Stephen King - The Plant

Today in my office, after R. W. okayed my book idea (Alien Investing is going to sell at least 3 million copies, don't ask me how I know that but I do), I took my dice out of the desk drawer where I keep them and started rolling. At first I was barely paying attention to what I was doing, then I took a closer look and holy shit, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I got out a legal pad and recorded forty straight rolls.

Thirty-four sevens.

Six elevens.

No snake-eyes, no boxcars. Not even a single point.

I tried the same experiment here at home (as soon as I got in through the door, as a matter of fact), not sure it would work because the telepathy doesn't travel much beyond the fifth floor at 490 Park. The fact is, you can feel it fade each time you go down (or up) in the elevator. It drains away like water draining out of a sink, and it's a sad sensation.

Anyway, tonight, rolling forty times on my kitchen table produced twenty sevens, six elevens, and fourteen “points”—i. e. spot combos adding up to three, four, five, six, eight, nine, and ten. No snake-eyes. No boxcars. The luck isn't quite so strong away from the office, but twenty sevens and six elevens are pretty amazing. More amazing still, I didn't crap out one single time, not at 490, not even here at home.

Will I be as successful at five-card stud and jacks or better on the other side of the Hudson?

Only one way to find out, baby. Tomorrow night.

I can hardly believe what's happening, but there isn't the slightest doubt in my mind that it is happening. Roger suggested that we stay away from the plant, and what a joke that is. Might as well suggest the tide not to turn, or that Harlow Enders not be such an asshole. (Enders is a Robert Goulet fan. All you have to do to know that is to look at him.)

I found myself wandering down toward Riddley's closet once or twice an hour all day long, just to take a big brain-clearing whiff. Sometimes it smells like popcorn (the Nordica Theater, where I copped my first feel... I didn't tell the others that part, but given current conditions I'm sure they must know), sometimes like freshly cut grass, sometimes like Wildroot CrЏme Oil, which is what I always wanted the barber to put on my hair as the finishing touch when I was but a wee slip of a lad. On several occasions others were there when I arrived, and just before quitting time we all turned up at once, standing side by side and breathing deep, storing up those good aromas—and good ideas, maybe—for the weekend. I suppose we would have looked hilarious to an outsider, like a New Yorker cartoon without a caption (would we even need one to be amusing? I think not), but believe me, there was nothing hilarious about it. Nothing scary, either. It was nice, that's all. Plain old nice.

Is breathing Zenith addictive? I suppose it must be, but it doesn't feel like a harsh, governing addiction (“governing” may be the wrong word, but it's the only one I can think of). Not like the cigarette habit, in other words, or the pot habit. People say pot isn't addictive, but after my junior year at Bates, I know better—that shit almost got me flunked out. But I repeat, this is not like that. I don't seem to miss it when I'm away from it, as I am now (at least not yet). And at work there is the indescribable feeling of being at one with your mates. I don't know if I'd call it telepathy, exactly (Herb and Sandra do, John and Roger seem a little less sure). It's more like singing in harmony, or walking together in a parade, matching strides. (Not marching, though, it doesn't feel that structured.) And although John, Roger, Sandra, and Herb have all gone their separate ways for the weekend and we're all far from the plant, I still feel in touch with them, as if I could reach out and connect if I really wanted to. Or needed to.

The mailroom is now almost completely empty of manuscripts, which is a damned good thing, because it's now almost completely full of Zenith. Z has also overgrown the walls of the corridor, although much more densely in the southerly direction—i. e. toward the rear of the building and the airshaft. Going the other way it has curled its friendly (we assume they're friendly) tendrils around Sandra's door and John's facing hers, but that's as far as it had progressed as of four o'clock this afternoon, when I split. It seems reasonable to assume that the Barfield woman was right about the garlic and the smell—which we mere humans can no longer detect—is slowing it down, at least in that direction. South of the janitor's closet and the mailroom, however, the corridor is well on the way to becoming a jungle path. There's Z all over the walls (it's buried the framed book jacket blow-ups down that way, which is a great relief), and large hanging bunches of green Z-leaves. It has also produced several dark blue Z-flowers, which have their own pleasant smell. Sort of like burnt wax (a smell I associate with candles in the Halloween jack-o-lanterns of my youth). Never seen flowers growing on an ivy, but what do I know about plants? The answer is not much.

There's a window reinforced with wire mesh overlooking the airshaft, and Z has begun to overgrow this as well, all leaves (and flowers) turned out toward the sun. Herb Porter says he saw one of those leaves snatch up a fly that was crawling over a pane of that window. Madness? Undoubtedly! But: true madness or false? True, I think, which suggests some unpleasant possibilities to go with all those pleasant smells. But I don't want to deal with that this weekend.

Where I want to go this weekend is Paramus.

Maybe with a stop at my local OTB for good measure.

I probably shouldn't say it, but God! This is more fun than Studio 54!

4/4/81 12:35 A. M. Aboard the Silver Meteor Question: Has Riddley Pearson Walker ever in his life been so confused, so disheartened, so shaken, so downright sad?

I don't think so.

Has Riddley Pearson Walker ever had a worse week in the twenty-six years of his life?

Absolutely not.

I am aboard Amtrak's Train 36, headed back to Manhattan at least three days early. No one knows I'm coming, but then, who would care? Roger Wade? Kenton, perhaps? My landlord?

I tried for a plane out of B'ham, but no seats available until Sunday. I could not bring myself to stay in Blackwater—or anywhere south of the Mason-Dixon line—that long. Hence the train. And so, to the sound of snores all around me, and in spite of the swaying motion of the car on the rails, I write in this diary. I can't sleep. Perhaps I will be able to when I get back to Dobbs Ferry sometime this afternoon, but the afternoon seems an eternity away. I remember the narrative intro to that old TV show, The Fugitive. “Richard Kimball looks out the window and sees only darkness,” William Conrad would say each week. He went on, “But in that darkness, Fate moves its huge hand.” Will that huge hand move for me? I think not. I fear not. Unless there is fate in John Kenton's ivy, and how can fate—or Fate—reside in such a small and anonymous plant? Crazy idea. God knows what put it in my head.

My reception in Blackwater was warm only from the McDowells—my Uncle Michael and Aunt Olympia. Sister Evelyn, sister Sophie, sister Madeline (always my favorite, which is what makes this hurt so much), and brother Floyd all cold, reserved. Until late Friday afternoon I put that down to the distractions of grief, no more. Certainly we got through the painful rituals of the burial all right. Mama Walker rests beside my father, in the town graveyard. In the black section of the town graveyard, for there the rule of segregation holds as firm as ever, not as a matter of law but due to the laws of family custom—unspoken, unwritten, but as strong as tears and love.