Needful Things - Stephen King [34]
"You can pick up your keys tomorrow!" Henry called after him.
Hugh said nothing. With a mighty effort he had restrained himself from putting one scuffed yellow workboot right through Henry Beaufort's damned old Rock-Ola as he went by. Then, with his head down, he had passed out into darkness.
6
Now the mist had become a proper drizzle, and Hugh guessed The drizzle would develop into a steady, drenching rain by the time he reached home. It was just his luck. He walked steadily onward, not weaving quite so much now (the air had had a sobering effect on him), eyes moving restlessly from side to side. His mind was troubled, and he wished someone would come along and give him some lip. Even a little lip would do tonight. He thought briefly of the rday afternoon, and kid who had stepped in front of his truck yesterday wished sulkily that he had knocked the brat all the way across the street. it wouldn't have been his fault, no way. In his day, kids had looked where they were going. e the Emporium Galorium had He passed the vacant lot wher Castle Rock Hardstood before it burned down, You Sew and Sew, ware and then he was passing Needful Things. He glanced into the display window, looked back up Main Street (only a mile and a half to go, now, and maybe he would beat the rain before it really started to pelt down, after all), and then came to a sudden halt.
His feet had carried him past the new store, and he had to go back. There was a single light on above the window display, casting its soft glow down over the three items arranged there. The light also spilled out onto his face, and it worked a wondrous transformation there. Suddenly Hugh looked like a tired little boy up long past his bedtime, a little boy who has just seen what he wants for Christmas-what he must have for Christmas, because all at once nothing else on God's green earth would do. The central object in the window was flanked by two fluted vases (Nettle Cobb's beloved carnival glass, although Hugh didn't know this and would not have cared if he did).
It was a fox-tail.
Suddenly it was 1955 again, he had 'Just gotten his license, and the Western Maine Schoolboy Championship he was driving to game-Castle Rock vs. Greenspark-in his dad's '53 Ford convertible. It was an unseasonably warm November day, warm enough to pull that old ragtop down and tack the tarp over it (if you were a bunch of hot-blooded kids ready, willing, and able to raise some eter Do on N E E I N G S Cabin whiskey, Perry Como was on the had brought a flask of Log. ting behind the white wheel, and fluttering radio, Hugh Prie,t was sit just like from the radio antenna had been a long, - luxuriant fox-tail,) as now looking at in the window of this store. the one he wanta'l and thinkHe remembered looking up at that fluttering fox is own, he was going to ing that, when he owned a convertible of his have one just like that- sing the flask when it came around to He remembered refu 1 him.
He was driving, and you didn't drink while you were driving, be cause you were responsible for the lives of others. And he remem I remembered one other thing, as well: the certainty that he was living the best hour of the best day of his life. Its clarity and total e memory surprised and hurt him in 1 sensory recall-smoky aroma of burning leaves, November sun twinkling on guardrail reflectors, and now, looking at the fox-tail in the display window of Needful Things, it struck him that it had been the best day of his life, one of the last days before the booze him into had caught him firmly in its rubbery, pliant grip, turning 1 I a weird variation of King Midas: everything he had touched since then, it seemed, had turned to shit.
He suddenly thought: I could change.
This idea had its own arresting clarity.
I could start over.
Were such things possible?
Yes, I think sometimes they are. I could buy that fox-tail and tie it on the antenna of my Buick.
They'd laugh, though. The guys'd laugh.
What guys? Henry Beaufort.;,