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"You just stay in the apple business, you do fine, man," Jack said.
Homer was following Mr. Rose up the ladder to the roof when he heard the shower turn on; it was an inside shower--more private than the shower at York Farm. Except for their cigarettes, the men on the roof were hard to see, but Homer held Mr. Rose's hand and followed him along the plank on the rooftop until they found two good seats.
"You all know Homer," Mr. Rose said to the men on the roof. There was a blur of greetings. The man called Hero was up there, and the man called Branches; there was someone named Willy, and two or three people Homer didn't know, and the old cook whose name was Black Pan. The cook was the shape of a stew pot; it had required some effort for him to gain his perch on the roof.
Someone handed Homer a bottle of beer, but the bottle was warm and full of rum.
"It's stopped again," Branches said, and everyone stared toward the sea.
The night-life lights of Cape Kenneth were so low along the horizon that some of the lights themselves were not visible--only the reflections from them, especially when the lights were cast out over the ocean--but the high Ferris wheel blazed brightly. It was holding still, loading new riders, letting off the old.
"Maybe it stop to breathe," Branches said, and everyone laughed at that.
Someone suggested that it stopped to fart, and everyone laughed louder.
Then Willy said, "When it gets too close to the ground, it has to stop, I think," and everyone appeared to consider this seriously.
Then the Ferris wheel started
again, and the men on the roof of the cider house released a reverential moan.
"There it go again!" Hero said.
"It like a star," Black Pan, the old cook, said. "It look real cool, but you get too close, it burn you--it hotter than a flame!"
"It's a Ferris wheel," said Homer Wells.
"It a what?" Willy said.
"A what wheel?" Branches asked.
"A Ferris wheel," said Homer Wells. "That's the Cape Kenneth Carnival, and that's the Ferris wheel." Mr. Rose nudged him in the ribs, but Homer didn't understand. No one spoke for a long time, and when Homer looked at Mr. Rose, Mr. Rose softly shook his head.
"I heard of something' like that," Black Pan said. "I think they had one in Charleston."
"It's stopped again," Hero observed.
"It's letting off passengers--riders," said Homer Wells. "It's taking on new riders."
"People ride that fuckin' thing?" Branches asked.
"Don't shit me, Homer," Hero said.
Again, Homer felt the nudge in his ribs, and Mr. Rose said, mildly, "You all so uneducated--Homer's havin' a little fun with you."
When the bottle of rum passed from man to man, Mr. Rose just passed it along.
"Don't the name Homer mean nothin' to you?" Mr. Rose asked the men.
"I think I heard of it," the cook Black Pan said.
"Homer was the world's first storyteller!" Mr. Rose announced. The nudge at Homer's ribs was back, and Mr. Rose said, "Our Homer knows a good story, too."
"Shit," someone said after a while.
"What kind of wheel you call it, Homer?" Branches asked.
"A Ferris wheel," said Homer Wells.
