Later

by Stephen King

“There are only so many tomorrows.” —MICHAEL LANDON

There’s always a later, I know that now. At least until we die. Then I guess it’s all before that.

I think this is a horror story. Check it out.

“Sweet offer, but what do I always tell you?” “You have to tote your own burden in life,” I said. “Correctamundo.”

You said please, you said thank you, you didn’t flap your weenie around in public or chew with your mouth open, and you didn’t talk to dead folks when they were standing next to living folks who were just starting to miss them.

“Sweet dreams, pleasant repose, all the bed and all the clothes.”

One of the worst things about being a kid, maybe the very worst, is how grownups ignore you when they get going on their shit. “MOM! LIZ! BOTH OF YOU! STOP!”

“You might tell them there was no foul play,” Mr. Thomas said. “I had a heart attack. Hurt like the devil.” I was going to tell them no such thing. I was only nine, but that didn’t make me stupid.

Mom said when black people and white people were sentenced for the same type of crime, it was the black people who got hit with the heaviest sentences, and sometimes the white people didn’t do time at all. Liz countered by saying, “You show me a Martin Luther King Boulevard in any city, and I’ll show you a high crime area.”

(I was not excluded from said snappery),

You get used to marvelous things. You take them for granted. You can try not to, but you do. There’s too much wonder, that’s all. It’s everywhere.

So I got in the car. I didn’t feel good about it, but I did it. Adults have power, especially when they beg, and that’s what Liz was doing.

I see them and they know I do. It’s always been that way.

We went upstairs. Mom made coffee and gave me a cup. My first, and I’ve been a fool for the stuff ever since.

“‘Sometimes God uses a broken tool.’ It was from one of the old English writers he used to teach.”

As I said at the beginning, this is a horror story.

I just put my head on her shoulder as I had when I was small and thought my hand-turkey was the greatest work of art since the Mona Lisa. Tell you what, the worst part of growing up is how it shuts you up.

He didn’t reply for so long I got scared. Then he said, “I think I need something with caffeine. I think we both do. Then you can tell me everything that’s on your mind. I long to hear it.”

I will always prefer coffee, but sometimes a pot of tea is just the thing. Making it feels formal, somehow.

I heard his sigh of relief when he sat down in his favorite chair. Also a fart. Not a trumpet blast, more of an oboe.

“In other words, crazy.” At that point I was still glad I’d told him, but his conclusion was maximo depressing, even though I’d been more or less expecting it.

“Are you finished?” Professor Burkett asked mildly, once again making me feel like the most clueless student in class.

If, that is, you can say anything about that undead motherfucker was funny.

Belief is a high hurdle to get over and I think it’s even higher for smart people. Smart people know a lot, and maybe that makes them think they know everything.

It didn’t break my heart, but it squeezed it a little.