Bill's ride with Audra on Silver

Bill Denbrough beats the devil a second time not with a silver slug or a ritual of Chüd, but with a rusty bicycle and a desperate act of faith. In the aftermath of the final battle under Derry, his wife Audra Phillips lies catatonic, her mind shattered by her exposure to the deadlights. She sits in Mike Hanlon's easy chair, staring blankly at the television, unresponsive to speech or touch, her body present but her consciousness utterly absent. Bill has spent a week caring for her, changing her, talking to her without reply. The doctors at Derry Home Hospital have offered no hope; the Bangor Mental Health Institute waits. But Bill, feeling the last of the magic draining from Derry and the memories already beginning to fade, conceives a cure that belongs not to medicine but to childhood: he will ride Silver, the huge Schwinn he rode as a boy, and take Audra with him.

The Preparation

On the morning of June 10th, 1985, Bill stands naked in Mike Hanlon's bedroom and studies his middle-aged body in the mirror. He sees a bald head, a pot belly from too many steaks and beers, love handles, the sagging flesh of a man approaching forty. He is wearing a bright orange tank top that says "WHERE THE HELL IS DERRY, MAINE?" and a pair of Keds he bought the day before in Bangor. He looks ludicrous, and he knows it. The voice of adult reason tells him he is too old, that he will kill them both. But he remembers the kid with the skateboard who said, "You can't be careful on a skateboard," and he understands that the only way to save Audra is to stop counting the cost. He rolls Silver out into the driveway, checks the tires, oils the chain and sprocket with 3-in-1 oil, and attaches new Bicycle playing cards to the spokes with clothespins. He squeezes the oogah-horn and it sounds good. Then he goes back inside.

The Ride

Audra sits passively in front of the television. Bill takes her hand, pulls her to her feet, and leads her outside. She comes willingly but would have fallen off the porch steps if he had not guided her. He works patiently to get her to swing one leg over Silver's package carrier, pressing lightly on the top of her head to make her sit. Then he swings onto the saddle and puts up the kickstand. Before he can reach behind him to draw her hands around his waist, they creep around him of their own accord, like small dazed mice. It is the first independent action she has taken all week. Bill begins to pedal. Silver wobbles dangerously under the double weight, but Bill stands on the pedals, his hands clamped on the grips, the cords standing out on his neck. The playing cards begin to fire single shots, then machine-gun as he picks up speed. He ignores the STOP sign at the end of Palmer Lane and sweeps left onto Upper Main Street, the bike wavering, then righting itself as speed gives it balance. He shouts "Hi-yo Silver, AWAYYYYY!" and Audra's hands tighten around his middle. He feels her stir against his back.

The Descent

Upper Main Street begins to incline toward the caved-in center of town, where the Canal has swallowed the intersection of Main, Canal, and Kansas Streets. The white-and-orange crash barriers loom ahead, the smudgepots burning with their smoky Halloween flames. Instead of braking, Bill pedals harder, urging Silver faster and faster down Main Street Hill. He can see the tops of buildings jutting out of the street like the figments of a madman's imagination. People on the sidewalks stare and shout warnings. Bill drags Silver hard left, the leg of his jeans whispering along one of the crash barriers, the wheels less than three inches from the edge of the drop. Audra's voice comes from behind him, dazed and thick: "Bill, where are we? What are we doing?" He shouts "HI YO SILVER AWAYYYYY!" and Silver strikes the barrier at better than forty miles an hour, sending it flying. The bike shoots out onto the undercut sidewalk, the rear wheel sagging as the pavement falls in behind them, then carries them back onto solid roadway. Bill swerves to avoid an overturned trashcan, runs through a space a truck occupies a full second later, and blows the oogah-horn, each hoarse bray embedding itself in the day's bright light.

The Cure

Audra cries out that he is going to kill them both, but she is also laughing. Bill heels Silver over and feels her leaning with him, making the bike easier to control. She grabs his crotch, where there is a huge and cheerful erection, and says, "But don't stop!" Silver's speed bleeds away on Up-Mile Hill, the roar of the playing cards becoming single gunshots again. Bill stops and turns to her. She is pale, wide-eyed, scared and confused, but awake, aware, and laughing. He embraces her, kisses her forehead, her eyes, her cheeks, her mouth, her neck, her breasts. She hugs him while he does it. She asks what has been happening; she remembers getting off the plane at Bangor and nothing after that. Bill tells her his stutter is gone, and he thinks this time it is gone for good. She asks if he said something about rock and roll. He says he loves her. She says she loves him too. He smiles and looks very young, bald head or not.

The Aftermath

In the dreams Bill will have in later years, he is always leaving Derry alone at sunset, the town deserted, the only sound his footfalls and the water rushing through the stormdrains. He sees all the places of his childhood intact—the brick fort of Derry Elementary, the Kissing Bridge, the statue of Paul Bunyan, the white fence along Kansas Street—and his heart breaks with love and horror. But in the morning's clean silence, he touches his wife's smooth back as she sleeps her warm sleep and dreams her own dreams, and he thinks that it is good to be a child, but it is also good to be grownup and able to consider the mystery of childhood, its beliefs and desires. He thinks he will write about all of this one day, and knows it is just a dawn thought, an after-dreaming thought. But it is nice to think so for a while, to think that childhood has its own sweet secrets and confirms mortality, and that mortality defines all courage and love.