Joyland

to.
    “There you are, kiddo, and only five minutes late.” Everyone else called me either Dev or Jonesy, but to Eddie I was just kiddo, and always would be.
    “I’ve got seven-thirty on the nose,” I said, tapping my watch.
    “Then you’re slow. Why don’t you drive from town, like everybody else? You could be here in five minutes.”
    “I like the beach.”
    “I don’t give a tin shit what you like, kiddo, just get here on time. This isn’t like one of your college classes, when you can duck in and out anytime you want to. This is a job, and now that the Head Beagle is gone, you’re gonna work like it’s a job.”
    I could have pointed out that Pop had told me Lane Hardy would be in charge of my schedule after he, Pop, was gone, but kept my lip zipped. No sense making a bad situation worse. As to why Eddie had taken a dislike to me, that was obvious. Eddie was an equal-opportunity disliker. I’d go to Lane if life with Eddie got too hard, but only as a last resort. My father had taught me—mostly by example—that if a man wanted to be in charge of his life, he had to be in charge of his problems.
    “What have you got for me, Mr. Parks?”
    “Plenty. I want you to get a tub of Turtle Wax from the supply shed to start with, and don’t be lingerin down there to shoot the shit with any of your pals, either. Then I want you to go on in Horra and wax all them cars.” Except, of course, he said it caaas. “You know we wax ’em once the season’s over, don’t you?
    “Actually I didn’t.”
    “Jesus Christ, you kids.” He stomped on his cigarette butt, then lifted the apple-box he was sitting on enough to toss it under. As if that would make it gone. “You want to really put some elbow-grease into it, kiddo, or I’ll send you back in to do it again. You got that?”
    “I got it.”
    “Good for you.” He stuck another cigarette in his gob, then fumbled in his pants pocket for his lighter. With the gloves on, it took him awhile. He finally got it, flicked back the lid, then stopped. “What are you looking at?”
    “Nothing,” I said.
    “Then get going. Flip on the house lights so you can see what the fuck you’re doing. You know where the switches are, don’t you?”
    I didn’t, but I’d find them without his help. “Sure.”
    He eyed me sourly. “Ain’t you the smart one.” Smaaat.

    I found a metal box marked LTS on the wall between the Wax Museum and the Barrel and Bridge Room. I opened it and flipped up all the switches with the heel of my hand. Horror House should have lost all of its cheesy/sinister mystique with all the house lights on, but somehow didn’t. There were still shadows in the corners, and I could hear the wind—quite strong that morning—blowing outside the joint’s thin wooden walls and rattling a loose board somewhere. I made a mental note to track it down and fix it.
    I had a wire basket swinging from one hand. It was filled with clean rags and a giant economy-size can of Turtle Wax. I carried it through the Tilted Room—now frozen on a starboard slant—and into the arcade. I looked at the Skee-Ball machines and remembered Erin’s disapproval: Don’t they know that’s a complete butcher’s game? I smiled at the memory, but my heart was beating hard. I knew what I was going to do when I’d finished my chore, you see.
    The cars, twenty in all, were lined up at the loading point. Ahead, the tunnel leading into the bowels of Horror House was lit by a pair of bright white work lights instead of flashing strobes. It looked a lot more prosaic that way.
    I was pretty sure Eddie hadn’t so much as swiped the little cars with a damp rag all summer long, and that meant I had to start by washing them down. Which also meant fetching soap powder from the supply shed and carrying buckets of water from the nearest working tap. By the time I had all twenty cars washed and rinsed off, it was break-time, but I decided to work right through instead of going out to the backyard or down to the boneyard for coffee. I might meet Eddie at either place, and I’d listened to enough of his grouchy bullshit for one morning. I set to work polishing instead, laying the Turtle Wax on thick and then buffing it off, moving from car to car, making them shine in the overhead lights until they looked new again. Not that the next crowd of thrill-seekers would notice as they crowded in for their nine-minute ride. My own gloves were ruined by the time I was finished. I’d have to buy