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was trying to crawl under the bed. His father hauled him out and fetched him a lick on the side of the
head that surely would have killed the boy if the father’s hand hadn’t slipped on the bloody handle;
instead of splitting Harry’s skull, the hammerhead had only caved in part of it above the right ear.
I didnt pass out but almost. I kept crawling for under the bed and I hardly felt him hit my leg at all but he
did and broke it in 4 diferent places.
A man from down the block who had been out canvassing the neighborhood for candy with his
daughter came running in at that point. In spite of the slaughter in the living room, the neighbor had
the presence of mind to grab the ash shovel out of the tool bucket beside the kitchen woodstove. He
slugged Dunning in the back of the head with it while the man was trying to turn the bed over and
get at his bleeding, semiconscious son.
Afterwards I went uncontchus like Ellen only I was lucky I woke up. The doctors said they might have to
ampantate my leg but in the end they didnt.
No, he had kept the leg and eventually become a janitor at Lisbon High School, known to
generations of students as Hoptoad Harry. Would the kids have been kinder if they’d known the
origin of the limp? Probably not. Although emotionally delicate and eminently bruisable, teenagers
are short on empathy. That comes later in life, if it comes at all.
“October of 1958,” Al said in his harsh dog-bark voice. “Am I supposed to believe that’s a
coincidence?”
I remembered what I’d said to the teenage version of Frank Anicetti about the Shirley Jackson story
and smiled. “Sometimes a cigar is just a smoke and a coincidence is just a coincidence. All I know is
that we’re talking about another watershed moment.”
“And I didn’t find this story in the Enterprise because?”
“It didn’t happen around here. It happened in Derry, upstate. When Harry was well enough to get
out of the hospital, he went to live with his uncle and aunt in Haven, about twenty-five miles south of
Derry. They adopted him and put him to work on the family farm when it became clear he couldn’t
keep up in school.”
“Sounds like Oliver Twist, or something.”
“No, they were good to him. Remember there were no remedial classes in those days, and the
phrase ‘mentally challenged’ hadn’t been invented yet—”
“I know,” Al said dryly. “Back then, mentally challenged means you’re either a feeb, a dummy, or
just plain addlepated.”
“But he wasn’t then and he isn’t now,” I said. “Not really. I think mostly it was the shock, you
know? The trauma. It took him years to recover from that night, and by the time he did, school was
behind him.”
“At least until he went back for his GED, and by then he was middle-aged going on old.” Al shook
his head. “What a waste.”
“Bullshit,” I said. “A good life is never wasted. Could it have been better? Yes. Can I make that
happen? Based on yesterday, maybe I can. But that’s really not the point.”
“Then what is? Because to me this looks like Carolyn Poulin all over again, and that case is already
proved. Yes, you can change the past. And no, the world doesn’t just pop like a balloon when you do
it. Would you pour me a fresh cup of coffee, Jake? And get yourself one while you’re at it. It’s hot, and
you look like you could use one.”
While I was pouring the coffee, I spied some sweet rolls. When I offered him one, he shook his
head. “Solid food hurts going down. But if you’re determined to make me swallow calories, there’s a
six-pack of Ensure in the fridge. In my opinion it tastes like chilled snot, but I can choke it down.”
When I brought it in one of the wine goblets I’d spied in his cupboard, he laughed hard. “Think
that’ll make it taste any better?”