CHAPTER 23

“He said he wanted me to drive,” Wyzer told them as he carefully turned his car around at the entrance to the gravel-pit.

“Where to?” Lois asked. She was sitting in the back with Dorrance. Ralph was in the front seat with Joe Wyzer, who looked as if he weren’t quite sure where or even who he was. Ralph had slid up-just the tiniest bit-as he shook hands with the pharmacist, wanting to get a look at Wyzer’s aura. Both it and his balloon-string were there, and both looked perfectly healthy… but the bright yellow-orange looked slightly muted to him. Ralph had an idea that was very likely Old Doris influence.

“Good question,” Wyzer said. He voiced a small, confused laugh.

“I don’t have the slightest idea, really. This has been the weirdest day of my entire life. Absolutely no doubt about it.”

The woods road ended in a T-junction with a stretch of two-lane blacktop. Wyzer stopped, looked for traffic, then turned left. They passed a sign reading TO i-95 almost right away, and Ralph guessed that Wyzer would turn north as soon as they reached the turnpike.

He knew where they were now-just about two miles south of Route 33. From here they could be back in Derry in less than half an hour, and Ralph had no doubt that was just where they were going.

He abruptly began to laugh. “Well, here we are,” he said. ’Just three happy folks out for a midday drive. Make that four. Welcome to the wonderful world of hyper-reality, Joe.”

Joe gave him a sharp look, then relaxed into a grin. “Is that what this is?” And before either Ralph or Lois could reply: “Yeah, I suppose it is.”

“Did you read that poem?” Dorrance asked from behind Ralph.

“The one that starts ’Each thing I do I rush through so I can do something else’?”

Ralph turned and saw that Dorrance was still smiling his wide, placid smile. “Yes, I did. Dor-”

“Isn’t it a crackerjack? It’s so good. Stephen Dobyns reminds me of Hart Crane without the pretensions.

Or maybe I mean Stephen Crane, but I don’t think so. Of course he doesn’t have the music of Dylan Thomas, but is that so bad? Probably not. Modern poetry is not about music. It’s about nerve-who has it and who doesn’t.”

“Oh boy,” Lois said. She rolled her eyes.

“He could probably tell us everything we need to know if we went up a few levels,” Ralph said, “but you don’t want that, do you, Dor?

Because time goes faster when you’re high.”

“Bingo,” Dorrance replied. The blue signs marking the north and south entrances to the turnpike glimmered up ahead. “You’ll have to go up later, I imagine, you and Lois both, and so it’s very important to save as much time as you can now. Save… time.” He made a queerly evocative gesture, drawing a gnarled thumb and forefinger down in the air, bringing them together as he did, as if to indicate some narrowing passage.

Joe Wyzer put on his blinker, turned left, and headed down the northbound ramp to Derry.

“How did you get involved in this, Joe?” Ralph asked him. “Of all the people on the west side, why did Dorrance draft you as chauffeur?”

Wyzer shook his head, and when the car reached the turnpike it drifted immediately over into the passing lane. Ralph reached out quickly and made a midcourse correction, reminding himself that Joe probably hadn’t been getting much sleep himself just lately. He was very happy to see the highway was mostly deserted, at least this far out of town. It would save some anxiety, and God knew he would take whatever he could get in that department today.

“We are all bound together by the Purpose,” Dorrance said abruptly. “That’s ka-tet, which means one made of many. The way that many rhymes make up a single poem. You see?”

“No.” Ralph, Lois, and Joe said it at the same time, in perfect, unrehearsed chorus, and then laughed nervously together. The Three Insomniacs of the Apocalypse, Ralph thought. Jesus save us.

“That’s okay,” Old Dor said, smiling his wide smile. ’Just take my word for it. You and Lois… Helen and her little daughter…

Bill… Faye Chapin… Trigger Vachon… me! All part of the Purpose.”

“That’s fine, Dor, ’ Lois said, “but where’s the Purpose taking us now? And what are we supposed to do when we get there?”

Dorrance leaned forward and whispered in Joe Wyzer’s ear, guarding his lips with one puffy, age-spotted hand. Then he sat back again, looking deeply satisfied with himself.

“He says we’re going to the Civic Center,” Joe said.

“The Civic Center!” Lois exclaimed, sounding alarmed. “No, that can’t be right! Those two little men said-”

“Never mind them right now, Dorrance said. ’Just remember what it’s about-nerve. Who has it, and who doesn’t.”

Silence in Joe Wyzer’s Ford for almost the space of a minute.

Dorrance opened his book of Robert Creeley poems and began to read one, tracing his way from line to line with the yellowed nail of one ancient finger. Ralph found himself remembering a game they had sometimes played as kids-not a very nice one. Snipe Hunt, it had been called.

You got kids who were a little younger and a lot more gullible than you were, fed them a cock-and-bun story about the mythical snipe, then gave them towsacks and sent them out to spend a strenuous afternoon wandering around in the damps and the willywags, looking for nonexistent birds. This game was also called Wild-Goose Chase, and he suddenly had the inescapable feeling that Clotho and Lachesis had been playing it with him and Lois up on the hospital roof.

He turned around in his seat and looked directly at Old Dor.

Dorrance folded over the top corner of the page he was reading, closed his book, and looked back at Ralph with polite interest.

“They told us we weren’t to go near either Ed Deepneau or Doc #3,” Ralph said. He spoke slowly and with great clarity. “They told us very specifically that we weren’t even to think of doing that, because the situation had invested both of them with great power and we were apt to get swatted like flies. In fact, I think Lachesis said that if we tried getting near either Ed or Atropos, we might end up having a visit from one of the upper-level honchos… someone Ed calls the Crimson King. Not a very nice fellow, either, by all reports.” Id us on the “Yes,” Lois said in a faint voice. “That’s what they to hospital roof. They said we had to convince the women in charge to cancel Susan Day’s appearance. That’s why we went out to High Ridge.”

“And did you succeed in convincing them?” Wyzer asked.

“No. Ed’s crazy friends came before we could get there, set the place on fire, and killed at least two of the women. Shot them. One was the woman we really wanted to talk to.”

“Gretchen Tillbury,” Ralph said.

“Yes,” Lois agreed. “But surely we don’t need to do any more-I can’t believe they’ll go ahead with the rally now. I mean, how could they? My God, at least four people are dead! Probably more! They’ll have to cancel her speech or at least postpone it. Isn’t that so?”

Neither Dorrance nor Joe replied. Ralph didn’t reply, either-he was thinking of Helen’s red-rimmed, furious eyes. How can you even ask? she’d said. If they stop us now, they win.

If they stop us now, they win.

Was there any legal way the police could stop them? Probably not.

The City Council, then? Maybe. Maybe they could hold a special meeting and revoke WomanCare’s rally permit. But would they? If there were two thousand angry, grief-stricken women marching around the Municipal Building and yelling If they stop us now they win in unison, would the Council revoke the permit?

Ralph began to feel a deep sinking sensation in his gut.

Helen clearly considered tonight’s rally more important than ever, and she wouldn’t be the only one. It was no longer just about choice and who had the right to decide what a woman did with her own body; now it was about causes important enough to die for and honoring the friends who had done just that. Now they were talking not just about politics but about a kind of secular requiem mass for the dead.