Sent: Sunday, July 1, 2012 1:23 a.m.
FYI…the Entertainment Weekly piece is in the July 6 issues on the newsstand. It’s not online just yet for some reason, maybe so they make sure they sell at least 15 extra copies.
From: Stephen King
Sent: Sunday, July 1, 2012 4:34 a.m.
That’s very interesting, Ted, but not important. What’s important is…DO WE LOOK GOOD?
From: Ridley Pearson
Sent: Sunday, July 1, 2012 8:53 a.m.
HAVE WE EVER LOOKED GOOD?
From: Stephen King
Sent: Sunday, July 1, 2012 8:56 a.m.
You always look good to me, Ridster, especially in that bathrobe.
Mmmmm!
INBOX > Subject: The McGuinn Karaoke Challenge...for Authors
From: Sam Barry
To: Dave, Ridley, Greg, and Stephen
Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2012
You’ve been hand-picked to participate in the first ever McGuinn Karaoke Challenge...for Authors.
Please write a page of text trying to mimic Steve’s writing (Steve should just be himself). We’ll send all of the entries to The Book Genome Project to see if their computers can tell us who wrote what, and we’ll also let readers live-vote in the ebook.
Can you out-Steve Steve?
From: Stephen King
To: Sam, Dave, Ridley, and Greg
Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2012 2:47 p.m.
> Can you out-Steve Steve?
I do it every day.
Steve
The McGuinn Karaoke Challenge...for Authors
Can Anyone Out-Stephen Stephen King?
The following are four short works of fiction written by Stephen King, Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson, and Greg Iles.
Can you tell who wrote which one? Read carefully and make your pick at the end to see how you stack up against the other Remainders, as well as the experts and computers behind the Book Genome Project.
Black Mambo
He resented the name Black Mambo. It wasn’t a name he wanted to live with. For one thing, he was white as a preacher. Maybe he’d earned it because he was lethal to get in the way of. Maybe it was because he kept his head up, even when in the tall grass. Then again, maybe it was because he’d bitten a man in the neck, right there in front of Jimmy Devine’s Baptist Church, an old faded circus tent on State Highway 50 that ran along the Penobscot River out Millinocket way. He’d had his Mike Tyson moment. So what? Who among us doesn’t skid off the rails now and then? Who hasn’t imagined crossing that line that separates the civilized from the uncouth? Maybe they should have called him Uncle Cooth, so they could have abbreviated it to something more accurate.
“When we gonna do it?” he asked.
The bar was a five-dollar-a-pitcher rathole that bikers would have frequented if any bikers had lived out here. Instead, its patrons were out-of-work itinerants who worked the lobster wharfs in the late summer, cracking shells and pulling meat for minimum wage. The place carried a smell like that: shellfish and beer piss. Better off lying in wait in the car.
“Soon as he shows hisself,” she said. Lizzie Tramwunkle. Queen of the Dairy Queen. The zit-faced sister of one of the babes of Millinocket. She’d gotten married at seventeen to a guy who’d knocked her up, then ditched him when he took to backhanding her and making her go moo-moo on the wife rack in ways she wanted no part of.
Now she was going to get a part of him. The important part. The part he’d given her little sister a week ago Thursday, probably their dog, KillJoy, too, at some point.
Black Mambo fiddled with the X-Acto knife he’d lifted from his mama’s art table where she made her holiday cards she sold around Christmastime. The handle was aluminum and warmed in his hand.
“You sure ’bout this?” he said, not for the first time.
“Sure as shit, Blacky. You ain’t backing down on me, is you?”
“I ain’t backing down.” He grabbed the beer from between his feet off the filthy carpet and drank a full half of the bottle.
“You ain’t getting no amp, you don’t do this for me.”
“Who said nothing about not doing nothing?” He heard what he’d said echo around the car a couple times and even he wondered what the hell he’d just said.
Young Lizzie just rolled her eyes. She grabbed her crotch and squeezed. Not for the first time. Not for the last. This boy’d given her the complete package—the Magic Johnson curse—and she aimed to settle the score. For Black Mambo, it was just something to do. A little bit of fun on what would have otherwise been just another boring night.
In The Woods
I could feel them on me, out in the woods, in the dark, burning the skin on the back of my neck like two pinpoints of fire. I could feel them, and I knew what they were.
You live in Maine as long as I have, you sense things. Things that are there, but at the same time they’re not there. Like in that song from 1973, by that singer, where things are there and then not there.
What’s the name of that fucking song?
Can’t remember. Can’t remember much of anything. Where are my car keys? What are the last four digits of my social security? Do I have on my pants? What about my underpants?
I have no idea. It’s all gone now, gone from my brain like water down a drain. But my skull’s not empty, not by a country mile. There’s something new in there, something I can feel scuttling around, especially at night, when I can hear the wind moaning in the tall pines deep in the woods, in the dark, where I felt them the first time, the fiery pinpoints on my neck, and I knew what it was, up there in the tree behind me, but I didn’t want to turn to look, didn’t dare turn to look, because that’s when it gets you, the old Maine people say. Don’t turn around, they say. Keep walking, and maybe you’ll be lucky. Maybe it will let you go. Maybe it will wait for some other damn fool to be walking alone in those woods at night, in the dark.
Maybe.
Or maybe it will decide it wants you.
If it does, you’ll know, the sound behind you getting louder in the trees, and you’ll do what I did, you’ll start running. You can’t outrun it, the old Maine people say. But you’ll try; my God how you’ll try, running and stumbling through the dark woods with the pine branches clawing at your clothing as if the trees themselves were trying to stop you, and you’ll realize that they are, the trees are trying to stop you, and you’ll stumble on a root—the tree made you stumble—and you’ll fall, and you’ll try to get up but you can’t get up, and the two fiery pinpoints will burn hot in the back of your neck and you’ll try to scream but you can’t scream. And then, slowly, you’ll roll onto your back. You won’t want to, but you will, because it will make you. Now you’ll feel the burn on your face. And then you will look into the eyes. You don’t want to—Don’t look into the eyes—but you will, you will look straight into the burning red eyes. And you will know that it owns you, now and forever. And you will do whatever it wants you to do. It owns you.
The Hell Squirrel.
The Rock And Roll Dead Zone
I get home from my latest book tour dog-tired and wanting nothing but a couple of Pop Tarts in front of the TV and maybe twelve hours of sleep, but as I roll up my drive, I see it’s not going to work that way. Sitting on my steps and waiting for me is Edward Gooch, aka Goochie, also aka the Gooch. I’ve known him since grade school, and I love him like a brother. At two hundred and eighty pounds, there’s a lot of him to love, and what the Gooch loves most is rock and roll. God, does he love rock and roll. He loves big ideas, too. The biggest he brings to me, every one a guaranteed moneymaker. All I have to do is invest a small sum (say twelve million) or a slightly bigger one (say seventeen, or maybe twenty).
Today the Gooch is wearing red Keds held together with masking tape, huge gray sweatpants (only a bit pee-stained at the crotch), and a Metallica shirt that shrank in the wash, allowing me a good view of his lint-encrusted belly-button. He looks like a stoned roadie in the middle of a nine-week
tour. Except, that is, for what he’s got in his hands: a very large imitation alligator-skin presentation folder.
Oh-oh, I think. The Gooch has had a big idea. God help a poor boy from Maine.
“Steve!” he yells, and spreads his arms. Before I can flee, I’m enfolded in a bearhug that smells of beer, chili, and armpit sweat.
“Gooch,” I say. “Great to see you, buddy, but I’m really tired, and—”
“Sure, sure, you must be, I saw you on The View, saw you on GMA, saw you on Jimmy Fallon, saw you on Oprah—”
“I didn’t do Oprah,” I say. “I’ve never done Oprah.”
“Maybe it was Rachael Ray. You helped her make a skillet-fry, right? Anyway, I won’t keep you long. Ten minutes and you’re gonna see the beauty of this thing I’ve got in mind. I could have taken it to Dave Barry, you know—the man’s got vision, but he’s a small-timer compared to you, Stevie. When it comes to large concepts, Dave’s vision is 20/20. Yours is 15/15. Maybe even 10/10.” He takes a look at my thick specs. “I’m speaking metaphorically, you know that, right?”
“Sure. I’m totally hip to metaphor. How much would I have to invest in this beautiful thing, Gooch? Twelve million or seventeen?”
“This could go thirty,” he admits, “but once we’re up and running, it’ll make Disney World look like a county fair!”
“Gooch, I’m really tired, so maybe tomor—”
“Ten minutes,” he begs. “Fifteen at most. Stevie, I need you.” His eyes fill up with tears. This is a thing Gooch can do pretty much at will, but it always gets me. With his sad face on, he looks like Paul McCartney singing “Let It Be.” A considerably fatter Paul McCartney, though.
“Ten minutes,” I sigh, unlocking the door.
“Great! Great! Got anything to eat? Creativity always makes me hungry.”
That’s the Gooch. Oh man.
***
Ten minutes later (time spent preparing food doesn’t cut into his presentation time, we both understand that), the Gooch is chowing into a multinational triple-decker: German bologna, Swiss cheese, Bermuda onion, and French mustard, all on Jewish rye. With a buttered English muffin in the middle for good measure. He lays this gooey monster aside long enough to open his faux-’gator folder and set the first square of cardboard up on the dining room table, using my suitcase (full of dirty clothes and the souvenir coffee mugs people always give me when I’m on tour, for some reason) as a makeshift easel. Written on the square, among artistic splashes of blood, is this:
THE ROCK AND ROLL DEAD ZONE!
“How do you like it so far Steve-anator?” he asks.
“Great,” I sigh. “How come you didn’t make me a sandwich, while you were at it?”
“I was too starved. I have to build up my energy. Besides, I figured you ate on the plane.”
Actually, I did: chicken salad that came over on the Mayflower and a small bag of peanuts. The flight attendant also gave me a souvenir airline coffee mug.
“What, exactly, is a rock and roll dead zone?” I ask. “Other than a rip on a book I wrote about a thousand years ago?”
“It’s not a rip,” he says indignantly, “it’s a homage.”
“That’s French for a rip,” I say. “Go on, Gooch. I’m all eyes.” Although they keep trying to close.
He puts up the next square, slobbering mustard on his shirt and my table as he does so. This one shows…a house. A plain old ranch-style house, in the shade of a gigantic oak tree.
“Oh…kay,” I tell him. “It’s a house.”
“Not just any house,” he says, “but the Honey House! Remember, from the old Bobby Goldsboro song?” He taps the overhanging oak, leaving a blot of mustard on the leaves about halfway up. “Check out the tree! See how big it’s grown? Steve, it hasn’t been so long that it wasn’t big.” He frowns. “Or maybe it was just a twig.”
“Goochie, the Smothers Brothers did the Honey House thing about a billion years ago. It was one of their most popular skits.”
“I know!” He’s delighted. “That’s where I got the idea! Steve, people will love it! They’ll cry their eyes out! You go in the kitchen, and the last dishes Honey ever washed are in the drainer! You go upstairs and you can see the Honey Bedroom with all her clothes in the Honey Closet! Just the pictures on the Honey Dresser—wedding shots, you know—will reduce people to puddles of goo! And listen, we can hang a mannequin from the tree outside and call the dead guy—”
“Tom Dooley,” I said. “He swings where the little birdies sing.”
“Right, right. Do you think they’ve got anything like Honey House at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?”
“No,” I said, “but they do have the wreckage of Otis Redding’s plane, I believe. It’s actually sort of ghoulish.”
“You’d know ghoulish, Steve-anator,” he chortles. “Given your track record.” Then he sobers. “Jeez, I was hoping for that darn Redding plane. We are going to have a mockup of the one that Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and J.P. Richardson were riding in, though. I don’t have an artist’s rendering of that one yet, but I was thinking it could go in the field behind the Honey House. You know, the empty stage where Honey laughed and Honey played?”
“Great,” I say. “That’ll sell a lot of franks. You can call them Crash Dogs.”
“Not a bad idea. I’ll make a note. Now check this out.” He puts up the next cardboard square. It shows a stretch of road leading down to a hairpin turn.
“Is that…?”
“You bet your sweet Irish bottom,” he says. “This is the Eddie Cochran Memorial Highway, leading straight to Dead Man’s Curve.”
“Goochie,” I say, “that’s as tasteless as a water sandwich.”
“True!” he says. “Which is what people like! Look at American Idol and The X Factor, right? Or that hoarders show. And we can pitch it as a public service. The Curve will be a warning to kids who think they can text and drive.”
“There’s nothing about texting in ‘Dead Man’s Curve,’” I point out. “It hadn’t been invented.”
“The song will be playing over a loudspeaker, and I was thinking we could change the lyrics to something like…” He starts to sing, a truly horrible occurrence. Listening to the Gooch vocalize is like listening to a baby squirrel caught in a very large door that is slowly swinging closed. “Dead Man’s Curve, it’s no place to text, Dead Man’s curve, you’re sure to get wrecked…” He looks at me and says, “Okay, so it needs some work. You’re creative, you can do that part.” He brightens. “Or your friend Mellencamp! How about him?”
“If I brought a project like this to John,” I say, “he’d escort me to the nearest empty room and kick me to death.”
“Oh.” His face falls. “Too bad.” Then he brightens again and puts up Exhibit C. It appears to be a small racetrack. “This is Dickey Lee Go-Kart Arena. You know, like in ‘Tell Laura I Love Her?’ Where the guy gets killed in a stock car race trying to win enough money to buy a wedding ring? Kids are gonna love this, Stevie. The karts are gonna be souped up, with extra-loud motors. Rrrrr-rrrrr! RRRRRR-RRRRRRRRRR!”
“Goochie,” I say.
“What?”
“If you don’t stop making that sound, I’ll kill you.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Will any of the go-karts overturn in flames?” I ask. “It’s in the song, you know.”
“That might pose insurance problems,” he says. “And we don’t really need go-kart wrecks, because we’re going to put the Teen Angel Death Car in the pit area. Check it out.”
He shows me a smashed-to-hell ’57 Chevrolet. Standing beside it is a figure in a bloody wedding dress. Actually, it’s a guy in a bloody wedding dress. One who looks horribly familiar.
“Goochie,” I say. “Isn’t that…?”
“Yeah!” he says, actually hugging himself with glee. His too-small shirt rides up, showing me more of the Gooch than I ever wanted to see. “Dave Marsh, just like in your shows, back in the day! I didn’t even have to pay hi
m to take the photo! He loves putting on that wedding dress.” He frowns. “Course, he insisted on silk underwear from Victoria’s Secret to go with, and that set me back a few bucks—can’t return that stuff once it’s been worn, you know—but it was worth it, wouldn’t you say? And if you look closely, you’ll see he—she, I mean—has got her boyfriend’s high school ring, clutched in her fingers tight!”
“Amazing,” I say. “Whose ring is it? Ridley Pearson’s?”
“Dunno where Dave got it,” Gooch says, “but probably not from the Ridster. I’m not sure the Ridster graduated from high school. Hang in there, Steve, we’re getting to the best ones.”
“I can’t wait,” I say.
He shows me an artist’s rendering of a coalmine entrance. Some of the timbers have fallen, and smoke is billowing out. A sign beside it, complete with skull and crossbones, reads BIG JOHN’S MINE OF DOOM.
“I get it,” I say. “At the bottom of this mine lies a big, big man.”
“Nah,” he says. “That’d be too easy. The audience always likes it when you defeat their expectations. As a writer, you should know that. What happens is you pay to go in, and about fifty yards down you come to the cave-in. When you look through the wreckage, you see a couple of audio-animatronic miners chowing up on another audio-animatronic miner. Or I guess we could save some dough and use a dummy, since the guy’s dead.”
“This one’s a little too esoteric for me, Gooch.”
“It’s from that song ‘Timothy!’ They’re trapped in the mine…they get hungry…and—’”
“I guess I missed that one,” I say.
“Yeah, a lot of stations wouldn’t play it, which was too bad. Cannibalism set to a good beat is very rare in pop music.”
“Speaking of beat,” I say, “that’s how I feel. I need some time to think this over, Goochie.” To think of a way to get out of it is what I mean.
Hard Listening: The Greatest Rock Band Ever (of Authors) Tells All Page 13