Needful Things - Stephen King [35]
Well, how about that Thursday-night A.A. meeting over in Greens Park for a start.@ For a moment the possibility stunned and excited him, the way a long-term prisoner might be stunned and excited by the sight of the key left in the lock of his jail cell by a careless warder. For a moment he could actually see himself doing it, picking up a wite chip, then a red chip, then a blue chip, getting sober day by day and month by month. No more Mellow Tiger. Too bad. But also no more paydays spent in terror that he would find a pink slip in his envelope along with his check, and that was not so too bad.
In that moment, as he stood looking at the fox-tail in the display window of Needful Things, Hugh could see a future. For the first time in years he could see a future, and that beautiful orange foxbrush with its white tip floated through it like a battle-flag.
Then reality crashed back in, and reality smelled like rain and damp, dirty clothes. There would be no fox-tail for him, no A.A. meetings, no chips, no future. He was fifty-one fucking years old, and fifty-one was too old for dreams of the future. At fifty-one you had to keep running just to escape the avalanche of your own past.
If it had been business hours, though, he would have taken a shot at it, anyway. Damned if he wouldn't. He'd walk in there, just as big as billy-be-damned, and ask how much was that fox-tail in the window.
But it was ten o'clock, Main Street was locked up as tight as an ice-queen's chastity belt, and when he woke up tomorrow morning, feeling as if someone had planted an icepick between his eyes, he would have forgotten all about that lovely fox-tail, with its vibrant russet color.
Still, he lingered a moment longer, trailing dirty, callused fingers over the glass like a kid looking into a toyshop window. A little smile had touched the corners of his mouth. It was a gentle smile, and it looked out of place on Hugh Priest's face. Then, somewhere up on Castle View, a car backed off several times, sounds as sharp as shotgun blasts on the rainy air, and Hugh was startled back to himself.
Fuck it. What the hell are you thinking of?
He turned away from the window and pointed his face toward home again-if you wanted to call the two-room shack with the tacked-on woodshed where he lived home. As he passed under the canopy, he looked at the door and stopped again.
The sign there, of course, read
OPEN.
Like a man in a dream, Hugh put his hand out and tried the knob.
It turned freely under his hand. Overhead, a small silver bell tinkled. The sound seemed to come from an impossible distance away.
A man was standing in the middle of the shop. He was running a feather-duster over the top of a display case and humming. He turned toward Hugh when the bell rang. He didn't seem a bit surprised to see someone standing in his doorway at ten minutes past ten on a Wednesday night. The only thing that struck Hugh about the man in that confused moment was his eyes-they were as black as an Indian's.
"You forgot to turn your sign over, buddy," Hugh heard himself say.
"No, indeed," the man replied politely. "I don't sleep very well, I'm afraid, and some nights I take a fancy to open late. One never knows when a fellow such as yourself may stop by and take a fancy to something. Would you like to come in and look around?"
Hugh Priest came in and closed the door behind him.
7
"There's a fox-tail-" Hugh began, then had to stop, clear his throat, and start again. The words had come out in a husky, unintelligible mutter. "There's a fox-tail in the window."
"Yes," the proprietor said. "Beauty, isn't it?" He held the duster in front of him now, and his Indian-black eyes looked at Hugh with interest from above the bouquet of feathers which hid his lower face. Hugh couldn't see the guy's mouth, but he had an idea he was smiling. It usually made him uneasy when people-especially people he didn't know-smiled at him. It made him feel like he wanted