed, Sarah had been forced to the conclusion that Joh

But Joh

After the meal they had watched TV and that had turned to necking and God knew what that might have turned into if a couple of his friends, instructors from the university, hadn't turned up with a faculty position paper on academic freedom. They wanted Joh

She turned away from the window and walked over to the sofa where Joh

“Happy Halloween,” she snorted, and laughed a little.

“What?” Joh

“I said if you don't come pretty quick I'm going with-out you.”

“Be right out.”

“Swell!”

She ran a finger over the Jekyll-and-Hyde mask, kindly Dr. Jekyll the left half, ferocious, subhuman Hyde the right half. Where will we be by Thanksgiving? she wondered. Or by Christmas?

The thought sent a fu

She looked down at the mask again, horrible Hyde growing out of Jekyll's face like a lumpy carcinoma. It had been treated with fluorescent paint so it would glow in the dark.

What's ordinary? Nothing, nobody. Not really. If he was so ordinary, how could he be pla

Joh

If he wants me to go to bed with him tonight, l think I'm going to say okay.

And it was a warm thought, like coming home.

“What are you gri

“Nothing,” she said, tossing the mask back to the sofa.

“No, really. Was it something good?”

“Joh

They paused downstairs in the foyer while he buttoned his denim jacket, and she found her eyes drawn again to the STRIKE! poster with its clenched fist and flaming background.

“There'll be another student strike this year,” he said, following her eyes.

“The war?”

“That's only going to be part of it this time. Vietnam and the fight over ROTC and Kent State have activated more students than ever before. I doubt if there's ever been a time when there were so few grunts taking up space at the university.”

“What do you mean, grunts?”

“Kids just studying to make grades, with no interest in the system except that it provides them with a ten-thousand-dollar a year job when they get out. A grunt is a student who gives a shit about nothing except his sheep skin. That's over. Most of them are awake. There are going to be some big changes.”

“Is that important to you? Even though you're out?”

He drew himself up. “Madam, I am an alumnus. Smith, class of “70. Fill the stems to dear old Maine.”

She smiled. “Come on, let's go. I want a ride on the whip before they shut it down for the night.”

“Very good,” he said, taking her arm. “I just happen to have your car parked around the corner.”

“And eight dollars. The evening fairly glitters before us.

The night was overcast but not rainy, mild for late October. Overhead, a quarter moon was struggling to make it through the cloud cover. Joh

“You know, I think an awful lot of you, Sarah. “His tone was almost offhand, but only almost. Her heart slowed a little and then made speed for a dozen beats or so.

“Really?”

“I guess this Dan guy, he hurt you, didn't he?”

“I don't know what he did to me,” she said truthfully.

The yellow blinker, a block behind them now, made their shadows appear and disappear on the concrete in front of them.

Joh

“No, I know that. But Joh

“Yeah,” he said. “Time. We've got that, I guess. “And that would come back to her, awake and even more strongly in her dreams, in tones of inexpressible bitterness and loss.

They went around the corner and Joh

“No,” she said. “It's a great night for it.”

“It is,” he agreed, and pulled away from the curb. Her -thoughts went back to that ridiculous mask. Half Jekyll with Joh

But by the time they reached the Esty fairgrounds, where the naked bulbs of the midway twinkled in the darkness and the long spokes of the Ferris wheel neon revolved up and down, she had forgotten the mask. She was with her guy, and they were going to have a good time.

They walked up the midway hand in hand, not talking much, and Sarah found herself reliving the county fairs of her youth. She had grown up in South Paris, a paper town in western Maine, and the big fair had been the one in Fryeburg. For Joh

You parked your car in a dirt parking lot and paid your two bucks at the gate, and when you were barely inside the fairgrounds you could smell hot dogs, frying peppers and onions, bacon, cotton candy, sawdust, and sweet, aromatic horseshit. You heard the heavy, chain-driven rumble of the baby roller coaster, the one they called The Wild Mouse. You heard the popping of in the shooting galleries, the ti

“Here!” she said, stopping him. “The whip! The whip!”