Joyland

blue Alice band.

    We headed back to the van. Milo, once more on best behavior, padded along beside Mike’s wheelchair.
    “I’ll be back as soon as I get them home,” I told Fred. “Put in some extra hours.”
    He shook his head. “You’re eighty-six for today. Get to bed early, and be here tomorrow at six. Pack a couple of extra sandwiches, because we’ll all be working late. Turns out that storm’s moving a little faster than the weather forecasters expected.”
    Annie looked alarmed. “Should I pack some stuff and take Mike to town, do you think? I’d hate to when he’s so tired, but—”
    “Check the radio this evening,” Fred advised. “If NOAA issues a coastal evacuation order, you’ll hear it in plenty of time, but I don’t think that’ll happen. This is just going to be your basic cap of wind. I’m a little worried about the high rides, that’s all—the Thunderball, the Shaker, and the Spin.”
    “They’ll be okay,” Lane said. “They stood up to Agnes last year, and that was a bona fide hurricane.”
    “Does this storm have a name?” Mike asked.
    “They’re calling it Gilda,” Lane said. “But it’s no hurricane, just a little old subtropical depression.”
    Fred said, “Winds are supposed to start picking up around midnight, and the heavy rain’ll start an hour or two later. Lane’s probably right about the big rides, but it’s still going to be a busy day. Have you got a slicker, Dev?”
    “Sure.”
    “You’ll want to wear it.”

The weather forecast we heard on WKLM as we left the park eased Annie’s mind. The winds generated by Gilda weren’t expected to top thirty miles an hour, with occasionally higher gusts. There might be some beach erosion and minor flooding inland, but that was about it. The dj called it “great kite-flying weather,” which made us all laugh. We had a history now, and that was nice.
    Mike was almost asleep by the time we arrived back at the big Victorian on Beach Row. I lifted him into his wheelchair. It wasn’t much of a chore; I’d put on muscle in the last four months, and with those horrible braces off, he couldn’t have weighed seventy pounds. Milo once more paced the chair as I rolled it up the ramp and into the house.
    Mike needed the toilet, but when his mother tried to take over the wheelchair handles, Mike asked if I’d do it, instead. I rolled him into the bathroom, helped him to stand, and eased down his elastic-waisted pants while he held onto the grab bars.
    “I hate it when she has to help me. I feel like a baby.”
    Maybe, but he pissed with a healthy kid’s vigor. Then, as he leaned forward to push the flush handle, he staggered and almost took a header into the toilet bowl. I had to catch him.
    “Thanks, Dev. I already washed my hair once today.” That made me laugh, and Mike grinned. “I wish we were going to have a hurricane. That’d be boss.”
    “You might not think so if it happened.” I was remembering Hurricane Doria, two years before. It hit New Hampshire and Maine packing ninety-mile-an-hour winds, knocking down trees all over Portsmouth, Kittery, Sanford, and the Berwieks. One big old pine just missed our house, our basement flooded, and the power had been out for four days.
    “I wouldn’t want stuff to fall down at the park, I guess. That’s just about the best place in the world. That I’ve ever been, anyway.”
    “Good. Hold on, kid, let me get your pants back up. Can’t have you mooning your mother.”
    That made him laugh again, only the laughter turned to coughing. Annie took over when we came out, rolling him down the hall to the bedroom. “Don’t you sneak out on me, Devin,” she called back over her shoulder.
    Since I had the afternoon off, I had no intention of sneaking out on her if she wanted me to stay awhile. I strolled around the parlor, looking at things that were probably expensive but not terribly interesting—not to a young man of twenty-one, anyway. A huge picture window, almost wall-to-wall, saved what would otherwise have been a gloomy room, flooding it with light. The window looked out on the back patio, the boardwalk, and the ocean. I could see the first clouds feathering in from the southeast, but the sky overhead was still bright blue. I remember thinking that I’d made it to the big house after all, although I’d probably never have a chance to count all the bathrooms. I remember thinking about the Alice band, and wondering if Lane would see it when he put the