The Shining: Chapter 28 Summary & Analysis

Jack stands on the stairs listening to Wendy soothe Danny through the closed and locked door of their room. Things will never change, Jack thinks to himself. He could be sober for 20 years and Wendy would still sniff him to see if smelled like gin. He thinks of Wendy’s face as she pulled Danny away from him. “She has no goddamn right!” Jack yells. Well, maybe at first, Jack thinks, but he has reformed. Doesn’t he deserve recognition for that? And if Wendy refuses give him recognition, shouldn’t he at least be allowed to drink? He wipes his mouth with his hand. Unless she is planning to resort to a “radical sort of diet,” she will have to come out sooner or later. 

Jack goes out and stands in the lobby, and finds himself moving toward the dining room. He walks in. The room is empty, but, Jack thinks, dinner will be at eight and the unmasking at midnight. He tries to imagine what the room might have looked like in 1945, the men and women in costume and shouting “Unmask! Unmask!” He walks toward the Colorado Lounge. Drinks would have been free at the masquerade ball, Jack thinks.

Jack walks through the batwing doors of the Colorado Lounge and swears that he catches the glint of light on bottles behind the bar. The bar was empty when Ullman gave him the tour, Jack thinks as he feels around for the light. He flips on the light, but the shelves are empty. Not even dust has collected yet. The beer taps are dry, but he distinctly smells beer. Jack has been in several bars over the years, and he knows the old smell of beer that sinks into the woodwork, but this smell is fresh. He feels the same sense of bewilderment he felt in the playground, but there is no use in thinking about that, Jack decides.

This figures, Jack says to himself. This is the first bar he has been inside of in 19 months, and the place is dry as a bone. “Hi Lloyd,” Jack says to an imaginary bartender. “A little slow tonight, isn’t it?” Jack begins a conversation, telling Lloyd that he has $60 in his wallet that he feared would be there until spring. He tells Lloyd to line up 20 martinis, and he is going to drink them, one at a time. As Jack imagines Lloyd making his drinks, he pops two Excedrin into his mouth and reaches into his wallet, finding it empty.

Jack tells Lloyd that he seems to be short on cash and asks if his credit is any good. He imagines that Lloyd tells him it is just fine and continues mixing drinks. Jacks spins on his stool and looks to the booths. They are all empty, but when he spins back around, he imagines that 20 glistening martinis are sitting before him. He thanks Lloyd (the best bartender, Jack has always thought) and lets the first drink slide down his dry throat. He throws the imaginary empty glass over his shoulder and reaches for another. He asks Lloyd if he has ever known a man “on the wagon.” Lloyd says he has, and Jack asks if he has ever known a man to jump back off the wagon. Lloyd, Jack imagines, says he isn’t sure. 

If Lloyd isn’t sure, Jack says, he has never seen a man jump off the wagon. Jack drinks two more martinis and continues talking. The wagon is great when you first get on, Jack says. People cheer you on and clap and wave like you are a float in a parade. Then, Jack tells his imaginary bartender, you see things you didn’t notice before you jumped on. The wagon’s wood is so straight and fresh that it gives you splinters, and there aren’t any cushions to sit on. Just hard benches. “And that’s when you realize what the Wagon really is, Lloyd,” Jack says. “It’s a church with bars on the windows, a church for women and a prison for you.”

Jack stops talking. Lloyd is suddenly gone and so are his drinks. Even worse, Jack thinks, they were never really there in the first place. He looks around the bar at the empty booths and stools and is certain he is going insane. He is compelled to pick up a barstool and trash the place, but instead he stands up and begins to sing. Jack thinks suddenly of Danny. What is he doing here talking to himself when Danny is upstairs acting like someone who belongs in a mental hospital?

“Jack?” comes Wendy’s voice from outside the bar. As Wendy enters the bar, Jack immediately says he never touched Danny. Not since the night he broke his arm, anyway. Wendy says it doesn’t matter now, and Jack cuts her off. “This matters!” he screams. “It matters, goddammit, it matters!” She is carrying Danny, and as she begins to say they must get him off the mountain, Danny starts to move. His mouth twists into a horrible shape, his eyes open wide, and he begins to scream. Wendy starts to cry, and Jack loudly yells Danny’s name, breaking his son’s trance.

Danny jumps from Wendy’s arms and runs to Jack, screaming and crying. “Daddy, it was her,” Danny wails. Jack immediately looks to Wendy and demands to know what she did to him. Wendy says that Jack must know she would never hurt Danny, and as she does, it begins to snow again.