11. CUJO: I think I'm getting The Fear...

I'd never read Cujo before, but of course, I'm familiar with the story and the premise. Stephen King stories and plot devices have a tendency to weave their way into the social construct over time, due to his popularity. Who doesn't know about the rabid dog? I may have seen the movie before, but even that, I'm not sure about.

Who's a good boy?

Released in September 1981, Cujo was a bit of a rarity in the Stephen King canon up to that point, in that it didn't involve anything supernatural. The evil, horror, and dread of the premise was amplified by the fact that it could be a real story. Up to that point (excluding the Bachman stories), the majority of King's output dealt with something otherworldly. Vampires, Telekenesis, Randall Flagg, you get the picture. Cujo deviated away from that and put the evil into a magnificent, fluffy, lovable St. Bernard. By the simple nature of a dog being a dog, Cujo chases a rabbit into a little cave, finds himself having an unexpected encounter with a bat, and gets a scratch on the nose. No ordinary scratch, of course, because Stephen King doesn't much deal with normal events. This bat carried rabies, and Cujo was in the wrong place at the wrong time. From there, the worst case scenarios all seem to fall into place like the tumblers in a lock.

OK, so what can be said about a book about a dog? Well, a lot, and it's not necessarily about the dog. There are a lot of other factors and subplots at play, but ultimately it boils down to parental instinct. You can't protect your child from everything, but goddammit if you don't try.

Everybody knows a guy, right? 

Got a leaky sink faucet? I know a guy. 

Think you might have a hole in the attic where squirrels get in? I know a guy. 

Think your car might have something wrong with the engine? I know a guy. 

Everybody knows a guy. Vic and Donna Trenton knew a guy. He wasn't the friendliest type. Rough around the edges, but he did good work out of his barn and it didn't cost near as much as going to the dealership. When Vic left town for business, Donna packed up their son Tad in their less-than-trusty Ford Pinto and started making their way to Joe Cambers' place outside of town. Joe Cambers was not a nice man. Joe was very controlling and manipulative to his wife and son. A man's home is his castle, and Joe Cambers expected his castle to be tended to. After some serious horse trading, he'd finally let his wife and son leave town on a little trip of their own to see some family, and Joe decided to use their absence to go on a little trip of his own. He and his drinking buddy were going to head to Boston and raise some hell. 

Cujo, the Cambers' family dog, had other plans.

Shouldn't you have a barrel of brandy around your neck, doggy?

The thing about most of Stephen King's books up to this point was the deniability. They could scare the bejesus out of you, but when you're done reading it, your mind says 'There's no such thing as vampires' and you eventually laugh it off as a fun ride. Not the sort of thing that can happen in 'real life', you tell yourself.

But what if:

You have to go out of town on a last second business trip that could mean life or death for your company

and then

Your wife and kid are in town all by themselves, certainly capable of handling things in your absence, except you know that no-good car of hers has been giving her trouble

and then

You call home from out on the road and there's no answer. At first, you justify it and make excuses for it in your brain. 'Maybe they're at the store or the park' you say, but the second time you call and there's no one home, the worry starts to build

and then

Two full days go by. Two days in the 1980's, in that ancient world without cellphones or the internet. No answer at home, and you're pacing back and forth. Why isn't anyone picking up the phone? Where are you, Donna? Are they safe? Were they in a car wreck? Did she pack up the kid and leave me? Why isn't any one home? What if they got in an accident? What if they were driving that shitty car and the engine crapped out on the traintracksandtheywerestuckthereandtheycouldntgetthedoorsopenandalltheycouldseewasthebrightwhitelightchargingtowardsthemanddidtheyholdeachotherandscreamandohmygaawwwwwwwddddddddd

Wasting energy ruminating about irrational worst case scenarios. That's called catastrophizing. That is a real thing. The irrational fear of the unknown, triggered by an ambiguous event. I, personally, was notorious for it in my younger days. A worry wart. A Nervous Nell. If my wife and kids were 5 minutes late getting home, my mind immediately started spinning worst case scenario thoughts. It's the kind of thing that could escalate into a full-blown anxiety attack. I've gotten much better at managing it now, and I'm able to keep my impending panic at bay, but that wasn't always the case. Catastrophizing is a lot more common that you might think. It's not exclusive to being a worrisome parent. Anyone can fall victim to it due to any number of triggers. In one way or another, it's something that most everyone can identify with.

What is the goal of a good storyteller? Identify something that people can relate to and seize on it. By 1981, King himself was a parent and was able to identify with the aforementioned fear of protecting your child. That common concept served as perfect fodder for a storyline. Ol' SK probably thought 'Well, instead of it being irrational worry, what if the worst case scenario DID happen?' and ran with it.

Don't you hate it when bums try and wash your windshield at the stop light?

Cujo, as a book, was incredibly effective. As the reader, I could find myself identifying with both Vic and Donna Trenton. Vic's uncertainty and building panic about his family. The struggle between work commitments and the negative impact it can have on your home life. In Donna's case, the basic instinct to protect your child from harm. The guilt you feel when you put them in a situation where they get scared, or hurt, or outside of their comfort zone. The sense of helplessness and failure when things are out of your control.

 Don't get me wrong, there's way more to this book than just identifying with Vic and Donna. King does a masterful job of relating small bits of narrative from Cujo's perspective as the rabies overtakes his body, his nervous system, and his train of thought. A friend of mine said that Cujo is his favorite SK book, and that he's read it multiple times. I didn't really understand that until I'd read it myself. 

Cujo is so effective in it's simplicity. Unlike his previous books, you flip that last page and set the book down and... it haunts you. You don't just laugh it off because it's vampires or psychics. You might think 'Holy shit, man... that could really happen. Hell, that probably DID happen somewhere once.' Ok, THAT might be implausible, but it's not impossible, and under just the right set of circumstances...

I had a feeling of dread going into this book because I already knew how it ended, even though I hadn't read it before. When a book is over 30 years old, you don't get the luxury of spoiler alerts. It just so happened that this book's time in my reading cycle coincidentally lined up with the anniversary of my brother's death. The general swelling of melancholy and grief that happens near sad anniversaries coupled with this book's emotional triggers made for a few tough moments for me. I knew that was coming, and I was somewhat prepared for it. I stepped away from the book for a couple of days when it all got a little too heavy for me, but I missed it when I was gone.

By this time in his career (1981), SK has established Castle Rock and the SK version of Maine. Plot lines and characters from other stories are referenced and the universal fabric of King's geography and history is really beginning to bind. Cujo isn't a sequel to anything, but there are references to The Dead Zone in it. Of course, like most of SK's works at this point, it became a smash hit and was made into a movie. I'll be honest, other than the original cover photo posted at the beginning, the images in this post are from the movie. Despite my best intentions to keep the project about the written word, it's impossible to ignore the films that accompany, or are derived from, King's novels. It's also an easy source of visuals that I can get from the Google, because I'm lazy.

Cujo was a good dog who went bad because of a rabies infection. That's not the point of the novel, even though the dog is the antagonist. The point is that Cujo became the embodiment of The Fear. That fear that all parents have, to some degree or another. The desperate instinct to protect your child from harm. King knew that fear, and worked it into a great, realistic novel. It doesn't rank as my favorite SK novel, but even after a first read, it's leaped up towards the top. It's not real, but it could be. That's The Fear.

10. Roadwork: To what lengths would you go to hold on to your past?

I've started and stopped writing my 'Roadwork' entry 3 times. I got ahead of myself and started writing as I went along. I decided I didn't like that, so I started a 'Before and After', and wrote a bunch of 'Before' stuff. Then, I promptly fell off the face of the earth for about 8 months.

Life happens, and I always found myself making excuses for delaying the resumption of my project. Finally, right after the Fouth of July holiday, I decided to recommit.

In order to be honest about it, I decided to start the book over. I kept my 'Before' writing, and was planning on supplementing it once I'd finally finished the book.

"The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry"

By the time I'd finished the book, I had a completely different perspective on the story and my upcoming entry. We'll get to that soon enough, but let's start at the top.

'Roadwork' is the 3rd book in 'The Bachman Books'. As a young kid, there was something about 'The Bachman Books' that was cool. It was like hipster-cred for Stephen King before hipsters were a culture. If you were 'in the know', then you were cool.

Or maybe you weren't. I don't really know. I was like, 10 years old, so I had no concept of cool at that point. We hadn't really starting making the social divisions in school that mark your adolescence yet. At the time I first approached 'Roadwork', I wasn't a jock, but I also wasn't NOT a jock. We were still in the kind of blissful state where kids were just kids. Sure, some kids had already started to separate themselves academically, and they were kind of the nerds. I was one of those nerds, but I went to a school with a special program that grouped me with the other nerds, so we were off and running together.

As I've said before, I've always had a connection with The Bachman Books because of their humanity. Yes, two of the books were futuristic sci-fi, but they weren't about ghosts and vampires and scary things. The scary things in The Bachman Books were just the people. That holds up for me through every re-reading in my life.

Barton George Dawes, Bart for short, is a man on a collision course with self-destruction. No one knows it but him until it's too late. Bart and his wife, Mary, are getting moved out of their house. The city is taking over the entire neighborhood, through Eminent Domain, to build a highway. Bart's house and his employer, The Blue Ribbon Laundry, are being displaced.

For the city, it's about location. For Bart, it's more than just a house. It's his life, his memories, his irreplaceable history.

Bart doesn't want to go quietly into that good night, or that nice suburb. Bart wants to fight. Bart wants to stick it to the man. Bart wants to stand up for himself. Bart, maybe, is tilting at windmills.

Bart, surely, is cracking up.

There is more to life than money. Eminent Domain sucks. The older I get, the more I can appreciate that. Sure, it's nice to get what's usually a sizable payout on a piece of property so that the city can take it over, especially if you've harbored thoughts of moving on. I can't say the same for it if you DON'T want to go.

The home is where you live your life. It's where you raise your children, or your pets, or both, or neither. It's where you have your triumphs and your struggles with your job, your work, your love. It's the touchstone for the good and the bad, and it's the epicenter of all the things that made you who you are. For someone to come and tell you 'Tough luck, you've gotta be out by July' because they're putting in an on-ramp, that's gotta be difficult to process.

I'm an adult now. A full-on 'Grown Ass Man', as I like to say sometimes. I haven't lived in my Mom's house for over 20 years now, and I can't imagine how upset I'd be if the city decided they were taking it over for ANY REASON. This entire project stems from the experiences that I had that started because I read books in that house. In that living room, snuggled up with Sheba, our dearly departed German Shepherd, I read through countless books by countless authors. I played some video games, I watched some television, I watched Hulk Hogan bodyslam Andre the Giant at Wrestlemania III, I played Super Mario Bros on our new Nintendo until it was time to go to bed, only to wake up the next morning and find my father still in his chair after an all night, thumb-blistering binge.

If you're seeing this and wondering what it has to do with Stephen King, you're not really reading this blog.

Your house is a museum of memories, even if they're not physically represented by pictures or keepsakes. It's hallowed ground.

OK, so I've rambled enough about the house, maybe, but it's really the central character in the story. All of Bart's memories and flashbacks are based on the home he lived in. His life is falling apart. Granted, maybe his marriage would still have trouble even if the city wasn't moving in, but the loss of the house triggers all of these strange machinations in Bart.

Are they really that strange, though? To what lengths would you go to hold on to your past? Even the whispers of it, because you know, well and truly in your heart, that it's gone forever?

Bart talks to himself. Sometimes only in his head, sometimes out loud. His conscience is Fred. Fred is like a stern parent, referring to him by George, his middle name, his secret name. Fred tries to keep him from the unending spool of bad decisions he's about to make. More often than not, Bart quiets Fred down, but it doesn't always work.

"George, it's more than the highway, more than the move. I know what's wrong with you.

Shut up, Fred. I warn you.

But Fred wouldn't shut up and that was bad. If he couldn't control Fred anymore, how would he ever get any peace?

It's Charlie, isn't it, George? You don't want to bury him a second time"

That's it.
That's what finally clicked for me. An 'A-Ha!' moment that I hadn't connected until now. In re-reading the book, I finally found the elusive viewpoint that, maybe, I'd been searching for the whole time.

Bart and Mary lost their son, Charlie, to brain cancer. For some reason, it never connected with me, before, even despite the obvious link with my own life. I don't know what did it now, Maybe it's because I'm finally a parent myself and I've gained a different perspective. Maybe it's because I've experienced crippling and tragic loss.

My brother was killed in a car accident in 2001. He was 14 years old. It was, and remains, the darkest, most devastating single event I've ever experienced. I hope that it remains so, because I can't bear the thought of going through the couple of things that (I think) would be even worse.

"For you, I'd sell all my tomorrows, to keep you today"

As a society, we have a tendency to romanticize the quality and impact of character in the death of a person. We talk about the unrealized potential, the good in someone, what their future may have held. It's not always accurate, but we try to hold on to the good things. We didn't need to do that with my brother. He was a tremendously talented athlete and musician. A typical, yet atypical teenage boy. He was mischievous, but not mean. He was in the full-on sprint of adolescent development, learning to be a young man, shaping his personality through education and life experience. He accomplished many great things in his short life, but he (and we) were robbed of so many more.

It's a wound that never truly heals. It is a scar that mentally and emotionally disfigures for the rest of your life. Slowly, you adapt to it, as if you learned to walk with a mental limp. I think about him every day, and I try to live my life in a way that honors him.

That is my perspective as a sibling. I cannot speak for my parents, who endure the most difficult loss of all.

My parents, thankfully, are not like Bart and Mary Dawes. They, too, are scarred, but they are together. They have grieved, and they continue to grieve. They have struggled, and I imagine that they still do, even if they don't show it as much outwardly. There is nothing that I wouldn't give to be able to take that pain and that grief away from them. No matter if they are a single child, or one of many, no child is replaceable.

My parents channeled their grief, together and separately, in positive ways. They are both strong and vocal advocates for smart and safe choices. Every year, near Prom season, my Father speaks to thousands of high school students about making smart decisions and the butterfly-effect impact of the decisions we make. Despite the inevitable triggers it may carry for them, my parents have always made themselves available for support when a child or young adult in our area passes away. Through their pain, they work together. They cope. They support.

The wedge of death that drove Bart and Mary Dawes apart did not do the same for my parents. I am grateful for that.

but...

I've finally been able to look at Bart Dawes differently, and it's because of my own experiences.

When the world moves on and forgets about you and your loss and your grief and your life and your memories... When your home, the physical embodiment of all of the years of happiness and sadness, is to be literally ripped from this earth without any humanitarian consideration... what do you do? Do you let go? Do you take a stand? Do you fly a defiant middle finger against the construction? Against the government? Against your employer? Against your family? Against the concept of God him or herself?

Bart Dawes refused to accept what he couldn't control. By doing so, he lost everything that he could.