Needful Things by Stephen King
"How much did she pay?"
"I didn't ask her. But I'll bet whatever sock she keeps her mad-money in is flat this afternoon."
He frowned a little. "Are you sure she didn't get hornswoggled?"
"Oh, Alan--do you have to be so suspicious all the time? Nettie may be vague about some things, but she knows her carnival glass. She said it was a bargain, and that means it probably was. It's made her so happy."
"Well, that's great. Just The Ticket."
"Pardon?"
"That was the name of a shop in Utica," he said. "A long time ago. I was only a kid. Just The Ticket."
"And did it have your Ticket?" she teased.
"I don't know. I never went in."
"Well," she said, "apparently our Mr. Gaunt thinks he might have mine."
"What do you mean?"
"Nettie got my cake-box, and there was a note inside it. From Mr. Gaunt." She pushed her handbag across the table to him. "Take a look--I don't feel up to the clasp this afternoon."
He ignored the handbag for the moment. "How bad is it, Polly?"
"Bad," she said simply. "It's been worse, but I'm not going to lie to you; it's never been much worse. All this week, since the weather changed."
"Are you going to see Dr. Van Allen?"
She sighed. "Not yet. I'm due for a respite. Every time it gets bad like this, it lets up just when I feel like I'm going to go crazy any minute. At least, it always has. I suppose that one of these times the respite just won't come. If it's not better by Monday, I'll go see him. But all he can do is write prescriptions. I don't want to be a junkie if I can help it, Alan."
"But--"
"Enough," she said softly. "Enough for now, okay?"
"Okay," he said, a little unwillingly.
"Look at the note. It's very sweet ... and sort of cute."
He undid the clasp of her handbag and saw a slim envelope lying on top of her billfold. He took it out. The paper had a rich, creamy feel. Written across the front, in a hand so perfectly old-fashioned it looked like something from an antique diary, was Ms. Polly Chalmers.
"That style is called copperplate," she said, amused. "I think they stopped teaching it not long after the Age of the Dinosaurs."
He took a single sheet of deckle-edged stationery from the envelope. Printed across the top was
NEEDFUL THINGS
Castle Rock, Maine
Leland Gaunt, Proprietor
The handwriting here was not as formally fancy as that on the envelope, but both it and the language itself still had a pleasingly old-fashioned quality.
Dear Polly,
Thank you once again for the devil's-food cake. It is my favorite, and it was delicious! I also want to thank you for your kindness and thoughtfulness--I suppose you knew how nervous I must be on my opening day, and in the off-season as well.
I have an item, not yet in stock but coming with a number of other things via air freight, which I believe might interest you a great deal. I don't want to say more; I'd rather you viewed it yourself. It's actually not much more than a knick-knack, but I thought of it almost the moment you left, and over the years I've rarely been wrong in my intuitions. I expect it to come in either Friday or Saturday. If you have a chance, why not stop in Sunday afternoon? I'll be in all day, cataloguing stock, and would be delighted to show it to you. I don't want to say more just now; the item either will or will not explain itself. At least let me repay your kindness with a cup of tea!
I hope Nettie enjoys her new lampshade. She is a very dear lady, and it seemed to please her very much.
Yours sincerely,
Leland Gaunt
"Mysterious!" Alan said, folding the note back into the envelope and putting the envelope back in her purse. "Are you going to check it out, as we say in the police biz?"
"With a build-up like that--and after seeing Nettie's lampshade--how could I refuse? Yes, I think I'll drop by ... if my hands feel better. Want to come, Alan? Maybe he'll have something for you, too."
"Maybe. But maybe I'll just stick with the Patriots. They're bound to win one eventually."
"You look tired, Alan. Dark circles under the eyes."
"It's been one of those days. It started with me just barely keeping the Head Selectman and one of my deputies from beating each other to a bloody pulp in the little boys' room."
She leaned forward, concerned. "What are you talking about?"
He told her about the dust-up between Keeton and Norris Ridgewick, finishing with how odd Keeton had seemed--his use of that word persecution had kept recurring to him at odd moments all day. When he finished, Polly was quiet for a long time.
"So?" he asked her finally. "What do you think?"
"I was thinking that it's still going to be a lot of years before you know everything about Castle Rock that you need to know. That probably goes for me, too--I was away a long time, and I don't talk about where I was or what became of my 'little problem,' and I think there are a lot of people in town who don't trust me. But you pick things up, Alan, and you remember things. When I came back to The Rock, do you know what it felt like?"
He shook his head, interested. Polly was not a woman to dwell on the past, even with him.
"It was like tuning into a soap opera you've fallen out of the habit of watching. Even if you haven't watched in a couple of years, you recognize the people and their problems at once, because they never really change. Watching a show like that again is like slipping into a comfortable old pair of shoes."
"What are you saying?"
"That there's a lot of soap-opera history here you haven't caught up on yet. Did you know that Danforth Keeton's uncle was in Juniper Hill at the same time Nettie was?"
"No."
She nodded. "Around the age of forty he started to have mental problems. My mother used to say Bill Keeton was a schizophrenic. I don't know if that's the proper term or just the one Mom heard most often on TV, but there sure as hell was something wrong with him. I remember seeing him grab people on the street and start to hector them on one thing or another--the national debt, how John Kennedy was a Communist, I don't know whatall else. I was only a little girl. It frightened me, though, Alan--I knew that."
"Well, of course it did."
"Or sometimes he'd walk along the street with his head down, talking to himself in a voice that was loud and muttery at the same time. My mother told me I was never to speak to him when he was behaving like that, not even if we were on our way to church and he was, too. Finally he tried to shoot his wife. Or so I heard, but you know how long-time gossip distorts things. Maybe all he did was wave his service pistol at her. Whatever he did, it was enough to get him carted off to county jail. There was some sort of competency hearing, and when it was over they parked him at Juniper Hill."
"Is he still there?"
"Dead now. His state of mind degenerated pretty fast, once they had him institutionalized. He was catatonic when he finally went. Or so I've heard."
"Jesus."
"But that's not all. Ronnie Keeton, Danforth's father and Bill Keeton's brother, spent four years in the mental wing at the VA hospital in Togus during the mid-seventies. Now he's in a nursing home. Alzheimer's. And there was a great-aunt or a cousin--I'm not sure which--who killed herself in the fifties after some sort of scandal. I'm not sure what it was, but I heard once she liked the ladies a little better than she liked the men."
"It runs in the family, is that what you're saying?"
"No," she said. "There's no moral to this, no theme. I know a little town history you don't, that's all--the kind they don't recount during the Town Common speech-making on the Fourth of July. I'm just passing it on. Drawing conclusions is a job for the police."
She said this last so primly that Alan laughed a little--but he felt uneasy, just the same. Did insanity run in families? He had been taught in high school psychology that the idea was an old wives' tale. Years later, at Albany Police Academy, a lecturer had said it was true, or could be, at least
"I guess I better start asking around about Buster," Alan said heavily. "I'll tell you, Polly, the idea that Castle Rock's Head Selectman could be turning into a human hand grenade does not exactly make my day."
"Of course not. And it's probably not the case. I just thought you ought to know. People around here will answer questions ... if you know what questions to ask. If you don't, they'll cheerfully watch you stumble around in great big circles and never say a word."
Alan grinned. It was the truth. "You haven't heard it all yet, Polly--after Buster left, I had a visit from the Reverend Willie. He--"
"Shhh!" Polly said, so fiercely that Alan was startled to silence. She looked around, seemed to decide no one had been eavesdropping on their conversation, and turned back to Alan again. "Sometimes I despair of you, Alan. If you don't learn some discretion, you're apt to get swept out at the polls two years from now ... and you'll stand there with a big, puzzled grin on your face and say 'Wha hoppen?' You have to be careful. If Danforth Keeton's a hand grenade, that man's a rocket launcher."
He leaned closer to her and said, "He's not a rocket launcher. A self-righteous, pompous little prick is what he is."
"Casino Nite?"
He nodded.
She put her hands over his. "Poor baby. And it looks like such a sleepy little town from the outside, doesn't it?"
"Usually it is."
"Did he go away mad?"
"Oh yeah," Alan said. "This was my second conversation with the good Reverend about the legality of Casino Nite. I expect to have several more before the Catholics finally do the damned thing and get it over with."
"He is a self-righteous little prick, isn't he?" she asked in an even lower voice. Her face was serious, but her eyes were sparkling.
"Yes. Now there's the buttons. They're a new wrinkle."
"Buttons?"
"Slot machines with lines drawn through them instead of smiley faces. Nan's wearing one. I wonder whose idea that was."
"Probably Don Hemphill. He's not only a good Baptist, he's on the Republican State Committee. Don knows a thing or three about campaigning, but I bet he's finding out that it's a lot harder to swing public opinion where religion is involved." She stroked his hands. "Take it easy, Alan. Be patient. Wait. That's most of what life in The Rock is about--taking it easy, being patient, and waiting for the occasional stink to blow over. Yeah?"
He smiled at her, turned his hands over, and grasped hers ... but gently. Oh so gently. "Yeah," he said. "Want some company tonight, pretty lady?"
"Oh, Alan, I don't know--"
"No slap and tickle," he assured her. "I'll make a fire, we'll sit in front of it, and you can pull a few more bodies out of the town closet for my amusement."
Polly smiled wanly. "I think you've gotten a look at all the bodies I know about over the last six or seven months, Alan, including mine own. If you want to further your Castle Rock education, you ought to make friends either with old Lenny Partridge ... or with her." She nodded toward Nan, and then lowered her voice a trifle. "The difference between Lenny and Nan," she said, "is that Lenny is content to know things. Nan Roberts likes to use what she knows."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning the lady didn't pay fair market value for all the property she owns," Polly said.
Alan looked at her thoughtfully. He had never seen Polly in a mood quite like this one--introspective, talkative, and depressed all at the same time. He wondered for the first time since becoming her friend and then her lover if he was listening to Polly Chalmers ... or the drugs.
"I think tonight would be a good night to stay away," she said with sudden decision. "I'm not good company when I feel like I do now. I can see that in your face."
"Polly, that's not true."
"I'm going to go home and take a long, hot bath. I'm not going to drink any more coffee. I'm going to unplug the phone, go to bed early, and the chances are that when I wake up tomorrow, I'll feel like a new woman. Then maybe we can ... you know. No slap, a lot of tickle."
"I worry about you," he said.
Her hands moved gently, delicately, in his. "I know," she said. "It does no good, but I appreciate it, Alan. More than you know."
2
Hugh Priest slowed as he passed The Mellow Tiger on his way home from the Castle Rock motor pool ... then sped up again. He drove home, parked his Buick in the driveway, and went inside.
His place had two rooms: the one where he slept and the one where he did everything else. A chipped Formica table, covered with aluminum frozen dinner trays (cigarette butts had been crushed in congealing gravy in most of them) stood in the center of this latter room. He went to the open closet, stood on tiptoe, and felt along the top shelf. For a moment he thought the fox-tail was gone, that somebody had come in and stolen it, and panic ignited a ball of heat in his belly. Then his hand encountered that silky softness, and he let out his breath in a long sigh.
He had spent most of the day thinking about the fox-tail, thinking about how he was going to tie it to the Buick's antenna, thinking about how it would look, fluttering cheerfully up there. He had almost tied it on that morning, but it had still been raining then, and he didn't like the idea of the dampness turning it into a soggy fur rope that just hung there like a carcass. Now he took it back outside, absently kicking an empty juice can out of his way as he went, stroking the rich fur through his fingers. God, it felt good!
He entered the garage (which had been too full of junk to admit his car since 1984 or so) and found a sturdy piece of wire after some hunting about. He had made up his mind: first he would wire the fox-tail to the antenna, then he would have some supper, and afterward he would finally drive over to Greenspark. A.A. met at the American Legion Hall there at seven o'clock. Maybe it was too late to start a new life ... but it wasn't too late to find out for sure, one way or another.
He made a sturdy little slip-loop in the wire and fastened it around the thick end of the brush. He started to wrap the other end of the wire around the antenna, but his fingers, which had moved with rapid surety at first, began to slow down. He felt his confidence slipping away and, filling the hole it left behind, doubt began to seep in.
He saw himself parking in the American Legion parking lot, and that was okay. He saw himself going in to the meeting, and that was okay, too. But then he saw some little kid, like the asshole who had stepped in front of his truck the other day, walking past the Legion Hall while he was inside saying his name was Hugh P. and he was powerless over alcohol. Something catches the kid's eye--a flash of bright orange in the blue-white glare thrown by the arc-sodiums which light the parking lot. The kid approaches his Buick and examines the fox-tail ... first touching, then stroking. He looks around, sees no one, and yanks on the fox-tail, breaking the wire. Hugh saw this kid going down to the local video-game arcade and telling one of his buddies: Hey, look what I hawked out of the Legion parking lot. Not bad, huh?
Hugh felt a frustrated anger creep into his chest, as if this were not simply speculation but something which had already happened. He stroked the fox-tail, then looked around in the growing gloom of five o'clock, as if he expected to see a crowd of light-fingered kids gathering already on the far side of Castle Hill Road, just waiting for him to go back inside and stuff a couple of Hungry Man dinners into the oven so they could take his fox-tail.
No. It was better not to go. Kids had no respect these days. Kids would steal anything, just for the joy of stealing it. Keep it for a day or two, then lose interest and toss it in a ditch or a vacant lot. The picture--and it was a very clear picture, almost a vision--of his lovely brush lying abandoned in a trashy gully, growing sodden in the rain, losing its color amid the Big Mac wrappers
It would be crazy to take a risk like that.
He untwisted the wire which held the tail to the antenna, took the brush into the house again, and put it back on the high shelf in the closet. This time he closed the closet door, but it wouldn't latch tightly.
Have to get a lock for that, he thought. Kids'll break in anyplace. There's no respect for authority these days. None at all.
He went to the refrigerator, got a can of beer, looked at it for a moment, then put it back. A beer--even four or five beers--wouldn't do much to put him back on an even keel. Not the way he felt tonight. He opened one of the lower cupboards, pawed past the assortment of rummage-sale pots and pans stacked there, and found the half-full bottle of Black Velvet he kept for emergencies. He filled a jelly-glass to the halfway mark, considered for a moment, then filled it all the way to the top. He took a swallow or two, felt the heat explode in his belly, and filled the glass again. He started to feel a little better, a little more relaxed. He looked toward the closet and smiled. It was safe up there, and would be safer as soon as he got a good strong Kreig padlock at the Western Auto and put it on. Safe. It was good when you had something you really wanted and needed, but it was even better when that thing was safe. That was the best of all.
Then the smile faded a little.
Is that what you bought it for? To keep it on a high shelf behind a locked door?
He drank again, slowly. All right, he thought, maybe that's not so good. But it's better than losing it to some light-fingered kid.
"After all," he said aloud, "it's not 1955 anymore. This is modern days."
He nodded for emphasis. Still, the thought lingered. What good was the fox-tail doing in there? What good for him, or anyone else?
But two or three drinks took care of that thought. Two or three drinks made putting the fox-tail back seem like the most reasonable, rational decision in the world. He decided to put off dinner; such a sensible decision deserved to be rewarded by another drink or two.