I know, the boy said. It’s been a bitch for you, hasn’t it? He was wearing faded madras shorts and a yellow t-shirt that said NEVER A DULL MOMENT IN MID-WORLD. He had tied a green bandanna around his forehead to keep his hair out of his eyes. And things are going to get worse before they get better. What is this place? Jake asked. And who are you? It’s the Portal of the Bear . . . but it’s also Brooklyn. That didn’t seem to make sense, and yet somehow it did. Jake told himself that things always seemed that way in dreams, but this didn’t really feel like a dream.
As for me, I don’t matter much, the boy said. He hooked the basket-ball over his shoulder. It rose, then dropped smoothly through the hoop. I’m supposed to guide you, that’s all. I’ll take you where you need to go, and I’ll show you what you need to see, but you have to be careful because I won’t know you. And strangers make Henry nervous. He can get mean when he’s nervous, and he’s bigger than you. Who’s Henry? Jake asked.
Never mind. Just don’t let him notice you. All you have to do is hang out . . . and follow us. Then, when we leave . . . The boy looked at Jake. There was both pity and fear in his eyes. Jake suddenly realized that the boy was starting to fade—lie could see the yellow and black slashes on the box right through the boy’s yellow t-shirt. How will I find you? Jake was suddenly terrified that the boy would melt away completely before he could say everything Jake needed to hear. No problem, the boy said. His voice had taken on a queer, chiming echo. Just take the subway to Co-Op City. You’ll find me. No, I won’t! Jake cried. Co-Op City’s huge! There must be a hundred thousand people living there!
Now the boy was just a milky outline. Only his hazel eyes were still completely there, like the Cheshire cat’s grin in Alice. They regarded Jake with compassion and anxiety. No problem-o, he said. You found the key and the rose, didn’t you? You’ll find me the same way. This afternoon, Jake. Around three o’clock should be good. You’ll have to be careful, and you’ll have to be quick. He paused, a ghostly boy with an old basketball lying near one transparent foot. I have to go now . . . but it was good to meet you. You seem like a nice kid, and I’m riot surprised he loves you. Remember, there’s danger, though. He careful . . . and he quick.
Wait! Jake yelled, and run across the basketball court toward the disappearing boy. One of his feet struck a shattered robot that looked like a child’s toy tractor. He stumbled and fell to his knees, shredding his pants. He ignored the thin burn of pain. Wait! You have to tell me what all this is about! You have to tell me why these things are happening to me! Because of the Beam, the boy who was now only a pair of floating eyes replied, and because of the Tower. In the end, all things, even the Beams, serve the Dark Tower. Did you think you would be any different? Jake flailed and stumbled to his feet. Will I find him? Will I find the gunslinger?
I don’t know, the boy answered. His voice now seemed to come from a million miles away. I only know you must try. About that you have no choice. The boy was gone. The basketball court in the woods was empty. The only sound was that faint rumble of machinery, and Jake didn’t like it. There was something wrong with that sound, and he thought that what was wrong with the machinery was affecting the rose, or vice-versa. It was all hooked together somehow. He picked up the old, scuffed-up basketball and shot. It went neatly through the hoop . . . and disappeared.
A river, the strange boy’s voice sighed. It was like a puff of breeze. It came from nowhere and everywhere. The answer is a river.
JAKE WOKE IN THE first milky light of dawn, looking up at the ceiling of his room. He was thinking of the guy in The Manhattan Restaurant of the Mind—Aaron Deepneau, who’d been hanging around on Bleecker Street back when Bob Dylan only knew how to blow open G on his Hohner. Aaron Deepneau had given Jake a riddle. What can run but never walks,
Has a mouth but never talks,
Has a bed but never sleeps,
Has a head but never weeps?
Now he knew the answer. A river ran; a river had a mouth; a river had a bed; a river had a head. The boy had told him the answer. The boy in the dream. And suddenly he thought of something else Deepneau had said: That’s only half the answer. Samson’s riddle is a double, my friend. Jake glanced at his bedside clock and saw it was twenty past six. It was time to get moving if he wanted to be out of here before his parents woke up. There would be no school for him today; Jake thought that maybe, as far as he was concerned, school had been cancelled forever. He threw back the bedclothes, swung his feet out onto the floor, and saw that there were scrapes on both knees. Fresh scrapes. He had bruised his left side yesterday when he slipped on the bricks and fell, and he had banged his head when he fainted near the rose, but nothing had happened to his knees. “That happened in the dream,” Jake whispered, and found he wasn’t surprised at all. He began to dress swiftly.
IN THE BACK OF his closet, under a jumble of old laceless sneakers and a heap of Spiderman comic books, he found the packsack he had worn to grammar school. No one would be caught dead with a packsack at Piper—how too, too common, my death—and as Jake grabbed it, he felt a wave of powerful nostalgia for those old days when life had seemed so simple.
He stuffed a clean shirt, a clean pair of jeans, some underwear and socks into it, then added Riddle-De-Dum! and Charlie the Choo-Choo. He had put the key on his desk before foraging in the closet for his old pack, and the voices came back at once, but they were distant and muted. Besides, he felt sure he could make them go away completely by holding the key again, and that eased his mind.