Revival by Stephen King Page A

large Bob Dylan poster.
    â€œClaire?”
    â€œGo away!” she shouted. “I don’t want to talk to you!” The record player went on: the Yardbirds, and at top volume.
    Mom came back about an hour later—a pretty long visit just to drop off a gift of food—and although Terry and I were in the living room by then, watching TV and jostling each other for the best place on our old couch (in the middle, where the springs didn’t poke your bum), she barely seemed to notice us. Con was upstairs playing the guitar he’d gotten for his birthday. And singing.
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    David Thomas of Gates Falls Congo was back for a return engagement on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. The church was once more full, maybe because people wanted to see if Reverend Jacobs would show up and try to say some more awful things. He didn’t. If he had, I’m sure he would have been shut up before he got a running start, maybe even carried out bodily. Yankees take their religion seriously.
    The next day, Monday, I ran the quarter mile from school instead of walking. I had an idea, and I wanted to be home before the schoolbus arrived. When it came, I grabbed Con and pulled him into the backyard.
    â€œWho put a bug up your butt?” he asked.
    â€œYou need to come down to the parsonage with me,” I said. “Reverend Jacobs is going away pretty soon, maybe even tomorrow, and we should see him before he goes. We should tell him we still like him.”
    Con drew away from me, brushing his hand down the front of his Ivy League shirt, as if he was afraid I’d left cooties on it. “Are you crazy? I’m not doing that. He said there’s no God.”
    â€œHe also electrified your throat and saved your voice.”
    Con shrugged uneasily. “It would have come back, anyway. Dr. Renault said so.”
    â€œHe said it would come back in a week or two. That was in February. You still didn’t have it back in April. Two months later. ”
    â€œSo what? It took a little longer, that’s all.”
    I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “What are you, chicken?”
    â€œSay that again and I’ll knock you down.”
    â€œWhy won’t you at least say thanks?”
    He stared at me, mouth tight and cheeks red. “We’re not supposed to see him, Mom and Dad said so. He’s crazy, and probably a drunk like his wife.”
    I couldn’t speak. My eyes shimmered with tears. They weren’t of sorrow; those were tears of rage.
    â€œBesides,” Con said, “I have to fill the woodbox before Dad gets home or I’ll get in dutch. So just shut up about it, Jamie.”
    He left me standing there. My brother, who became one of the world’s most preeminent astronomers—in 2011 he discovered the fourth so-called “Goldilocks planet,” where there might be life—left me standing there. And never mentioned Charles Jacobs again.
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    The next day, Tuesday, I ran up Route 9 again as soon as school let out. But I didn’t go home.
    There was a new car in the parsonage driveway. Well, not really new; it was a ’58 Ford Fairlane with rust on the rocker panels and a crack in the passenger side window. The trunk was up, and when I peeped in, I saw two suitcases and a bulky electronic gadget Reverend Jacobs had demonstrated at MYF one Thursday night: an oscilloscope. Jacobs himself was in his shed workshop. I could hear stuff rattling around.
    I stood by his new-old car, thinking of the Belvedere, which was now a burned-out wreck, and I almost turned tail and beat feet for home. I wonder how much of my life would have been different if I’d done that. I wonder if I’d be writing this now. There’s no way of telling, is there? Saint Paul was all too right about that dark glass. We look through it all our days and see nothing but our own reflections.
    Instead of running, I gathered