The King And I
by Jon Ferguson
My expectations were absurdly high when we visited Stephen King's house in Bangor, Maine, last month.
I wanted more than to stand on the sidewalk and stare at the spiders, bats and dragon woven into the wrought-iron fence that encircles his handsome home.
I wanted more than to have my picture taken next to the golden "K" that adds a splash of color to the black fence.
I wanted more than to wonder if King was inside the house, concocting a tale of horror that would someday keep me awake at night.
What I wanted was some face time.
That's why I wore my baseball cap with the Rolling Stones' lip-and-tongue logo.
I figured King would spot me from an upstairs window, recognize a kindred spirit and come outside for a chat. And he'd probably be wearing a Boston Red Sox cap.
A LOT IN COMMON:
King and I, you see, have a lot in common. We're both baseball fans, we both love rock music and we both have a taste for horror stories: He writes 'em and I read 'em.
And I've read a lot of 'em. A quick count shows I've paged through 29 novels he wrote under his own name, seven novels he wrote under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, two novels he co-wrote with Peter Straub, eight collections of short stories and a memoir.
I don't remember which of King's books I read first, but it was either "Salem's Lot," a novel about vampires and the "sucking sounds" they make, or "Night Shift," a collection of stories, including one about a man who starts growing eyeballs on parts of his body where they do not belong. Creepy stuff.
I do remember that he immediately won me over. After devouring those two books, I bought "Carrie," his first novel, and then eagerly awaited the publication of new books.
Happily, the wait between books was never long because King has been nothing if not prolific. Not everything he's written has been great, or even good, but he's as durable a storyteller as there is in popular fiction.
And King is a good writer, though he doesn't get the respect he deserves because of the genre he inhabits. His prose is clean, he creates believable characters, he can plot with the best of them, he has a wicked imagination and, when everything is working in perfect synchronization, he can scare the absolute bejesus out of you.
I vividly remember reading "The Shining," arguably his best book.
I was living by myself in a second-floor apartment on East Orange Street in Lancaster city. It was 2 or 3 in the morning and I was reading in my dimly lit bedroom, deeply engrossed in the novel as King unspooled his story about the Overlook Hotel.
There's a section in the book that involves the sound of a shower curtain in a bathroom being pulled back, revealing something unspeakable in the bathtub.
At that moment I realized I really needed to go to the bathroom. I put the book down, glanced around the darkened room, listened for the sound of a shower curtain and realized there was no way I was going into the bathroom.
There was a window in the bedroom that looked out on a deserted parking lot. I opened the window, hoisted the screen, made sure nobody was below and relieved myself.
I crept back into bed and finished the book.
I wanted to tell King that story when we visited his house. I think he'd appreciate it.
But the writer never did make an appearance. We milled around for a few more minutes, took some pictures and headed to the car.
Reaching for the door handle, I glanced over my shoulder and thought the curtain in a second-floor window shifted slightly. I squinted and spotted a single malevolent eye peering around the parted curtain.
We skedaddled.
jferguson@lnpnews.com
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