Lee Gambin - King of Bangor

KING: I might have to hire you. Keep you around the place. Sayin’ exactly the stuff it is you’re saying.

QUEENIE: So what’s the new book about?

KING: Haven’t really decided yet.

QUEENIE: Oh I’d love to sit here and watch you write.

KING: That might make me a tad nervous.

QUEENIE: Oh I won’t be a bother, I just want to be in control of, I mean, I just want to be involved or see how your mind works… sorry I’m hopeless. The right words never come out for me and I just seem all over the shop and—

KING: Do you want a drink?

QUEENIE: Oh no no no not me! I don’t drink!

KING: Well do you mind if I do?

QUEENIE: Not at all. Why would I?

KING: I think I’m gonna like you.

QUEENIE: Oh! You’re so lovely! I read that you were a charming and decent fellah in many a magazine but they can write whatever it is they want really, you have to actually meet the celebrity up close and personal to really know that they’re nice. And you haven’t disappointed at all… you really are nice.

KING: You got me on a good day.

QUEENIE: (in love) Oh I just love your writing Paul, it’s just so—noble.

KING: (puzzled) Paul?

Princess enters the scene; Queenie remains there but hidden in darkness staring at King waiting for him to pound the typewriter

Princess is her ditsy dog-walking self again. But this time she seems a tad solemn:

KING: Hey. How was the walk?

PRINCESS: Good.

KING: They have fun?

PRINCESS: They always do.

KING: Hey you’re not ranting, something the matter?

PRINCESS: Do I rant?

KING: You usually trail off without stopping to breathe and right now you ain’t. You not yourself today.

PRINCESS: No. I’m not.

KING: What’s up?

PRINCESS: Oh nothing.

KING: Come on let me in.

PRINCESS: The dogs and me went to Max’s Café.

KING: Where they let dogs in the beer garden, right?

PRINCESS: Yeah.

KING: And?

PRINCESS: And the TV was on.

KING: So?

PRINCESS: Mr King there was an accident.

KING: I think I just had one of those too…

He begins to scratch out something he wrote

PRINCESS: In Portland. A car accident.

KING: Portland? Is anyone hurt?

PRINCESS: It was just on the news. I had to tell you as soon as I heard. I got scared Mr King. For the first time in my life I really got scared.

KING: So you’ve been lying to me all this time? You never got remotely white knuckled readin’ one of my fucking books? Jeesh!

PRINCESS: When I heard about the accident in Portland my mind went wandering and I got thinking. I had an image flash in my head and a thought that hung there like a bad smell. A horrible thought.

KING: Bring it on dear, maybe I can rip it off…

PRINCESS: Imagine if that was Tabitha.

King is distracted from his work now:

KING: Oh Christ.

PRINCESS: No, really, imagine if it was.

KING: Hey! It wasn’t so stop saying it.

PRINCESS: Oh fuck Mr. King what would you do if that happened? Where would you end up? How would you cope?

KING: Leave it alone. Tabby is fine. She’s perfectly ok.

PRINCESS: And imagine if it was one of your kids.

KING: Enough. I don’t want to imagine…

PRINCESS: Imagine instead of that little nameless girl from Connecticut lying there on that asphalt bleeding internally and sporting large gaping wounds with her lifeless body ready for decomposition and her face bruised to a pulp it was one of your own. It was Joe! Your little boy!

KING: I don’t want to think about that. My kids are gonna live forever.

PRINCESS: Just picture it. What would you do? How would you cope? How could you cope?

KING: (stumped) Ahh—I-I couldn’t.

QUEENIE: But you’d have to. Wouldn’t you?

KING: Get out of my house.

QUEENIE: I don’t think so Paul.

Queenie gets up. She is frightening. She retrieves a large mallet from near by. It was hiding all this time. She thumps into her open palm staring at King

KING: I’m not Paul, who the fuck is Paul?

QUEENIE: I don’t like how you’ve been writing.

KING: You don’t have a say.

QUEENIE: I don’t?

KING: No!

QUEENIE: I’m your biggest fan Paul. I need to have the final say.

KING: Stop calling me Paul!

QUEENIE: But you are Paul Sheldon. The world famous romance novelist. My favorite novelist. My darling Paul Sheldon…

KING: I’m not no fucking romance novelist you crazy bitch!

QUEENIE: Now Paul is that the way to speak to your number one fan? Especially when I saved you from that freak accident? You could have been stuck in that snow. The police wouldn’t of found you for days!

KING: What the fuck is going on?

QUEENIE: Write what I see is fit Paul, that’s how things are gonna work from here on in.

KING: (typing) So the writer, angry and agitated and frustrated and fucking pissed off grabs hold of the mother fucking axe and in one swift mother fucking move he slices the goddamn mother fucking head off his biggest fucking fan!

Queenie brings the mallet down straight onto King’s legs and he screams in agony

She does this again; his scream is even more intense

QUEENIE: There’s no nobility in that kind of talk Paul.

KING: (screaming in pain) Jeeeeeeesus!

QUEENIE: And stop using the Lord’s name in vein. (to Jesus) Forgive him Father for he knows not what he does.

Mr Knight and Princeton appear. Mr Knight is stern faced and sad. He is telling Princeton some bad news:

MR KNIGHT: This is the worst part of my job Mr King. I don’t know how to say this…

KING: That’s not me.

QUEENIE: (cold) Yes it is.

PRINCESS: (sobbing) It is… it is…

PRINCETON: What is it, just tell me for God’s sake?

MR KNIGHT: The snow was heavy on the freeway and your wife’s car was just—

KING: That’s not me!

MR KNIGHT: Mr. King, your wife and children were found days later…

PRINCETON: Stop it!

KING: Yeah stop it!

PRINCETON: What are you saying?

MR. KNIGHT: your wife and children are dead Mr. King. I’m dreadfully sorry.

PRINCETON: Oh God!

KING: Stop it that’s not me!

PRINCESS: I wish it wasn’t but it is, it is…

KING: Enough! For fuck’s sake this has to end now!

PRINCESS: How will you cope? How could you cope?

QUEENIE: Write them out of the story Paul.

KING: Get the fuck out of here…

QUEENIE: You need to write them out. It will benefit the book.

PRINCETON: (grim) I know a place. It’s beyond the path. I can bury Tabby and the kids there and they’ll come back, I just know it. It worked with my cat. He’s fine and dandy now…

PRINCESS: Take them there. Dig them out of their graves and take them there.

PRINCETON: It’s an ancient Indian burial ground I know about.

MR KNIGHT: Sometimes dead is better Mr. King.

QUEENIE: Exactly. Kill them off. Don’t you dare start typing their names. They don’t need to be mentioned ever again. You just type these six final words: His wife and kids were dead! You kill them off then you can be mine for good.

MR KNIGHT: It’s all about mixing up your play time with your wok time Jack.

PRINCETON: I buried them in the Pet Sematary.

PRINCESS: Good work. They’ll come back. They always come back.

KING: Good work.

QUEENIE: No! You don’t bring them back from the dead you hack! You let them go! Let them die!

KING: No! I can’t! I won’t!

QUEENIE: Bury them and forget ’em, let ’em rot in the earth, that’s what needs to happen… that’s what you’re supposed to write!

KING: I’m not writing that!