The Twilight Zone: Complete Stories by Rod Serling Page B

it what?”
    “The Sloan house. My name’s Sloan. I’m Martin Sloan. What’s your name?”
    He held out his hand but the boy backed away, frowning at him. “You’re not Marty Sloan,” the boy said accusingly. “I know Martin Sloan and you’re not him.”
    Martin laughed. “I’m not, huh? Well, let’s see what the driver’s license says.”
    He reached into his breast pocket for his wallet. When he looked up the little boy was running down the street and then across a lawn to the house opposite his. Martin got slowly to his feet and began to walk again. It was the first slow walk, Martin reflected, that he’d taken in a long, long time. The houses and lawns went by and he drank them all in. He wanted this slow. He wanted to relish it all. In the distance he could hear children’s laughter and the tinkle of an ice-cream wagon bell. It all fitted, sight and sound and mood. He got a tight feeling in his throat.
    He didn’t know how long he had walked but later he found himself in the park. Like the drugstore, like the houses, like the sounds—nothing had changed. There was the pavilion with the big, round, band-concert stand. There was the merry-go-round, loaded with kids, the brassy, discordant calliope music still chasing it round and round. There were the same wooden horses, the same brass rings, the same ice-cream stands, cotton candy vendors. And always the children. Short pants and Mickey Mouse shirts. Lollipops and ice-cream cones and laughter and giggling. The language of the young. The music—the symphony of summer. The sounds swirled around him. Calliope, laughter, children. Again the tight feeling in his throat. Bittersweet again. All of it he had left so far behind and now he was so close to it.
    A pretty young woman walked by him, wheeling a baby carriage. She stopped, caught by something she saw in Martin Sloan’s face, as he watched the merry-go-round. She’d never seen a look quite like that before. It made her smile at him, and he smiled back.

    “Wonderful place, isn’t it?” he said.
    “The park? It certainly is.”
    Martin nodded toward the merry-go-round. “That’s a part of summer, isn’t it? The music from the merry-go-round. The calliope.”
    The pretty woman laughed. “And the cotton candy and the ice cream and the band concert.”
    There was no smile on Martin’s face now. It had been replaced by an intensity, a yearning. “There isn’t anything quite as good ever,” he said softly. “Not quite as good as summer and being a kid.”
    The woman stared at him. What was there about this man? “Are you from around here?” she asked.
    Martin said, “A long time ago. I lived just a couple of blocks from here. I remember that bandstand. God, I should. I used to sneak away at night, lie over there on the grass staring up at the stars, listening to the music.” His voice took on an excitement now. “I played ball on that field over there,” he continued. “Third base. And I grew up with that merry-go-round.” He pointed to the concert pavilion. “I carved my name on that post over there one summer. I was eleven years old and I carved my name right on—” He stopped abruptly and stared.
    There was a small boy sitting on the railing of the pavilion carving something on the post with a jackknife. Martin Sloan walked slowly toward him. He felt a sensation he had never felt before. It was cold and heat and excitement. It was shock and surprise and a mystery he couldn’t fathom. He looked up at the small boy and saw his own face of twenty-five years ago. He was looking at himself. He stood shaking his head from side to side, squinting up against the sun and then he saw what the boy was carving on the post. It was a kid’s printed scrawl, the letters uneven. It read, “Martin Sloan.” Martin caught his breath and pointed at the boy who was suddenly aware of him.
    “Martin Sloan! You’re Martin Sloan. ”
    The boy slid down from the railing. He looked frightened. “Yes,