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The Colorado Kid
The Colorado Kid
The Colorado Kid
Ebook148 pages2 hours

The Colorado Kid

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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About this ebook

On an island off the coast of Maine, a man is found dead. There's no identification on the body. Only the dogged work of a pair of local newspapermen and a graduate student in forensics turns up any clues.
But that's just the beginning of the mystery. Because the more they learn about the man and the baffling circumstances of his death, the less they understand. Was it an impossible crime? Or something stranger still...?
No one but Stephen King could tell this story about the darkness at the heart of the unknown and our compulsion to investigate the unexplained. With echoes of Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon and the work of Graham Greene, one of the world's great storytellers presents a surprising tale that explores the nature of mystery itself...
LanguageEnglish
Release dateOct 4, 2005
ISBN9780743292764
Author

Stephen King

Stephen King is the author of more than sixty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes the short story collection You Like It Darker, Holly, Fairy Tale, Billy Summers, If It Bleeds, The Institute, Elevation, The Outsider, Sleeping Beauties (cowritten with his son Owen King), and the Bill Hodges trilogy: End of Watch, Finders Keepers, and Mr. Mercedes (an Edgar Award winner for Best Novel and a television series streaming on Peacock). His novel 11/22/63 was named a top ten book of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller. His epic works The Dark Tower, It, Pet Sematary, Doctor Sleep, and Firestarter are the basis for major motion pictures, with It now the highest-grossing horror film of all time. He is the recipient of the 2020 Audio Publishers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2018 PEN America Literary Service Award, the 2014 National Medal of Arts, and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King. 

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Reviews for The Colorado Kid

Rating: 3.7193877551020407 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

196 ratings73 reviews

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I read (listened to) this book because my book club is going to be gathering for their 100th time soon, and we'll all be discussing our all-time favorite mysteries. Since I'm new to the mystery genre, I wanted to try to a) sneak in another mystery quickly before we meet, and b) add a Stephen King one to my repertoire, if possible. (Did you know that most of his novels are considered either Horror or Suspense? I guess I used to consider Suspense the same as Mystery, but apparently they're not the same. Anyway.......)
    I enjoyed this book, largely because of the fellow who did the reading--he did his Mainer voices really well, and there were only three characters, so it was easy to keep them separate. And the story was beautifully written, as I've come to believe that few authors other than King can do. My attention was snagged in the beginning and held firm 'til the end.
    However, I'm only giving this an "I really liked it" rating, rather than "it was amazing", because as a mystery, it didn't have me absolutely on the edge of my seat, dying to know the answer.... plus, well, I don't want to spoil it, but it didn't end the way I'd hoped.....
    That being said, I'd still recommend it if you enjoy King's work and/or if you're into mysteries.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I put this on my reading list because it was the basis for the TV show Haven on the Sci Fi Channel (I refuse to use their other branding.) Figured it be best to read it so I better understood the show. So here we go.While reading:-- Interesting opening, and always learning.-----How does one review a story that isn't a story? The characters in the story themselves said there is no thru line. It offers a lot of what ifs with no solid conclusion. Which is common for most Stephen King writings. It is a fascinating work up and, to most mystery writers, it's a good opening. To me, where the story ended felt ... incomplete. There is too much missing, like a beginning, a middle, and an end. It felt like an extended scene. For what the scene presented, it was decent.Vincent, Dave, and Stephanie would probably make a good newspaper trio. They know how to think things through.As an author, this type of story would take a master to pull off. It's not something that I'd recommend an amateur try. Mostly because you'd need to understand how the structure works before you discard it.Fun little piece. Now to go watch Haven.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Two aging reporters from a small coastal Maine town tell their out-of-town intern about a number of local unsolved mysteries, the most unusual of all being the case dubbed "The Colorado Kid," about a man who appeared dead one morning on the shore under the unlikeliest of circumstances.This book is quite short -- more of a long short story or novella than a novel. Yet despite its brief length, it feels very repetitive. The mystery itself is never answered, which felt to me like a big waste of time as the mystery genre is usually as much about revealing as it is about concealing. And while I personally don't necessarily need everything to be neat, tidy, and 100% certain, it seems to me that even an open-ended mystery should have at least some elements that feel closed -- or at least point to one or two likely conclusions that the reader can draw. This one just sits there with several unexplainable aspects that don't offer any conclusions at all. And still all of this might be forgivable if it were couched in between fascinating characters or locale. But this book doesn't deliver that. The sleepy town that despises those from "away," the two almost smugly patriarchal reporters, and the personality-free intern just aren't appealing and frankly aren't well fleshed out. King does have a bit of fun with being a bit meta and talking about the craft of storytelling through the voices of the reporters explaining to their intern what makes a good news article, but this wasn't enough to carry the book for me.Props to the audiobook reader for tackling the thick Maine accents of the two reporters and for in general trying to inject some life into a rather mundane book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is less the story of a mystery, but more the story of what makes a mystery. Why doesn't the story of the Colorado Kid make a good mystery story, but is a great mystery? Vince Teague and Dave Bowie have been asking themselves that for the past twenty five years, and now they plan to share their thoughts with Stephanie McCann.My second time reading this one, and I will definitely say I enjoyed it more the second time around. This is probably because I had a better idea of what to expect the second time. I knew what Vince and Dave were doing with their meandering style of storytelling, sharing with their intern a story that isn't really a story in the classic sense. The mystery of the Colorado Kid is absolutely fascinating, and a mystery in the truest sense of the word, but not what we as readers expect from a mystery story, especially not in the world of authors like Ellery Queen and Agatha Christie.The important factors of The Colorado Kid that make it a good book and a good story is less the mystery, but those who are telling it. Experiencing the tale through Vince Teague and Dave Bowie as they impart it to Stephanie McCann is what makes the story worth experiencing. The way the old men light up not only in the telling of the tale, but in the revelations Steff comes to as they tell her, proving herself worthy of their trust in hearing this story that belongs to them. This is an exercise in the mechanics of a mystery story, and why the Colorado Kid is a unique case for a pair of old newspaper men on a small island off the coast of Maine.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Because I'm a fan of the Syfy series HAVEN, I have been wanting to read this short novel for quite some time, as it inspired the television series. As it turns out in this case, the inspiration plays out in the form of the show's setting in Maine and the names of the two men in charge of the small local newspaper. And that's pretty much where the inspiration ends. Still, it is an interesting story and mystery, but anyone who wants answers is going to be bitterly disappointed here, as King makes no attempt to solve the crime. None whatsoever. He has the two newsmen, Vince and Dave, tell the story in retrospect to Stephanie, their relatively new intern, who offers her own insights as the retelling unfolds regarding what really happened to the "Colorado Kid" 25 years earlier. In the end, the intern's answers impress the newsmen enough to get them to express their hope that she will stay on and continue to work with them at the paper after her internship is completed, an offer that she'd been hoping for and one that she will clearly accept. In any case, it is an interesting story with interesting characters both in the past and the present, so props to King for getting that side of things right. But really, while I'm not going to lose sleep over the ridiculous way that he abandoned his responsibility to offer at least *some* closure on the story behind the Colorado Kid's death, I was floored at the way that he handled it and I can easily see why a lot of people were so unhappy with the book. If you love mysteries but need closure from your stories, stay far away from this one. But if you'd be interested in an unresolved but tantalizing murder mystery along with some fun characters and an interesting New England setting, then you'll probably find a lot to like about this one.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    It was an interesting mystery story, but not one of my favorites from King.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Great quick read! A must for King fans! :) So much excitement in the story that it was hard to put the book down.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Every once in a while King insists on stressing Maine accents. It never reads well. This was one of them. Not a lot of pros to this one. No mystery really, or great insights.But it was a fast read thanfully.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I've had this in my TBR pile since Haven went off the air, it's an OK story that leaves you hanging and is really not as good as the TV show that it inspired.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A short audiobook narrated by Jeffrey DeMunn. (Who’s Maine accent got a little Irish once in a while, which was surreal).
    Not bad, for a story with no real ending. If you can’t handle this then don’t read/listen to this novel/audiobook.
    3 stars, and I guess recommended.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Even Stephen King acknowledges at the end that people will either love or hate this story, the story of an unexplained death with so many possible reasons and yet remaining elusive. I enjoyed the ride by adhering to the maxim that “it is not the destination that matters but the journey.” We have to accept the idea that sometimes questions will remain unanswered no matter how hard we try.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Just My Imagination, the Mandela Effect or Something Else?

    On the man: I’ve been reading King since Carrie back in the early-to-mid 70s. King is a powerhouse in my opinion. As an astrologer, I can verify that King has several significant/positive aspects in his natal chart that indicate that he is an excellent and extremely prolific writer (shown by placements in Virgo and Gemini which both represent writing). King also has several aspects that indicate that he is also quite...intuitive. As a validation of this, he has several water signs all in Water houses, which give him those empathic and intuitive abilities which allow him to be so successful at what he does. That is: he KNOWS what we like. :-) And his Mercury (writing) in Libra (relationships/others) shows that he likes to write for people, which is also why he is so prolific.

    On the book: or rather, on the ‘novella,’ since it’s one of the shorter of King’s books, though much longer than one of his few short stories, weighing in at 18 full-sized chapters. The Kid was released circa 2005, and then utilized as a background (so to speak) for the Sci-Fi series, Haven, where the main characters – Vince and Dave Teague (in King’s novella, Dave was ‘David Bowie,’ no less… a nod maybe to British performer David Bowie? You know how he is about his Rock-N-Roll!) expand a bit on the mystery of their fair little town. (Note: Haven was actually ‘loosely based’ on The Colorado Kid, which was loosely based on an actual murder that took place in Australia circa 1940s-ish.)

    As an addendum to this review, I had a bit of a strange experience with this story: although I had come across references to The Colorado Kid in various works by Stephen King since the novella The Colorado Kid was published in 2005, I was not – to my conscious knowledge – aware that King had actually written either a short story, novella or novel by this title. I initially believed that The Colorado Kid was just a character to which the protagonist of the story I was reading or even King as the author, was referring. And I’ve been keeping up with King’s output to ensure that his latest works are included on my reading list. I never saw The Colorado Kid…until I scanned my feed for one of the more prominent reading services a few months ago, circa Spring 2021, and found THE COLORADO KID. I’d never seen it listed anywhere before. Until now. Weird. Still it could have been just my oversight.

    Problem is, ya never know with King. Even as ‘merely’ a writer as he may seem to be, he has a way of drawing one into his sci-fi world. Was this just an interactive storyline? Just my imagination? Some aspect of the Mandela Effect? Something else? Who knows.

    Regardless, Classic King.

    Read from 3 July 2021 to 06 July 2021
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    The worst Stephen King book I've read. Do not waste your time with this one
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Interesting commentary on what is expected in terms of stories. But, only SK could have gotten away with publishing something like this.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    On Moose-Lookit Island off the coast of Maine, a reporter from the Boston Globe fails in his attempt to elicit any undocumented tales of the bizarre from Vince Teague and Dave Bowie, owners and editors of The Weekly Islander newspaper. This later sparks a conversation between the two elderly men and their lovely young intern, Stephanie McCann. After recounting all of the local, tired chestnuts—including among others the mass poisoning of attendees at a church picnic, the appearance of a ship with a dead man on deck and the rest of the crew missing—Vince and Dave regale “Steffi” with the mystery of the Colorado Kid.In 1981, two high school students discovered the body of an unidentified middle-aged man on Hammock Beach. After a brief in situ examination by the coroner, a piece of meat was found lodged in the man’s throat. It was then concluded that he merely choked to death. Yet, other clues left Vince to wonder if the cause of death was truly that simple. His overwhelming curiosity prompts him and Dave Bowie to begin an investigation, aided by an unexpected phone call almost two years later from former forensics student Paul Devane, who had helped collect evidence on the day the dead man was found. Devane’s recollection lead Vince and Dave to uncover John Doe’s identity—but also served to evoke more questions than answers as to what motivated the Colorado Kid to travel halfway across the country on an apparent whim to a remote island town in Maine…I picked up a paperback copy of The Colorado Kid from a used book dealer at one of the many SF conventions I attend each year. I might have passed it over had it not been for the spectacular television series, Haven, which was loosely based on King’s novel but expanded the storyline in wildly different directions. The only common characters between novel and series were Vince and Dave, though in Haven, the two were written as brothers and the actors (Richard Donat and John Dunsworth, respectively) did not at all correspond to Stephen King’s original description. Police chief Wuornos is briefly mentioned in the novel but was a main character only in the first season of the series and portrayed by Nicholas Campbell. While the writing is not particularly sophisticated, the story is a quick and delightfully lighthearted read, told from the point of view of the intern, Steffi, who makes several deductions of her own as she absorbs the tale of the Colorado Kid imparted by the two ancient news hounds.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The Colorado Kid is the first Stephen King novel I can remember reading. I wanted to read it the minute I saw the TV show Haven, and saw that it was based on The Colorado Kid.

    I hate stories without endings. At least in novels. Yet, I?ve happily read and enjoyed not only this book but also The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective, which is also based on a true story, and which also does not give a satisfying ending. However, I love the Afterword here, by Stephen King, where he reminds us all that life is the ultimate mystery, and there are just some things that not only will never be solved, but perhaps shouldn?t be solved.

    I?m a major fan of Conspiracy Theories; reading about them anyhow. Marilyn Monroe, JFK, UFO?s, Jack the Ripper are all within my interest; cases that are mysterious, curious, intriguing and yet, probably never fully solvable. No matter how many people investigate Marilyn Monroe or JFK?s death, no matter how many scientific investigations are done on UFO sightings, we can never be really sure what the final answer is. Or if it will be found in our lifetime. And I love that.

    I loved everything about The Colorado Kid. I loved the no answer, I loved the suspense, I loved Stephanie, Dave and Vincent. I loved it all. Though vastly different from Haven, and the whole Audrey storyline, which is even more mysterious, I think I like this book better. It?s more real, more tangible and gnaws at my brain more than any supernatural phenomenon like the Troubles ever could.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    "The Colorado Kid" is an enjoyable enough read, though it's difficult to really get into and the chapter breaks are awkward and disruptive. Three-quarters of the story is exposition, and the back cover summary didn't really cover what the story was actually about--it's two old newspaper geezers (stereotypical geezers) telling a young, impressionable (and probably pretty) female intern about an unsolved death from twenty-five years prior.

    The intern, Stephanie ("Steffi"), made me roll my eyes more than the stereotypical geezers, but as I said, "The Colorado Kid" is an interesting enough read. It's also short and quick, so I'm not unhappy about the time I spent reading it. So: two stars. It was okay, but entirely unremarkable overall. I'd be astonished if anyone in the last four or five years has read it without having seen Haven first.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I liked it a lot, even though a part of me felt ripped off. It was worth the cost of admission.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Not the best Stephen King book. I watch Haven on Syfy channel which is based on this novella. A quick read
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A body is found by a couple on a beach on an island in Maine. What follows is a mystery. Two newspapermen from the local paper are the only ones who seem to be interested in solving the mystery surrounding "The Colorado Kid" being found dead on the beach.Steffi is their intern and they fill her in on the 25 year old mystery of this still unsolved case. Dave & Vince are testing Steffi about her true calling to be a reporter.In essence, this novel is really about the mystery of mystery and how we are all attracted to trying to solve sometimes unsolvable things. Sometimes that is the truest test of ourselves.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    lI have been watching the series "Haven" which is based on this book so was anxious to read it because of the tie to the TV series but also because I couldn't believe that there was a Stephen King book that I hadn't read. Stephen King himself stated that there would be no middle ground on this book. People would either hate it or love it...but I found that I was on middle ground. The characters were likable enough but it was rather short on entertainment value. The mystery was never actually answered or maybe the answer was not all mysteries have an answer. Strange little story to say the least...but then King fans know that he is the master of strange.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Love this book, and Haven, e TV show based off of it,
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    In a postscript to the book, King acknowledges that some readers will love it and some will hate it. The book is, of course, a mystery, but the charm of this book is not that it's another action packed adventure because it isn't. The wonderful thing about the book is that it really effectively takes the reader into this small town on the coast. You get a real feel for the two old codger reporters who sit on the balcony with Intern Stephanie and tell her she's passed the test and she's welcome into the fraternal order of reporters. They tell her about a mystery that hasn't been solved in twenty years about a body found on the beach by two high school students and how it's eventually identified. The book, despite the body, has no sex or violence. As other reviewers have kindly noted, it moves at a slow pace like the waves on the beach of this small coastal town. But the slowness of how the tale is teased out appears to be deliberate as if King wants you to internalize the rhythms of life there. Once I realized that the book was about the conversation between the two old reporters and the young intern, I could enjoy it immensely. I did ultimately want more explanations, but that did not detract from the book.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Ok book. A little hard to follow at times with what felt like no main character as well as some words a little difficult to read. Also confusing with the idea of it not being a story in a story?
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Another well told story by a master story teller. The dialogue is engaging, the characters believable personalities, and the last couple of lines of the book are the zinger.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I liked this book but I'm not sure how the whole series Haven sprang out of it. Oh well, it's a rare thing to see something good made out of a Stephen King book - the movies always come out atrocious - so props to the creative team. A warning: you may start reading and wonder how you're going to get to the answer in less than 200 pages. Well, you're not. This isn't a black and a white, here's the problem and ta da, the solution! kind of read. I imagine it's pissed off quite a lot of people.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Mild, if you consider Stephen King's usual work. It's a nice mystery with some unsolvable twists. It reminds us that these things happen all the time in real life. People go missing and nobody knows what happened, or why.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Beautifully mocked up like an old pulp novel. There's even a cardboard advert inside. And little details too, like the spot of ink on the first page of chapter 17 and the mistake with the title header on page 159. Unfortunately these are the best thing about the book. It's the same basic format as From a Buick 8, though mercifully shorter, with the story of a mystery being told by oldies to a young person. The mystery itself seems inspired by the Taman Shud case, though King doesn't acknowledge this in the afterword. I think I read somewhere that the solution is contained in one of the Dark Tower novels. If this is correct then there may be only a supernatural explanation for his presence on the beach. Not that this is an entirely awful novel. Frankly, I just like the sound of King's voice.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    No resolution to this story of a young man who died/was murdered. Nice short mystery.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    It's a Stephen King short story. Well written. Another mystery. I can't say anymore than that with out giving away the ending.

Book preview

The Colorado Kid - Stephen King

1

After deciding he would get nothing of interest from the two old men who comprised the entire staff of The Weekly Islander, the feature writer from the Boston Globe took a look at his watch, remarked that he could just make the one-thirty ferry back to the mainland if he hurried, thanked them for their time, dropped some money on the tablecloth, weighted it down with the salt shaker so the stiffish onshore breeze wouldn’t blow it away, and hurried down the stone steps from The Grey Gull’s patio dining area toward Bay Street and the little town below. Other than a few cursory gleeps at her breasts, he hardly noticed the young woman sitting between the two old men at all.

Once the Globe writer was gone, Vince Teague reached across the table and removed the bills—two fifties—from beneath the salt shaker. He tucked them into a flap pocket of his old but serviceable tweed jacket with a look of unmistakable satisfaction.

"What are you doing? Stephanie McCann asked, knowing how much Vince enjoyed shocking what he called her young bones" (how much they both did, really), but in this instance not able to keep the shock out of her voice.

What does it look like? Vince looked more satisfied than ever. With the money gone he smoothed down the flap over the pocket and took the last bite of his lobster roll. Then he patted his mouth with his paper napkin and deftly caught the departed Globe writer’s plastic lobster bib when another, fresher gust of salt-scented breeze tried to carry it away. His hand was almost grotesquely gnarled with arthritis, but mighty quick for all that.

It looks like you just took the money Mr. Hanratty left to pay for our lunch, Stephanie said.

Ayuh, good eye there, Steff, Vince agreed, and winked one of his own at the other man sitting at the table. This was Dave Bowie, who looked roughly Vince Teague’s age but was in fact twenty-five years younger. It was all a matter of the equipment you got in the lottery, was what Vince claimed; you ran it until fell apart, patching it up as needed along the way, and he was sure that even to folks who lived a hundred years—as he hoped to do—it seemed like not much more than a summer afternoon in the end.

"But why?"

Are you afraid I’m gonna stiff the Gull for the tab and stick Helen with it? he asked her.

No… who’s Helen?

Helen Hafner, she who waited on us. Vince nodded across the patio where a slightly overweight woman of about forty was picking up dishes. Because it’s the policy of Jack Moody—who happens to own this fine eating establishment, and his father before him, if you care—

I do, she said.

David Bowie, The Weekly Islander’s managing editor for just shy of the years Helen Hafner had lived, leaned forward and put his pudgy hand over her young and pretty one. I know you do, he said. Vince does, too. That’s why he’s taking the long way around Robin Hood’s barn to explain.

Because school is in, she said, smiling.

That’s right, Dave said, and what’s nice for old guys like us?

You only have to bother teaching people who want to learn.

That’s right, Dave said, and leaned back. That’s nice. He wasn’t wearing a suit-coat or sport-coat but an old green sweater. It was August and to Stephanie it seemed quite warm on the Gull’s patio in spite of the onshore breeze, but she knew that both men felt the slightest chill. In Dave’s case, this surprised her a little; he was only sixty-five and carrying an extra thirty pounds, at least. But although Vince Teague might look no more than seventy (and an agile seventy at that, in spite of his twisted hands), he had turned ninety earlier that summer and was as skinny as a rail. A stuffed string was what Mrs. Pinder, The Islander’s part-time secretary, called him. Usually with a disdainful sniff.

The Grey Gull’s policy is that the waitresses are responsible for the tabs their tables run up until those tabs are paid, Vince said. Jack tells all the ladies that when they come in lookin for work, just so they can’t come whining to him later on, sayin they didn’t know that was part of the deal.

Stephanie surveyed the patio, which was still half-full even at twenty past one, and then looked into the main dining room, which overlooked Moose Cove. There almost every table was still taken, and she knew that from Memorial Day until the end of July, there would be a line outside until nearly three o’clock. Controlled bedlam, in other words. To expect every waitress to keep track of every single customer when she was busting her ass, carrying trays of steaming boiled lobsters and clams—

That hardly seems… She trailed off, wondering if these two old fellows, who’d probably been putting out their paper before such a thing as the minimum wage even existed, would laugh at her if she finished.

"Fair might be the word you’re lookin for," Dave said dryly, and picked up a roll. It was the last one in the basket.

Fair came out fay-yuh, which more or less rhymed with ayuh, the Yankee word which seemed to mean both yes and is that so. Stephanie was from Cincinnati, Ohio, and when she had first come to Moose-Lookit Island to do an internship on The Weekly Islander, she had nearly despaired… which, in downeast lingo, also rhymed with ayuh. How could she learn anything when she could only understand one word in every seven? And if she kept asking them to repeat themselves, how long would it be before they decided she was a congenital idiot (which on Moose-Look was pronounced ijit, of course)?

She had been on the verge of quitting four days into a four-month University of Ohio postgrad program when Dave took her aside one afternoon and said, Don’t you quit on it, Steffi, it’ll come to ya. And it had. Almost overnight, it seemed, the accent had clarified. It was as if she’d had a bubble in her ear which had suddenly, miraculously popped. She thought she could live here the rest of her life and never talk like them, but understand them? Ayuh, that much she could do, deah.

Fair was the word, she agreed.

One that hasn’t ever been in Jack Moody’s vocabulary, except in how it applies to the weather, Vince said, and then, with no change of tone, Put that roll down, David Bowie, ain’t you gettin fat, I swan, soo-ee, pig-pig-pig.

Last time I looked, we wa’ant married, Dave said, and took another bite of his roll. Can’t you tell her what’s on what passes for your mind without scoldin me?

Ain’t he pert? Vince said. No one ever taught him not to talk with his mouth full, either. He hooked an arm over the back of his chair, and the breeze from the bright ocean blew his fine white hair back from his brow. Steffi, Helen’s got three kids from twelve to six and a husband that run off and left her. She don’t want to leave the island, and she can make a go of it—just—waitressin at The Grey Gull because summers are a little fatter than the winters are lean. Do you follow that?

Yes, absolutely, Stephanie said, and just then the lady in question approached. Stephanie noticed that she was wearing heavy support hose that did not entirely conceal varicose veins, and that there were dark circles under her eyes.

Vince, Dave, she said, and contented herself with just a nod at the pretty third, whose name she did not know. See your friend dashed off. For the ferry?

Yep, Dave said. Discovered he had to get back down-Boston.

Ayuh? All done here?

Oh, leave on a bit, Vince said, but bring us a check when you like, Helen. Kids okay?

Helen Hafner grimaced. Jude fell out of his tree-house and broke his arm last week. Didn’t he holler! Scared me bout to death!

The two old men looked at each other… then laughed. They sobered quickly, looking ashamed, and Vince offered his sympathies, but it wouldn’t do for Helen.

Men can laugh, she told Stephanie with a tired, sardonic smile. "They all fell out of treehouses and broke their arms when they were boys, and they all remember what little pirates they were. What they don’t remember is Ma gettin up in the middle of the night to give em their aspirin tablets. I’ll bring you the check." She shuffled off in a pair of sneakers with rundown backs.

She’s a good soul, Dave said, having the grace to look slightly shamefaced.

Yes, she is, Vince said, and if we got the rough side of her tongue we probably deserved it. Meanwhile, here’s the deal on this lunch, Steffi. I dunno what three lobster rolls, one lobster dinner with steamers, and four iced teas cost down there in Boston, but that feature writer must have forgot that up here we’re livin at what an economist might call ‘the source of supply’ and so he dropped a hundred bucks on the table. If Helen brings us a check that says any more than fifty-five, I’ll smile and kiss a pig. With me so far?

Yes, sure, Stephanie said.

"Now the way this works for that fella from the Globe is that he scratches Lunch, Gray Gull, Moose-Lookit Island and Unexplained Mysteries Series in his little Boston Globe expense book while he’s ridin back to the mainland on the ferry, and if he’s honest he writes one hundred bucks and if he’s got a smidge of larceny in his soul, he writes a hundred and twenty and takes his girl to the movies on the extra. Got that?"

Yes, Stephanie said, and looked at him with reproachful eyes as she drank the rest of her iced tea. I think you’re very cynical.

"No, if I was very cynical, I would have said a hundred and thirty, and for sure. This made Dave snort laughter. In any case, he left a hundred, and that’s at least thirty-five dollars too much, even with a twenty percent tip added in. So I took his money. When Helen brings the check, I’ll sign it, because the Islander runs a tab here."

And you’ll tip more than twenty percent, I hope, Stephanie said, given her situation at home.

That’s just where you’re wrong, Vince said.

"I am? Why am I?"

He looked at her patiently. Why do you think? Because I’m cheap? Yankee-tight?

No. I don’t believe that any more than I think black men are lazy or Frenchmen think about sex all day long.

"Then put your brain to work. God

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