Characters in Joyland

Mike and Annie Ross had a lot to do with that. * * * My dad and I ended up eating his famous chicken casserole with no third party in attendance, which was probably all right with Timothy Jones; although he tried to hide it out of respect for me, …

… His father worked the carny circuit back in the Dust Bowl days, and his grandfather worked it back when they had a fake Indian show featuring Big Chief Yowlatcha.

“The one in the pirate outfit was Billy Ruggerio.” Her color was high, her hair was mussed from the blowers, and I thought she had never looked so pretty. “But the Screaming Skull really got me, and the Torture Chamber...my God!” “Pretty gross,” I agreed.

“Of course.” I fingered my day pass. “Who’s the dog?” His smile became a grin. “That’s Howie the Happy Hound, Joyland’s mascot. Bradley Easterbrook built Joyland, and the original Howie was his dog. Long dead now, but you’ll still see a lot of him, if you work here this summer.”

* * * The next day, at quarter past three, we were in line at Horror House. A kid named Brady Waterman was agenting the shy. I remember him because he was also good at playing Howie.

I had to ask Brenda Rafferty, the head accountant who was also a kind of den mother to the Hollywood Girls, who they were. Bren thought I was dense; I thought she was old; we were both probably right.

“Can’t say I do.” Although I did know she was on the outs with him, and big-time. “Buddy Ross? As in The Buddy Ross Hour of Power? Ring any bells?” It did, vaguely. I thought I might have heard some preacher named Ross on the radio in the costume shop.

The tail curled around my leg like a python. “You’re going to the Wiggle-Waggle, and I mean chop-fucking-chop. Butch Hadley was supposed to take care of that from Team Corgi—or so I thought—but he says his whole team’s out with a key to the midway.”

Out on Joyland Avenue again, we spotted Cam Jorgensen from Team Foxhound selling lemonade. “Who wants one?” Erin asked. She was still bubbling over. “I’m buying!” “Sure,” I said. “Tom?” He shrugged his assent. Erin gave him a quizzical look, then ran to get the drinks.

She handed me another Xeroxed newspaper clipping. “Here’s number two. Claudine Sharp, from Rocky Mount, right here in NC. White, twenty-three years old. Found dead in a local theater. August second, 1963. The movie being shown was Lawrence of Arabia, which happens to be very long and very loud.

I did, but then I thought you might want them. And you might want the picture. Maybe she’s someone you’d want Fred Dean to call?” “Corinne?” He snorted. “She’s been dead for twenty years. Pour me some water, kiddo. I’m as dry as ten-year dogshit.”

The wheel was shaking on its tree-thick axle. The Gray girl’s killer—and DeeDee Mowbray’s, and Claudine Sharp’s, and Darlene Stamnacher’s—walked to my car and tapped on the window with the barrel of a pistol. With his other hand he made a beckoning gesture. I opened the door and got out.

“The Wellman carny was in Waycross when the first girl disappeared?” “Her name was DeeDee Mowbray, and no—it had moved on by then. But it was there when DeeDee told her girlfriend that she had a new boyfriend. Now look at this. It’s from the Rocky Mount Telegram.

It was Devin Jones’s lost year. I was a twenty-one-year-old virgin with literary aspirations. I possessed three pairs of bluejeans, four pairs of Jockey shorts, a clunker Ford (with a good radio), occasional suicidal ideations, and a broken heart. Sweet, huh?

At least you’ll be working instead of hitchhiking around Europe, like Dewey Michaud’s girl. Fourteen months in youth hostels! Fourteen and counting! Ye gods! She’s apt to come back with ringworm and a bun in the oven.” “Well,” I said, “I think I can avoid both of those.

Pop had other plans for me. “Go by the costume shop—it’s the trailer between Park Services and the carpentry shop. Tell Dottie Lassen I sent you. Damn woman’s busting her girdle.” “Want me to help you reload first?”

Eddie Parks, proprietor of Horror House and boss of Team Doberman, walked over to us. He was wearing rawhide gloves and a dogtop so old it was faded to no color at all (although it turned blood red each time the lights pulsed). He gave us a dismissive sniff.

Ask Shoplaw. When it comes to Joyland, Emmalina Shoplaw knows more than I do. You could say she’s a student of the place. Compared to her, I’m a newbie.” “This isn’t a joke? A little rubber chicken you toss at all the new hires?” “Do I look like I’m joking?”

Mrs. Shoplaw had rented the accommodations on the third floor to a willowy redheaded art major named Erin Cook and a stocky undergrad from Rutgers named Tom Kennedy. Erin, who had taken photography courses both in high school and at Bard, had been hired as a Hollywood Girl.

For today, stop at Ernie’s joint—the fried chicken place with the big plastic rooster on top. Show him your Joyland ID card and he’ll give you the company discount.” I did end up eating fried chicken at Ernie’s, but not until two that afternoon. Pop had other plans for me.

Victim number three—according to the News and Courier story—was a girl from Santee, South Carolina. Now we’re up to 1965. Eva Longbottom, age nineteen. Black. Disappeared on July fourth. Her body was found nine days later by a couple of fishermen, lying on the north bank of the Santee River.

* * * I took a train called the Southerner from Boston to North Carolina (not much of an adventure, but cheap), and a bus from Wilmington to Heaven’s Bay. My interview was with Fred Dean, who was—among many other functions—Joyland’s employment officer.

Our team leader was a peppy little guy named Gary Allen, a seventy-something who ran the Annie Oakley Shootin’ Gallery. Only none of us called it that after the first day. In the Talk, a shooting gallery was a bang-shy and Gary was the bang-shy agent.

“George is here now. Phil’s supposed to arrive on the last flight from Miami. George and I are at the...place. The place where they...I can’t watch it happen. Even though it’s what he wanted.” She was crying hard now.

Tom opened his mouth, probably to make a smart comeback, then wisely closed it again. George Preston, another member of Team Beagle, spoke up. “Are you carny-from-carny?” “Nope. My daddy was a cattle rancher in Oregon; now my brothers run the spread.

It flew nearly four feet. And no, I didn’t break any of her ribs. Kids are flexible, God bless ’em. I wasn’t aware that I and Hallie Stansfield—that was her name—were hemmed in by a growing circle of adults.

… Bradley Easterbrook built Joyland, and the original Howie was his dog. Long dead now, but you’ll still see a lot of him, if you work here this summer.

I have housekeeping help—a very nice woman from Heaven’s Bay—and of course there’s Janice, but it’s not the same.” She took a deep breath. “Here’s the other part. I was rude to you on several occasions, and with no cause. I’m sorry.” “Mrs....Miss...” Shit.

Two or three days before she was killed, she told her good friend Jasmine Withers that she had a new boyfriend, older and very handsome. She was found beside a trail on the edge of the Okefenokee Swamp on August 31st, 1961, nine days after she disappeared.

“Dev? It’s Annie Ross.” “Annie! Wow! Hold on a second, just let me turn down the radio.” Jennifer—the girl I was just about crazy for—gave me an inquiring look. I shot her a wink and a smile and picked up the phone.

I remember that Johnny Otis and Big Joe Turner did a show there together.

I remember that Johnny Otis and Big Joe Turner did a show there together.

“I think so.” He stuck out his hand. “I’m Lane Hardy. Welcome aboard, kid.” I shook with him. “Devin Jones.” “Pleased to meet you.” He started up the inclined walk leading to the gently turning ride, grabbed a long lever that looked like a stick shift, and edged it back.

“You might be kind of starting in the middle,” I said. Mrs. Shoplaw laughed. “Yeah, I suppose I am. The name of your supposed ghost is Linda Gray, and she was from Florence. That’s over South Carolina way.

Color bloomed in her cheeks. “Michael Everett Ross!” “Sorry,” he said. He didn’t look sorry. His eyes were sparkling. “Don’t apologize to me, apologize to Mr. Jones.” “Accepted, accepted.” “Will you keep an eye on him, Mr. Jones? I won’t be long.” “I will if you’ll call me Devin.”

I think even Milo, the Jack Russell, came to recognize me as part of the landscape. Only Mom held herself apart. Often when I passed, she never even looked up from whatever book she was reading. When she did she didn’t wave, and she certainly never flashed the peace sign.

I got along well enough with Wendy’s dad, but Nadine Keegan was never one of my biggest fans. Finally—I was in Boston by then—I got Wendy. She sounded sleepy, although it was only eleven o’clock, which is the shank of the evening to most college students on spring break.

I am not at all crazy about Scrabble, having suffered many humiliations at the hands of my aunts Tansy and Naomi, who each have a huge mental vocabulary of what I still think of as “Scrabble shit-words”—stuff like suq, tranq, and bhoot (an Indian ghost, should you wonder).

“Your brothers?” “George is here now. Phil’s supposed to arrive on the last flight from Miami. George and I are at the...place. The place where they...I can’t watch it happen. Even though it’s what he wanted.” She was crying hard now. I had no idea what she was talking about.

“I thought I saw something in one of the photos, but I wasn’t sure, so I took the print and the negative to a grad student named Phil Hendron. He’s a darkroom genius, practically lives in the Bard Photography Department. You know those clunky Speed Graphics we carried?” “Sure.”

… For dessert we had s’mores that Erin cooked over the fire, using a grill she borrowed from Pirate Pete’s Ice Cream Waffle joint. It worked pretty well. We could see other fires—great leaping bonfires as well as cooking fires—all the way down …

What those things were. And if it was really Renee St. Clair she was with. We could argue about what constitutes the creepiest line in pop music, but for me it’s early Beatles—John Lennon, actually—singing I’d rather see you dead, little girl, than to be with another man.

“When a guy does that, I notify em that they’re foulin the line. The points? Never.” Ronnie Houston, a bespectacled, anxious-looking young man wearing a Florida State University cap, said: “I don’t see any foul line, Mr. Allen.” Gary looked at him, hands fisted on nonexistent hips.

“That’s very interesting, Mrs... um...” “Rosalind Gold,” she said, holding out her hand. “But you can call me Rozzie. Everyone does. But during the season...” She fell into character, which meant she sounded like Bela Lugosi with breasts. “Doorink the season, I am... Fortuna!” I shook with her.

I am not at all crazy about Scrabble, having suffered many humiliations at the hands of my aunts Tansy and Naomi, who each have a huge mental vocabulary of what I still think of as “Scrabble shit-words”—stuff like suq, tranq, and bhoot (an Indian ghost, should you wonder).

Possibly because Wendy was a veteran mix-n-matcher. “You, Thomas Patrick Kennedy, are just afraid we will see her, and you’ll have to take back all those things you said about Madame Fortuna and ghosts and UFOs and—” Tom raised his hands. “I give up.

* * * My dad and I ended up eating his famous chicken casserole with no third party in attendance, which was probably all right with Timothy Jones; although he tried to hide it out of respect for me, I knew his feelings about Wendy were about the same as …

I shared the second floor with Tina Ackerley, the librarian. Mrs. Shoplaw had rented the accommodations on the third floor to a willowy redheaded art major named Erin Cook and a stocky undergrad from Rutgers named Tom Kennedy.

Fat Wally Schmidt, who ran the guess-your-weight shy, happened to be taking a break in the boneyard at the time. He saw me parked askew and slumped over the cart’s steering bar.

Sweet, huh? * * * The heartbreaker was Wendy Keegan, and she didn’t deserve me. It’s taken me most of my life to come to that conclusion, but you know the old saw; better late than never. She was from Portsmouth, New Hampshire; I was from South Berwick, Maine.