9. Firestarter: A book for which I have no quirky subtitle

Firestarter is a book that I'd probably have given up on unless I was doing this project, or had actually paid money to buy it.

That being said, I'm glad I stuck it out.

See, it didn't really grab me at first. It was one of those things where I got 100 pages in, and I still didn't care about the characters. I'm not saying that King wrote the book poorly. It's a well-crafted novel that just wasn't appealing to me. Eventually, it sunk it's hooks in. I took the bait, and we were off to the races.

Firestarter is, like most of Stephen King's books of the time, about psychic powers. A man and a woman are among a group of college students who take part in a psychology department experiment. What they don't know is that the experiment is really a front for an experiment run by a shady government organization known colloquially as 'The Shop'. The Shop is like the kind of secret shit that the CIA doesn't know about. Long story short, the experimental serum administered to those students caused them all to develop some type of psychic power in various degrees.

Moving forward, Andy and Vicky (the aforementioned man and woman) fall in love, get married, and have a daughter, Charlene. They call her Charlie. Charlie is extra special. See, Andy can 'push', or influence people's thoughts. That, of course, comes at a price. The harder Andy pushes, the stronger his headache becomes. Push too hard, and Andy may give himself a stroke.

Wonder where the push idea might have come from?

Andy's wife, Vicky, has very minimal power. At her strongest, she can maybe close a door from across the room, or move something across the table. The important part is that Andy + Vicky = Charlie, but really Power + Power = ???? 

Charlie, they figure out quickly, can start fires with her mind. What else can Charlie do? That's what Andy and Vicky are afraid of, and that's exactly what The Shop wants to know. So, the McGee family goes on the run, trying to hide out from a government agency that most people doesn't know exists.

Here I was, reading about the McGee's and the guys from The Shop and not really being invested, and trying my damnedest not to let my minimal association with the movie influence my impression of the book. I knew there was a movie made. I've never seen it. I know that young Drew Barrymore starred as Charlie. I also knew that George C. Scott was in the movie.

Here's the thing about that: George C. Scott is who my mind associated with the role of Captain Hollister, head muckety muck of The Shop. For some reason, Scott is exactly who I envisioned as that fella. Come to find out after I'd finished the book that Scott played the role of John Rainbird in the movie.

WRONG WRONG WRONG!!! Sometimes, Hollywood sucks.

In the book, Rainbird is written as a cold, distant, imposing killer. A large, disfigured, brutish hulk of a man who dispenses people on behalf of The Shop with efficient methods. Also, and critically important to the character, he's Native American. George C. Scott is not even close to what my mental image of Rainbird was. Whatever. At any rate, I'm glad I didn't look into the details of the movie until after I'd finished the book.

Speaking of the book, I can't exactly pinpoint where it turned on me, but if I had to hazard a guess, it would be when the McGee's ended up at Irv Mander's farm, the scene of their first showdown with The Shop. The character of Irv Manders is probably what sealed the deal for me. Manders picks up the McGee's hitchhiking, and provides that kind of grandfatherly wisdom that is one of the hallmarks of a King novel for me. Irv Manders is the Glen Bateman of Charlie's world, and I like guys like that.

I spent a couple of days wracking my brain, trying to figure out what angle to approach this entry from. How was I going to write about Firestarter? What's my take? It's a decent enough book, entertaining, even if it isn't the kind of work that turned the literary world on it's ear. Instead, I keep thinking about The Shop. The shadowy figures of the government, or worse. I think about The Shop, and I think about human nature and our hesitance to be selfless.

The Shop is kind of like the CIA, Jack Bauer's CTU, and the Mafia all rolled into one, only somewhat more stupid. As intimidating as they're supposed to be, some of The Shop's field agents seem pretty dumb in this book. The Shop is the kind of job that you might wind up in if, say, you'd spent some time in the Navy Seals, or the Rangers, or maybe the FBI. Maybe you were a bit of a hothead, maybe you broke protocol, maybe you just didn't fit into 'the world'. Somehow, The Shop seemed to find you. Almost like the Government version of the shady Blackwater contract operators of the Iraq War.

Without going all Alex Jones conspiracy on you, I believe that there's some weird shit that goes on. The CIA's role in Watergate and Vietnam. Hell, if you've ever seen the movie 'The Good Shepherd', you get an idea of the birth of the CIA out of the ashes of the OSS. There's a place in this world for the guys to work in the dark. Maybe it's necessary, maybe it's not. I'm not going to try and make points that start a political debate. That's not my place and I can make arguments for both sides. My point is: I think it happens, and I think it happens a lot more than we know about.

Does that make them really good at their job? Does that make me stupid for not seeing it? Both, maybe? People lived entire lives surrounded by people that had no idea they worked for the CIA. Hell, my neighbor might work for the CIA. I don't know. 

In the beginning of 'Firestarter', The McGee's are in an airport, trying to stay one step ahead of The Shop. I've been in an airport plenty of times. I've never seen James Bond or Jack Bauer hustling through while I'm just waiting to board for my vacation. Imagine if you were in that airport, and all of this chase and turmoil is swirling around you, and you're none the wiser. 

Maybe we don't see it because we simply don't care. It doesn't involve us. We don't pick up hitchhikers because we're afraid we'll get murdered on the side of the highway. We don't give change to the guy who's holding a cardboard sign at the exit ramp or the corner. We've become selfish and cynical, and we're looking out for Number One.

And I come back to my favorite fella, Irv Manders. Riding down the road, he sees the McGee's trying to thumb a ride. Of course his instinct tells him something is wrong, but he stops anyway, scoops them up, takes them back to his farm, and offers them his help. Taking a risk and accepting a level of danger that he has no idea he's about to face, he does the good thing because he's a good man. 

I'm not saying you need to pick up hitchhikers. I don't think I'd do that. I know that I've been to too many intersections with people asking for help. Asking for money. The cardboard sign tells their tale. They're out of work, they're a Veteran, they're a father and they need money for diapers, whatever it is. I've been guilty of being selfish, because I usually keep driving. I don't BELIEVE them.

You know what? It doesn't matter if I believe them. If I roll down the window and give him $.50, what does it really matter to me if he's telling the truth or going to buy a bottle of booze? It doesn't, and instead of being so cynical and selfish about it, maybe I should try and get the karma swinging my way, be a little more thankful for my good fortune, and help pay it forward a few coins at a time. There's no real harm in taking that chance, and it might actually do some good. $.50 from a few cars an hour adds up. I'd like to think in my head that maybe, just maybe, that guy is gonna go into Walgreens later and make a cashier roll her eyes with frustration because he's going to buy some Pampers with a handful of quarters and nickels. So, with that, I think it's time for me to adjust my outlook on that sort of thing, and try to make a little bit of difference.

That sounds like a very Irv Manders thing to do.

8. The Dead Zone: Money can't buy off the lightning

As with most of the early, or classic, Stephen King books, I find myself familiar with the story, even if I haven't read the book itself. King's early works have a way of embedding themselves into the social culture, and for better or worse, that's a sign of a creative mind with impact.

Life got busy for us recently, with a wedding and reception and honeymoon taking up most of our time. I wasn't really able to think about moving forward to The Dead Zone until it was time to get on the plane and head out. Full flights and uncomfortable seating gave me the chance to try and escape reality for a few hours and dive into the world of Johnny Smith and Greg Stillson.

As with most King novels, The Dead Zone is set in Maine. The book opens with a flashback to Johnny's first accident. Johnny doesn't remember this accident, but it's important. Johnny had a serious collision on ice skates with another boy as a young child, and we learn that Johnny's brain got a little rattled on the ice. As we move forward, we see Johnny Smith is a nice young man, a school teacher in a small town. He takes Sarah out on a date to the local fair. Sarah is also a teacher at their school. Her and Johnny have been slowly developing a relationship. Johnny plays a carnival game similar to roulette and 'has a feeling'. He wins and wins and keeps winning. Sarah falls ill, possibly because of bad fair food, possibly out of fear that there's something weird about Johnny. Eventually, Johnny gets her home, and puts her to bed. Any planned romance for the evening is out the window, and Johnny catches a cab back to his place. Along the way, the cab is involved in a head on collision and Johnny put into a coma for 4 1/2 years.

So, the story goes along. Sarah moves on, Johnny comes out of his coma, and seems to have a psychic ability where, sometimes, he can tell people's future simply by touching them. A bunch of stuff happens, but the main plot point is that Johnny shakes the hand of Greg Stillson, a political candidate, and he gets a vision that Stillson is going to become President and lead the country, and possibly the world, to war and nuclear annihilation. Johnny feels that it's his duty, his obligation to humanity, to keep that from happening. He has to kill Greg Stillson. Assassination.

Sounds crazy, right? Well, it is, kinda. With most of King's stuff, you have to suspend disbelief and just embrace things for the context they're written in.

Through Johnny's voice and his plotting, King does raise an interesting philosophical point for debate: If you could go back in a time machine to 1932, would you kill Hitler?

This is the stuff that countless debates and works of Alternate History are made of.

As the story builds towards climax, it presents a number of scenarios that can make you ponder on the value of things in your life. Money, fame, family, love. Each of those things means something different to every person, and I think we all value them a little differently. While I wasn't blown away by the quality of the story itself, it was these things that gave King's overall work more meaning to me than just the surface plot.

I thought the book itself was ok. Nothing great on the scale of 'The Stand', but it was entertaining enough. Returning to the idea of psychic powers, it had a feel, to me, that King was kind of trolling the same ground. Maybe it was something where he had to produce for a deadline, but it was definitely a let down after 'The Stand'. That book would be incredibly hard for anyone to follow. The literary equivalent to 'Pet Sounds' or 'Rumours', it's hard to top a masterpiece, so you do the best you can, then look forward to the next one.

I was trying to think of an angle to approach this installment, and I really wasn't getting anywhere with the main plot of the story. Sure, it's interesting, but it kind of hurtles along with no real resistance up to the finish. King kind of revisits the theme in '11/22/63', but that's way far down the line, and I think that's a good time to muse upon the idea. Instead, I found myself going back to one particular section. In the aftermath of a tragic event, Johnny receives a letter in the mail. One of the points in that letter stuck with me. Maybe it was just the turn of phrase, but it was the trigger to a line of thought that, really, only vaguely ties into the book.

Let me lay it out for you.

Sarah has moved on, but of course, she's the only girl for Johnny. Johnny's simple existence, or return to the world, causes emotional conflict in Sarah despite her happy marriage to another man. Johnny's parents, long married, find themselves strained by their individual beliefs. Johnny works for a wealthy family as a tutor, when his psychic notoriety keeps him from otherwise gainful employment.

Values, beliefs, and turmoil. Johnny successfully mentors his young student to graduation, then has a vision that the traditional graduation party will end in tragedy. He sees lightning striking the restaurant, starting a massive fire, trapping and killing everyone inside. He begs everyone to cancel the party, and starts a panic among the students and their families. Of course, many dismiss him as a charlatan, and go to the party anyway. After all, they'd already paid non-refundable deposits. A few of the students, perhaps believing, perhaps just frightened out of their minds, opt not to go. Instead, they stay at home, anxiously awaiting news they hope doesn't come.

The news comes anyway. Johnny was right. Lightning strikes, and tragedy unfolds, as predicted.

Later, after much other stuff has passed, Johnny receives that letter from the father of his student, thanking him for saving his son's life. As he writes about his grief for not believing in Johnny immediately, he talks about what he could have done to change things. He could have paid out of pocket to cover the cost of the party and cancelled it himself and kept all of the graduates safe at his house. It's only money, right?

Money can buy a lot of things. Some people say that money can buy you anything. Money can solve all your problems. Most people on the other side of that coin would tell you that money doesn't solve everything, and really only lets you trade your old problems for newer, more expensive problems.

Money can buy you happiness, maybe. I'd like to believe that. I'd love to test that theory out. I think that, approached in the right way, it can do exactly that.

However, money doesn't fix everything, and money doesn't always leave you in control.

Money can't buy off the lightning.

7. The Long Walk: Pickin'em up, and Puttin'em down...

Sometimes, books are made into movies. That's a good transfer of medium, but it has it's drawbacks. In my case, once I see a movie, I almost always associate the actors with the characters. So, if I go back and read 'The Stand', I'm always going to see Gary Sinese as Stu Redman, and Jamie Sheridan as Randall Flagg. That causes me problems, especially in the case of Randall Flagg, but as usual, we'll get to that later. Some other time, maybe.

On the other hand, when books AREN'T made into movies, it frees up your imagination to interpret the text however you see fit. Sure, the author lays out the context and describes things, paints the picture for theater of the mind, if you will, but you're the final editor of your own mind's eye.

The Long Walk hasn't been made into a movie, at least, not directly, which leaves it as one of my long-standing favorites, because I love the way it plays out in my mind.

Remember this guy? Yeah, book two.

The Long Walk was released in July 1979 under King's pseudonym, Richard Bachman. King later revealed that The Long Walk was the first complete book he'd ever written, started back in the late 1960's, well before Carrie and the start of his literary career. The Long Walk follows the pattern I'd previously mentioned of the Bachman books being human-nature based, rather than involving elements of the supernatural. 

None of the four books collected in The Bachman Books involve the supernatural, or horror, for that matter. Instead, they're somewhat philosophical, sociological, with an element of science-fiction. I truly believe that King was exercising a different part of his personality in these works, and I can understand why he kept them separate from his vampires and telekinetic teenagers. I've said it before, but I found The Bachman Books fascinating, and I still do. Even though I found myself let down by Rage, I was extremely happy to find that I was not let down at all by my revisit to this alternate world of Maine, which is the stage for a brutal national contest.

The Long Walk is simply that. It's a walking contest. 100 Walkers (not the zombies from The Walking Dead, either), start at the border of the United States and Canada in upstate Maine. The rules are somewhat simple. Stay on the road, don't interfere with your fellow Walkers, and walk at or above the minimum speed of 4 miles per hour. Fall below 4 miles per hour and you get warned. Your warnings expire after an hour. You get three warnings. If you should fall below 4mph, and you've already got three warnings? They shoot you. Dead. If you're the last man standing? You win 'The Prize', and The Prize is anything and everything you ask for, for as long as you live.

Sorry, Rick. Wrong kind of Walkers. Good luck with that, tho...

Who's they, as in 'They' shoot you? They are the Soldiers of the 'Squad'. What 'the Squad' is is never clearly defined, other than it's some type of national military service, and if you talk badly about the government, Soldiers come and take you out of your home and you're never heard from again. You get 'Squadded'.

The Leader of the Squads, and perhaps the leader of this twisted version of America, is The Major. That's what he's called. He has no surname. He is only known as The Major. He runs The Long Walk, and he appears throughout the book, popping in, giving pep talks to the Walkers from his jeep and receiving adulation from the crowd before speeding away into the distance. 

When I was a kid, I was a huge fan of G.I. Joe. In G.I. Joe, there is a character named 'Major Bludd', and from the first time I read The Long Walk, I associated The Major with Major Bludd. Of course, in the book, The Major wears mirrored aviator sunglasses, and Major Bludd wears an eyepatch, but if you put sunglasses on him, that's exactly what I envision when I read about The Major.

Who's got my sunglasses? It's bright out here.

The story is focused on Ray Garraty. Ray is a 17 year old boy from Maine who's been chosen for this year's Long Walk. Oh, I forgot to tell you. These 100 Walkers? They're coveted spots. Young men from all over the 51 states (yes, I said 51) apply and go through a series of tests to determine who will even qualify for selection. The selection is then held on national television. Out of thousands, 200 names are chosen. 100 Walkers and 100 alternates, because there WILL be a field of 100 Walkers at the start.

Ok, where was I? Oh yeah, our boy Ray Garraty. So, Ray's in the Walk, and he's from Maine, so he's kind of the hometown favorite. Along the way we're introduced to many other characters, and I'll get to them as they become relevant to my musings.

Let me spoil this for you right now: Garraty wins. The fact that he wins is not important, because, as a reader, you would normally recognize that the protagonist of this story is going to see it through. Yeah, I'm looking at you, Katniss Everdeen.

...and then there was one...

Speaking of Katniss, and the Hunger Games, and Battle Royale, and The Long Walk, they all tend to be cut from the same cloth. Don't get it twisted, King/Bachman wasn't on to anything new here with his idea of a death contest involving kids from districts, or the concept of society turning on itself. Shirley Jackson's 'The Lottery' was published in 1948, and King even had one of his characters reference it in The Long Walk. I'm sure there are others out there that I haven't read, so I'm not aware of them. Still, the idea is not new.

The Walk begins, and over the course of the book, we, The Constant Reader, are like a fly, hovering over Garraty as he goes through The Walk. We meet people, we get inside Garraty's head, we feel his emotions, his doubts. We learn about him, and slightly about this America that we're suddenly in. One of the things I liked about this book when I first read it, and still like to this day, is the offhand way King mentions differences in society, without going out of his way to explain. You just accept that this version of America is fucked up, different, as if somewhere in the course of history, society zigged, when in real life it had zagged. How else do you explain 51 states, or The Squads, or The Major? You don't explain them, they just ARE.

Let's go back to The Major for a second. There are some things that we know about him from the book, and I have some ideas on King's allegories. The Major is a mythical figure. Crowds cheer for him, legendary and possibly apocryphal stories about him are told from person to person, and, oh yeah, he's ultimately responsible for the systematic killing of 99 of America's own citizens FOR SPORT. Yet, he is beloved.

I haven't read any analysis about The Long Walk. No literary reviews or criticisms for me. However, I feel a strong relation to Adolf Hitler when I think of The Major. Hitler was worshiped in his own country, and his Nazi party ruled by fear (The Squads, anyone?). Hitler, in a self-deprecating move to make himself relatable, referred to himself as 'The Corporal', and wore only his earned Iron Cross and wound badge from World War I. In a world where most dictators look like a Christmas Tree threw up on them, Hitler remained visually simple, with a subdued wardrobe, although unquestionably in power. Is The Major the ruler of America? He certainly has a lot of power within the context of the novel. Did King model The Major after Hitler with his understated title and simple military dress? I think he did, but I could be wrong. 

Enough about the Major.

The Long Walk always interested me because of it's odd believe-ability. I always found it possible that we could end up in a society like this. Maybe... maybe it's because I grew up Jewish. Let me slow that down and explain where I'm going with that.

When you're 6 years old, it's not very likely that you're aware of The Holocaust and World War II and the Nazis... unless you're Jewish. When you're Jewish, you learn about all of that as a young child, because of heritage, and culture. My family, especially my Grandparents, gave me a strong historical education, and I learned about The Holocaust long before I ever cracked a book in social studies class. Having that knowledge, that awareness of history in my mind when I first read this book made it understandable, and not so far-fetched as the average reader may take it. If stuff like The Holocaust could happen in the real world, then who's to say that The Long Walk couldn't be a part of our future.

I'm telling you, sugar-tits, that entire last paragraph is bullshit!

I have 4 more specific points that I want to make before I wrap this up, based on my notes. If, during the course of expounding upon those points, I create additional points, then tough titty, said the kitty.

Looking back at The Long Walk using information that we know now, there are two specific things that stood out to me in the text that could be construed as clues to Richard Bachman being Stephen King, keeping in mind that King wasn't actually outed as Bachman until 1985.

At one point, Pete McVries, another Walker and Garraty's closest thing to a 'friend', talks about his old job in a pajama factory, mentioning that they would often spend time on break throwing baling hooks at the rats that would hide in the fabric bundles. As soon as I read that, I flashed back to 'Graveyard Shift' in the book Night Shift, which had almost the exact same instance. Another clue was during one of Garraty's thoughts when he remembered swimming in the Royal River, dealing with leeches, and how you could pull them off 'if you weren't pussy'. Flash forward a few years to 'The Body' in Different Seasons (also known as the movie 'Stand By Me'), and that exact scenario befell Gordie Lachance and the boys. Now, granted, we're years and books away from Different Seasons still, but in today's world, with my knowledge, they struck me as clues, perhaps a 'catch me if you can' wink.

...oh shit, ohshitohshitohshi... wait, I'm not in this story!

Another thing that stuck with me from childhood is King's irreverence. The author's wit, exemplified through sarcastic dialogue. "Hail Mary, full of grace, let me win this stock-car race" is one example. Another is 'Let this ground be seeded with salt, so that nothing may grow here. Cursed be their crops. Cursed be their loins. Cursed be their hams and their hocks.' (Giggles)  Maybe King didn't originally write that, or maybe he did. I know that, as a kid, riding my bike back home with The Bachman Books tucked in my bookbag for the eleventyith time, it struck me as funny, and it wove into my lexicon. I didn't bust it out very often, but I distinctly remember saying it a few times in my life.

One last thing. During the course of this race, you don't leave the road. If you do, you get shot. No warnings, just dead. You forfeit your warnings when you leave the course. There are no port-a-potties or places to discreetly relieve yourself. You are a spectacle for all the world to see. Pissing is one thing. The 100 Walkers are men, so when they have to pee, they just turn around and piss backwards, away from themselves. Garraty wrestles with the urge to have a bowel movement, and King does an amazing job of working out all of the thoughts and emotions that you might wrestle with if you're faced with dropping a deuce in the public eye. Shame, embarrassment, resignation, fear, the physical logistics, especially when you've been walking for days or hours and your body can betray you at any second. That feeling of captivity, being constantly on display, like an animal at the zoo, without dignity, eventually coming to the realization that you've got to do it, trying to get it over as fast as possible, and moving on with your life, in this case literally with your life. In typical King fashion, he mentions the bloodthirsty spectators that have come to alternately cheer the Walkers as well as celebrate their demise, because everyone deep down has a morbid, rubbernecker curiosity. Once the Walkers move down the path, the spectators fight over who gets to collect the dropped turds as a souvenir.

Pleasant imagery, huh? Similar to the Christians and the lions, or the Tributes in the Arena while everyone watches in the Capital.

In my mind, I see The Long Walk as a movie. I read it like a movie, I mentally picture the cinematography, seeing it all play out as a psychological drama/thriller. It's not an action movie, because the only action is when a Walker... well, stops walking. Still, I've always framed it out that way. I can't say that about every book I've read, but that's how it's always been with me and The Long Walk.

The Great Tradition of Rollerball?!?!? If you say so...

I really have a deep affinity for The Bachman Books. Sure, 'Rage' has lost its luster for me a bit after the last reading, but I still feel that all four stories in the collection are strong. The only one ever made into a movie was 'The Running Man', and even that deviated so far from the source material that it was a completely different story on film. That's ok, though. I'm kind of protective of them. Unlike 'The Dark Tower', which I'd love to see made into some sort of film or miniseries, I'm perfectly ok with the rest of The Bachman Books staying on the page. It gives my mind the freedom to see them, relatively uninfluenced, as I see fit.

That's kind of the point of literature in the first place.

6. The Stand: M-O-O-N, and that spells 'memories'

The version of 'The Stand' that I just finished reading is probably not the one that you're used to.

You're probably used to seeing this. Well, at least this is my familiar version... but we're getting ahead of ourselves, as we tend to do.

'The Stand' was released in September of 1978. After spending some time in New England in 'Salem's Lot' and 'Carrie', and a trip out to Colorado in 'The Shining', Stephen King went all in on 'The Stand'.

Set in the 'future' of 1985, the book opens in little old Arnette, Texas. Some good ol' boys are sitting around at the local gas station, shooting the shit. Times are hard. Economy is down, and the local factory jobs have all moved overseas. As they (Stu Redman, Bill Hapscomb, Vic Palfrey, et al.) jabber on, a car begins weaving through the streets, on a path with the gas station. Stu shuts the pumps off just before Charles Campion collides into them. Rushing out to help, they open the door to the car, and they essentially open the door to hell. Campion is deathly ill, and his wife and young daughter are already dead. Campion dies on the way to the hospital. The local Mayberry-esque law enforcement and doctors do their part, scratch their heads, say stuff like 'Ain't that a hell of a thing?', and the strange incident seems over.

Instead of the accident becoming part of the folklore of a small town's history, it's essentially the beginning of the end of the world. Campion is carrying A6 (Remember that? Night Shift?), or the Superflu, or Captain Trips, or Project Blue, or...

Death has many names and many forms. In this instance, it's a virus with a 99.4% lethality rate. Over the course of the first hundred pages, America and the world are essentially decimated and human society collapses. The survivors, because there are always survivors, become the focus of our story. It's Stephen King, after all, so instead of it taking a Sci-fi/Twilight Zone turn, it gets supernatural, and right on down to the basic forces of good and evil.

Now, where was I? Oh yes, so the book was released in 1978, and it was a whopper of a book. The copy I have clocks in at just over 800 pages. I remember it vividly as a child.

Shitty picture, but this is the edition I read as a child, and still have today.

SIDENOTE: In 1990, King released 'The Stand: Complete and Uncut', adding almost 400 pages of previously edited material from the original manuscript, as well as updating the timeframe and making some minor editorial corrections. I will happily address all of that when I get to it in the chronological order. For now, we're talking about the original. 

Here's the thing about that original 1978 whomper: it's not around anymore. Unless you're a packrat like me, or you get lucky on the internet or at a used book store (I ALWAYS recommend spending some time in used book stores. You can't lose), you can't find the original version. Everything that's available now in hardcover, paperback, e-book, special edition, audiobook, etc., is the Unabridged 1990 version.

Luckily for me, I have TWO copies of the original. Sometimes, very rarely but sometimes, being a hoarder pays off.

It's important to me to have the original version for the sake of honesty with this project, as well as for some comparisons and evaluations that will come way down the line. To be candid, I prefer the longer version over the original. The additions of some plot points, and the actual telling of events only hinted at in the original always give me a true sense of completion. However, let's try to look at things as they were in 1978, or in the mid-80's when I finally plucked the dark, blue covered paperback out of that magical magazine rack in my mother's living room.

This book had everything that a young man could want. Good heroes, evil villains, magic, sex, weapons, fear... EVERYTHING!!! As a young man, I was a fan of horror movies. I liked Michael Myers, Jason Vorhees, and Freddy Kruger. I didn't much care for Dracula or the Devil. There was nothing about them that excited me. Yet, The Stand changed that.

Randall Flagg is the Devil. Well, at least in this early context of the King Universe, he is. Actually, maybe he's more than that, or maybe less. He's evil. I don't mean that he's an evil man, I mean that he is the embodiment of the concept of EVIL. He takes many names and many forms, like death itself. So, perhaps, he's not The Devil (as we interpret from a religious or biblical sense), but he is a BAAAAAAAAAAAAAD DUDE. He draws the 'bad guys' out to Las Vegas and quickly creates his own community. King wrote him in a way that made me FEAR him. I knew he wasn't a man, and I knew that he was capable of anything at any moment.

I wasn't scared of the vampires in Salem's Lot. I simply rooted for the good guys to win, and they did, kinda. I wasn't scared of the asshole classmates in Carrie, because they were just asshole bullies. Carrie was actually the one to be afraid of. With The Stand, I was playing in a different field, with entirely new landscapes now.

Re-reading it was a great pleasure, because of all of the things I know about in the King Universe now, and how things later tie back into The Stand. It's especially interesting to see how characters resonate with you at different times in your life. All of them. The good guys, and the bad guys. Even the inconsequential characters.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be Larry Underwood. I wanted to be the rock star, even if it was in a world where there were no more rock stars. I didn't grasp Larry's flaws, his fundamental failings, his selfishness and how it affected his life, his relationships, and ultimately, his redemption. I just knew that he had a hit record, and that's what mattered to me at 8 years old.

Later, I related with Harold Lauder. Poor, not-so-sweet Harold. Always second best, awkward and highly intelligent, shaped by his parents and his experience into feeling that the world was out to get him. I went through a time where I could relate to that bitterness. I knew what it was like to be hopelessly, foolishly in love with the pretty girl who had no interest in you. I knew what it was like to be in situations where you were smarter than others and you didn't know how to relate to them. (Side note: I didn't grasp, or care to grasp, the concept of patronizing. I spent my fair share of time being an asshole to people. Regrets, regrets...)

Stu, while the lead character, was never my guy. Even this time around, I understood Stu better than before, and I understand his importance and relationship to the balance of the story, but I never resonated with Stu. Maybe... maybe that's because I still don't know if I have it in me to be 'the hero' when it's time to be. Maybe it's a self-doubt. I don't know how I'd handle any number of the situations that Stu faced. There's an innate quality of leadership in classic literary characters. The author has the privilege of creating them as such. As human beings, it's not so simple. Sometimes, it's a case of 'Fake it 'til you Make it'. Sometimes, I find myself dealing with that. Maybe that's why I'm not a guy like Stu.

I will say that, the character I appreciated more than ever before, was Glen Bateman. The aged college professor, the wise man who was almost the human Deus Ex Machina, seeing through the plot holes, being the voice of reason or alterior perspective. I've spent a lot of time in the past few years dealing with logistics and having to play Devil's Advocate with myself to try and objectively address problems. Glen Bateman was never that guy to me before. He was always a dry comic relief, or simply the wise old sage. I guess I never really appreciated his importance to the balance of the story until this time around.

It's because of The Dark Tower. Glen's place in the ka-tet of The Stand. I never looked at it like that before.

What did he just say? you might be asking yourself... WTF is a ka-tet? Is that some kind of weird jazz thing?

We'll get to it. Sometimes, in order to make sense of something to myself, I have to acknowledge things that I didn't know at the time.

Quite a bit of rambling so far, and have we really touched the story? Somewhat, but let's do just that.

I love the story. I love the concept of the concurrent, rapid breakdown of technology and society. Remember, this was 1978. People weren't retina deep in their Facebook every waking second. People weren't falling into open manholes because they were texting and not looking at where they're walking. Even so, 'The Government' quickly lost control of Project Blue, and the walls came tumblin' down. Joshua at Jericho and John Cougar Mellencamp, we thankya.

You should ask yourself every time you read it: How?

Not 'How could this happen?' but 'How would you recover?' or 'How would you adapt and move on?' How would you rebuild, or build anew? The straggling survivors came together in bands. The world abandoned them and left them to work with whatever they could find. People die, and they die quickly. Soon, the workers to handle the infrastructure of America are dead. No one's minding the store, from the White House, all the way down to the farm, to the warehouse, to the power plant, to the radio station, to the telephone company... it ALL breaks down. Roads are full of wrecked and abandoned cars. No one is there to clear them, because the tow truck drivers are as dead as the people who died in the left lane trying to avoid the accident ahead. Captain Trips takes no prisoners.

The book, the story, the concept. It's not new. King didn't invent the apocalypse, but it's brilliant. It's wide scope is amazing. The character development is wonderful. It's a masterpiece, albeit a masterpiece with flaws. We'll get to that in a moment.

One of my favorite touches is towards the beginning of the book. I don't know if it was intentional or not, but I always likened it to The Bible. In the Bible, there are exhausting instances of 'begat'ing. The Stand does something similar. Despite the efforts of the government to quarantine Arnette, Texas, and stop Project Blue, King writes about Joe Bob, the Sheriff's Deputy. He's the cousin of Bill Hapscomb, and he was the official to respond to Campion's accident. By the time the government (CDC and the dark, shadowy agents that work undercover) could swoop in, Joe Bob had already gone about his duty. King describes his travels, at each point where he interacts with others. Even though Joe Bob doesn't show any signs of being sick, he's infected with Project Blue, and whenever he stops, he begats death on someone else. The dark, cold, and horribly efficient beauty of it is that the person who Joe Bob wrote a speeding ticket to, stops at the truck stop for a diner meal, where he begats death upon a group of people who are about to spread in all directions, themselves begat-ing death on everything they come in contact with. It's a beautifully crafted section of writing, and it's one of my favorites.

There were some things that I'd noticed this time around that I hadn't really caught before. I think a big part of that is because it's been a long, long time since I've read the original version of the novel. There were a couple of Grateful Dead references, and there was a reference to Morning Star Farms veggie sausage. I had no idea that Morning Star was around back in 1978! It was just one of those things that made me pause and took me out of the story for a moment while reading.

The wild card in the story, of course, is The Trashcan Man. Trashy lives to serve the Dark Man, but he is not controlled by him. Trashy is drawn to Flagg's camp in the same manner that others are drawn to Boulder or Las Vegas. However, Trashy detours whenever he feels like it. Donald Merwin Elbert aka The Trashcan Man is a troubled, very troubled man. As King lays out his back story, we come back to the theme of bullying. So far, King has made bullying a theme in Carrie and in Rage (although the Constant Reader wasn't aware that Richard Bachman was Stephen King, not way back in 1978), and now, in The Stand, King lands on the bully theme again with both feet.

Trashcan Man is mentally troubled and ostracized by his parents. He commits juvenile crimes and spends time in and out of the reformatory. He loves fire. He loves to play with fire. He worships it. Throughout his youth, he's caught burning things and it becomes a running joke for the local kids to tease him about. His mental illness, his schizophrenia, is minimally managed by the state, and as an adult, he roams free.

We've seen people like The Trashcan Man our whole lives, you and I. If you've ever walked down the streets in a relatively big city, you've seen the people that talk to themselves, that weave through life, sometimes begging, sometimes just existing. People like that are everywhere in the world. In the world you and I walk around in, there are programs and shelters and people that try to make a difference. In the world of Captain Trips and The Trashcan Man, there is only... Cibola.

Trashy is drawn to Vegas and Flagg, yes, but in his mind, his poor twisted, abandoned mind, he's seeking the treasure. Cibola, Seven-in-One, The City that is Promised. (Spanish Conquistadors chased the legend of Cibola, Seven Cities of Gold, back in the day). On his quest for Cibola, he does what he does best. In truth, the only thing he knows how to do.

He burns.

You've seen them. The massive oil and fuel tanks that sometimes populate the highway roadsides. If you've ever driven into Detroit, you know the massive refinery off of I-75. Gary, Indiana is practically a town full of these tanks. In the world of The Stand, Trashy actually goes through Gary, and he sets it to burn. Trashy's not your standard, light a match and stare at it kind of pyro. Trashy is advanced. Although the voices in his head may tell him things, there's enough brain working to build delayed fuses and all matter of complicated wiring. Trashy can make a bomb. Trashy can set a timer that gives him the breathing room to plant a bomb at the top of one of those massive tanks, run down the winding steps, and get a safe enough distance away before the tank blows sky high.

Well, usually, he can. The condition of his clothes and skin would tell you that he's not 100% accurate.

Trashy sets things to burn. It's his driving purpose in life. It's his calling. He worships the fire. He loves the fire. He's enticed by the fire. With no fire departments to contain his damage, Trashy leaves a swath of charred ruin from Indiana to Vegas, forever chasing Cibola, my life for you, bump-ty bump-ty bump.

My life for you...

( http://youtu.be/OSRjeSLCBLs This is the Tower of Power song that Trashy's Cibola ramblings are based on. That's another thing that I never really caught in my previous readings. I wasn't familiar with this song before, I hadn't listened to it, and now that I have, 'Bump-ty Bump-ty Bump' might be my earworm of the day.)

There are guys like Trashcan Man and Lloyd Henreid, who are chosen specifically by Flagg to be in his inner circle. They are part of the mission. Trashy is set to burn. Flagg recognizes Trashy's skill set, and uses it to his advantage. However, even as a part of Flagg's inner circle, Trashy is still the butt of jokes. He's weird, he's awkward, and he creeps people out. Bullying isn't limited to children.

Trashcan Man gets his revenge on his bullies in Vegas, but it's at great cost to Flagg and it puts Trashy in a terrible spot. He redeems himself as only the Trashcan Man can. So, there's an interesting parallel. Both Trashcan Man and Larry Underwood, for their own reasons, are seeking redemption. It's interesting that their moments of redemption are the same moment in time, and yet, for wholly different reasons.

I've read The Stand numerous times. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that The Stand is my favorite Non-Dark Tower Stephen King book. It's a colossal story, complex and yet personal. It's not perfect. Having read the book multiple times previously, by the time I reached page 700, I developed this feeling of being rushed. I already knew how the story ended, and I knew what still had to happen in the plot to get us there. For all that had happened in the previous 700 pages, I didn't know how ALL OF THAT could be wrapped up in the final 100-ish pages.

Maybe that's the big difference between the original version and the unabridged version. Those added pages allow the story to progress a little more smoothly. The end is still the same, and I still feel that the end is somewhat rushed, someone clumsily done (again, Deus Ex Machina), and yet, somehow appropriate to the ultimate theme of Good Vs. Evil.

If you've never read The Stand, then you've spent an awful lot of time reading a ridiculous amount of words I've written on it that shouldn't make a lot of sense to you. Help yourself with that. Go and read it. Read the Unabridged version. It's better. I'm only doing this to stay true to the concept of the project. Don't worry about the original unless you're a nerd like me.

Two more things and then I'm done.

M-O-O-N and that spells Tom Cullen. This might be one of my favorite things ever. The character of Tom Cullen is mentally handicapped, but highly functional. Tom would love to talk to you, and he's a very excitable fella. Tom's defining character trait is saying 'M-O-O-N and that spells...' whatever he's talking about. No matter what the subject is, it's always spelled M-O-O-N. It's been ingrained in my head since I first read the book, and it's something I will unconsciously drop into conversation on occasion, the same way that people do with movie quotes and song lyrics. It's almost a secret code or a challenge phrase. If you know M-O-O-N, then you're cool... M-O-O-N, and that spells 'Secret's out now'.

Lastly, this project doesn't have to be a one way street. Sure, I read the books, and I babble at you (excessively, by the looks of this entry) about it, but I like feedback. Like most human beings, I'm eager for validation.

https://www.facebook.com/DoingTheKingThing

I made a Facebook for the project that allows YOU to leave comments, engage me in discussion, take umbrage to any points or thoughts I have, and so forth. Ultimately, I'm doing this project for myself, but I'm happy to have you with me. It's good to have someone to talk to, once in a while. 

5. Night Shift: How many times does he have to tell you to stay away from Salem's Lot?!?!?

...and so we finally come to it.

Night Shift is the first Stephen King book I consciously remember reading. As I've stated before, I remember plucking it from the stacks of books and magazines that Mom always had in the living room. I must've been 7 or 8 years old. Maybe I've read it since then, I honestly can't remember.

I know this: as a child, I got scared. The rats, you see...

Reapproaching Night Shift now, I saw things a little differently. I noticed connections to things, I found myself truly enthralled by some of the stories, and underwhelmed by others.

Night Shift was released in 1978, filling the gap between The Shining, and his upcoming work, The Stand. Night Shift is a collection of 20 short stories, including 4 previously unreleased tales.

I'm not going to bore you with musings and reviews of all 20. Instead, I want to talk about a select few, so let's start at the top and merrily skip our way through it.

The book opens with 'Jerusalem's Lot'. Written as a series of letters from the main character to a friend, JL tells the story of strange goings-on in an area of Maine in 1850. Possibly a 'prequel/prologue' to 'Salem's Lot, I wasn't really interested in it. The writing style, the syntax of the Civil-War era letters, kept me from really engaging in the story. You can make an argument that people wrote some masterful prose in those days, but it seemed overdone and somewhat nauseating. The literary equivalent to Old Lady Perfume.

The second tale in the book is really where this entire journey begins. 'Graveyard Shift' is the story of a knockaround guy who works overnights (the graveyard shift) in a textile mill. His boss offers the crew the opportunity to make money during a shutdown week by cleaning out the cellar of the mill, where old furniture, equipment, and materials have been left for years to decay. The boss is a manipulator, and essentially holds the men hostage to the job, despite the safety risks. The risks?

Rats.

The dark basement and abandoned materials are the perfect elements for rats to build nests, multiply, and essentially own that part of the building. They don't take kindly to efforts to evict them, and they fight and bite back. The boss only cares about getting the job done, and makes the crew keep working. Eventually, the crew turns on the boss.

Now, I will tell you this, and leave the details of the rest for you to learn when you read it for yourself. There is a Queen Rat at the center of all this. The rat is described in the book as being the size of a cow (!), albino and blind due to the total darkness of the cellar, and immobile. The rest of the rats serve and protect her.

I'm 7, maybe 8 years old, in the mid 1980's. My other association with rats at this point? Not Splinter, because I think we were just on the cusp of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as a phenomenon.

Templeton. Templeton from Charlotte's Web. The book and the movie, but especially the movie. Templeton was my boy. The Smorgasbord song! Paul Lynde!

This is what my young brain now associated with the Graveyard Shift rats. A Templeton the size of a cow. A horrifyingly huge, slovenly, blindly leering rat. It didn't keep me from watching Charlotte's Web, but I was always a little leery of Templeton after that.

That, my friends, is the stuff that nightmares are made of.

Moving on to 'Night Surf', a story that I don't remember reading. A story that's only allure to me, at this point, is the introduction of Captain Trips.

'The Stand' would hit shelves after 'Night Shift' in the Fall of 1978 and introduce the world to Captain Trips, or the SuperFlu, or A6, a flu-like virus that essentially wipes out 99% of Earth's population. Night Surf focuses on a group of teenagers, maybe young adults, living in this post-apocalyptic world of A6. The collapse of society, the survival instinct, and the absence of law, order, and supplies all play a part in this short story. It isn't terribly remarkable by itself, other than to realize that it was originally published in 1969. The seed of The Stand, arguably one of King's greatest works, first poked it's head above ground 9 years prior.

As a child, I didn't recognize any of that. I hadn't read The Stand yet, and I didn't care about a group of lawless kids on a coastal beach. Now, it resonates obviously in the same universe as The Stand, which is also the same universe as The Dark Tower. We'll come to all of that in due time...

One, two, skip a few, and we come to 'The Mangler', a story about a possessed machine in a commercial laundry building.

Yes, you read that right. A possessed machine in a commercial laundry building.

Anywhoo, once again, something that meant nothing to me as a child rung a bell as a grown up. Small connection, and minor coincidence, but the machine in question is housed at the Blue Ribbon Laundry. Later, in a little story called 'Roadwork', our main man Bart Dawes works for... Blue Ribbon Laundry.

Roadwork is a Richard Bachman novel. I don't know all the details of the Bachman ruse unraveling, but maybe the Blue Ribbon Laundry appearing in both a King and Bachman story was enough to ring a couple people's curiosity bells. Then again, maybe it's just a natural recycling of a bland setting. Either way, it's the only reason that The Mangler bears mention in my rundown.

'Grey Matter' kind of creeped me out. As an adult, I mean. See, here's the thing: I love the movies 'Creepshow' and 'Creepshow 2', and I was a big fan of 'Tales From The Crypt' when it was on HBO. Grey Matter, while not memorable to me as a child, has a definite EC-Comics feel to it. In the middle of a snowstorm, a bunch of locals hanging around at the neighborhood grocery come to the aid of a young kid from the block and make a terrifying discovery.

I swear, I didn't copy that synopsis from anywhere, I wrote it myself. Maybe I have a future in paperback book covers. Whatever. The point is that I read the story and, while I can't pinpoint exactly what triggered it, I began to see it with my mind's eye in a storyboard/comic book fashion. Panels of pencil sketches and word bubbles. Drawings of something terrible, so terrible that it has to be drawn in a comic because it won't translate into reality.

It's as if the drawing makes it more terrifying, because in the pencil and ink world of comics, anything can happen. Once it transfers into a realistic medium of film, you're constrained by the limits of special effects and budget capabilities. The decision of my mind to recognize it in a comic style allowed me to get a full-on case of the heebie jeebies. The fact that it ended in suspense only added to my enjoyment of the story.

'Trucks'. Trucks is etched into my brain forever because it's the basis of 'Maximum Overdrive', which is one of the best worst movies ever made. I know, I said that I wasn't going to make movie vs. book comparisons, and I'm not. Just hear me out...

'Maximum Overdrive' was a movie that I would rent, over and over, from the video store as a kid. The premise is that a comet does something to the atmosphere that causes all man-made machines to come to life and take over the world. The movie itself centers on a little truck stop somewhere in the Southeast United States, and it's full of bad acting, gaudy gore and violence, and a soundtrack of AC/DC music.

It's a masterpiece of embarrassment and I'll still watch it today whenever I see it on TV.

Trucks, on the other hand, is slightly different. See, in Maximum Overdrive, the humans triumph (SPOILER ALERT), but in Trucks, it's not so easy. The story itself is mediocre and obviously far-fetched, but it bears noting as the foundation of one of my all-time favorite guilty pleasures.

I know you remember this truck...

Sometimes, I like it when shit just comes out of left field. Granted, you know you're reading a Stephen King story, so anything is on the table, but when the story takes a WTF? turn, you're usually in for a treat. That brings me to 'The Lawnmower Man'.

Lawnmower Man is about a guy who hires a lawn service to take care of his overgrown property. The manner in which the guy does so is... bizarre. It's absurd, and it's almost whimsical in it's telling. All logic is out the window, but the best part is that the climax of the story is left to the reader's imagination. King ramps up to the big moment, then he skips to the aftermath. You're left to play out the horror in your mind, and it's pretty gross. At least, it was for me.

Quitters INC. I felt like I'd heard this story before, and it took the power of the Googles for me to figure out why. Quitters Inc was made into a movie, well, part of a movie. It was one of the 3 vignettes in Cat's Eye. Anyway, This was possibly my favorite story in the book. A man visits an office shrouded in mystery, seeking help to quit smoking. The folks at Quitters Inc guarantee he'll quit, and he does, but their methods are extreme.

I loved this story. I can relate to it. I'm a smoker. I've been a smoker for a bezillion years. I quit a few times. Once, I quit for over 3 years, but I've always ended up going back to it. If I was faced with quitting smoking against facing consequences like the folks at Quitters Inc offer, would I quit?

I'd quit in one single heartbeat and never look back. At least, I think I would. Dick Morrison thinks he would, too, but he doesn't. He smokes again, and he pays the price.

Quitters Inc is essentially the mafia. Using their service is akin to taking a loan from the loan shark. You promise to never smoke again. First slip up? A little electrocution, a little shock therapy. The catch is, it's not you in the hot seat. It's your wife, or your husband, or your mom, or your dad. Don't pay your bookie and maybe he beats you up, works you over a little, but the fear with Quitters Inc is that you're putting your family at risk. So, bottom line, do you value your family over yourself?

I do, and yet, I'm going to walk away from this keyboard in a couple of minutes, take a break, and have a cigarette. Sure, I don't have the threat of my wife or children being harmed, but maybe... just maybe, if I can find a way to feel that level of fear, to feel that level of determination, to feel that level of desperation, the feeling of true consequence, then MAYBE I'll put the pack down and walk away and never look back.

My First Grade school picture

...and now that I'm back from that reasonably guilt-free cigarette, let's continue on to...

Children of the Corn. This shit creeps me the fuck out. Way more so as an adult than as a child. I think it's because I live in an area where we're regionally inhabited with Amish and Mennonites. That doesn't mean I think they're bad people. Not at all. They do their own thing, live by their rules, and let's be honest, they make amazing food.

Still, the premise of Children of The Corn is essentially when one of those isolated, living out of time communities goes horribly horribly awry. King is a master of making things go horribly awry and dropping the everyman into the situation to deal with it. The story feels a little dated, because the advent of modern technology leaves few parts of the world untouched by communication, so the scenario is pretty unlikely in this day and age. However, in the 1970's, maybe you could come across a barren town in the middle of farm country. The kind of place where people, with huge tracts of corn and soy and wheat, live miles away from their closest neighbors. The kind of place where the social climate, influenced by strict conservative religion, could slowly turn until, all at once, it becomes some kind of altered, pagan nightmare.

Children Of The Corn got bastardized into a horror movie franchise that I never followed. The original story is enough for me.

Finally, I'll touch on 'One For The Road'. Not the last story in Night Shift, but it was originally published a little over a year after 'Salem's Lot. Again, we're back in small-town Maine. A man wanders into a bar during a blizzard, seeking help. His car was caught in the storm, and he left his family in the car to stay warm while he left to get a tow, or a ride, anything. Of course, this is no ordinary small town, and the man's car got stuck dangerously close to a certain little town that everyone avoids. We know what's happened in Jerusalem's Lot because we've already read the book. We're already hip to the danger, but the guy who wandered away to risk frostbite and save his family doesn't know it. The two men in the bar only know that weird shit goes on up there, and that everyone local avoids it. The weirdness stays within the Lot, and they all coexist with it in a form of unspoken and uneasy peace. The man's wife and daughter, stuck in that car in the wrong part of town, are prey. They're literally sitting ducks for the unspoken horror that could fall upon them at any moment.

Night Shift, to me as an adult, begins and ends with the vampires of Salem's Lot. Yes, there's a story after One For The Road, and I can simply chalk it up to the editor's final sequencing, but One For The Road is the bookend. It's not the end of Salem's Lot in the King Universe, but it ties the book up pretty nicely. With a full novel, and two separate stories about this town, King has established his fictional territorial homebase for spooky shit. Eventually, he'll expand his map to include Castle Rock and Derry, but until then, we know that when we see Salem's Lot appear in a story, somebody is fuh-huh-hucked...

GET FUCK OUT!!!

As with most of the King story collection books, there are some good ones, some duds, and each reader probably sees it a little differently. The stories resonate with you based on your life and your experiences. I'm certain that I see it differently now than I did at 8 years old. A massive queen rat isn't the stuff of my nightmares anymore. The idea of harm coming to my family because of something I did is.

Nevertheless, we close the page and move on. As we do so, let me say a couple of things about what's coming up next.

The Stand is a unique book in the King bibliography. Originally released in one format, it was rereleased over a decade later in a sort of 'Director's Cut', with over 300 original pages of material added back in. While the long version is the version that's readily accessible to most, and is my preferred version because of it's complete nature, I'm going to read the original release version of The Stand for the next installment. Later on, when I get to the Unabridged Version's time in the chronology, I'll re-read that version and address it in a new and separate entry.

The Stand is a long book, even in it's original form, and my rambling entry could be equally lengthy. I can feel a tendency in my mind already to regard things that I 'expect' to think and expect to feel when it comes time to write about it. I'll make note of those, and maybe they'll end up getting addressed in the final rundown, or maybe they're anticipatory, like my thoughts about 'Rage', and they'll end up disregarded.

Night Shift, ultimately, felt like a book that I needed to get through, because I was already eager to move on to The Stand. I really did my best to fight off those feelings, because it can diminish appreciation for what's already right in front of me. I don't know if I succeeded, and maybe this entry struggles because of it. Either way, I'm done with it, and it's time to move on (like the world itself, it always moves on)

And, with that, we slowly make our way down into New England. Into New York City, and Ogunquit, Maine, and Stovington, Vermont... Let's hold hands and be witnesses to the end of the world...

4. Rage: King's Catcher In The Rye

Let's begin with a quick synopsis of both the book, and Stephen King's brief career under a pseudonym, shall we?

Rage is the story of Charlie Decker. Set in the mid-1970's, Charlie is a Senior at Placerville High, and Charlie is a little off his rocker. The story opens with Charlie being called out of math class to the Principal's office. There, we learn that Charlie is being considered for expulsion for an assault on a teacher. Charlie has a confrontation with the Principal when the he is informed that he is being expelled and sent to a program for disturbed youth. Charlie goes to his locker, collects his gun (Yes, Charlie has a gun, the reasons become clear later in the story), sets his locker on fire, returns to his Algebra class, shoots and kills his Algebra teacher, and takes his class hostage. What unfolds over the next 4 hours is a baring of souls and emotions as the captive students talk about their fears and secrets.

What the fuck, right? I know you're thinking 'Who doesn't just shit their pants and fear for their lives if they've been taken hostage?'

I agree, and that's part of the argument I'm about to make. Before we get into that, a brief look at the short life of Richard Bachman.

King came up with the idea of publishing under a pseudonym to give exposure to some of his other works, as well as to increase his output. The general convention of the time was that an author released one book per year, if not less. King had written stories that were different from his known terror genre, and they agreed to release them. 'Rage' was the first Bachman novel, published in 1977. King went on to publish 4 other books, The Long Walk, Roadwork, The Running Man, and Thinner, before the Bachman ruse was exposed in 1985. Once the cat was out of the bag, King claimed ownership of the name, eventually publishing two more books under Bachman authorship.

Get it? Got it? Good.

Now that we've got that out of the way, where do we go from here? Back in time, that's where.

I first encountered Richard Bachman and Charlie Decker in the Lorain Public Library as a boy of 9 or 10. By that time, thanks to my Mother and my Aunt's influence, I was steadily working my way through every Stephen King book I could get my hands on. When I hopped on my bike and rode a few blocks to the library and happened upon The Bachman Books, it was like I'd just discovered buried treasure.

The Bachman Books is a collection of the first four Bachman novels, along with a brief essay by King explaining his use of the pseudonym. Rage is the first book in the collection, so it's where I began.

I remember holding this book like it was yesterday.

What struck me about the Bachman Books was the lack of supernatural in the stories. King, at that point, was known for ghosts, goblins, wild creatures, vampires, evil, etc., and the Bachman Books were void of all of that. Even at the tender age of 10, I could recognize the focus on sociological decay. These were human stories, and at that point, I felt they all had a sympathetic antagonist.

I was too young to resonate with Charlie Decker. I didn't understand teen angst, I didn't understand the misguided contempt that kids will have for their parents when they're trying to find their way in the world. I did find it interesting and improbable that kids would calmly sit in a classroom and interact with their captor. I'm aware of the Stockholm Syndrome (I don't know if I was at 10 years old), but I don't think it plays here.

Eventually, after all the secrets are bared, the students, at Charlie's suggestion, perform their own act of violence and rebellion. Thus endeth the story of Charles Everett Decker, at least within the confines of the book. To be honest, at the age of 10, that was the end of it for me, too. I casually flipped the page and moved on to The Long Walk. Rage was part of my library, but I never really gave it much thought after the initial read. All of the other books in the Bachman Books were more interesting to me. 

It wasn't until Columbine that I really chose to reconsider it. By the time the Columbine shootings happened in 1999, King had already asked his publishers to take Rage out of print.

I was aware of other school shootings in the news as I grew up. Columbine seems to be the first one to spark true national attention. Maybe it's because it wasn't a lone crazy shooter situation. Those two assholes worked as a team. It wasn't impulse, it was methodical, and the details that came out in the aftermath horrified us all. For King, there were shootings prior to Columbine that were tied to him. The shooters mentioned Rage as an inspiration, or they were found with copies of it.

I never understood that, any more than I grasped the idea of carrying around a copy of Catcher In The Rye like it was a license to be an asshole. At any rate, King himself had gotten enough bad feelings about the influence of Rage to ask for it to be taken off the shelves. Mind you, and as I've referenced before, I'm known to have multiple copies of the same book. I had two copies of The Bachman Books. Both were paperback and slowly falling apart, but I had them. The Bachman Books collection would continue to be released, but now Rage was not a part of it.

I was 'lucky' enough to find an original version with Rage in Australia. 

I paid more for it than should be allowed by law, and I take very good care of it.

Now, as part of this project, I've gone back and read Rage again. At this point, I'm a 36 year old white male with children. I would imagine that my perspective on things has changed since I last read it. 

It has. It really has. I find the entire premise implausible. Well, that's maybe not exactly accurate.

Let's say that we're truly in a vacuum. If you take this story as it's written, in 1975, not knowing all of the worldly things we do in 2014, then perhaps it's plausible. It's very difficult to read this and not second-guess everyone's actions and reactions based on the (sadly long) history we have with school shootings, student and adult response, and the media's involvement. It's hard not to think about that. It's hard to accept that, somehow, these kids are going to sit there and feel sympathy for Charlie Decker, especially since he had already assaulted a teacher and had a violent reputation. Charlie Decker is NOT a sympathetic antagonist. He's a character created as an outlet by Stephen King, a young student who had a tough time himself in high school. The sympathetic figures to me are the students who are suddenly ripped from a theoretical world of algebraic variables and thrust into an arena of life or death. Don't get me wrong, they've got blood (well, ink) on their hands, as well.

I can mentally put myself back in high school, and overlay this scenario on my high school experience. I highly doubt that I would find any sympathy for the shooter. I'd be concerned about getting out of there with only the hole in my mouth and the hole in my ass. No bonus holes, thank you. Now, that might seem cowardly to you, and maybe it is. Self-preservation is an instinct, and maybe my life experiences since high school would cause me to react differently today, but as a 17 year old? I'd probably pee my pants. That's my brutal honesty and deep fear for you.

I had written down a bunch of notes while I read the book, things that I thought I might want to address. Now that I'm done reading, they all seem unimportant. Character actions and plot seem secondary. Instead, I'm looking at it, as a whole, through my 36 year old parental eyes. I would be terrified if my children ever found themselves in this situation. In this day and age, we live in a world where kids will go through Active Shooter drills, the same as when we got under our desks to keep ourselves safe from nuclear fallout. Time has moved on, the days are stranger, and Rage is looking more and more like a relic of the past. There are school shootings and post office shootings and disgruntled people in a building shootings far too often. You're not going to sit down and have laughs and share secrets with your captor. Not today. Maybe not back then, either, but certainly not today.

It's funny, because when I sat down to read this book, I was apprehensive about writing my thoughts afterward. I anticipated having so much to write and so much to say that I would lose your interest and maybe my own. I didn't expect to be so underwhelmed by it all. Maybe I romanticized it in my mind because of my long history with the book, the reputation of the book, and the way that Richard Bachman fits into the Stephen King legacy. It's all kind of turned out to be anticlimactic. That's not to say that Rage isn't important. It is, at least it is to me, and it plays heavily into King's legacy, for better or for worse. 

Unfortunately, Rage has become a tool for people to wave around when talking about school shootings. While that's valid to a degree, there's certainly more to the story than the violence, and if you get past the implausibility of it all, it's an interesting study in the nature of teenage minds. Fear, peer pressure, social status, relationships with parents and authority figures. Those kinds of issues and themes are timeless, and those continue to translate to the modern era, even if the plot device to get there is unbelievable.

It's a bit of a scary thing when King writes in a way that can allow you to relate to his characters, even the bad guys. At 10, I couldn't relate to Charlie Decker. At 36, I can't relate to Charlie Decker. At 17, I didn't want to shoot up my school, but I knew what it felt like to be an outcast. Not the popular kid with a circle of friends. So, maybe, at 17, I could relate to Charlie Decker more than I'm really comfortable with.