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file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20Stephen%20King%20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htm“You don’t do so good even against old men, sonny!” Goldman cried with cracked excitement. Hekicked out at Louis again, missing the kidney this time, getting Louis on the high part of the left buttockwith one black old man’s shoe. Louis grunted in pain, and this time he did go down on the carpet. Hischin hit with an audible crack. He bit his tongue.“There!” Goldman cried. “There’s the kick in the ass I shouldhave given you the first time you came sucking around, you bastard. There!” He kicked Louis in the assagain, this time connecting with the other buttock. He was weeping and grinning. Louis saw for the firsttime that Goldman was unshaven—a sign of mourning. The funeral director raced toward them. Rachelhad broken Mrs. Goldman’s hold and was also racing toward them, screaming.Louis rolled clumsily over on his side and sat up. His father-in-law kicked out at him again and Louiscaught his shoe in both hands—it thwapped solidly into his palms like a well-caught football—andshoved backward as hard as he could.Bellowing, Goldman flew backward at an angle, pinwheeling his arms for balance. He fell on Gage’sEternal Rest casket, which had been manufactured in the town of Storyville, Ohio, and which had notcome cheap.Oz the Gweat and Tewwible has just fallen on top of my son’s coffin, Louis thought dazedly. The casketfell from the trestle with a huge crash. The left end fell first, then the right. The latch snapped. Even overthe screams and the crying, even over the bellows of Goldman, who after all was only playing achildren’s party game of Pin the Blame on the Donkey, Louis heard the lock snap.The coffin did not actually open and spill Gage’s sad, hurt remains out onto the floor for all of them togawp at, but Louis was sickly aware that they had only been spared that by the way the coffin had fallen—on its bottom instead of on its side. It easily could have fallen that other way. Nonetheless in that splitinstant before the lid slammed shut on its broken latch again, he saw a flash of gray—the suit they hadbought to put in the ground around Gage’s body. And a bit of pink. Gage’s hand, maybe.Sitting there on the floor, Louis put his face in his hands and began to weep. He had lost all interest inhis father-in-law, in the MX missile, in permanent versus dissolving sutures, in the heat death of theuniverse. At that moment, Louis Creed wished he were dead. And suddenly, weirdly, an image rose inhis mind:Gage in Mickey Mouse ears, Gage laughing and shaking hands with a great big Goofy on Main Street,in Disney World. He saw this with utter clarity.One of the trestle supports had fallen over; the other leaned with drunken casualness against the low daiswhere a ministerfile:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20St...20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htm (196 of 333)7/28/2005 9:21:49 PM