by Rocky Wood
King abruptly changes gears in the last paragraph before the fill-in writers were due to begin, “Then, of course, the murders started, and eventually Skybar was shut down.” Of course, we do not know exactly what happened but King quickly creates a foreboding atmosphere, “…the only sound the mechanical clown’s mouth produced was lunatic hooting of the sea breeze.” We find that the “murders started” when Randy Stayner, a seventh-grader, “was thrown from the highest point of the SkyCoaster.” By writing “thrown” King leaves us in doubt as to whether Randy was thrown by a person, or a mechanical fault caused by sabotage. The narrator and Kirby “...both heard his scream as he came down.”
The closing paragraph King provides begins with, “…I feel Kirby taking my hand and telling me it was okay; we were safe, we were home free.” But the horrors have not ended and an animated corpse begins to chase the boys and Kirby loses his mind, beginning to scream. “Behind me I can see Randy’s corpse pushing the safety bar back and he begins to stumble toward me, his dead, shredded fingers hooked into seeking claws.” The narrator awakes from his dream, in his wife’s arms (he is now 12 years older).
The main characters appear to be the narrator and Kirby, with Randy Stayner a definite victim of the “murders” and Brant Callahan likely to have been another. The storyline takes place in the Skybar Amusement Park, five miles toward the coast from the narrator’s childhood home. Although we do not know the timeline of the story we do know that hi-test fuel sold at Dewey’s Sunoco for 31.9 cents per gallon in those days. Twelve years later it sold for $1.40 per gallon, so perhaps it is safe to assume it occurred before the Oil Crisis of the early 1970s.
There are no links from the story to other King works. However, the story does contain King’s trademark style, quickly establishing the atmosphere and reminding the reader of the carnival segment of The Dead Zone, portions of It (this scary clown is mechanical) and even of The Body.
Who knows what tremendous story King may have chosen to write between these enticing paragraphs? As it seems very unlikely he will do so perhaps the reader should fill in the blanks to his or her satisfaction.
Slade (1970)
Slade, one of King’s earliest public works, is best described as western satire. It was published as a serial (King would later use this publishing technique for The Plant and The Green Mile) in The Maine Summer Campus (the summer edition of The Maine Campus) issues for June 11, June 18, June 25, July 2, July 9, July 23, July 30 and August 6, 1970. King had just graduated (on June 5) and had earlier written a series of 47 non-fiction columns, King’s Garbage Truck, for the newspaper. That column ran from February 20, 1969 to May 21, 1970.109
It is effectively impossible to secure a copy of these publications. It seems the original copies held by the Raymond H. Fogler Library of the University of Maine at Orono were stolen in the late 1980s. Apart from text copies that circulate in the King community the only way to secure a copy is from the Library’s microfiche.
As a serial, the story was spread over eight chapters, most ending in typical cliff-hangers. In Chapter One we read, “It was almost dark when Slade rode into Dead Steer Springs.” We are regaled with his description, “…tall in the saddle, a grim faced man dressed all in black. Even the handles of his two sinister .45s, which rode low on his hips, were black.” There had been whispered legends about his dress “…since the early 1870s, when the name of Slade began to strike fear into the stoutest of Western hearts.” In one version the black was mourning dress for his “Illinois sweetheart, Miss Polly Peachtree of Paduka,” killed when a Montgolfier balloon crashed into her barn while she milked the cows. Others had it that he was “the Grim Reaper’s agent in the American southwest – the devil’s handyman. And there were some who thought he was queerer than a three-dollar bill. No one, however, advanced this last idea to his face.”
Lighting one of “his famous Mexican cigars” Slade entered the Brass Cuspidor Saloon in which a honky-tonk piano was beating out Oh, Them Golden Slippers. An “old sourdough” brings us into the story by questioning Jack Slade as to whether he was in town to work for Miss Sandra “of the Bar-T” or “mebbe” Sam Columbine, who was hiring hardcases to run the lady off her ranch. After Slade winged the old geezer “for luck” the saloon went quiet, even “the fancy dan gambler at the back table dropped three aces out of his sleeves – two of them were clubs.” In a wonderful cliché the piano player fell off his stool, regained his feet and ran out the back door (oh, for an Elton John album when you need one). Slade now confronted “John ‘The Backshooter’ Parkman, one of Sam Columbine’s top guns.” Slade revealed he was indeed working for Sandra Dawson and this elicited a response from Parkman, “They also say yore queerer’n a three dollar bill”. Slade demanded he draw.
In Chapter Two (the excited readers of The Maine Campus, like good moviegoers in the lost and lamented days of the serials, had to wait a week for the next instalment) Slade filled Parkman with lead. “Slade was a peace-loving man at heart, and what was more peace-loving than a dead body. The thought filled him with quiet joy and a sad yearning for his childhood sweetheart, Miss Polly Peachtree…” Sending the bartender to get an undertaker Slade poured himself a whiskey, considering the lonely life of a gun for hire, always expecting a bullet in the back, or gall bladder, “It sure was hard to do your business with a bullet in the gall bladder.” A shapely, beautiful blonde then threw the batwing doors open, awakening Slade’s desire (“Hubba-hubba”) but this quickly subsided before the memory of Polly Peachtree, “his one true love.” Revealing herself as Sandra Dawson the girl claimed that Parkman was one of those who killed her father, and thanked Slade for dispatching the killer by kissing him, full on the lips. She was just “melting into his arms” when the bartender returned, yelling that the Bar-T’s bunkhouse was on fire. Immediately Slade mounted “his huge black stallion, Stokely” and rode for the ranch.
Chapter Three opens with Slade arriving at the Bar-T to find Sunrise Jackson, Shifty Jack Mulloy and Doc Logan, three of Columbine’s hired gunmen, “laughing evilly” in front of the burning bunkhouse. Slade was “cold steel and hot blood – not to mention his silk underwear with the pretty blue flowers.” Shooting a cowpoke running from the bunkhouse Logan claimed he’d, “Thought he looked hot from all that fire … so I ventilated him.” When challenging Slade to draw, Shifty Jack said, “Pull leather, you Republican skunk!” This was something of a mistake as Slade now shot Mulloy and Jackson but missed the escaping Logan, “as the light was tricky.” Proceeding to the wounded Mulloy, Slade told him, “You never should have called me a Republican … He showed him his Gene McCarthy button and then blasted him.” Just then, Sing-Loo, the Chinese cook, ran from the bunkhouse and Slade bagged him, realizing his mistake too late. Holstering his gun “and feeling a great wave of longing for his one true love, Miss Polly Peachtree of Paduka,” Slade said sadly, “I guess you can’t win them all.” Returning to town our hero discovered that Miss Dawson had been kidnapped by the dastardly Columbine, “Ain’t you gonna go after her … Columbine may try to rape her – or even rob her!” his informant asked.
But, in Chapter Four, we learn that Slade is tired from blasting the “three gunslingers and one Chinese Cook.” He decided to head for the Dead Steer Springs Hotel, “his spurs jingling below the heels of his Bonanza boots (they had elevator lifts inside the heels, Slade was very sensitive about his height).” When a young boy asked for his autograph Slade, “who didn’t want to encourage that sort of thing, shot him in the leg and walked on.” After undressing and putting his boots back on, he fell asleep. Around one in the morning Hunchback Fred Agnew, “the most detested killer” in the American Southwest crept into the hotel room through the window, armed with a three foot Arabian skinning knife (he had once used it on an old lady from Boston, on her way to Arizona to recuperate from Parkinson’s disease, but never once on an Arab). Agnew set his twelve-foot python (Sadie Hawkins) to attack Slade.
“In that instant, the faint hiss of
scales on the sheet came to Slade’s ears. A woman was in bed with him! That was his first thought …” In disappointment Agnew threw his knife, which only nicked one of Slade’s earlobes and Slade shot him dead, “his sinister career was at an end.” The python, meanwhile, curled up on the bed and went to sleep! Dressing, Slade “grimly” set off to find Columbine “and put a crimp in his style once and for all.”
Chapter Five has Slade arriving back at the Brass Cuspidor, stunning Dawson’s drunken foreman with the news of Agnew’s demise. Awed, the man whispered, “There was talk he might be the next Vice President of the American Southwest.” Inexplicably for a man who was set on finding Columbine, the gunslinger now demanded a drink from the bartender that he’d never had before or the unfortunate man would “be pushing up daisies” before dawn. Slade drank three zombies while finding out more about Columbine, including the location of his Rotten Vulture Ranch. Totally drunk and trying to leave the saloon, Slade was arrested by Deputy Marshall Hoagy Carmichael, on a charge of public intoxication!
In Chapter Six King the author rails against the staff of The Maine Campus for refusing to publish “a pretty damn good love scene” between Slade and Dawson, managing to pretty much tell all he had intended anyway, and advising he had provided a alternative scene (the fact that there were two weeks between chapters in this case may be related to the dispute). After being sprung from jail Slade shot the foreman and Deputy Marshall (“blame it on his terrible hangover”) and headed to the Rotten Vulture where he dropped three of Columbine’s henchmen in their “slimy tracks” and freed Dawson. The henchmen were Big Frank Nixon, “Quick Draw” John Mitchell and “Shifty” Ron Ziegfeld. Delighted to be saved Dawson yelled, “You came just in time”. “‘Damn right,’ he replied. ‘I always do. Steve King sees to that.’” Dawson pushed her “firm, supple, silken-fleshed body” into Slade’s arms and tried to kiss him, so he “promptly clubbed her over the head with one sinister .45…” “Watch it … my mom told me about girls like you!” One presumes the editors were much happier with the violence of this scene than the presumably salacious prose King originally had in store for his breathless readers!
Over in Chapter Seven Slade headed for the border, “where Sam Columbine was torturing Mexican customs men” with his sidekick, “Pinky” Lee. Pinky got the nickname in the Civil War when riding with Quantrill and “his Regulators.” A Union officer bombed him while he was passed out in a fancy bordello in Bleeding Heart, Kansas. As a result he “…lost all his hair, his eyebrows, and all the fingers on his left hand, except for the fourth, and smallest. His hair and eyebrows grew back. His fingers did not.” Approaching the border, Slade dismounted and tied Stokely to a parking meter (!) before trying to sneak up on Lee and Columbine. When the shootout began Slade realized he had forgotten to reload after the Rotten Vulture shootout. Lee rolled behind a barrel of corn chips and Columbine crouched behind a “giant bottle of mayonnaise that had been air-dropped the month before after the worst flood disaster in American Southwest history (why drop mayonnaise after a flood disaster: none of your damn business).” Guns reloaded, Slade calmly shot Pinky in the head after tricking him out of his cover and started for Columbine …
In the closing episode of this epic Western Columbine challenged Slade to a man on man draw. As is always the case in any B-grade Western the girl now ran into the picture. Dawson suddenly declared she had something to tell Slade, “I’m Polly Peachtree”. She claimed to have escaped the burning balloon but “…had amnesia! It’s all just come back to me tonight!” Pulling off her blond wig Slade could now see she was indeed “the beautiful Polly Peachtree of Paduka, returned from the dead!” Like all good villains, Columbine now took this opportunity to shoot Slade in the back, three times! In another twist Sandra/Polly now thanked her “darling” Sam, “You don’t know how terrible it’s been … Not only was he killing everybody, but he was queerer than a three-dollar bill.”
Suddenly, Slade “sat up and blasted them both.” It was a good thing he was wearing his bulletproof underwear he said, as he lit a new Mexican cigar. Staring at the bodies:
…a great wave of sadness swept over him. He threw away his cigar and lit a joint. Then he walked over to where he had tethered Stokely, his black stallion. He wrapped his arms around Stokely’s neck and held him close. “At last, darling,” Slade whispered. “We’re alone.” After a long while, Slade and Stokely rode off into the sunset in search of new adventures.
This rare foray by King into satirical comedy references a number of prominent figures of the day, including President Nixon, Vice President Agnew and Attorney-General John Mitchell. The Nixon administration was the subject of considerable satirical review, even before the Watergate affair. Even today, the 1971 satire by Portnoy’s Complaint author Philip Roth, Our Gang (Starring Tricky and His Friends)110 is both readable and funny. Roth won the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation in 2002, the year before King.
There are a couple of possible links to King’s later fiction. Captain Quantrill and his men, “The Regulators” are mentioned. The Regulators are, of course, characters in the Bachman alternative reality novel, The Regulators. Slade’s huge, black stallion horse was Stokely, a very unusual name. Stokely Jones is a significant and amusing character in Hearts in Atlantis, set at the University of Maine. Tyson Blue speculates the name is actually homage to a prominent black activist of the time, Stokeley Carmichael.111
Of course, “Steve” King (to whom Slade refers) is also referred to but not named in The King Family and the Wicked Witch and The Leprechaun. He is also the horror author mentioned by Ardelia Lortz in The Library Policeman; mentioned as an author in Prime Evil version of Night Flier, The Regulators and Thinner; mentioned as the narrator of The Blue Air Compressor; and is a character in The Dark Tower cycle.
King expert and academic Michael Collings has this to say about Slade:
(It) is in many ways the most revealing of King’s uncollected early works, especially as it shows King reveling in the sheer joy of words, puns, and outrageous storytelling. It is an engaging explosion of off-the-wall humor, literary pastiche, and cultural criticism masquerading as a Western.112
And, in The Shorter Works of Stephen King:
“Slade” is as derivative as King’s early extant tales; the difference is that he is now aware of the fact … Everything – every movement, every line of dialogue, every locale and every character – functions strictly according to stereotypes, yet King gives them new life by blending them with both parody and burlesque.113
In The Unseen King Tyson Blue summarizes the story by saying:
(It) shows King’s eye for choosing just the right elements of the Western genre to poke fun at, and he uses anachronisms – the air-dropped giant mayonnaise jar, the political jokes and references, the authorial intrusions – here in much the same fashion as Mel Brooks did in his filmic genre spoof “Blazing Saddles”, and to similar effect. If nothing else, “Slade” shows that King’s ability to tell a good story serves him just as well in a comic framework as it does in his more serious tales.
In the end though, this obscure 6500-word tale is actually little more than an exercise in satire by a 22-year-old recent graduate writing for his college newspaper. It is most unlikely King will allow republication, as it certainly does not reflect the Stephen King most readers know. In fact, according to Beahm, “…when UMO’s The Maine Campus was planning on incorporating it as part of a student anthology years after the fact, SK put an immediate stop to it, stating it was clearly juvenilia and that he would not allow its reprinting.”114
There is no doubt King is fascinated with the Western form. He often refers to Westerns in his fiction (for instance, Bobbi Anderson of The Tommyknockers wrote novels, mostly with a Western feel) and his central fictional character Roland Deschain is a gunslinger. In fact, King began The Dark Tower the same summer he wrote Slade. Also, George D. X. McArdle, subject of another chapter of this
book, is an incomplete novel based in the Old West.
Hardcore fans and students of King’s development will both gain from reading Slade. If nothing else, it is still funny today, three and a half decades after it was written, and we can all do with a good laugh.
109 For a review of each column see Stephen King: The Non-Fiction by Rocky Wood and Justin Brooks (Cemetery Dance, 2010)
110 Newsweek described it as, “Perhaps the funniest and most complex exercise in sustained political satire since Animal Farm”
111 The Unseen King, Tyson Blue, p.34-38
112 Horror Plum’d, Michael Collings, p.428
113 The Shorter Works of Stephen King, Michael Collings and David Engebretson, p.17-22
114 Stephen King Collectibles: An Illustrated Price Guide, George Beahm, p.261
Sleepwalkers (1991)
Sleepwalkers was the first wholly original King movie screenplay ever produced. It was made on a budget of $16 million and was released on 10 April 1992, taking over $30 million at the box office. The screenplay has not been published but copies circulate in the King community and readers would best access it in that manner. Considering its originality it would be a prime candidate to be published should King consider allowing one or more of his screenplays to be published in some format.