Gordon LaChance was no longer the twelve year old boy who had ended the summer searching for a dead kid with his buddies. He was pushing thirty and was making a somewhat decent living writing. He was by no means a best-seller, but he was published and taught at the University of Oregon. He had a wife and three sons. He had met his wife in college, and they had fallen in love fast and hard. Their first son was conceived before they had married. She was a patient and intelligent woman with dark brown hair and pale blue eyes. Although he still found her beautiful and loved her a great deal, the marriage had become somewhat tense lately. Gordon had, for the most part, found that hiding in his study and pecking away at his old typewriter was the best course of action to avoid any further disagreements. This is where he sat now.
A glass of brandy sat at his elbow. He took a swig and swallowed it, grimacing briefly at the taste. He could hear his father through the thin wall between the study and the spare bedroom. He could always hear him. "Hurry, hurry, hurry! Ginny, please come here! Virginia! Hurry, hurry, hurry!" All day long, his father shouted that maddening song. The Alzheimer's had gotten to him, and he was no longer the man Gordon had known, and sometimes hated, as his father. When his mother had finally passed away last year, the responsibility fell on his shoulders. So they had moved him here and he had slowly begun to drive Gordon insane with his chant for his dead wife.
He took another sip of the brandy and this time he didn't grimace. He had had a nightmare last night about Ray Brower's body. It had been the shock of seeing that damned newspaper article. Chris had been murdered and now old memories and long forgotten nightmares were resurfacing. He had spent most of the last two days writing out the story of that long summer weekend. The nostalgia had hit him in the heart like a dagger. He longed for those lost days of childhood so badly that he ached. It wasn't that he didn't love his family; it was only that adulthood didn't allow for those kinds of adventures. That kind of close relationships with your friends. The magic was all gone.
He often drank a little too much, but lately he had been drinking a lot too much. His wife, Meredith was her name, had noticed. She hadn't said anything to him directly, but she had been even colder than usual, and had isolated herself from him. He wished he could have spoken to Chris one last time and asked him how he could stop his marriage from destructing. But he hadn't, and now he never could.
Back over in Castle Rock, Ace had had his own share of problems with women. He hadn't married, but there had been a woman. He hadn't loved her, but he had come close. They lived together for a while and their relationship had turned stormy after the miscarriage of a child. Ace had felt relieved with he was told there would be no son or daughter for him to hold responsibility for. But the woman had been devastated. When Ace did not comfort her, either because he did not care or did not know how, she had simply awoken one morning and left. She took her things and slipped out the door before he even knew she had the thought in her head. He had reacted with anger, and he was still mourning her in this way.
He had slept with a great deal of women since then, but he had felt only the desire to humiliate and degrade them. He showed no compassion for any of them and most of them didn't come back for a second round of Ace Merrill. He didn't mind and felt no need to change his ways. There were plenty of women around, especially young and naïve ones.
Women weren't on the forefront of his mind today though. He was getting ready to head down the Mellow Tiger to meet Eyeball. He pulled on his brown work boots and rolled up the cuffs of his jeans. He lit a cigarette, and then started out on his journey. He wore a white t-shirt, with his blue Shimmy's work shirt over it. He wouldn't be going in to work today, but he was short on clothes and even shorter on clean clothes.
As he rounded the first corner to head to the bar, a familiar girl came up to him. She was much younger than him, maybe only nineteen. She approached him shyly, "Um..John, hi. Well I got that number. The phone number you asked me about? I wrote it down for you..here." She handed him a folded piece of paper. Her name was Elise. She was red-headed, green eyed, young, and stupid. Everything Ace liked in a good fling. And she had legs that wouldn't quit. He was watching them now, remembering how it felt to have them wrapped around his torso as he drunkenly pumped his hips up and down. She felt him looking and giggled nervously.
"What do you say about doing me another favor?" He said smugly.
"Oh, um. Sure, sure I could do that. Anything you want." She didn't understand what he was implying. She was only glad to be receiving attention from him.
They quickly turned and went back the way Ace had come from and into his bedroom. Eyeball could wait on him for a while. Ace knew he'd understand.