Stephen King - The Plant - Part 5

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The Plant

by Stephen King

part ﬁve of a novel in progress

philtrum press

Bangor, Maine 

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FROM THE DISPATCHES OF IRON-GUTS HECKSLER

Apr 1 81

0600 hrs

Pk Ave So NYC

City successfully infiltrated. Objective in view. Not this very moment of

course. My current location=alley behind Smiler’s Market, corner Pk &

32nd. Workplace of Designated Jew almost directly across from my

bivouac. Disguised as “Crazy Guitar Gertie” and worked like a charm. No

gun but good knife in plastic bag #1 of “homeless person” crap. 2 foremen

of the Antichrist working at Satan’s House of Zenith showed up 1730

hours yesterday afternoon. One (code name ROGER DODGER) went into

market. Bought garlic by smell. Supposed to improve sex-life, HA!! Other

(code name JOHN THE BAPTIST) waited outside. Back to me. Could have

killed him with no problem. One quick slash. Jugular and carotid. Old

commando move. This old dog remembers all his old tricks. Didn’t, of

course. Must wait for Designated Jew. If others stay out of my way, they

may live. If they don’t, they will certainly die. No prisoners. BAPTIST

gave me two dollars. Cheapskate! Best plan still seems to wait until week-

end (i.e. Apr 4-5) and then infiltrate building. Lie low inside until Monday

135

morning (i.e. Apr 6). Of course D.J. may come along before then but cow-

ards travel in packs. Will do you no good D.J. In the end, your meat is

mine, HA! “Beaches are sandy, some shores are rocky, I’m going to venti-

late, A Designated Mockie.” More dreams of CARLOS (code name DES-

IGNATED SPIC). I think he is close. Wish I had a picture. Must be crafty.

Guitar & wig=good props. DAY OF THE GENERAL instead of DAY OF

THE JACKAL, HA!! Guitar needs new strings. Still play pretty well & still

sing “like a bird in a tree.” Got suppositories. Dropped load. Can think

more clearly in spite of brain-killing transmissions.

Must now play waiting game.

Not the first time.

Over and out.

136

From The New York Times, April 1, 1981

Page B-1, National Report

137

COMMUTER CRASH KILLS 7 IN R.I.

By James Whitney

Special to The Times

CENTRAL FALLS, RHODE ISLAND: A

Cessna 404 Titan commuter airplane owned

and operated by Ocean State Airways crashed

shortly after takeoff from Barker Field in this

small Rhode Island city yesterday afternoon,

killing both pilots and all five passengers.

Ocean State Airways has been running shut-

tle flights to New York City’s LaGuardia

since 1977. OCA Flight 14 was airborne for

less than two minutes when it crashed in a

vacant lot only a quarter of a mile from its

takeoff point. Witnesses said the aircraft

banked low over a warehouse, narrowly miss-

ing the roof, just before going down.

“Whatever was wrong must have gone

wrong right away,” said Myron Howe, who

was cutting weeds between Barker Field’s

two runways when the accident occurred.

“He got upstairs and then he tried to come on

back. I heard one engine cut out, then the

other. I saw both props were dead. He missed

the warehouse, and he missed the access

road, but then he went in hard.”

Preliminary reports indicate no mainte-

nance problems with the C404, which is pow-

ered by two 375 horsepower turbo-charged

piston engines. The make has an excellent

safety record overall, and the aircraft which

crashed had less than 9000 hours on its clock,

according to Ocean State Airways President

George Ferguson. Officials from the Civil

Aeronautics Board (CAB) and the Federal

Aviation Administration (FAA) have launched

a joint investigation of the crash.

Killed in the accident, the first in Ocean

State’s four-year history, were John Chester-

ton, the pilot, and Avery Goldstein, the co-

pilot, both of Pawtucket. Robert Weiner, Tina

Barfield, and Dallas Mayr have been identified

as three of the downed aircraft’s five passen-

gers. The identities of the other two, thought to

have been husband and wife, have been with-

held pending notification of next of kin.

Ocean State Airways is most commonly

used by passengers connecting with larger

airlines operating out of LaGuardia Airport.

According to Mr. Ferguson, OSA has sus-

pended operations at least until the end of the

week and perhaps longer. “I’m devastated by

this,” he said. “I’ve flown that particular craft

many times, and would have sworn there

wasn’t a safer plane in the skies, large or

small. I flew it down from Boston myself on

Monday, and everything was fine with it then.

I don’t have any idea what could have caused

both engines to shut down the way they did.

One, possibly, but not both.”

From John Kenton’s diary

April 1, 1981

There’s an old Chinese curse which goes, “May you live in interesting

times.” I think it must have been especially aimed at folks who keep diaries

(and if they follow Roger’s edict, that number will soon be increased by

three: Bill Gelb, Sandra Jackson, and Herb “Give Me The World And Let

Me Boss It” Porter). I sat here in my little home office—which is actually

just a corner of the kitchen to which I have added a shelf and a bright

light—pounding the keys of my typewriter for nearly five hours last night.

Won’t be that long tonight; among other things, I have a manuscript to read.

And I am going to read it, I think. The dozen or so pages I got through on

my way home have pretty well convinced me that this is the one I’ve been

looking for all along, without even really knowing it.

But at least one person of my recent acquaintance won’t be reading it.

Not even if it’s as great as Great Expectations. (Not that it will be; I have to

keep reminding myself that I work at Zenith House, not Random House.)

Poor woman. I don’t know if she was telling the exact truth about wanting

to do us a Good Turn, but even if she was lying through her teeth, no one

should have to die like that, dropped out of the sky and crushed to death in

a burning steel tube.

I arrived at work even earlier today, wanting to check the mail room.

OUIJA says stop wasting your time, she told me. The one you’re looking for is

in the purple box on the bottom shelf. Way in the corner. I wanted to check

that corner even before I put on the coffee. And to get another look at

Zenith the ivy, while I was down there.

At first I thought I’d beaten Roger this time, because there was no clack-

clack from his typewriter. But the light was on, and when I peeked in the

138

open door of his office, there he was, just sitting behind his desk and look-

ing out at the street.

“Morning, boss,” I said. I thought he’d be ready and raring to go, but he

just sat there in a semi-slump, pale and disheveled, as if he’d spent the whole

night tossing and turning.

“I told you not to encourage her,” he said without turning from the

window.

I walked over and looked out. The old lady with the guitar, the wild

white hair, and the sign about letting Jesus grow in your heart was over there

in front of Smiler’s again. I couldn’t hear what she was singing, at least.

There was that much.

“You look like you had a tough night,” I said.

“Tougher morning. You seen the Times?”

I had, as a matter of fact—the front page, anyway. There was the usual

report on Reagan’s condition, the usual stuff about unrest in the mideast, the

usual corruption-in-government story, and the usual bottom-of-the-page

command to support the Fresh Air Fund. Nothing that struck me as of any

immediate concern. Nevertheless, I felt a little stirring of the hairs on the

back of my neck.

The Times was sitting folded over in the OUT half of Roger’s IN/OUT

basket. I took it.

“First page of the B section,” he said, still looking out the window. At

the bum, presumably...or do you call a female of the species a bumette?

I turned to the National Report and saw a picture of an airplane—what

was left of one, anyway—in a weedy field littered with cast-off engine parts.

In the background, a bunch of people were standing behind a cyclone fence

and gawking. I scanned the headline and knew at once.

“Barfield?” I asked.

“Barfield,” he agreed.

“Christ!”

“Christ had nothing to do with it.”

I scanned the piece without really reading it, just looking for her name.

139

And there she was: Tina Barfield of Central Falls, source of that old adage

“if you play around the buzz-saw too long, sooner or later someone is gonna

get cut.” Or burned alive in a Cessna Titan, she should have added.

“She said she’d be safe from Carlos if she did a genuine Good Turn,”

Roger said. “That might lead some to deduce that what she did us was just

the opposite.”

“I believed her about that,” I said. I think I was telling the truth, but

whether I was or wasn’t, I didn’t want Roger deciding to uproot the ivy grow-

ing in Riddley’s closet because of what had happened to Tina Barfield.

Shocked as I was, I didn’t want that. Then I saw—or maybe intuited—that

Roger’s mind wasn’t running that way, and I relaxed a little.

“Actually, I did, too,” he said. “She was at least trying to do a Good Turn.”

“Maybe she just didn’t do it soon enough,” I said.

He nodded. “Maybe that was it. I read the short story she mentioned,

by the way—the one by Jerome Bixby.”

“‘It’s a Good Life.’”

“Right. By the time I’d read two pages, I recognized it as the basis of a

famous Twilight Zone episode starring Billy Mumy. What the hell ever hap-

pened to Billy Mumy?”

I didn’t give Shit One about what happened to Billy Mumy, but

thought it might be a bad idea to say so.

“The story’s about a little boy who’s a super-psychic. He destroys the

whole world, apparently, except for his own little circle of friends and rela-

tives. Those people he holds hostage, killing them if they dare to cross him

in any way.”

I remembered the episode. The little kid hadn’t pulled out anyone’s

heart or caused any planes to crash, but he’d turned one character—his big

brother or maybe a neighbor—into a jack-in-the-box. And when he made a

mess, he simply sent it away into the cornfield.

“Based on that, can you imagine what living with Carlos must have

been like?” Roger asked me.

“What are we going to do, Roger?”

140

He turned from the window then and looked at me straight on.

Frightened—I was, too—but determined. I respected him for that. And I

respect myself, too.

I think.

“We’re going to make Zenith House into a profitable concern if we

can,” he said, “and then we’re going to jam about nine gallons of black ink

in Harlow Enders’s eye. I don’t know if that plant is really a modern-day ver-

sion of Jack’s beanstalk or not, but if it is, we’re going to climb it and get the

golden harp, the golden goose, and all the gold doubloons we can carry.

Agreed?”

I stuck out my hand. “Agreed, boss.”

He shook it. I haven’t had many fine moments before nine in the morn-

ing, at least not as an adult, but that was one of them.

“We’re also going to be careful,” he said. “Agreed there?”

“Agreed.” It’s only tonight, dear diary, that I realize what you’re left with

if you take the aout of agreed. I would be telling less than the truth if I did-

n’t say that sort of haunts me.

We talked a little more. I wanted to go down and check on Zenith;

Roger suggested we wait for Bill, Herb, and Sandra, then do it together.

LaShonda Evans came in before they did, complaining that the recep-

tion area smelled funny. Roger sympathized, suggested it might be mildew

in the carpet, and authorized a petty-cash expenditure for a can of Glade,

which can be purchased in the Smiler’s across the street. He also suggested

that she leave the editors pretty much alone for the next couple of months;

they were all going to be working hard, he said, trying to live up to the par-

ent company’s expectations. He didn’t say “unrealistic expectations,” but

some people can convey a great deal with no more than a certain tone of

voice, and Roger is one of them.

“It’s my policy not to go any further than right here, Mr. Wade,” she

said, standing in the door of Roger’s office and speaking with great dignity.

“You’re okay…and so are you, Mr. Kenton…most of the time…”

I thanked her. I’ve discovered that after your girl has dropped you for

141

some West Coast smoothie who probably knows Tai Chi and has been rolphed

as est-ed to a nicety, even left-handed compliments sound pretty good.

“…but those other three are a little on the weird side.”

With that, LaShonda left. I imagine she had calls to make, a few of

which might even have to do with the publishing business. Roger looked at

me, amused, and further rumpled his disarranged hair. “She didn’t know

what the smell was,” he said.

“I don’t think LaShonda spends a lot of time in the kitchen.”

“When you look like LaShonda, I doubt if you need to,” Roger said.

“The only time you smell garlic is when the waiter brings your Shrimp

Mediterranean.”

“Meanwhile,” I said, “there’s Glade. And the garlic-smell will be gone

before long, anyway. Unless, of course, you’re either a bloodhound or a

supernatural houseplant.”

We looked at each other for a moment, then burst out laughing. Maybe

just because Tina Barfield was dead and we were alive. Not very nice, I know,

but the day brightened from that point on; that much, at least, I’m sure of.

Roger had left little notes on Herb’s, Sandra’s, and Bill’s desks. By nine-

thirty we were all gathered in Roger’s office, which doubles as our editorial

conference room. Roger began by saying that he thought both Herb and

Sandra had been aided in their inspirations, and with no more preamble

than that, he told them the story of our trip to Rhode Island. I helped as

much as I could. We both tried to express how strange our visit to the green-

house had been, how otherworldly, and I believe all three of them under-

stood most of that. When it came to Norville Keen, however, I don’t think

either Roger or I really got the point across.

Bill and Herb were sitting side by side on the floor, as they often do dur-

ing our editorial conferences, drinking coffee, and I saw them exchange a

glance of the kind in which eyeballs rolling heavenward play a crucial part.

I thought about trying to press the point, then didn’t. If I may misquote the

wisdom of Norville Keen:“You can’t believe in a zombie unless you’ve seen

that zombie.”

142

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ThePlantbyStephenKingpartﬁveofanovelinprogressphiltrumpressBangor,MaineCopyright©2000byStephenKing.Allrightsreserved.✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯FROMTHEDISPATCHESOFIRON-GUTSHECKSLERApr1810600hrsPkAveSoNYCCitysuccessfullyinfiltrated.Objectivein...

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