The Plant

by Stephen King

As a way of thanking those readers (somewhere between 75 and 80 per cent) who came along for the ride and paid their dues, Part 6 of The Plant will be avail-able free of charge. Enjoy... but don't relax too much. When The Plant returns, it will once more be on a pay-as-you-go basis. In the meantime, get ready for Part 6. I think you're going to be surprised.

  Perhaps even shocked.

  Best regards (and happy holidays),

  Stephen King

  Editor's note

  Z is almost certainly the most interesting document in the collection which makes up this story. Although remarkably coherent, the careful reader must certainly detect the work of various voices, most or all of them already encountered in the various memos, letters, and journals presented so far. In addition to this, the discovered manuscript (it would harm the unfolding story to say much about the circumstances of that discovery here) shows many different typefaces and editorial hands. About thirty per cent of it was typed on a portable Olivetti, which can be positively identified as John Kenton's by the flying d and the distinctive crack running through the capital S. Another thirty per cent is certainly the work of Riddley Walker's 1948 office-model Underwood, which was found on the desk of his study in Dobbs Ferry. The other typefaces are those produced by the sort of IBM Selectrics then in use at the Zenith House offices. Ten per cent of the manuscript was typed with the IBM type-ball “Script,” which was favored by Sandra Jackson. Twenty per cent of the manuscript is in IBM's “Courier” format, which was favored by both Herb Porter and Roger Wade. The remaining work is in IBM's “Letter Gothic,” which can be found on many (although not all) of Bill Gelb's business letters and in-house memos.

  The most interesting thing about this collaboration, which is remarkably unified in spite of the stylistic interplay, is the fact that it is told in the third-person omniscient style. Information is conveyed by use of a shifting perspective, and include many incidents at which none of the narrators—Kenton, Wade, Jackson, Gelb, or Walker—were present. The reader may wonder if these passages (several of which are interwoven below) are informed speculation based on the available evidence, or if they are pure imagination, no more to be believed than the plots of Anthony LaScorbia's “big bug” books. To these possibilities, the editor would first like to remind the reader that there was a sixth participant at Zenith House during those months in 1981, and then to suggest that if what Kenton, Wade, et. al. suspected was true—that the ivy sent to them was telepathic and to some degree manipulative—then perhaps the true narrator of Z was Zenith the common ivy itself (or himself, to use Riddley Walker's most common pronounal reference).

  Although insane by all normal standards of deduction, the idea has a certain persuasive charm when taken in context with other events of that year—many verifiable, such as the crash of the commuter plane on which Tina Barfield was a passenger—and offers at least one explanation for the manuscript. The idea that a telepathic ivy plant turned the typewriters of five previously normal editors into Ouija boards is an outrage to rational thought; with that much, no sane person could fail to agree. And yet there is a certain pull to the idea, at least for this reader, a sense that yes, this is how these things happened, and yes, this is how the truth of those days came to be written down.

  S. K.

  From Z, an unpublished manuscript

  April 4, 1981 490 Park Avenue South New York City Skies fair, winds light, temperature 50 F.

  9:16 A. M.

  RainBo Soft Drinks has its New York offices on the third floor of the building which stands at 490 Park Avenue South. Although small (market share as of 3/1/81: 6. 5%), RainBo is enthusiastic, a young and growing concern. In early April of 1981, the RainBo top brass certainly has something to be excited about: they have gotten the rights (for a price they can afford) to commercially exploit the classic Harold Arlen composition “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” They are tooling up a whole new PR campaign around the song.

  On this Saturday morning, executive vice president George Patella (“I'm a knee man” is his favorite singles-bar pickup line... not that he is single) has driven in from his home in Westport because a brilliant concept has come to him in the middle of the night. He wants to memo it and lay it on his superior's desk before noon. And after noon, there's a certain new titty-bar over on 7th Avenue that he's been meaning to check out.

  His head full of animated soda bottles dancing over the rainbow in cunning little red shoes, George Patella barely registers the man who follows him in, catching the door and murmuring “Thank you” after George has used his key. All he notices is an older gentleman, in his late sixties or early seventies, handsome in a haggard sort of way, and wearing a green military uniform.

  If asked later to be more specific about this uniform, Mr. Patella would be unable to add much, although he is by nature a friendly and helpful man (albeit one with a tendency to put his wedding ring into a rear compartment of his wallet on certain occasions). If his head hadn't been so full of those dancing soda bottles, he might have seen that the elderly fellow with the steel gray brush-cut wore no insignia and no badges of rank. If chivvied into total recall (or hypnotized into it), Patella might have said this of the man who stepped into the elevator with him that Saturday morning: he was wearing a dark green shirt, a black tie held to the shirt with a plain gold bar, and dark green pants, sharply creased and cuffed, over brightly shined black shoes. An outfit of military aspect, in other words, but one that could have been purchased at the Army-Navy store a block over for a total cost of under forty dollars.

  It is the way he wears what he has on that gives the impression of military dress; once the older gentleman has pushed the button for his floor (George Patella has no idea which one), he stands perfectly straight and perfectly still, with his hands clasped in front of him and his eyes on the lighted floor-indicator. He doesn't fidget or call attention to himself in any way, certainly not by attempting to chat. And there is nothing in his posture which suggests discomfort. This is a man who has stood so—not quite at attention, but certainly not at ease—many times before. His face communicates that. That, and the idea that he perhaps enjoys such a posture.

  All and all no surprise that George Patella, preoccupied with his own concerns (he's too deep within them to even realize he's softly whistling “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”), does not question the man's right to be there. All else aside, the man in the green shirt and trousers radiates that sense of right place-right time. And certainly George Patella does not recognize the man sharing his elevator car as General Anthony “Iron-Guts” Hecksler (U. S. Army Ret.), madman, murderer, and fugitive from justice. Patella gets off on Three to write his memo about the dancing soda bottles. The man in the green pants and shirt stays aboard the elevator car. Patella the soft-drink seller has one last glimpse of the military fella as he (Patella) turns the corner toward the RainBo offices: an elderly gent standing quietly erect, looking straight ahead, hands clasped in front of him, the fingers of those hands slightly bunched by arthritis. Just standing there, just waiting for the elevator to go up, so he can get on with his own business.

  Whatever that business might be.

  April 4, 1981 Cony Island Skies fair, winds light, temperature 51 F.

  9:40 A. M.

  As soon as Sandra Jackson and Dina Andrews step off the train, eleven-year-old Dina expresses her desire to go on the Wonder Wheel, which has just resumed operation for another season.

  On their way down there, they are huckstered cheerfully from both sides of the mostly empty midway. One cry makes Sandra smile: “Hey, pretty blonde lady! Hey, you little red-headed cutie! Come on over here and try your luck! Make my day!”

  Sandra diverts to the Wheel of Chance and sizes the game up. It's a little like roulette, only with prizes instead of money if you win. Hit red or black, odd or even, and win a small prize. Hit one of the triples and win a bigger one. Hit a four-way and win a bigger one yet. And if you should pick a single number and hit, you win the prize of prizes—the big pin
k teddy bear. All this possibility for a quarter!

  Sandra turns to Dina (who is indeed both a redhead and a cutie). “What are you going to name your new bear?” she asks her.

  The guy running the Wheel of Chance grins. “Confidence!” he cries. “Sweetheart, that's the best thing in life!”

  “I'll name him Rinaldo,” Dina says promptly. “If you win him.”

  “Oh, I'll win him, all right,” Sandra says. She takes a quarter from her purse and surveys the numbers, which run from one to thirty-four and include such ringers as FREE SPIN, BYE-BYE NICE TRY, and double zero. She looks at the concessionaire, who is checking out her bod in a way that is thorough without being creepy. “My friend,” she says to him, “I want you to remember that I'm only putting a floor under you. From this point, your season is only going to get better.”

  “Gosh, you are confident,” he says. “Well, pick your number and I'll let er rip.”

  Sandra lays her quarter down on seventeen. Three minutes later the concessionaire is watching with wide eyes as the pretty lady and her pretty young friend continue to walk down toward the Wonder Wheel, the pretty young friend now in charge of a pink teddy-bear almost as big as she is.

  “How'd you do it, Aunt Sandy?” Dina wants to know. She is all but bursting with excitement. “How'd you do it?”

  Aunt Sandy taps her forehead and grins. “Psychic waves, sweetheart. Call it that. Come on, let's see what the world looks like from way up high.”

  Sometimes life exhibits (or seems to exhibit) an observable pattern. This is certainly one of those times. Because, as the two of them begin to skip hand in hand toward the Wonder Wheel, Sandra Jackson begins to sing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and Dina quickly joins in.

  April 4, 1981 490 Park Avenue South

  9:55 A. M.

  Gosh and fishes, gee whillikers, and Katie bar the door! What a time old Iron-Guts is having! Talk about making the best of your time! Talk about your gauzy moon-drenched madhouse dreams made real!

  At first he felt some doubt. Disquiet, even. For a few moments there, after he picked the lock of the hallway door (no problem there, he could have done it in a doze) and stepped into the Zenith House reception area, something in the back of his brain actually tried to flash a Code Red. It was as if all those alligator instincts which served him so well in three wars and half a dozen brushfire skirmishes had sniffed something out and were trying to warn him. But a command officer didn't call off a mission simply because of a little trench-fright. What a command officer did was remind himself of his objective.

  “Designated Jew,” Hecksler murmured. That was his objective. The liar who had led him on and then stolen his best ideas.

  Nonetheless he continued to feel that electric tickle of unease, that sense of being watched. Being watched by the very walls, it seemed.

  He looked sharply along those walls, keeping his gaze above eye-level and peering with special penetrating attention into the corners. No surveillance cameras. So that was all right.

  He sniffed sharply, spreading the wings of his nose, really flaring the old nostrils.

  “Garlic,” he muttered. “No question. Known it and grown it. All my life. Ha! And...”

  Something else, there was definitely something else, but he couldn't get it. Not, at least, in the reception area.

  “Damn garlic,” he said. “Like a bore at a party. A bore with a loud voice.”

  At the portal which lead into the editorial offices, that interior warning voice spoke again. Only two words, but Hecksler heard them clearly: GET OUT!

  “Not happening,” he said, and issued the Saturday-silent world of Zenith House a tight and unpleasant grin that likely would have turned Herb Porter's blood if he'd seen it. “Screaming lone eagle. Suicide mission, if that's what it takes. Nobody goes home.”

  A step further and the smell of garlic was gone, as if someone had rubbed the stuff around the doorway. What replaced it was an entrancing odor Hecksler knew well and loved above all things: the tangy, bitter smell of burst gunpowder. The smell of battle.

  The General, who had hunched over a bit without even realizing it (the first impulse when going into an unknown and possibly dangerous area, he knew, was to protect the family jewels), now straightened up. He looked around with a mad glare that would have done more than turn Herb's blood; it would have sent him fleeing in a blind panic. After a moment he relaxed. And now, below the bulging eyes, the lips first parted and then began to draw up. They reached the point where you would have said lips must stop and still they continued, until the corners seemed to have reached the level of Hecksler's bulging blue eyes. The smile became a grin; the grin became a bigger grin; the bigger grin became a grimace; the grimace became a cannibal's leer; the cannibal's leer became an insane cannibal's leer.

  “Zenith House, I am here!” he thundered into the empty corridor with its faded gray industrial strength rug and its framed book jackets of bosomy maidens and marching giant bugs on the walls. He struck his chest with a closed fist “You house of mockers, I am here! You den of thieves, I am here! Designated Jew, I AM HERE!”

  His first impulse, curbed only with difficulty, was to remove his not inconsiderable penis from his pants and urinate everywhere: on the carpet, the walls, even the framed jacket covers if his admittedly aging piss-pump could fling the stream that high (twenty years before he could have washed the ceiling tiles, by God), like a dog marking its territory. Sanity didn't reassert itself because there was none left in the haunted belfry of his brush-cut-topped head, but there was still plenty of guile. Nothing must appear out of place here in the hallway. Chances that the D. J. would come in first on Monday were mighty slim.

  “Goddam slacker is what he is,” Hecksler said. “A goddam commissary cowboy. Ha! Seen a thousand of em!”

  And so he walked down the main corridor as decorously as a nun, passing doors marked WADE EDITOR IN CHIEF, KENTON, and GELB (that one another Jew, undoubtedly, but not the Jew) before coming to one marked... PORTER.

  “Yessss,” Hecksler said, bringing the word out in a long and satisfying hiss, like steam. There wasn't even any need to pick the lock; the D. J. 's door was open. The General stepped in. And now... now that he's in a place where he no longer has to be careful... gosh!

  The urine which General Hecksler withheld in the hall goes into Herb Porter's desk drawers, starting with the lower and working to the upper. There is even a final squirt for the keyboard of typewriter.

  There's an IN/OUT box filled with what look like submission letters, manuscript reports, and a personal letter (although typed) which begins Dear Fergus. Hecksler tears it all up and sprinkles the pieces on top of the desk like confetti.

  Next to the IN/OUT is an envelope marked GOTHAM COLLECTIBLES, addressed to Mr. Herbert Porter care of Zenith House, and marked CONFIDENTIAL. Inside, the General finds three items. One is a letter which says, in essence, that the folks at Gotham Collectibles were mighty glad they could find the enclosed rarity for such a valued customer. The rarity is a Honus Wagner baseball card in a glassine envelope. The last enclosure is a bill in the amount of two hundred and fifty American men. The General is astounded and outraged. Two hundred and fifty dollars for a yid baseball player? And of course he is a yid; Hecksler can pick them out anywhere. Look at that schnozzola, by the jacked-up Jesus! (Unaware that Honus Wagner's schnozzola is pretty much identical to Anthony Hecksler's own.) Iron-Guts takes the card out of its envelope, and soon the image of Honus Wagner has joined the other, considerably less valuable, confetti on Herb's desk.

  Hecksler begins to sing softly, a beer jingle: “Here's to you... for all you do... you des-ig-NAYY-ted Jew...”

  There are the file cabinets. He could tip them over, but what if someone below heard the thud? And it seems meaningless. If he opens them, he knows what he'll find: just more paper. He's ripped enough of that for one day, by God. Also, he's getting a little pooped. It's been a stressful morning (a stressful week, a stressful month, a stressful go
ddam life). If he could find one more thing... one more meaningful thing...

  And there it is. Most of the stuff on the walls is uninteresting—covers of books the D. J. has edited, photos of the D. J. with a number of men (and one woman) who the General supposes are writers but look to him suspiciously like wankers—but there's one picture that's different. Not only is it set off from the others, in its own little space, but the Herb Porter in it has an actual expression on his face. In the others, the best he's managed is a sort of oh-fuck-I'm-getting-my-goddam-picture-taken-again squint, but in this one he's actually smiling, and it is a smile of unquestionable love. The woman he's smiling at is taller than the D. J. and looks about sixty. Held in front of her is the sort of large black satchel purse which by law only woman of sixty or over may carry.

  Hecksler croons, “I see me, I see you, I see the mother, of a designated Jew.”

  He pulls the picture from the wall, turns it over, and sees the sort of cardboard backing he would have expected. Oh yes, he knows his man: sly tricks in front, cardboard backing behind. Yowza.

  Hecksler pulls out the cardboard, then the picture of Herb and his beloved Marmar, which was taken at the twenty-fifth anniversary party Herb organized for his parents out on Montauk in 1978. Iron-Guts drops trou (they go down fast, perhaps because of the large fold-up knife in the right front pocket), grabs one skinny butt-cheek and gives it a brisk sideways yank, the better to present the back door, the tan track, the everloving dirt road. Then the former United States General, who was personally decorated by Dwight Eisenhower in 1954, rubs his ass briskly and thoroughly with this picture which Herb loves above all others.