Joyland

on; other people have died. Talented ones like Clarence Clemons. Smart ones like Steve Jobs. Decent ones like my old friend Tom Kennedy. Mostly you get used to it. You pretty much have to. As W. H. Auden pointed out, the Reaper takes the rolling in money, the screamingly funny, and those who are very well hung. But that isn’t where Auden starts his list. He starts with the innocent young.
    Which brings us to Mike.

    I took a seedy off-campus apartment when I went back to school for the spring semester. One chilly night in late March, as I was cooking a stir-fry for myself and this girl I was just about crazy for, the phone rang. I answered it in my usual jokey way: “Wormwood Arms, Devin Jones, proprietor.”
    “Dev? It’s Annie Ross.”
    “Annie! Wow! Hold on a second, just let me turn down the radio.”
    Jennifer—the girl I was just about crazy for—gave me an inquiring look. I shot her a wink and a smile and picked up the phone. “I’ll be there two days after spring break starts, and you can tell him that’s a promise. I’m going to buy my ticket next wee—”
    “Dev. Stop. Stop.”
    I picked up on the dull sorrow in her voice and all my happiness at hearing from her collapsed into dread. I put my forehead against the wall and closed my eyes. What I really wanted to close was the ear with the phone pressed to it.
    “Mike died last evening, Dev. He . . .” Her voice wavered, then steadied. “He spiked a fever two days ago, and the doctor said we ought to get him into the hospital. Just to be safe, he said. He seemed to be getting better yesterday. Coughing less. Sitting up and watching TV. Talking about some big basketball tournament. Then . . . last night . . .” She stopped. I could hear the rasp of her breath as she tried to get herself under control. I was also trying, but the tears had started. They were warm, almost hot.
    “It was very sudden,” she said. Then, so softly I could barely hear: “My heart is breaking.”
    There was a hand on my shoulder. Jennifer’s. I covered it with my own. I wondered who was in Chicago to put a hand on Annie’s shoulder.
    “Is your father there?”
    “On a crusade. In Phoenix. He’s coming tomorrow.”
    “Your brothers?”
    “George is here now. Phil’s supposed to arrive on the last flight from Miami. George and I are at the . . . place. The place where they . . . I can’t watch it happen. Even though it’s what he wanted.” She was crying hard now. I had no idea what she was talking about.
    “Annie, what can I do? Anything. Anything at all.”
    She told me.

    Let’s end on a sunny day in April of 1974. Let’s end on that short stretch of North Carolina beach that lies between the town of Heaven’s Bay and Joyland, an amusement park that would close its doors two years later; the big parks finally drove it to bankruptcy in spite of all Fred Dean’s and Brenda Rafferty’s efforts to save it. Let’s end with a pretty woman in faded jeans and a young man in a University of New Hampshire sweatshirt. The young man is holding something in one hand. Lying at the end of the boardwalk with his snout on one paw is a Jack Russell terrier who seems to have lost all his former bounce. On the picnic table, where the woman once served fruit smoothies, there’s a ceramic urn. It looks sort of like a vase missing its bouquet. We’re not quite ending where we began, but close enough.
    Close enough.

    “I’m on the outs with my father again,” Annie said, “and this time there’s no grandson to hold us together. When he got back from his damn crusade and found out I’d had Mike cremated, he was furious.” She smiled wanly. “If he hadn’t stayed for that last goddam revival, he might have talked me out of it. Probably would have.”
    “But it’s what Mike wanted.”
    “Strange request for a kid, isn’t it? But yes, he was very clear. And we both know why.”
    Yes. We did. The last good time always comes, and when you see the darkness creeping toward you, you hold on to what was bright and good. You hold on for dear life.
    “Did you even ask your dad . . . ?”
    “To come? Actually I did. It’s what Mike would have wanted. Daddy refused to participate in what he called ‘a pagan ceremony.’ And I’m glad.” She took my hand. “This is for us, Dev. Because we were here when he was happy.”
    I raised her hand to my lips, kissed it, gave it a brief squeeze, then let it go. “He saved my life as much as you did, you know. If he