2004 The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower

to time still—nomads like you three, for the most part—and they talk about him. Usually

they fork the sign of the evil eye and spit between their fingers when they do. You think that was him, huh? You think the Crimson King actually passed by Odd’s Lane on his way to the Tower.” Then, before they had a chance to answer: “Well, why not? Tower Road’s the main throughfare, after all. It goes all the way there.”

You know it was him,Susannah thought.What game are you playing, Joe?

The thin cry that was most definitely not the wind came again. She no longer thought it

was Mordred, though. She thought that maybe it was coming from the cellar where Joe had gone to hide from the Crimson King…or so he’d said. Who was down there now? And was

he hiding, as Joe had done, or was he a prisoner?

“It hasn’t been a bad life,” Joe was saying. “Not the life I expected, not by any manner or means, but I got a theory—the folks who end up living the lives they expected are more

often than not the ones who end up takin sleepin pills or stickin the barrel of a gun in their mouths and pullin the trigger.”

Roland seemed still to be a few turns back, because he said, “You were a court jester and the customers in these inns were your court.”

Joe smiled, showing a lot of white teeth. Susannah frowned. Had she seen his teeth before?

They had been doing a lot of laughing and sheshould have seen them, but she couldn’t remember that she actually had. Certainly he didn’t have the mush-mouth sound of

someone whose teeth are mostly gone (such people had consulted with her father on many occasions, most of them in search of artificial replacements). If she’d had to guess earlier

on, she would have said hehad teeth but they were down to nothing but pegs and nubbins, and—

And what’s the matter with you, girl? He might be lying about a few things, but he surely didn’t grow a fresh set of teeth since you sat down to dinner! You’re letting your

imagination run away with you.

Was she? Well, it was possible. And maybe that thin cry was nothing but the sound of the wind in the eaves at the front of the house, after all.

“I’d hear some of your jokes and stories,” Roland said. “As you told them on the road, if it does ya.”

Susannah looked at him closely, wondering if the gunslinger had some ulterior motive for this request, but he seemed genuinely interested. Even before seeing the Polaroid of the Dark Tower tacked to the living room wall (his eyes returned to it constantly as Joe told his story), Roland had been invested by a kind of hectic good cheer that was really not much like him at all. It was almost as if he were ill, edging in and out of delirium.

Joe Collins seemed surprised by the gunslinger’s request, but not at all displeased. “Good

God,” he said. “I haven’t done any stand-up in what seems like a thousand years…and considering the way time stretched there for awhile, maybe ithas been a thousand. I’m not sure I’d know how to begin.”

Susannah surprised herself by saying, “Try.”

Eight

Joe thought about it and then stood up, brushing a few errant crumbs from his shirt. He limped to the center of the room, leaving his crutch leaning against his chair. Oy looked up at him with his ears cocked and his old grin on his chops, as if anticipating the

entertainment to come. For a moment Joe looked uncertain. Then he took a deep breath, let it out, and gave them a smile. “Promise you won’t throw no tomatoes if I stink up the joint,” he said. “Remember, it’s been a long time.”

“Not after you took us in and fed us,” Susannah said. “Never in life.”

Roland, always literal, said, “We have no tomatoes, in any case.”

“Right, right. Although there are some canned ones in the pantry…forget I said that!”

Susannah smiled. So did Roland.

Encouraged, Joe said: “Okay, let’s go back to that magical place called Jango’s in that magical city some folks call the mistake on the lake. Cleveland, Ohio, in other words.

Second show. The one I never got to finish, and I was on a roll, take my word for it. Give me just a second…”

He closed his eyes. Seemed to gather himself. When he opened them again, he somehow looked ten years younger. It was astounding. And he didn’t justsound American when he began to speak, helooked American. Susannah couldn’t have explained that in words, but

she knew it was true: here was one Joe Collins, Made in U.S.A.

“Hey, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Jango’s, I’m Joe Collins and you’re not.”

Roland chuckled and Susannah smiled, mostly to be polite—that was a pretty old one.

“The management has asked me to remind you that this is two-beers-for-a-buck night. Got it? Good. With them the motive is profit, with me it’s self-interest. Because the more you drink, the funnier I get.”

Susannah’s smile widened. There was a rhythm to comedy, evenshe knew that, although she couldn’t have done even five minutes of stand-up in front of a noisy nightclub crowd,

not if her life had depended on it. There was arhythm, and after an uncertain beginning, Joe

was finding his. His eyes were half-lidded, and she guessed he was seeing the mixed colors of the gels over the stage—so like the colors of the Wizard’s Rainbow, now that she

thought of it—and smelling the smoke of fifty smoldering cigarettes. One hand on the

chrome pole of the mike; the other free to make any gesture it liked. Joe Collins playing

Jango’s on a Friday night—

No, not a Friday. He said all the clubs book rock-and-roll bands on the weekends.

“Ne’mine all that mistake-on-the-lake stuff, Cleveland’s a beautiful city,” Joe said. He was picking up the pace a little now. Starting to rap, Eddie might have said. “My folks are from Cleveland, but when they were seventy they moved to Florida. They didn’t want to, but shitfire, it’s the law. Bing!” Joe rapped his knuckles against his head and crossed his eyes. Roland chuckled again even though he couldn’t have the slightest idea where (or even what) Florida was. Susannah’s smile was wider than ever.

“Florida’s a helluva place,” Joe said.“Helluva place. Home of the newly wed and the

nearly dead. My grandfather retired to Florida, God rest his soul. When I die, I want to go peacefully, in my sleep, like Grampa Fred. Not screaming, like the passengers in his car.”

Roland roared with laughter at that one, and Susannah did, too. Oy’s grin was wider than ever.

“My grandma, she was great, too. She said she learned how to swim when someone took her out on the Cuyahoga River and threw her off the boat. I said, ‘Hey, Nana, they weren’t trying to teach you how to swim.’ ”

Roland snorted, wiped his nose, then snorted again. His cheeks had bloomed with color. Laughter elevated the entire metabolism, put it almost on a fight-or-flight basis; Susannah had read that somewhere. Which meant her own must be rising, because she was laughing, too. It was as if all the horror and sorrow were gushing out of an open wound, gushing out like—

Well, like blood.

She heard a faint alarm-bell start to ring, far back in her mind, and ignored it. What was there to be alarmed about? They werelaughing, for goodness’ sake! Having a good time!

“Can I be serious a minute? No? Well, fuck you and the nag you rode in on—tomorrow when I wake up, I’ll be sober, but you’ll still be ugly.

“And bald.”

(Roland roared.)

“I’m gonna be serious, okay? If you don’t like it, stick it where you keep your change-purse. My Nana was a great lady. Women in general are great, you know it? But

they have their flaws, just like men. If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving a baby’s life, for instance, she’ll save the baby without even considering how

many men are on base. Bing!” He rapped his head with his knuckles and popped his eyes in a way that made them both laugh. Roland tried to put his coffee cup down and spilled it. He was holding his stomach. Hearing him laugh so hard—to surrender to laughter so completely—was funny in itself, and Susannah burst out in a fresh gale.

“Men are one thing, women are another. Put em together and you’ve got a whole new taste

treat. Like Oreos. Like Peanut Butter Cups. Like raisin cake with snot sauce. Show me a man and a woman and I’ll show you the Peculiar Institution—not slavery, marriage. But I repeat myself. Bing!” He rapped his head. Popped his eyes. This time they seemed to come

kasproing halfway out of their sockets

(how does hedothat )

and Susannah had to clutch her stomach, which was beginning to ache with the force of her laughter. And her temples were beginning to pound. It hurt, but it was agood hurt.

“Marriage is having a wife or a husband. Yeah! Check Webster’s! Bigamy is having a wife or husband too many. Of course, that’s also monogamy. Bing!”

If Roland laughed any harder, Susannah thought, he would go sliding right out of his chair and into the puddle of spilled coffee.

“Then there’s divorce, a Latin term meaning ‘to rip a man’s genitals out through the wallet.’

“But I was talking about Cleveland, remember? You know how Cleveland got started? A bunch of people in New York said, ‘Gee I’m starting to enjoy the crime and the poverty, but it’s not quite cold enough. Let’s go west.’ ”

Laughter, Susannah would reflect later, is like a hurricane: once it reaches a certain point, it becomes self-feeding, self-supporting. You laugh not because thejokes are funny but because your owncondition is funny. Joe Collins took them to this point with his next sally.

“Hey, remember in elementary school, you were told that in case of fire you have to line

up quietly with the smallest people in front and the tallest people at the end of the line?

What’s the logic in that? Do tall people burn slower?”

Susannah shrieked with laughter and slapped the side of her face. This produced a sudden

and unexpected burst of pain that drove all the laughter out of her in a moment. The sore beside her mouth had been growing again, but hadn’t bled in two or three days. When she

inadvertently struck it with her flailing hand, she knocked away the blackish-red crust covering it. The sore did not just bleed; itgushed .

For a moment she was unaware of what had just happened. She only knew that slapping the side of her face hurtmuch more than it should have done. Joe also seemed unaware (his eyes were mostly closed again),must have been unaware, because he rapped faster than

ever: “Hey, and what about that seafood restaurant they have at Sea World? I got halfway

through my fishburger and wondered if I was eating a slow learner! Bing! And speaking of fish—”

Oy barked in alarm. Susannah felt sudden wet warmth run down the side of her neck and onto her shoulder.

“Stop, Joe,” Roland said. He sounded out of breath. Weak. With laughter, Susannah supposed. Oh, but the side of her face hurt, and—

Joe opened his eyes, looking annoyed. “What? Jesus Christ, you wanted it and I wasgiving it to ya!”

“Susannah’s hurt herself.” The gunslinger was up and looking at her, laughter lost in concern.

“I’m not hurt, Roland, I just slapped myself upside the head a little harder than I m—” Then she looked at her hand and was dismayed to see it was wearing a red glove.

Nine

Oy barked again. Roland snatched the napkin from beside his overturned cup. One end was brown and soaking with coffee, but the other was dry. He pressed it against the gushing sore and Susannah winced away from his touch at first, her eyes filling with tears.

“Nay, let me stop the bleeding at least,” Roland murmured, and grasped her head, working his fingers gently into the tight cap of her curls. “Hold steady.” And for him she managed

to do it.

Through her watering eyes Susannah thought Joe still looked pissed that she had

interrupted his comedy routine in such drastic (not to mention messy) fashion, and in a way she didn’t blame him. He’d been doing a really good job; she’d gone and spoiled it. Aside

from the pain, which was abating a little now, she was horribly embarrassed, remembering the time she had started her period in gym class and a little trickle of blood had run down her thigh for the whole world to see—that part of it with whom she had third-period PE, at any rate. Some of the girls had begun chantingPlug it UP!, as if it were the funniest thing in the world.

Mixed with this memory was fear concerning the sore itself. What if it was cancer? Before, she’d always been able to thrust this idea away before it was fully articulated in her mind. This time she couldn’t. What if she’d caught her stupid self a cancer on her trek through the

Badlands?

Her stomach knotted, then heaved. She kept her fine dinner in its place, but perhaps only for the time being.

Suddenly she wanted to be alone,needed to be alone. If she was going to vomit, she didn’t want to do it in front of Roland and this stranger. Even if she wasn’t, she wanted some time

to get herself back under control. A gust of wind strong enough to shake the entire cottage roared past like a hot-enj in full flight; the lights flickered and her stomach knotted again at the sea-sick motion of the shadows on the wall.

“I’ve got to go…the bathroom…” she managed to say. For a moment the world wavered, but then it steadied down again. In the fireplace a knot of wood exploded, shooting a flurry of crimson sparks up the chimney.

“You sure?” Joe asked. He was no longer angry (if he had been), but he was looking at her doubtfully.

“Let her go,” Roland said. “She needs to settle herself down, I think.”

Susannah began to give him a grateful smile, but it hurt the sore place and started it bleeding again, too. She didn’t know what else might change in the immediate future

thanks to the dumb, unhealing sore, but shedid know she was done listening to jokes for awhile. She’d need a transfusion if she did much more laughing.

“I’ll be back,” she said. “Don’t you boys go and eat all the rest of that pudding on me.” The very thought of food made her feel ill, but it was something to say.

“On the subject of pudding, I make no promise,” Roland said. Then, as she began to turn away: “If thee feels light-headed in there, call me.”

“I will,” she said. “Thank you, Roland.”

Ten

Although Joe Collins lived alone, his bathroom had a pleasantly feminine feel to it.

Susannah had noticed that the first time she’d used it. The wallpaper was pink, with green

leaves and—what else?—wild roses. The john looked perfectly modern except for the ring, which was wood instead of plastic. Had he carved it himself? She didn’t think it was out of

the question, although probably the robot had brought it from some forgotten store of stuff. Stuttering Carl? Was that what Joe called the robot? No, Bill. Stuttering Bill.

On one side of the john there was a stool, on the other a claw-foot tub with a shower attachment that made her think of Hitchcock’sPsycho (butevery shower made her think of that damned movie since she’d seen it in Times Square). There was also a porcelain

washstand set in a waist-high wooden cabinet—good old plainoak rather than ironwood, she judged. There was a mirror above it. She presumed you swung it out and there were your pills and potions. All the comforts of home.

She removed the napkin with a wince and a little hissing cry. It had stuck in the drying blood, and pulling it away hurt. She was dismayed by the amount of blood on her cheeks,

Frowning, Susannah plucked the sheet of notepaper from the stack of towels. Who had left it here? Joe? She doubted it like hell. She turned the paper over. Here the same hand had written:

In the other room, Joe continued to speak and this time Roland burst out laughing instead

of just chuckling. It sounded to Susannah as if Joe had resumed his monologue. In a way she could understand that—he’d been doing something he loved, something he hadn’t had a chance to do in a good long stretch of years—but part of her didn’t like the idea at all.

That Joe would resume while she was in the bathroom tending to herself, that Roland wouldlet him resume. Would listen and laugh while she was shedding blood. It seemed like a rotten, boys-clubby kind of thing to do. She supposed she had gotten used to better from Eddie.

Why don’t you forget the boys for the time being and concentrate on what’s right in front of you? What does it mean?

One thing seemed obvious: someone had expected her to come in here and find that note. Not Roland, not Joe.Her .What a bad girl, it said.Girl .

But who could have known? Who could have been sure? It wasn’t as if she made a habit of slapping her face (or her chest, or her knee) when she laughed; she couldn’t remember a

single other instance when—

But she could. Once. At a Dean Martin–Jerry Lewis movie.Dopes at Sea, or something like that. She’d been caught up in the same fashion then, laughing simply because the

laughter had reached some point of critical mass and become self-feeding. The whole audience—at the Clark in Times Square, for all she knew—doing the same, rocking and rolling, swinging and swaying, spraying popcorn from mouths that were no longer their own. Mouths that belonged, at least for a few minutes, to Martin and Lewis, those dopes at sea. But it had only happened that once.

Comedy plus tragedy equals make-believe. But there’s no tragedy here, is there?

She didn’t expect an answer to this, but she got one. It came in the cold voice of intuition.

Not yet, there isn’t.

For no reason whatsoever she found herself thinking of Lippy. Grinning, gruesome Lippy. Did thefolken laugh in hell? Susannah was somehow sure they did. They grinned like Lippy the Wonder-Nag when Satan began his

(take my horse…please)

routine, and then they laughed. Helplessly. Hopelessly. For all of eternity, may it please ya not at all.

What in the hell’s wrong with you, woman?

In the other room, Roland laughed again. Oy barked, and that also sounded like laughter.

Odd’s Lane, Odd Lane…think about it.

What was there to think about? One was the name of the street, the other was the same thing, only without the—

“Whoa-back, wait a minute,” she said in a low voice. Little more than a whisper, really, and who did she think would hear her? Joe was talking—pretty much nonstop, it sounded like—and Roland was laughing. So who did she think might be listening? The cellar-dweller, if there really was one?

“Whoa-on a minute, just wait.”

She closed her eyes and once more saw the two street-signs on their pole, signs that were actually a little below the pilgrims, because the newcomers had been standing on a snowbank nine feet high.TOWER ROAD , one of the signs had read—that one pointing to

the plowed road that disappeared over the horizon. The other, the one indicating the short lane with the cottages on it, had saidODD’S LANE , only…

“Only itdidn’t, ” she murmured, clenching the hand that wasn’t holding the note into a fist. “Itdidn’t. ”

She could see it clearly enough in her mind’s eye:ODD’S LANE , with the apostrophe and

theS added, and why would somebody do that? Was the sign-changer maybe a compulsive neatnik who couldn’t stand—

What? Couldn’t stand what?

Beyond the closed bathroom door, Roland roared louder than ever. Something fell over and broke.He’s not used to laughing like that, Susannah thought.You best look out, Roland, or you’ll do yourself damage. Laugh yourself into a hernia, or something.

Think about it,her unknown correspondent had advised, and she was trying. Was there something about the wordsodd andlane that someone didn’t want them to see? If so, that person had no need to worry, because she sure wasn’t seeing it. She wished Eddie was here.

Eddie was the one who was good at the funky stuff: jokes and riddles and…an…

Her breath stopped. An expression of wide-eyed comprehension started to dawn her face, and on the face of her twin in the mirror. She had no pencil and was terrible at the sort of mental rearrangements that she now had to—

Balanced on the stool, Susannah leaned over the waist-high washstand and blew on the mirror, fogging it. She printedODD LANE. Looked at it with growing understanding and

dismay. In the other room, Roland laughed harder than ever and now she recognized what she should have seen thirty valuable seconds ago: that laughter wasn’t merry. It was jagged

and out of control, the laughter of a man struggling for breath. Roland was laughing the way thefolken laughed when comedy turned to tragedy. The wayfolken laughed in hell.

BelowODD LANE she used the tip of her finger to printDANDELO, the anagram Eddie might have seen right away, and surely once he realized the apostrophe-Son the sign had been added to distract them.

In the other room the laughter dropped and changed, becoming a sound that was alarming instead of amusing. Oy was barking crazily, and Roland—

Roland was choking.