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%u00a9Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights ReservedHOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS BOOK86 Jack Fritscher%u201cIn my glove compartment, Kenny.%u201d Mike fished his keys from his swimming trunks.%u201cFinally we got the friggin%u2019 keys,%u201d Rip said. %u201cYou want like some of this smoke?%u201d%u201cI don%u2019t smoke your kind of cigarettes.%u201d Mike punched a slow-motion punch onto Rip%u2019s big shoulder, turning him away. We stood alone. %u201cYou heard the news, Ryan?%u201d He faced me square. %u201cDick Dempsey quit. He%u2019s not going back to Misery come September.%u201d%u201cHe would have told me.%u201d%u201cSwear to God,%u201d Mike said.%u201cHe would have written me.%u201d%u201cLock called me long distance last week.%u201d%u201cLock telephoned you?%u201d%u201cI meant to drop you a postcard.%u201dDempsey couldn%u2019t have decided to quit without telling me. %u201cHe tells me everything.%u201d%u201cNobody tells everything,%u201d Mike said. %u201cLock knew a month ago.%u201d%u201cLock knew? You knew? Dempsey knew?%u201dMike shoved me. %u201cRyan, you%u2019re famous for not knowing everything.%u201d%u201cGet out!%u201d I pushed him back.%u201cYou can%u2019t be told everything.%u201d He pushed me again. %u201cYou%u2019re a confessor.%u201d Smoke from his cigarette streamed from his nose.%u201cYou%u2019re kidding me!%u201d I pushed him harder.%u201cDon%u2019t kid yourself.%u201d He caught my head in a hammer lock and blew a halo of smoke around us. %u201cMisery loves secrets,%u201d I said, breaking free of his hold. %u201cMaybe he%u2019s taking a medical leave. He had inner-ear trouble all last year.%u201dMike shook his head. Our horseplay evaporated. %u201cStop,%u201d he said. %u201cDempsey quit. Absolutely quit.%u201d He stamped out his cigarette in the sand.Quit was an even more threatening word than shipped. Quit was something a boy did to himself.%u201cYou can%u2019t quit a vocation.%u201d%u201cWhy? Will God chase us down like the %u2018Hound of Heaven%u2019?%u201dI felt jealous. In a world where special friendships were forbidden, Dempsey had seemed like a best friend to me. %u201cHe would have written.%u201d%u201cHe didn%u2019t though, did he,%u201d Mike said flatly.Loss in the movies has violins. I had the hiccup duet from Rip and Kenny playing bongo rhythms on the picnic table. My Uncle Les counseled me that in his own seminary he had watched good friends drop out