Joyland

he said, “welcome to Joyland.” And then, before stepping behind the podium, he actually bowed to us. He took several seconds adjusting the mike, which produced a series of amplified screeks and scronks. He never took his sunken eyes from us as he did it.
    “I see many returning faces, a thing that always makes me happy. For you greenies, I hope this will be the best summer of your lives, the yardstick by which you judge all your future employment. That is no doubt an extravagant wish, but anyone who runs a place like this year in and year out must have a wide streak of extravagance. For certain you’ll never have another job like it.”
    He surveyed us, giving the poor mike’s articulated neck another twist as he did so.
    “In a few moments, Mr. Dean and Mrs. Brenda Rafferty, who is queen of the front office, will give you your team assignments. There will be seven of you to a team, and you will be expected to act as a team and work as a team. Your team’s tasks will be assigned by your team leader and will vary from week to week, sometimes from day to day. If variety is the spice of life, you will find the next three months very spicy, indeed. I hope you will keep one thought foremost in your mind, young ladies and gentlemen. Will you do that?”
    He paused as if expecting us to answer, but nobody made a sound. We only looked at him, a very old man in a black suit and a white shirt open at the collar. When he spoke again, it might have been himself he was talking to, at least to begin with.
    “This is a badly broken world, full of wars and cruelty and senseless tragedy. Every human being who inhabits it is served his or her portion of unhappiness and wakeful nights. Those of you who don’t already know that will come to know it. Given such sad but undeniable facts of the human condition, you have been given a priceless gift this summer: you are here to sell fun. In exchange for the hard-earned dollars of your customers, you will parcel out happiness. Children will go home and dream of what they saw here and what they did here. I hope you will remember that when the work is hard, as it sometimes will be, or when people are rude, as they often will be, or when you feel your best efforts have gone unappreciated. This is a different world, one that has its own customs and its own language, which we simply call the Talk. You’ll begin learning it today. As you learn to talk the Talk, you’ll learn to walk the walk. I’m not going to explain that, because it can’t be explained; it can only be learned.”
    Tom leaned close to me and whispered, “Talk the talk? Walk the walk? Did we just wander into an AA meeting?”
    I hushed him. I had come in expecting to get a list of commandments, mostly thou shalt nots; instead I had gotten a kind of rough poetry, and I was delighted. Bradley Easterbrook surveyed us, then suddenly displayed those horsey teeth in another grin. This one looked big enough to eat the world. Erin Cook was staring at him raptly. So were most of the new summer hires. It was the way students stare at a teacher who offers a new and possibly wonderful way of looking at reality.
    “I hope you’ll enjoy your work here, but when you don’t—when, for instance, it’s your turn to wear the fur—try to remember how privileged you are. In a sad and dark world, we are a little island of happiness. Many of you already have plans for your lives—you hope to become doctors, lawyers, I don’t know, politicians—”
    “OH-GOD-NO!” someone shouted, to general laughter.
    I would have said Easterbrook’s grin could not possibly have widened, but it did. Tom was shaking his head, but he had also given in. “Okay, now I get it,” he whispered in my ear. “This guy is the Jesus of Fun.”
    “You’ll have interesting, fruitful lives, my young friends. You’ll do many good things and have many remarkable experiences. But I hope you’ll always look back on your time in Joyland as something special. We don’t sell furniture. We don’t sell cars. We don’t sell land or houses or retirement funds. We have no political agenda. We sell fun. Never forget that. Thank you for your attention. Now go forth.”
    He stepped away from the podium, gave another bow, and left the stage in that same painful, high-stepping stride. He was gone almost before the applause began. It was one of the best speeches I ever heard, because it was truth rather than horse-shit. I mean, listen: how many rubes can put sold