He was aware of how funky it smelled back here—rotted meat and moldy produce, the yeasty scent of a thousand departed brewskis, the odors of don’t-care laziness—and the divinely sweet fir-perfume of the woods just beyond the perimeter of this dirty little roadside store. He could hear the drone of a plane in some distant quadrant of the sky. He knew he loved Mr. Flannel Shirt because Mr. Flannel Shirt was here, was with them, linked to Roland and Eddie by the strongest of bonds for these few minutes.
