Chapter 5 Chapter Three Six Telephones (1985) 3

5 9:20.There was still enough time to talk to Myra, and enough time to comfort her.Ah... what a peaceful night for Myra, if he slipped away quietly, leaving a note on the refrigerator.Walking like that, like a fugitive, is not advisable.But this is even worse.It's like being forced to run away from home, and it's really hard for you to deal with. "Sometimes home is where the heart rests." Eddie thought wildly. "Bobby Frost used to say that home, when you have to go back, they have to take you in. Unfortunately, once you're in home, they don't want to let you out. "

Eddie stood at the foot of the stairs, moved forward a few steps, panting heavily, feeling terrified. He looked at his crying wife and said, "Come downstairs with me, and I will tell you." Eddie put the two big bags full of clothes and medicine in his hand by the door of the vestibule.He suddenly remembered something—it was his mother's ghost.Although his mother has passed away for many years, she talks to his thoughts and reminds him from time to time. "You know you catch a cold when your feet get cold. You're different, Eddie. You're weak, so be careful. That's why you have to wear galoshes when it rains."

Delhi loves the rain. Eddie opened the closet in the front hall, took out the rubber shoes from the hook, and stuffed them into the handbag. "Good boy, Eddie." He seemed to hear his mother's voice. Eddie grabbed the phone and hailed a cab.The dispatcher told him the car would be there in 15 minutes. After hanging up the phone, Eddie grabbed the asthma spray that was sitting next to the expensive Sony DVD player, thinking: I paid $150 for this state-of-the-art stereo just to let Myra play to my heart's content. enjoy the singing of her favorite superstars.Suddenly he felt guilty again.He knew very well that it was unfair to Myra to say so.Even with those old rustling records, even with living in the tiny four-room house in Queens until their hair turned gray, Myra was just as happy.He bought such an expensive stereo, and bought this large house of loose stone on Long Island, just to prove his ability, to silence his mother's tender, terrified, bewildered, unsatisfied voice.They seem to say, "Mom, I earned this. Look at it all. I earned it. For God's sake, can you shut up?"

Eddie pointed the asthma spray down his throat like a man about to pull the trigger on suicide.He took a big breath and felt that his breathing was free and the pressure in his chest disappeared.The ghostly voice suddenly floated in his mind again.He seemed to hear his mother arguing with Coach Blake about whether he could take gym class.I heard the mother say angrily: "He is weak. My son is weak." "That's not the case at all." Eddie came back from that memory.For the first time in many years, this embarrassing experience drilled out of his memory.The time when my mother yelled at Coach Blake in the Derry Elementary School gymnasium while he huddled beside her, panting, while the other kids gathered around a hoop to watch.Mike.Hanlon's phone call reminded him not only of these, but of many other, worse things.Those memories are like bargain hunters crowded at the door of a department store, rushing in together.What can they find at the discount store?His sanity?Maybe.But that's also a discount.

"Nothing happened," Eddie muttered, taking a deep breath.Put your asthma spray in your pocket. "Eddie, please tell me what all this is about?" Her chubby cheeks were tear-stained, and she wrung her hands uneasily, like a pair of pink and naked animals at play. Shortly before proposing to Myra, Eddie took a picture that Myra had given him and placed it next to his mother's.That photo was taken in 1944, two years before his birth.At that time, my mother weighed only 180 pounds, which was still thin.By the time my mother died at age 64, she had weighed 400 pounds, 406 pounds to be exact.She is still a giant, with fat all over her body, and her pale face is always helpless.

He compared, his eyes shifting between his mother and Myra.They were supposed to be sisters, they were so alike.Eddie struggles to keep himself from being mentally incestuous.Looking at these two almost identical photos, he swore he would never let himself do anything stupid.He can bear ridicule and ridicule from others, but does he really want to be a clown in Freud's circus?No, he doesn't want to.He would slowly distance himself from Myra and cut off all contact with her.He will let her down little by little, because she is too beautiful and has no experience with men.When Myra faded from his life, he could go to the tennis lessons he had long wanted, or join the billiards club, or join the health club.

But in the end he married Myra.Everything in the past, past habits are difficult to change.Home is a place where you are chained the moment you enter.Hell, he could have defeated the ghost of his mother.Although it is difficult, he believes that he will be able to do it.It was Myra who made him so dependent.Myra's care condemned him to death, Myra's love bound him firmly, and Myra's tenderness entwined him.Myra, like his mother, knew his personality very well: because Eddie often thought he was not in good health, which made him more fragile; she had to protect him from anything out of the ordinary.

Myra took great care of Eddie.Like her mother, Myra knew Eddie had no choice.Before getting married, he ran away from home three times and returned to his mother three times.Four years after his mother died, he returned to his home in Queens and has never left.This time he came back with Myra.He loves her and he has no choice.Her understanding gaze locked on to him, and he was carried away. Then he thought, home again, back forever. Maybe I'm wrong, Eddie thought.This is not my home, never was.My home is where I'm going tonight.Home is where you go and face everything in the dark.

Eddie shivered helplessly, as if he had gone outside without his rubber shoes and had typhoid. "Eddie, please..." Myra was crying again.Like Eddie's mother, tears are her trump card.That tender weapon numbingly turns kindness and tenderness into fatal cracks in the armor.Myra seldom moved him with tears, but now she was doing it, and she was getting there.No, he swore, swore.Come on, Eddie, you hurt her again.Why don't you pick her up a few times?That might be kinder, faster.Suddenly, perhaps, the thought of a difficult meal reminded him of Henry Powers.For the first time in years he thought of Powers.This made him restless.

Two rays of light shot through the wall.The taxi horn blared.Eddie felt a burst of relief.They spent a full 15 minutes talking about Pacino instead of Derry and Mike.Hanlon. Henry Powers.It was good for Myra, and good for himself.Unless absolutely necessary, he didn't want to spend time thinking about those things. Eddie stood up and said, "I called the car." Myra got up too quickly, stepped on the hem of her skirt, and fell forward.Eddie grabbed her. Myra cried again: "Eddie, you have to tell me!" "I can't. There's no time." "You never hid anything from me, Eddie," she sobbed.

"Not now. Not really. It was an old friend on the phone. He..." "You're going to be sick." Desperate, she followed Eddie into the front hall. "I know you're going to be sick. Let me go with you, Eddie, please. I'll take care of you, okay?" Her voice grew louder and hysterical.Eddie was terrified.She looks more and more like his mother. In the months leading up to her death, his mother had grown old, obese, and neurotic. "I'll beat your back and take your medicine... I, I'll help you... If you don't want me to talk, I won't. Just tell me everything. Eddie, Eddie, please You don't go! Eddie, please! Please!" Eddie strode across the hall to the front door.He lowered his head and walked forward in a daze, like a person walking against a hurricane.He was having trouble breathing again.The bag in my hand weighs like a thousand catties. He felt Myra's plump pink hands grabbing him, groping, seeking, pulling him feebly and desperately, trying to lure him, to hold him, with tears of tender concern. "I can't hold on any longer!" Eddie struggled in despair.He had another asthma attack and felt sicker than ever.He reached out to open the door, but the handle seemed to be getting further and further away from him, melting into the boundless night. "Stay and I'll make you a sour cream coffee cake," Myra begged him. "And popcorn... I'll make you your favorite turkey dinner... If you want it, I'll make it tomorrow morning... I'll make it right now... And the broth... Eddie, I'm so scared You scare me!" Myra grabbed him by the collar and dragged him back.It's like the police catch a suspected fugitive.Eddie pushed forward desperately with the last of his strength.When he was exhausted and had no strength to resist anymore, Myra let go of his hand.He gripped the cold doorknob tightly, opened the door abruptly, and saw a taxi—an envoy from the kingdom of reason was waiting there.The night sky outside the door is clear and the stars are twinkling. He turned to look at Myra, who was crying like hell. "You should understand me. This is not what I want to do. If I had a choice, even the slightest chance, I wouldn't go. Please understand me, Myra. I'm gone and I'll be back." Oh , which is simply a lie. "When? How long?" "A week. Or 10 days. Not later." "A week!" Myra screamed, hands pressed to her chest. "A week! Ten days! Please, Eddie! Don't..." "Stop it, Myra, okay? Don't say anything." Myra really fell silent and stood there with red and swollen eyes from crying.Myra didn't blame him, she was just afraid for him and for her own future.For the first time in years, Eddie realized that he could love her with all his heart.At the moment when he was about to say goodbye to this family forever, it suddenly occurred to him that maybe Myra was more afraid than him; maybe his mother was more afraid than him.Derry came back to his memory like a hissing firework going up into the sky.He remembers sneaking up on a shoe-fitting machine in a shoe store in Derry as a six-year-old.Mother ran forward screaming and barefoot. "Eddie, come down! Come down! That machine can give you cancer! Come down! Eddie!" He lost his balance in shock and fear.But there is another kind of mischievous pleasure in my heart. "I'm going to fall! I want to see what it's like to have a big bump on my head!" But he didn't fall.Mother grabbed him. He burst into tears, but did not fall.His mother kept saying, "Never do that again, never do that again, never again." She took him off the shoe fitting machine, yelled at the shop assistants, and said she was going to sue them.That night, he didn't fall asleep, thinking about what cancer is, how long it takes to die if he has cancer, and how painful it will be before he dies.He also wondered if he would go to hell after death.He knew it was dangerous, and his mother was terrified. "Myra," Eddie said back to reality from the other side of the years, "kiss me." Myra kissed him, hugged him, and held him so tight he couldn't breathe. "Don't be afraid," he whispered to her. "I can't help myself," Myra choked out. "I know." He knew that even if Myra hugged him tighter and strangled his ribs, his asthma wouldn't break out, and his heavy wheezing would go away. "I know, Myra." The taxi driver honked his horn. "Will you call?" Myra asked eagerly. "if possible." "Eddie, can you really not tell me what happened?" If he could, how much would he have to say to reassure Myra? "Myra, I got a call from Mike tonight, and we talked for a while, and it all revolved around two things. Mike said the monster had reappeared, and asked if I could come. Myra, now that I have a fever, do you use No fever medicines are helping. I can't breathe and my asthma sprays are not helping. Because my ailment is not in my throat, not in my lungs, but in my heart. I would come back if I could. But I feel like a The person standing on the mouth of the dilapidated mine. There may be landslides below at any time, but I stand at the mouth of the well and bid farewell to the light." Ah, God!These words might comfort her. "No," Eddie finally refused Myra's request, "I can't tell you what happened." Before Myra could ask, Eddie turned and strode away, faster and faster, almost running into a taxi.Myra was still standing in the doorway as the car turned back onto the street, a tall black silhouette. Eddie leaned on the back seat, trembling all over, recalling the dream just now. Dream?God, if that was just a dream.But that is clearly a clear memory.That faint green light, the rotting leper was in a man named Eddie.Cusbrak's little boy was hot on his heels, through the underground tunnels.In the dream he ran and ran.He was only 11 years old at the time.Suddenly he smelled death.Someone struck a match, and he looked down at a rotting face.The boy's name is Patrick.Hoxett, who disappeared in July 1958. Maggots crawled back and forth on his cheeks, and a foul stench hit his face.He couldn't help turning his head to the side, and saw two textbooks that were swollen with bubbles and covered with green moss.Eddie screamed at the top of his lungs.The leper's big rough hand touched his face and thrust it into his mouth.Eddie woke up suddenly, and found that he was not in the dark sewers of Derry Town, but sitting in the dining car in front of the fast-moving train to Rhode Island.The moon was shining brightly outside. Eddie looked at the sleeping earth under the beautiful moonlight outside the car.Houses in twos and threes, sometimes a block of houses.It's all dark, only a few lights are on.The light looked small and hypocritical under the bright moonlight. "He always thinks the moon is talking to him," Eddie thought suddenly, "Henry Powers. God, he's crazy." Eddie wondered where Henry Powers was now.died?In jail?Or wandering around somewhere in the middle?Killed a certain driver who gave him a ride and robbed him of money? Maybe.In which state is the shelter located?Or enjoy the full moonlight?Talk to the moon and hear responses only he can hear?Eddie thought it was more likely. He couldn't help shivering. "I finally think about my childhood. I think about how I spent the summer vacation in 1958 when I was surrounded by death." He feels that now he can recall every scene of that summer.But he doesn't want to remember. "God, if only I could just forget about all that." With his head propped against the dirty car window, his asthma spray held limply in one hand as if holding a religious token, he stared blankly into the night as he drove by. "Go north," he thought. "No, not to the north. Because I'm not on a train, but a time train. Not to go north, but to go back in time. " He seemed to hear the moon complaining in a low voice. Eddie.Cusbrak gripped his asthma spray tightly, feeling dizzy and closing his eyes. 6 Beverly Marsh. Tom was almost asleep when the phone rang.He struggled and turned over, trying to grab the receiver, but he touched Beverly's chest, and she also got up to answer the phone. Tom's head sank back on the pillow, wondering vaguely who it was that called in the middle of the night.He heard Beverly say "Hello," and fell asleep again.While watching a baseball game, he drank 18 cans of beer and passed out. Suddenly Beverly's sharp and strange "What?" hit his ear like an ice pot, and he opened his eyes suddenly.He tried to sit up, but the phone cord was right on his neck. "Take the damn thing off, Beverly," he called.Beverly stood up quickly, and walked around to the other side of the bed with the telephone wire.Her dark red hair fell to her waist in waves.bitch hair.Her eyes never rolled in Tom's direction, which displeased Tom.He sat up.My head hurts.Damn, it may be hurting all the time, but as long as I'm asleep, I can't feel anything. He went into the bathroom and took a pee—what felt like three hours.He decided to have another can of beer and fight fire with fire. Tom wore a pair of baggy boxer shorts and had a strong body.When passing by the bedroom, he turned around and yelled: "If it's Leslie's gay, tell her to find something to lighten the fire, and don't bother us at night." Beverly just glanced at him, shook her head to show that it wasn't Leslie, and dropped her head again.Tom felt the muscles in the back of his neck tense--damn she was ignoring him!my own wife.Fuck me!Maybe Beverly needs to be re-educated.Sometimes it has to be like this.She is always a slow learner. Tom went downstairs and walked across the living room to the kitchen, carelessly pulling his panties up his ass.He opened the refrigerator and reached into it.What he touched was not beer but a plate of leftover noodles.All the beer was gone, not even the emergency can he stashed in the back.The baseball game was decided after 14 innings, and the White Sox lost again.This year, nothing fucking came of it. His eyes flicked to the empty wine jugs on the cupboard—he seemed to be swigging a refreshing beer on ice.He turned and walked back to the stairs, knowing that this time Beverly was in big trouble again.He glanced at the old clock by the stairs—it was past midnight.It didn't make his temper any better, because his temper was also the face of a monkey when he was in a good mood--it changed when he said it. He climbed the stairs deliberately slowly, his heart beating violently.Plop, plop, plop, plop.He felt his heart beating not only in his chest but in his ears and wrists, and it hurt him.He didn't want that at all.What he needs is sleep.But that bitch is still on the phone. "I get it, Mike...yes...yes...I know...but..." Another long pause. "Bill Dunbar?" she called out.The sound hammered deep into his ears again like an ice pick. He stood outside the bedroom until his heartbeat returned to normal.Plop, plop.He's a man, a real fucking good man.He is tall.He is iron.If she wanted to go over it again, he was more than happy to teach. He wants to act.But he stopped again.Just stand there and listen to her.He didn't really care who she was talking to, or what she said, he just listened to her tone of voice—up, down; up, down.A familiar anger began to burn in his chest.