The Dark Tower

But he’s not God. At least not inthis case. He knows damned well that Jake Chambers wasn’t there on the day ofhis accident, nor Roland Deschain, either—the idea’s laughable, they’remake-believe, for Christ’s sake—but he also knows that at some point thesong he hears when he sits at his fancy Macintosh writing-machine became Jake’sdeath-song, and to ignore that would have been to lose touch with Ves’-Ka Ganentirely, and he must not do that. Not if he is to finish. That song is theonly thread he has, the trail of breadcrumbs he must follow if he is ever toemerge from this bewildering forest of plot he has planted, and—

Are you sure you planted it?

Well… no. In fact he is not. So call forthe men in the white coats.

And are you completely sure Jake wasn’tthere that day? After all, how much of the damned accident do you actuallyremember?

Not much. He remembers seeing the top ofBryan Smith’s van appear over the horizon, and realizing it’s not on the road,where it should be, but on the soft shoulder. After that he remembers Smithsitting on a rock wall, looking down at him, and telling him that his leg wasbroke in at least six places, maybe seven. But between these twomemories—the one of the approach and the one of the immediateaftermath—the film of his memory has been burned red.

Or almost red.

But sometimes in the night, when he awakesfrom dreams he can’t quite remember…

Sometimes there are… well…

“Sometimes there are voices,” he says. “Whydon’t you just say it?”

And then, laughing: “I guess I just did.”

He hears the approaching click of toenailsdown the hall, and Marlowe pokes his long nose into the office. He’s a WelshCorgi, with short legs and big ears, and a pretty old guy now, with his ownaches and pains, not to mention the eye he lost to cancer the previous year.The vet said he probably wouldn’t make it back from that one, but he did. Whata good guy. What a tough guy. And when he raises his head from hisnecessarily low perspective to look at the writer, he’s wearing his oldfiendish grin. How’s it goin, bubba? that look seems to say. Gettinany good words today? How do ya?

“I do fine,” he tells Marlowe. “Hangin in.How are you doin?”

Marlowe (sometimes known as TheSnoutmaster) waggles his arthritic rear end in response.

“You again.” That’s what I saidto him. And he asked, “Do you remember me?” Or maybe he said it—“Youremember me.” I told him I was thirsty. He said he didn’t have anything todrink, he said sorry, and I called him a liar. And I was right to call him aliar because he wasn’t sorry a bit. He didn’t care a row of pins if I wasthirsty because Jake was dead and he tried to put it on me, son of a bitchtried to put the blame on me—

“But none of that actually happened,” Kingsays, watching Marlowe waddle back toward the kitchen, where he will check hisdish again before taking one of his increasingly long naps. The house is emptyexcept for the two of them, and under those circumstances he often talks tohimself. “I mean, you know that, don’t you? That none of it actuallyhappened?”

He supposes he does, but it was so oddfor Jake to die like that. Jake is in all his notes, and no surprise there,because Jake was supposed to be around until the very end. All of them were, infact. Of course no story except a bad one, one that arrives DOA, is ever completelyunder the writer’s control, but this one is so out of control it’sridiculous. It really is more like watching something happen—orlistening to a song—than writing a damned made-up story.

He decides to make himself a peanut butterand jelly sandwich for lunch and forget the whole damned thing for another day.Tonight he will go to see the new Clint Eastwood movie, Bloodwork, andbe glad he can go anywhere, do anything. Tomorrow he’ll be back at his desk,and something from the film may slip out into the book—certainly Rolandhimself was partly Clint Eastwood to start with, Sergio Leone’s Man with NoName.

And… speaking of books…

Lying on the coffee-table is one that camevia FedEx from his office in Bangor just this morning: The Complete PoeticalWorks of Robert Browning. It contains, of course, “Childe Roland to theDark Tower Came,” the narrative poem that lies at the root of King’s long (andtrying) story. An idea suddenly occurs to him, and it brings an expression tohis face that stops just short of outright laughter. As if reading his feelings(and possibly he can; King has always suspected dogs are fairly recentémigrés from that great I-know-just-how-you-

feel country of Empathica), Marlowe’s ownfiendish grin appears to widen.

“One place for the poem, old boy,” Kingsays, and tosses the book back onto the coffee-table. It’s a big ‘un, and landswith a thud. “One place and one place only.” Then he settles deeper in thechair and closes his eyes. Just go