Страница 1 из 217
SCRIBNER
A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2011 by Stephen King
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Scribner Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First Scribner hardcover edition November 2011
SCRIBNER and design are registered trademarks of The Gale Group, Inc.
used under license by Simon & Schuster, Inc., the publisher of this work.
The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event.
For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.
DESIGNED BY ERICH HOBBING
Manufactured in the United States of America
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Library of Congress Control Number: 2011025874
ISBN 978-1-4516-2728-2 (print)
ISBN 978-1-4516-2730-5 (eBook)
Image credits: pages ix, 7, 351 (left), and 575: Getty; page 97: courtesy of the Lisbon Historical Society (special thanks to Russ Dorr for research); pages 223 and 749: Corbis; page 351 (right): courtesy of Steven Meyers and Bob Rowen.
Lyrics from the song “Honky Tonk Women” are used with permission. Words and Music by MICK JAGGER and KEITH RICHARDS © 1969 (Renewed) ABKCO MUSIC, INC., 85 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10003. All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission of ALFRED MUSIC PUBLISHING CO., INC.
For Zelda
Hey, honey, welcome to the party.
It is virtually not assimilable to our reason that a small lonely man felled a giant in the midst of his limousines, his legions, his throng, and his security. If such a nonentity destroyed the leader of the most powerful nation on earth, then a world of disproportion engulfs us, and we live in a universe that is absurd.
—Norman Mailer
If there is love, smallpox scars are as pretty as dimples.
—Japanese proverb
Dancing is life.
PART 1 - Watershed Moment
WATERSHED MOMENT
CHAPTER 1
1
Harry Du
gym, at his invitation. He really had no one else, and I was happy to do it.
After the benediction (spoken by Father Bandy, who rarely missed an LHS function), I made my way through the milling friends and relatives to where Harry was standing alone in his billowy black gown, holding his diploma in one hand and his rented mortarboard in the other. I took his hat so I could shake his hand. He gri
But a su
“Thanks for coming, Mr. Epping. Thanks so much.”
“It was my pleasure. And you can call me Jake. It’s a little perk I accord to students who are old enough to be my father.”
He looked puzzled for a minute, then laughed. “I guess I am, ain’t I? Sheesh!” I laughed, too.
Lots of people were laughing all around us. And there were tears, of course. What’s hard for me comes easily to a great many people.
“And that A-plus! Sheesh! I never got an A-plus in my whole life! Never expected one, either!”
“You deserved it, Harry. So what’s the first thing you’re going to do as a high school graduate?”
His smile dimmed for a second—this was a prospect he hadn’t considered. “I guess I’ll go back home. I got a little house I rent on Goddard Street, you know.” He raised the diploma, holding it carefully by the fingertips, as if the ink might smear. “I’ll frame this and hang it on the wall. Then I guess I’ll pour myself a glass of wine and sit on the couch and just admire it until bedtime.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I said, “but would you like to have a burger and some fries with me first? We could go down to Al’s.”
I expected a wince at that, but of course I was judging Harry by my colleagues. Not to mention most of the kids we taught; they avoided Al’s like the plague and tended to patronize either the Dairy Queen across from the school or the Hi-Hat out on 196, near where the old Lisbon Drive-In used to be.
“That’d be great, Mr. Epping. Thanks!”
“Jake, remember?”
“Jake, you bet.”
So I took Harry to Al’s, where I was the only faculty regular, and although he actually had a waitress that summer, Al served us himself. As usual, a cigarette (illegal in public eating establishments, but that never stopped Al) smoldered in one corner of his mouth and the eye on that side squinted against the smoke. When he saw the folded-up graduation robe and realized what the occasion was, he insisted on picking up the check (what check there was; the meals at Al’s were always remarkably cheap, which had given rise to rumors about the fate of certain stray animals in the vicinity). He also took a picture of us, which he later hung on what he called the Town Wall of Celebrity. Other “celebrities” represented included the late Albert Dunton, founder of Dunton Jewelry; Earl Higgins, a former LHS principal; John Crafts, founder of John Crafts Auto Sales; and, of course, Father Bandy of St. Cyril’s. (The Father was paired with Pope John XXIII—the latter not local, but revered by Al Templeton, who called himself “a good Catlick.”) The picture Al took that day showed Harry Du
2