Joyland (4 page)

He dropped me a wink and gave my shoulder a squeeze.

“The conies have to leave happy, or this place dries up and blows away. I’ve seen it happen, and when it does, it happens fast. It’s an amusement park, young Mr. Jones, so pet the conies and give their ears only the gentlest of tugs. In a word,
amuse
them.”

“Okay,” I said . . . although I didn’t know how much customer amusement I’d be providing by polishing the Devil Wagons (Joyland’s version of Dodgem cars) or running a street-sweeper down Hound Dog Way after the gates closed.

“And don’t you dare leave me in the lurch. Be here on the agreed-upon date, and five minutes before the agreed-upon time.”

“Okay.”

“There are two important showbiz rules, kiddo: always know where your wallet is . . . and
show up.”

When I walked out beneath the big arch with WELCOME TO JOYLAND written on it in neon letters (now off) and into the mostly empty parking lot, Lane Hardy was leaning against one of the shuttered ticket booths, smoking the cigarette previously parked behind his ear.

“Can’t smoke on the grounds anymore,” he said. “New rule. Mr. Easterbrook says we’re the first park in America to have it, but we won’t be the last. Get the job?”

“I did.”

“Congratulations. Did Freddy give you the carny spiel?”

“Sort of, yeah.”

“Tell you about petting the conies?”

“Yeah.”

“He can be a pain in the banana, but he’s old-time showbiz, seen it all, most of it twice, and he’s not wrong. I think you’ll do okay. You’ve got a carny look about you, kid.” He waved a hand at the park with its landmarks rising against the blameless blue sky: the Thunderball, the Delirium Shaker, the convoluted twists and turns of Captain Nemo’s water slide, and—of course—the Carolina Spin. “Who knows, this place might be your future.”

“Maybe,” I said, although I already knew what my future was going to be: writing novels and the kind of short stories they publish in
The New Yorker.
I had it all planned out. Of course, I also had marriage to Wendy Keegan all planned out, and how we’d wait until we were in our thirties to have a couple of kids. When you’re twenty-one, life is a roadmap. It’s only when you get to be twenty-five or so that you begin to suspect you’ve been looking at the map upside down, and not until you’re forty are you entirely sure. By the time you’re sixty, take it from me, you’re fucking lost.

“Did Rozzie Gold give you her usual bundle of Fortuna horseshit?”

“Um . . .”

Lane chuckled. “Why do I even ask? Just remember, kid, that ninety percent of everything she says really is horseshit. The other ten . . . let’s just say she’s told folks some stuff that rocked them back on their heels.”

“What about you?” I asked. “Any revelations that rocked
you
back on your heels?”

He grinned. “The day I let Rozzie read my palm is the day I go back on the road, ride-jocking the tornado-and-chittlins circuit. Mrs. Hardy’s boy doesn’t mess with Ouija boards and crystal balls.”

Do you see a beautiful woman with dark hair in my future?
I’d asked.

No. She is in your past.

He was looking at me closely. “What’s up? You swallow a fly?”

“It’s nothing,” I said.

“Come on, son. Did she feed you truth or horseshit? Live or Memorex? Tell your daddy.”

“Definitely horseshit.” I looked at my watch. “I’ve got a bus to catch at five, if I’m going to make the train to Boston at seven. I better get moving.”

“Ah, you got plenty of time. Where you staying this summer?”

“I hadn’t even thought about it.”

“You might want to stop at Mrs. Shoplaw’s on your way to the bus station. Plenty of people in Heavens Bay rent to summer help, but she’s the best. She’s housed a lot of Happy Helpers over the years. Her place is easy to find; it’s where Main Street ends at the beach. Great big rambler painted gray. You’ll see the sign hanging from the porch. Can’t miss it, because it’s made out of shells and some’re always falling off. MRS. SHOPLAW’S BEACHSIDE ACCOMMODATIONS. Tell her I sent you.”

“Okay, I will. Thanks.”

“If you rent there, you can walk down here on the beach if you want to save your gas money for something more important, like stepping out on your day off. That beach walk makes a pretty way to start the morning. Good luck, kid. Look forward to working with you.” He held out his hand. I shook it and thanked him again.

Since he’d put the idea in my head, I decided to take the beach walk back to town. It would save me twenty minutes waiting for a taxi I couldn’t really afford. I had almost reached the wooden stairs going down to the sand when he called after me.

“Hey, Jonesy! Want to know something Rozzie won’t tell you?”

“Sure,” I said.

“We’ve got a spook palace called Horror House. The old Roz-ola won’t go within fifty yards of it. She hates the pop-ups and the torture chamber and the recorded voices, but the real reason is that she’s afraid it really might be haunted.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. And she ain’t the only one. Half a dozen folks who work here claim to have seen her.”

“Are you serious?” But this was just one of the questions you ask when you’re flabbergasted. I could see he was.

“I’d tell you the story, but break-time’s over for me. I’ve got some power-poles to replace on the Devil Wagons, and the safety inspection guys are coming to look at the Thunderball around three. What a pain in the ass those guys are. Ask Shoplaw. When it comes to Joyland, Emmalina Shoplaw knows more than I do. You could say she’s a student of the place. Compared to her, I’m a newbie.”

“This isn’t a joke? A little rubber chicken you toss at all the new hires?”

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

He didn’t, but he did look like he was having a good time. He even dropped me a wink. “What’s a self-respecting amusement park without a ghost? Maybe you’ll see her yourself. The rubes never do, that’s for sure. Now hurry along, kiddo. Nail down a room before you catch the bus back to Wilmington. You’ll thank me later.”

With a name like Emmalina Shoplaw, it was hard not to picture a rosy-cheeked landlady out of a Charles Dickens novel, one who went everywhere at a bosomy bustle and said things like
Lor’ save us.
She’d serve tea and scones while a supporting cast of kind-hearted eccentrics looked on approvingly; she might even pinch my cheek as we sat roasting chestnuts over a crackling fire.

But we rarely get what we imagine in this world, and the gal who answered my ring was tall, fiftyish, flat-chested, and as pale as a frosted windowpane. She carried an old-fashioned beanbag ashtray in one hand and a smoldering cigarette in the other. Her mousy brown hair had been done up in fat coils that covered her ears. They made her look like an aging version of a princess in a Grimm’s fairy tale. I explained why I was there.

“Going to work at Joyland, huh? Well, I guess you better come in. Do you have references?”

“Not apartment references, no—I live in a dorm. But I’ve got a work reference from my boss at the Commons. The Commons is the food-service cafeteria at UNH where I—”

“I know what a Commons is. I was born at night, but it wasn’t last night.” She showed me into the front parlor, a house-long room stuffed with mismatched furniture and dominated by a big table-model TV. She pointed at it. “Color. My renters are welcome to use it—and the parlor—until ten on weeknights and midnight on the weekends. Sometimes I join the kids for a movie or the Saturday afternoon baseball. We have pizza or I make popcorn. It’s jolly.”

Jolly,
I thought.
As in jolly good.
And it sounded jolly good.

“Tell me, Mr. Jones, do you drink and get noisy? I consider that sort of behavior antisocial, although many don’t.”

“No, ma’am.” I drank a little, but rarely got noisy. Usually after a beer or two, I just got sleepy.

“Asking if you use drugs would be pointless, you’d say no whether you do or not, wouldn’t you? But of course that sort of thing always reveals itself in time, and when it does, I invite my renters to find fresh accommos. Not even pot, are we clear on that?”

“Yes.”

She peered at me. “You don’t
look
like a pothead.”

“I’m not.”

“I have space for four boarders, and only one of those places is currently taken. Miss Ackerley. She’s a librarian. All my rents are single rooms, but they’re far nicer than what you’d find at a motel. The one I’m thinking of for you is on the second floor. It has its own bathroom and shower, which those on the third floor do not. There’s an outside staircase, too, which is convenient if you have a lady-friend. I have nothing against lady-friends, being both a lady and quite friendly myself. Do you have a lady-friend, Mr. Jones?”

“Yes, but she’s working in Boston this summer.”

“Well, perhaps you’ll meet someone. You know what the song says—love is all around.”

I only smiled at that. In the spring of ’73, the concept of loving anyone other than Wendy Keegan seemed utterly foreign to me.

“You’ll have a car, I imagine. There are just two parking spaces out back for four tenants, so every summer it’s first come, first served. You’re first come, and I think you’ll do. If I find you don’t, it’s down the road you’ll go. Does that strike you as fair?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Good, because that’s the way it is. I’ll need the usual: first month, last month, damage deposit.” She named a figure that also seemed fair. Nevertheless, it was going to make a shambles of my First New Hampshire Trust account.

“Will you take a check?”

“Will it bounce?”

“No, ma’am, not quite.”

She threw back her head and laughed. “Then I’ll take it, assuming you still want the room once you’ve seen it.” She stubbed out her cigarette and rose. “By the way, no smoking upstairs—it’s a matter of insurance. And no smoking in here, once there are tenants in residence. That’s a matter of common politeness. Do you know that old man Easterbrook is instituting a no-smoking policy at the park?”

“I heard that. He’ll probably lose business.”

“He might at first. Then he might gain some. I’d put my money on Brad. He’s a shrewd guy, carny-from-carny.” I thought to ask her what that meant, exactly, but she had already moved on. “Shall we have a peek at the room?”

A peek at the second floor room was enough to convince me it would be fine. The bed was big, which was good, and the window looked out on the ocean, which was even better. The bathroom was something of a joke, so tiny that when I sat on the commode my feet would be in the shower, but college students with only crumbs in their financial cupboards can’t be too picky. And the view was the clincher. I doubted if the rich folks had a better one from their summer places along Heaven’s Row. I pictured bringing Wendy here, the two of us admiring the view, and then . . . in that big bed with the steady, sleepy beat of the surf outside . . .

“It.” Finally, “it.”

“I want it,” I said, and felt my cheeks heat up. It wasn’t just the room I was talking about.

“I know you do. It’s all over your darn face.” As if she knew what I was thinking, and maybe she did. She grinned—a big wide one that made her almost Dickensian in spite of her flat bosom and pale skin. “Your own little nest. Not the Palace of Versailles, but your own. Not like having a dorm room, is it? Even a single?”

“No,” I admitted. I was thinking I’d have to talk my dad into putting another five hundred bucks into my bank account, to keep me covered until I started getting paychecks. He’d grouse but come through. I just hoped I wouldn’t have to play the Dead Mom card. She had been gone almost four years, but Dad carried half a dozen pictures of her in his wallet, and still wore his wedding ring.

“Your own job and your own place,” she said, sounding a bit dreamy. “That’s good stuff, Devin. Do you mind me calling you Devin?”

“Make it Dev.”

“All right, I will.” She looked around the little room with its sharply sloping roof—it was under an eave—and sighed. “The thrill doesn’t last long, but while it does, it’s a fine thing. That sense of independence. I think you’ll fit in here. You’ve got a carny look about you.”

“You’re the second person to tell me that.” Then I thought of my conversation with Lane Hardy in the parking lot. “Third, actually.”