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you said it backwards. ‘Dallas is Derry.’ What was that about? Do you remember?”
“No.” But it’s hard to lie convincingly when you’re fresh out of sleep, even a shallow doze, and I
saw skepticism on her face. Before it could deepen into disbelief, there was a knock at the door. At
quarter to midnight, a knock.
We stared at each other.
The knock came again.
It’s the Jimla. This thought was very clear, very certain.
Sadie put her cigarette in the ashtray, gathered the sheet around her, and ran to the bathroom
without a word. The door shut behind her.
“Who is it?” I asked.
“It’s Mr. Yorrity, sir—Bud Yorrity?”
One of the gay retired teachers who ran the place.
I got out of bed and pulled on my pants. “What is it, Mr. Yorrity?”
“I have a message for you, sir. Lady said it was urgent.”
I opened the door. He was a small man in a threadbare bathrobe. His hair was a sleep-frizzed cloud
around his head. In one hand he held a piece of paper.
“What lady?”
“Ellen Dockerty.”
I thanked him for his trouble and closed the door. I unfolded the paper and read the message.
Sadie came out of the bathroom, still clutching the sheet. Her eyes were wide and frightened.
“What is it?”
“There’s been an accident,” I said. “Vince Knowles rolled his pickup truck outside of town. Mike
Coslaw and Bobbi Jill were with him. Mike was thrown clear. He has a broken arm. Bobbi Jill has a
nasty cut on her face, but Ellie says she’s okay otherwise.”
“Vince?”
I thought of the way everyone said Vince drove—as if there were no tomorrow. Now there wasn’t.
Not for him. “He’s dead, Sadie.”
Her mouth dropped open. “He can’t be! He’s only eighteen years old!”
“I know.”
The sheet fell free of her relaxing arms and puddled around her feet. She put her hands over her
face.
14
My revised version of Twelve Angry Men was canceled. What took its place was Death of a Student, a
play in three acts: the viewing at the funeral parlor, the service at Grace Methodist Church, the
graveside service at West Hill Cemetery. This mournful show was attended by the whole town, or
near enough to make no difference.
The parents and Vince’s stunned kid sister starred at the viewing, sitting in folding chairs beside
the coffin. When I approached them with Sadie at my side, Mrs. Knowles rose and put her arms
around me. I was almost overwhelmed by the odors of White Shoulders perfume and Yodora
antiperspirant.
“You changed his life,” she whispered in my ear. “He told me so. For the first time he made his
grades, because he wanted to act.”
“Mrs. Knowles, I’m so, so sorry,” I said. Then a terrible thought crossed my mind and I hugged her