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file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20Stephen%20King%20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htm“Oh, you,” she said and wrinkled her nose at him. Rachel was not fooled; she knew perfectly well whyLouis was skipping this trip. “Fun-nee.”He watched them enter the boarding ramp. . . and disappear from sight for the next week. He already felthomesick and lonely for them. He moved over to the window where Ellie had been, hands stuffed in hiscoat pockets, watching the baggage handlers loading the hold.The truth was simple. Not only Mr. but also Mrs. Irwin Goldman of Lake Forest had disliked Louis fromthe beginning. He came from the wrong side of the tracks, but that was just for starters. Worse, he fullyexpected their daughter to support him while he went to medical school, where he would almost surelyflunk out.Louis could have handled all this, in fact had been doing so. Then something had happened whichRachel did not know about and never would . . . not from Louis, anyway. Irwin Goldman had offered topay Louis’s entire tuition through med school. The price of this “scholarship” (Goldman’s word) wasthat Louis should break off his engagement with Rachel at once.Louis Creed had not been at the optimum time of life to deal with such an outrage, but suchmelodramatic proposals (or bribes, to call a spade a spade) are rarely made to those who are at anoptimum time—which might be around the age of eighty-five. He was tired, for one thing. He wasspending eighteen hours a week in classes, another twenty hitting the books, another fifteen waitingtables in a deep-dish pizza joint down the block from the Whitehall Hotel. He was also nervous. Mr.Goldman’s oddly jovial manner that evening had contrasted completely with his previous cold behavior,and Louis thought that when Goldman invited him into the study for a cigar, a look had passed from himto his wife. Later—much later, when time had lent a little perspective—Louis would reflect that horsesmust feel much the same free-floating anxiety when they smell the first smoke ofa prairie fire. He began expecting Goldman to reveal at any moment that he knew Louis had beensleeping with his daughter.When Goldman instead made his incredible offer—even going so far as to take his checkbook from thepocket of his smoking jacket like a rake in a Noel Coward farce—Louis had blown up. He accusedGoldman of trying to keep his daughter like an exhibit in a museum, of having no regard for anyone buthimself, and of being an overbearing, thoughtless bastard. It would be a long time before he would admitto himself that part of his rage had been relief.All of these little insights into Irwin Goldman’s character, though perhaps true, had no redeeming touchof diplomacy in them. Any semblance of Noel Coward departed; if there was humor in the rest of theconversation, it was of a much more vulgar sort. Goldman told him to get out and that if he ever sawLouis on his doorstep again, he would shoot him like a yellow dog. Louis told Goldman to take hischeckbook and plug up his ass with it. Goldman said he had seen bums in the gutter who had morepotential than Louis Creed. Louis told Goldman he could also shove his goddam BankAmericard and hisfile:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20Ste...%20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htm (88 of 333)7/28/2005 9:21:49 PM