The following is dedicated to Roland Deschain. May
your quest bring you peace, gunslinger.
A number of strange things have been happening to me over
the last several weeks, all of them connected in some way to the Dark Tower
At least this is the reason I am giving myself for the
strange recent occurrences. I have been
tarrying too long in sai King’s world, I explain to myself; that’s all it
is. All I need to do is finish the last
book, and then allow time and distance to break the magic spell of gravity, and
free me from its hold.
But, for the time being anyway, the character of Roland
Deschain, the gunslinger, has besieged my mind and infiltrated my
imagination. These things I’m about to
relate have more to do with him than anything, I suspect. The character whose quest for the Dark Tower
Before I can do that, though, there is some painting and some
tiling that must get done; yes there is...but now I’m putting the cart in front of the horse.
The first notably odd incident was last month. It was a sleep-in day for me, so it was seven
by the time I rolled out of bed. I was
the last one to wake up, and I could hear the television in the back room as I slumped
down the hallway. For once, our black
lab Chubby was not creating a one-dog obstacle course in front of me as I walked,
which could only mean they must have fed her already, and let her out. Thankee-sai
for small miracles, I muttered, not noticing my unusual choice of
words, or recognizing that it was unusual, until later.
“Mornin’,” I said, rusty-voiced.
“Good morning,” she said, turning and smiling. “Would you like some eggs?”
“No, thanks.” I leaned drowsily against the
counter.
“The coffee’s fresh,” she said over her shoulder, having returned her attention to the eggs.
“Thankee-sai,” I said reflexively, pushing leadenly off the
counter and crossing the kitchen to where we kept the cups, and the coffee. “What time did the girls get up?” I asked,
pouring myself a cup, and carefully lifting it to the table.
“Maria wandered out here about a half-hour ago; and you’d
have to ask Jess, because she was up watching TV when I got back from the gym.”
“At six o’clock?” I asked, sinking slowly into one of the
kitchen chairs.
“Uh-huh.” There was
disapproval in her tone.
“Well, I guess at least she won’t have trouble adjusting to
her schedule when school starts up again.”
It was less than two weeks away from the start of the school year; I was
tracking it very closely.
“I guess.” She
sounded doubtful. “Would you like
creamer?”
“Sure.” When Elizabeth said ‘creamer,’
she was talking about the condensed, exotically-flavored liquid stuff in the
fridge. Normally, I would just mix two
teaspoons of sugar and some plain powdered cream in my cup, but that would
require getting up again since I had forgotten to do it while I was standing by
the coffee maker. “How’s Maria? Still sneezing?” Maria had caught a head cold, with congestion
and a runny nose, except that instead of coughing, she would go into these
extended sneezing fits. Then each of us
began to have them, although whether it was catching or just the power of
suggestion was impossible to say.
“Haven’t heard a thing this morning,” she said, handing me
the cold plastic bottle of cinnamon-caramel-vanilla macchiato.
“Thankee-sai,” I said, reaching for it, but she pulled it
back quickly.
“Alright, what is
that?”
“What?”
“What are you saying?
You said it twice already. ‘Thank E’s eye?’ What is that supposed to mean,
‘Thank E’s eye?’ She looked perturbed,
like she thought I was making some kind of a joke at her expense.
At first, I didn’t know what she was saying. It sounded like ‘Thank eez I,’ with the
emphasis on the ‘eez,’ which I agreed made no sense at all. Then I figured out that she was saying ‘Thank
E’s eye,’ which still made no sense in its totality, but now at least each part
formed a tangible concept. I used to
call her E sometimes as a kind of nickname.
Back then we had a car, a Plymouth Breeze, which she mostly drove, that
I used to call E’s Breeze. But the car was wrecked in an accident ten
years ago, and with it the nickname had fallen into disuse. I wondered if that were purely coincidence,
or -
My reverie was interrupted by an impatient, “Well? Are you going to explain?”
“I didn’t say anything about your eye,” I protested. “They’re fine. In fact, they’re beautiful.” Like most guys, I’ll take those easy points
when I can get them.
“Bah!” she replied, sounding like another E, Ebenezer
Scrooge. “I know you said something, and it wasn’t just “Thanks,’ or ‘Thank
you.’ You added some gibberish at the
end.”
I puzzled over ‘Thank E’s eye’ for a few more moments before
it finally hit me. “Ohhh- Was it ‘Thankee-sai?’”
“That’s what I said, ‘Thank E’s eye.’” Her tone and
expression both exclaimed ‘Duh!’ simultaneously.
“Well, actually it’s ‘Thankee-sai,’” and then I spelled it
for her. “It’s just a phrase from the Dark Tower
She eyed me suspiciously.
“If that’s all it is, why didn’t you just say ‘Thanks?’
My head dropped forward, toward my coffee. It’s
too early in the morning for this. I
looked up again. “I don’t know. I didn’t even know I said it. Maybe it’s
because I was up late reading last night.
Or maybe it’s because I’ve read the phrase ‘Thankee-sai’ about fifteen
hundred times this summer. It’s on every
other page. I guess it just slipped
out. I promise,” I said, fixing her with
earnestness, “it’s nothing more than that.”
Her lips scrunched into a disbelieving grimace, and one of
her eyebrows rose high on her head, but she said nothing more, although she did
conveniently forget to hand over the coffee creamer, putting it instead on the
counter next to the stove. With a weary
sigh, I pushed my chair back from the table, and dragged myself to fetch myself
the sugar and the powdered cream.
That was my first clue things were starting to get a little
weird.
A few weeks later, it was morning again, and we were sitting
across from each other eating breakfast.
I was having oatmeal, and she was eating a bowl of multi-grain Cheerios. We were reading different parts of the newspaper,
and the kids, remarkably, were coexisting peaceably in the back room. Without thinking, I picked up the rubber band
that came with the day’s paper, and began pulling it casually while perusing
the sports section. After a minute, the
rubber band found its natural position on the human hand, the one all rubber
bands seem destined to wind up in, one end stretched over the index finger, and
the other pulled taut by the pinky finger at the bottom. The rubber band gun. I turned my hand and stared at it as if
seeing something brand new. Then I began
to raise my arm stiffly. “Now say your lesson, gunslinger, and be true.”
“Hmmm?” Elizabeth
asked distractedly, not looking up.
My arm was now straight and steady before me. My thumb stuck up like the raised hammer of a
revolver. “I do not aim with my hand,” I said in a slow and even voice. “He who aims with his hand has forgotten the
face of his father. I aim with my eye.”
“Can you hold on for just a moment, Kev?” Elizabeth said. “I just want to finish this article about
Michael Jackson’s mother disappearing.
They think she might be staying with some relatives here in the Valley. Isn’t that weird?”
“I do not shoot with my hand,” I responded, dropping my arm
slightly so the barrel of my finger was pointed exactly at where I predicted her
heart would be behind the newspaper she held up. “He who shoots with his hand has forgotten
the face of his father. I shoot with my
mind.”
“Uh-huh, father’s face.
Got it – wait…Shoots?!” She
lowered the top half of the paper and saw a loaded rubber band aimed directly
at her from less than two feet away. Her
face froze in an expression of surprise, and the newspaper dropped from her
hands. “What?! What are you doing? You put that finger down this instant,” she
demanded.
I didn’t waver, not even the slightest tremble. I felt solid as a steel beam. “I do not kill with my gun,” I said, my voice
coldly neutral. “He who kills with his gun
has forgotten the face of his father. I
kill with my heart.” Elizabeth started to protest, then her eyes
widened as she saw that my intent exactly matched the words coming from my
mouth. With amazing speed, she grabbed
the box of Cheerios and pulled it in front of her like a shield. The rubber band smacked the still-moving box
and went looping off to the side. It
plopped on the table, spent.
I shook my head, as if coming out of a deep trance. “Wow, that was awesome!” My voice was filled
with awe. “That was gunslinger fast!” I stopped talking
when she moved the box of cereal away.
The look of rage was unmistakeable.
“You’re not the only cold-blooded murderer in this family,” she said,
still holding the cereal in one hand.
“And to prove it, I’m going to kill you with this box of Cheerios!” Without hestitation, she launched the box,
the sharp corner of which caught me right on the bridge of my nose. It didn’t bleed, but it hurt like hell, and sent
stingers into my eyes, and made them start to water like crazy. From behind me, I heard the sound of a
thousand little baked circles of oats scattering on the tile floor.
“Ha!” she said, sitting back smugly with her arms folded
over her chest. “Some gunslinger. Can’t even dodge a box of cereal.” For a moment, in my slightly disoriented
state, it sounded like Detta Walker was sitting in that chair.
“You threw that like it was a Riza!” I exclaimed, my
gunslinger hands cupped over my throbbing nose.
The compliment did nothing to assuage her indignation. I could tell because even though I still
couldn’t see her well, it carried in the tone of her reply. “And you goan clean that li’l mess up now,
aren’t ya, mahfah?”
I swear she said it just like that.
“Cry your pardon,” was my feeble response.
That second incident should have been enough to realize that
The Dark Tower
It was late afternoon.
Elizabeth
was tired after a rough day at work, and I was tired from wrangling two kids
while trying to make progress on repainting our front room. Confrontation hung on the near horizon like a
gathering thunderstorm.
“So, how’s the room coming?” she said with that
falsely-neutral way she had, while leaning back into the sofa and putting her
nyloned feet on my writing chair. “Still
on that same wall, I see. It’s been what,
a week?”
I fought down the sudden urge to dump a half-gallon of paint
on her head. ‘That same wall’ I had been
working on had had bookcases and a wall unit attached to it that had to be
cleared and then unscrewed and moved. Then
the walls had to be patched and the patches sanded, and then the whole wall had
to be sanded and cleaned, because the old paint had a glossy finish that would
make it hard for the new paint to adhere to.
And then there was the discovery that we hadn’t gotten the special combined
primer and paint that I thought we had (we bought the supplies six months
before; apparently I had procrastinated long enough to forget that little
fact), so I was unexpectedly faced with the prospect of priming first (two
coats, of course, because the wall was a deep wine red and we were covering it
with a shade called “Muslin Wrap”) and then painting two coats of finish color,
effectively doubling the time and energy I originally projected. Then there were the touch-ups to the ceiling,
the baseboards, and the corner of the one wall we weren’t going to paint, which
was as far as I had gotten today. I had yet
to put the bookcases and the wall unit back, secure them all again, and then
touch up the inevitable multitude of dings and scratches that come from doing
these things by yourself. On top of
that, this was the third time in nine years we were painting ‘that same wall,’
all coming after the horror of stripping off the flocked floral wallpaper that
had happily hung there for the preceding twenty years…
I struggled to maintain my composure and not reach for the
open bucket of paint. I thought I was
doing a fairly decent job of pulling myself back from the brink, until I
realized my hand was feeling for the handle of the paint can. ‘That same wall.’ Do you
really want to see how fast I can paint something? Here, let me show you… my hand tightened
around the thin metal of the handle until it was almost cutting into my skin.
Just then, I felt something happen inside, as though my mind
had suddenly been pushed back deep into my head, disconnecting me from my body
and my senses. The outside world,
instead of filling my eyes, was now like looking through a distant window. Sounds were muffled and soft, and I found I could
no longer control my body. I tried to bring
my hand in front of my face, but the impulse left my brain and simply vanished as
though it had fallen off a cliff. Naturally,
it was quite terrifying to experience.
And yet, I felt a semi-familiar presence emerge from the shadows. It moved in front of me, taking the place
that my mind had just vacated. Don’t worry, it said to me. If you
want to live, let me handle this.
Roland? Was I dreaming, or did Roland Deschain just
step forward in my mind the way he did with Eddie, Susannah, and that one guy
who would kill people by pushing them in front of cars and trains? How could that be? Why?
Why me?
His name was Jack
Mort, the voice said. Now hush. There
will be time for questions later perhaps, but now I need to concentrate very
carefully on what I must do.
Roland of Gilead, it
is you! Our lives are in danger? How?
Why? What’s going on?
Not merely our lives,
Roland replied, but our very quest to
save the Dark Tower
The force of his will was so strong that I shrank back into the
confines of my isolated mind, and fell silent.
Then I heard him speak with my voice.
“Elizabeth, daughter of Lewis, hear me well. My name is Roland of Gilead, son of Steven,
of the line of Eld. My time here is
short, and I must return to my where and when soon, or risk the ruination of many
worlds, including mine and yours.”
She sighed. “I’m in
no mood for games, Kevin. You’re just
trying to distract me from the topic at hand.
I want to know when this room’s going to be done so I can get my house
back in order.”
“Elizabeth-sai, you are not speaking with Kevin, son of
Kenneth, but with Roland of Gilead. We
must palaver.”
“Look, buddy, I don’t know exactly what palaver means, but I
can guarantee you there’ll be no palavering between us until this room is done,
and the kids are asleep.”
“I cry your pardon, Elizabeth-sai. To palaver means only to converse, to have an
honest discussion, nothing more.”
She groaned loudly. “Kevin,
can’t you please knock it off? Can’t you
see that I’m too tired for more of your shenanigans?”
“Elizabeth-sai, I would have you hear me well. I am not your cully. I am Roland of Gilead and I come with a
matter of great importance.”
“Well, forgive me, but you happen to bear a striking
resemblance to my husband, the so-called writer, and very so-so painter.”
“The body you see before you is indeed that of Kevin of
Phoenix, son of Kenneth. Perhaps the
simplest way to explain would be to say that my consciousness has gained access
to his body through a doorway in his mind.
I have been waiting there, off and on, for months, but now events are
such that I must assert control, at least for a few moments. In my parlance, this is known as ‘stepping
forward.’”
“Okay, can I just say one thing? You are not going to get out of this by
pretending to be a character from some book you’re reading. I want to know what’s going on with this
room. Why is it taking so long? Why, after a week, are you still on that same wall?”
There was a brief pause, when it appeared to Elizabeth that the face of
the person before her had gone completely blank – ‘unoccupied,’ as she would
describe it later. For a few long, terrible
moments, it appeared that the man before her was hanging on the very tipping
point of an epileptic seizure (she knew because she saw one close-up once in
one of her college classes), and then life suddenly flashed back into those
eyes.
The man before her was now breathing heavily. “Elizabeth-sai, may I strongly encourage you
to refrain from mentioning the words ‘that same wall’ again? Stepping forward is not without risks, and
sai Kevin’s will is stronger than I anticipated, at least when he is angry. ‘That same wall’ appears to be a particularly
sore point for him. Do ya kennit – I
mean – do you understand?”
“Aye.”
“Is…Kevin…okay, Roland?”
“He is – restrained – for the moment, for lack of a better
term. I had to be a little rough with
him; well, rougher than he’s used to, anyway.
But he’ll be alright in a few minutes.”
“Yes, I do not doubt it.
Rest easy, Elizabeth-sai. I’ve no
intent to hurt your cully, set my watch and warrant on it. The fact is, I need him alive. That’s the only reason I came forward when I
did.”
“Why? Why do you say
that? What do you mean, ‘you need him alive?’”
“Let’s say I had a strong sense that he was going to die, if
he were allowed to continue with the course of action he was about to take.”
“What action? Was he
about to kill himself?”
“No, but mayhaps you
were about to kill him.”
“You’re crazy! I
would never do anything to hurt Kevin.”
“Crazy, Elizabeth-sai?
Tell me then, how would you have reacted if sai Kevin had picked up this
bucket of paint and poured it on your head?”
“Are you kidding? If he even tried it, I would have ki– ”
“Exactly. Yet that’s
just what he was about to do. And the fact
is, I can’t afford for him to die, not yet anyway.”
“Well, that’s just an expression. I didn’t mean I would literally kill
him. I would never-”
The man before her held up a hand. “Save your breath for those who don’t know
better. I was there for the rubber band
shooting episode. I witnessed the whole
thing. I saw how you deflected his shot
from point-blank range, and then defeated him with a box of Cereos.”
“It was Cheerios, actually.
They probably don’t have those where you come from, do they?”
He shook his head. “No,
we have very few dry goods of any kind.
The point is, when you reacted, I saw you for what you are – a
gunslinger.”
“Me? Gunslinger? Come on.”
“I speak true, Elizabeth-sai. Would only that you were the one reading the books instead of your cully. Then I would really have something I could
work with – a real gunslinger. Oh well,
it is ka. There will be water if God wills it.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t quite follow…”
“It is unimportant.
What is important is that your cully – your husband – be allowed to
complete reading the last book as soon as possible.”
“What?! Oh, this is a scam! Kevin, you almost had me believing this
stupid gag…”
The man focused on her with grave intensity. “Listen to me. I wish our palaver allowed me to tell you my
story in its fullness, but time grows unsteadier by the minute, and the Red
King’s men are doing grave mischief to the Beams. I must return to my where and when soon, very
soon. But you must allow sai Kevin to
finish that last book. Today, if
possible. Yes, even before he lifts
another paintbrush.”
“Why? How could what
he’s doing matter to you in the least?”
“Oh, it matters. It
matters everything. Right now, it’s my one
best chance of getting back to the Dark
Tower
“Well, pardon me for saying so, but that makes no
sense. The story’s already been
written. From what little he’s told me,
the whole godforsaken series is all about you, isn’t it? It’s all about your quest for the Dark Tower
The man looked forlorn and distant. “You speak true, Elizabeth-sai. More true than you know.”
“So why on earth would you need to go back again?”
“I do not have time to explain. Let it suffice to say that I don’t know how
this story ends, not this time. But, I
do have an idea, something different to try.
Perhaps it is the answer; I
don’t know. But in order to find out,
your husband has to at least read until we reach the Dark Tower
“And how much further is that?”
“That’s difficult to say.
We are both dependent entirely on sai King, and when he sees fit in
telling the story to bring us to the Tower.
Knowing sai King, he will push it off as long as he can, maybe as far as
the last fifty or sixty pages.”
“Sai King? Who’s
that?”
“Sai King is the storyteller, the writer of The Dark Tower tale. Stephen King, son of Donald. He of Gan’s belly button. All depends on him, and he has proven to be
less than reliable. Still, I expect a
hard read of four hundred pages will get sai Kevin to the Tower, possibly a
little less. How quickly can he cover
that much ground?”
“If you’re counting on him to get you there quickly,
brother, you’re out of luck. He's not a fast reader.”
“Yes, so I noticed. At
first I thought that perhaps he was reading in a language that is not native to
him. And he hasn’t responded the way I’d
hoped to my subtle urgings. I may have
to push him, hard. Will you help me,
Elizabeth-sai?”
“I don’t know, Roland.
I understand your dilemma, but I really
need this room painted. We’ve got stuff
everywhere. It’s making me all crazy
just to be in here right now.”
“Elizabeth-sai, believe me when I say that the fate of all
things, including the continued existence of this room, let alone its
condition, depend on getting to the Dark
Tower
“Still…”
“Alright, Elizabeth-sai.
If I promise you that sai Kevin will paint this room with single-minded
devotion until it is complete, and done to your liking and final approval, will
that be enough? Then will you help me?”
“Hmmm. It’s a start.
Can you get him to paint the back bathroom too, and do that tile
countertop in the back room we’ve been talking about for the last five years? Make him promise he’ll do those things and
finish them by Christmas – no, wait – Labor Day, and I’ll help you. Otherwise, there’s the door, not that I
expect you’ll use it…”
The man looked mildly amused. “Is that all, sai?”
“Oh, and he has to stroke my arm for twenty minutes every
night for a week, no, wait - month, no - year.
A full year. And foot rubs upon
request.”
“I am impressed.
Elizabeth-sai, you are truly a gunslinger in your heart. It is a shame ka has brought us together for so brief a time. Still, ka
is a wheel. Who knows what may happen
with the turn of the wheel?”
“I don’t know anything about this ka of yours, but I can tell you something else about wheels, which
is that I can be a wheel pain in the ass
when I don’t get what I want, Roland. If
I do my part and help you now, you better hold up your end, or spend the rest
of your life watching it.”
The man looked grateful.
“You say true! And I say
Thankee-sai. Delah thanks. I will keep my
part; you have the word of Roland of Gilead, direct descendant of Arthur the
Eld.”
“If you say so. Okay,
so what do you need me to do?”
“When I step back, which I will do in a matter of moments,
sai Kevin will return. It is probable he
will not remember much of this conversation.
Don’t say anything about painting the room. Tell him it’s his job to finish reading that
book. Ensure that he does, by any means
at your disposal.”
“Relentless nagging is my specialty.”
“However necessary. But
make sure he reads every page. He must
not skip a single word. I will be
reading through him, and I need all the information I can get. Do ya ken?”
“Make sure he reads every word. Got it.”
“Good. I’ll be doing
the same thing from inside. If he resists,
I will do what I must to make him read.
Once he reaches the part of the story where we arrive at the Dark Tower
The man before her laughed out loud, a harsh, rare
sound. “You are as ruthless as I
am. Gods, we should have been ka-tet! Finish painting this room. Paint the bathroom in the back. Tile the countertop in the back room. Stroke your arm, twenty minutes, every night,
one year. Foot massages upon demand. Do
I say true, Elizabeth, daughter of Lewis?”
“Once I have fulfilled this obligation to you, I will exit
through the door in his mind and attempt to take the Dark Tower
“How will you ensure that he lives up to his promises once
you’re gone?”
“Trust me, Elizabeth-sai.
He will not want me to make a return to his mind ever in this life, or
any other.”
She thought about it for a moment. “That’s good enough for me.”
“Then we are well-met, Elizabeth of Phoenix. Very well-met indeed.”
“Hey, Roland?”
“Yes, sai?”
“Good luck with that whole ‘taking the Dark Tower
“Thankee-sai. If I
don’t, you will most surely know it, and soon.”
There was another brief moment of that strange vacant look,
and on the inside I felt myself being shoved forward, my mind plugging back
into its senses, reconnecting to my body.
I was instantly aware of a mean headache, and felt dazed. I started babbling incoherently about the
gunslinger Roland, and being held captive in my own head, and spewed out some
of the things I partially overheard:
book, Tower, King, and - foot rubs?
After a nauseous minute, the rioting impressions rapidly began to fade,
and I began to feel better. I looked at Elizabeth . We had been on the verge of an argument, hadn’t
we? About? Then I saw the can of paint on the
table. That’s right. About painting the room. I was still feeling a little woozy, and
didn’t have the energy to go one round in the ring with her, let alone
ten. “Look, I’m sorry it’s taking so long. I’ll get right on it.” I started to stagger to my feet, but she
pushed me back down into my chair. She
shoved a book into my hand, The Dark Tower
“Never mind about painting,” Elizabeth said, with as sweet a smile on her
face as I can ever remember. “It can
wait. Why don’t you read now? I’ll take care of the kids and dinner. You just get yourself comfy in that chair. Why don’t you see just how much you can read
tonight?” Then she practically danced
out of the room. She might have been
skipping. I don’t think I’d ever seen
her skip before.
It was all so strange: my sudden, inexplicable swoon, her abrupt
change of heart, and the vague but unshakeable idea that I had met Roland Deschain,
which was, of course, impossible. “Meeting
fictional characters,’ I scoffed. Next thing you know, you’ll be hanging out
with Phineas and Ferb.
Do as she says, I
heard a voice say somewhere in my head that I couldn’t swear was my own. But it did sound familiar, kind of. Read,
now, and don’t stop reading. Read as
though the life of everyone you love depends on it. Read us to all the way to the Dark Tower
Yes, I thought in
reply. I had a very weird and urgent feeling,
one that I somehow knew wouldn’t go away until I was done with the book. I think
I better finish reading it just as fast as I can.
“Just don’t skip any pages,
not even a single word,” I heard from two voices, one inside my head and
one from the kitchen, spoken in absolute unison. I shivered, quickly found the place where I
left off (page 577), and feverishly began to read.
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