Different Seasons - Stephen King [58]
Like a key turning in a lock.
All the magazines said it was bad, what had happened. But all the stories were continued at the back of the book, and when you turned to those pages, the words saying it was bad were surrounded by ads, and these ads sold German knives and belts and helmets as well as Magic Trusses and Guaranteed Hair Restorer. These ads sold German flags emblazoned with swastikas and Nazi Lugers and a game called Panzer Attack as well as correspondence lessons and offers to make you rich selling elevator shoes to short men.
They said it was bad, but it seemed like a lot of people must not mind.
Like falling in love.
Oh yes, he remembered that day very well. He remembered everything about it- a yellowing pin-up calendar for a defunct year on the back wall, the oil-stain on the cement floor, the way the magazines had been tied together with orange twine. He remembered how his headache had gotten a little worse each time he thought of that incredible number, 6,000,000 He remembered thinking: I want to know about everything that happened in those places.
Everything. And I want to know which is more true-the words, or the ads they put beside the words.
He remembered Bugs Anderson as he at last pushed the boxes back under the stairs and thought: She was right. I've found my GREAT INTEREST.
Dussander looked at Todd for a long time. Then he crossed the living room and sat down heavily in a rocking chair. He looked at Todd again, unable to analyze the slightly dreamy, slightly nostalgic expression on the boy's face.
'Yeah. It was the magazines that got me interested, but I figured a lot of what they said was just, you know, bullspit. So I went to the library and found out a lot more stuff. Some of it was even neater. At first the crummy librarian didn't want me to look at any of it because it was in the adult section of the library, but I told her it was for school. If it's for school they have to let you have it. She called my dad, though.' Todd's eyes turned up scornfully. 'Like she thought dad didn't know what I was doing, if you can dig that.'
'He did know?'
'Sure. My dad thinks kids should find out about life as soon as they can-the bad as well as the good. Then they'll be ready for it. He says life is a tiger you have to grab by the tail, and if you don't know the nature of the beast it will eat you up.'
'Mmmmm,' Dussander said.
'My mom thinks the same way.'
'Mmmmm.' Dussander looked dazed, not quite sure where he was.
'Anyhow,' Todd said, 'the library stuff was real good.
They must have had a hundred books with stuff in them about the Nazi concentration camps, just here in the Santa Donate library. A lot of people must like to read about that stuff. There weren't as many pictures as in Foxy's dad's magazines, but the other stuff was real gooshy. Chairs with spikes sticking up through the seats. Pulling out gold teeth with pliers. Poison gas that came out of the showers.' Todd shook his head. 'You guys just went overboard, you know that? You really did.'
'Gooshy,' Dussander said heavily.
'I really did do a research paper, and you know what I got on it? An A Plus. Of course I had to be careful. You have to write that stuff in a certain way. You got to be careful.'
'Do you?' Dussander asked. He took another cigarette with a hand that trembled.
'Oh yeah. All those library books, they read a certain way. Like the guys who wrote them got puking sick over what they were