Stephen King: Uncollected, Unpublished - Revised & Expanded Edition (46 page)

Premium Harmony (2009) 

Premium Harmony
first appeared in
The New Yorker
for 9 November 2009, King’s sixth piece of fiction for this prestigious magazine. 

In this tale a couple arrive at Castle Rock’s Quik-Pik on a hot summer day. Married ten years, Ray and Mary Burkett now argue constantly. Ray thought the deterioration in their relationship was connected to Mary’s inability to have children, although “a year so after that, he bought her a dog, a Jack Russell she named Biznezz. She’d spell it for people who asked.” The harsh economy has forced them to consider selling their house, and they’re driving to a Wal-Mart to buy supplies. As they drive through Castle Rock we find, “It’s pretty dead. What Ray calls ‘the economy’ has disappeared from this part of Maine.” They stop at the Quik-Pik and argue about money, including Mary’s proclivity for sugary snacks. She leaves Ray and the dog in the car as she heads inside to buy her niece a ball, and a pack of the cheap cigarettes he’s requested, the Premium Harmony brand. 

Mary takes some time and Ray sits impatiently in the air-conditioned car, waiting. A large woman rushes out to tell Ray his wife has collapsed in the store and the manager has called 911. “Ray locks the car and follows her into the store.” Mary is not just collapsed, but dead, having fallen without uttering a sound. This is confirmed when the Castle County Rescue E.M.T.s arrive, having been delayed by a car accident in nearby Oxford. They prepare to take the body away, telling Ray he can contact the mortuary, “Mortuary? An hour ago they were in the car, arguing.” Ray stays in the store, chatting inanely with the manager, and those who’d been there when Mary collapsed. 

Finally, he goes outside. Perceptive readers, or at least those who own dogs, will have been on edge since Ray left the car. Sure enough, he’s forgotten Biznezz. It is this smaller blow that releases Ray’s emotions, “…this is so sad that he begins to cry. It’s a hard storm.” 

Premium Harmony
is a simple and understated tale of tragedy – the isolation that exacerbates failing marriages; and of sudden death
–
again illustrating King’s skill in relating simple slices of life. After Mary’s death onlookers chat to Ray, as they might in the real world. An old man says, “My wife went in her sleep … She just laid down on the sofa and never woke up.”  

Many readers know King and his wife Tabitha are dog-owners and dog-lovers, which adds extra poignancy to Biznezz’s ignoble death. As is often the case, King taps here into the American Zeitgeist
–
describing the Main Street of Castle Rock as “dead”; and the fact the couple are being forced to sell their home; are both a reflection of the American economy at the time of writing. 

The story seems to reflect earlier incidents in King’s fiction. In
Cujo
, for instance a dog traps a woman and her son in a hot car (the boy dies in the book, but not the movie) – here another hot summer day in Maine results in a dog’s death. More poignantly, Mary’s sudden death seems eerily similar to Jo Noonan’s in the heat of Derry in
Bag of Bones
. Perhaps this is one of the author’s deep fears – that his wife may never return from performing one of life’s mundane tasks? In real life, loved ones do die unexpectedly, and the survivors are left to carry on regardless – perhaps that is the lesson of this tale. 

As a core Castle Rock story
Premium Harmony
is linked to all other King stories mentioning the iconic town. Castle Rock is the main setting for
The Body
,
Cujo
,
Gramma
,
It Grows on You
(but only the
Nightmares and Dreamscapes
version),
The Man in the Black Suit
,
Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut
,
Needful Things
,
Nona
(but only the
Skeleton Crew
version),
Squad D
,
The Sun Dog
and
Uncle Otto’s Truck
.
It is a key location in
Bag of Bones
,
The Dark Half
,
The Dead Zone
and
The Huffman Story
.
It is also mentioned in
Creepshow
,
Dreamcatcher
,
Gerald’s Game
,
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
,
The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill
,
Riding the Bullet
,
Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption
,
Under the Dome
and
The Stand
(
Complete and Uncut
version only). 

In more specific links the Castle Rock Wal-Mart also appears in
Bag of Bones
; the Castle County Fair is mentioned and had previously also appeared in
Bag of Bones
– in that novel Dickie Brooks’ father claimed to have kissed Sara Tidwell there. A high school in Castle Rock is mentioned – high schools in Castle Rock appear in the following stories:
Bag of Bones
,
Needful Things
,
Cujo
,
The Body
,
The Dead Zone
and
Uncle Otto’s Truck
.  

All King’s previous stories in
The New Yorker
have appeared in later collections and there can be little doubt his next fiction collection will include this Castle Rock tale. In the meantime the magazine is held by many libraries and copies can easily be purchased on the Internet. 

The Reploids (1988) 

The Reploids
is one of King’s least satisfying short stories, mostly due to an unsatisfactory and inconclusive ending that does not even leave the readers with particularly interesting questions to ponder. King has only allowed publication in one anthology (although that has appeared in three different guises) and a magazine. A decade and a half later, fans are yet to see the story in a King collection and will most likely wait in vain. It is clear King himself is unhappy with this story and possibly regrets allowing its publication at all. 

In 1988 horror expert and King biographer Douglas E. Winter
⁹⁶
edited an anthology,
Night Visions 5
, which was released in a Limited Edition and a trade hardback. The anthology included three King stories, the most ever released in one volume outside one of King’s own collections. They were
The Reploids
,
Dedication
and
Sneakers
.
Dedication
and
Sneakers
were completely rewritten for their appearance in 1993’s
Nightmare and Dreamscapes
. In this context it is telling that King apparently chose not to even rewrite
The Reploids
for
Nightmare and Dreamscapes
. 

Gollancz of the United Kingdom published
the anthology in 1989 under the title,
Dark Visions: All Original Stories
. Berkley Books finally released the anthology in the US as a mass-market paperback in 1990 under yet another title,
The Skin Trade
. Readers wishing to access one of these books would be best to start with online King booksellers. Copies of
Night Visions 5
sell for over $40 but the other two, particularly
The Skin Trade
,
often trade for under $20. The story also appeared in a short-lived British magazine,
Skeleton Crew
for July 1990. 

In this America Under Siege tale the normal world takes a strange and very visible twist. On 29 November 1989, the filming of
The Tonight Show
was disrupted when Johnny Carson disappeared and was mysteriously replaced by Edward Paladin. Paladin seemed to think that he was the star of the show and that everyone should know him and treat him as such.  

As the story begins we understand that something strange, in the tradition of
The Twilight Zone
and the later series
The X-Files
, has been going on:  

No one knew exactly how long it had been going on. Not long. Two days, two weeks, it couldn’t have been much longer than that … Not that it mattered. It was just that people got to watch a little more of the show with the added thrill of knowing the show was real. When the United States – the whole world – found out about the Reploids, it was pretty spectacular … These days, unless it’s spectacular, a thing can go on damned near forever. It is neither believed nor disbelieved. It is simply part of the weird Godhead mantra that made up the accelerating flow of events and experience as the century neared its end.  

This comment could serve as proxy for the events in many a King story. How often do strange events escape the unknowing world in the King-dom? Think of the demise of
‘Salem’s Lot
; or the out-of-the way town, Rock and Roll Heaven, Oregon in
You Know They’ve Got a Hell of a Band
; or the strange events in
Rainy Season
; or the fact that only
The Ten O’Clock People
can see a species that lives unseen among us. Readers will have their own favorites but this concept certainly reflects a major theme of King’s fiction. 

The night Paladin appeared on
The Tonight Show
the guests were due to be Cybill Shepherd (“of
Moonlighting
”), magician Doug Henning, Pee Wee Herman and the Flying Schnauzers, the world’s only canine acrobats! When Ed McMahon, as usual, announced, “And now heeeeere’s JOHNNY!”, there Johnny wasn’t! Instead the man who later identified himself as Edward Paladin stepped on stage and acted as if he belonged in Johnny’s shoes. However, “the man who was not Johnny Carson was taken, bellowing loudly not about his lawyer but his team of lawyers, to the Burbank Police Station.” The Station had a wing known simply as “special security functions,” where the rich and powerful were taken. They could be dealt with there, quietly and discreetly. 

Detective 1st Grade Richard Cheyney, only half jokingly known as the “Detective to the Stars,” interviewed Paladin in a luxurious interrogation room, filled with magazines, cigarettes and even Cable TV for the use of the “guests.” Paladin immediately denied knowing who Johnny Carson was and Cheyney’s partner, Pete Jacoby, began making jokes. What Cheyney realized and Jacoby did not, was that the case had all the hallmarks of a major problem – media attention from both the Los Angeles
Times Mirror
and
The National Enquirer
, not to mention being taken over by the Feds if not solved within a day or so. 

When Paladin demanded his lawyer and announced that gentleman’s name to be Albert K. Dellums neither of the cops recognized it. “For the first time an expression of perplexity – it was not fear, not yet – crossed Mr. Edward Paladin’s face.” Paladin now threatened the two detectives with walking a “beat out in Watts” and was shocked when Jacoby said, “Shut your mouth, jag-off!” Cheyney could immediately see it had been years since Paladin had been spoken to that way and now he looked both stunned and frightened by the turn of events. 

When Jacoby tried to contact Paladin’s lawyer’s home number all he got was a cleaning woman and the office number was not a legal firm but a stockbroker. There was no Albert K. Dellums listed in the phone directory. The Mayor now arrived at the Station, joining a still stunned Ed McMahon and other cops observing the interrogation. 

Trying to unravel the mystery Cheyney took Paladin’s NBC Performer’s Pass, which was perfect in every way
except
that the pass was salmon pink, as compared with genuine passes, which were bright red. He requested Paladin take a dollar bill from his wallet and place it on the table and then placed one of his own next to it.  

On the right was Cheyney’s one, gray-green, not brand new by any means, but new enough so that it did not yet have that rumpled, limp shopworn look of a bill which has changed hands many times. Big number 1’s at the top corners, smaller 1’s at the bottom corners. FEDERAL RESERVE NOTE in small caps between the top 1’s and THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA in larger ones. The letter A in a seal to the left of Washington, along with the assurance THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER, FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE. It was a series 1985 bill, the signature that of James A. Baker III. 

Paladin’s one was not the same at all. The 1’s in the four corners were the same; THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA was the same; the assurance the bill could be used to pay all public and private debts was the same. But Paladin’s was a bright blue. Instead of FEDERAL RESERVE NOTE it said CURRENCY OF GOVERNMENT. Instead of the letter A was the letter F. But most of all it was the picture of the man on the bill that drew Cheyney’s attention, just as the picture of the man on Cheyney’s bill drew Paladin’s. Cheyney’s gray-green one showed George Washington. Paladin’s blue one showed James Madison. 

And there the story ends! 

Just before the end of the story Cheyney thought, “Walk softly, stranger, for here there be tygers.”
Here There Be Tygers
is the title of one of King’s earliest stories. There is one other possible link, with King mentioning different “politicians on the currency” with relation to alternate worlds in
The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah
. 

There is one error in this story. Fairly early on we read, “After repeated viewings of the videotape, Dave Cheyney …” But, later, “Detective 1st Grade Richard Cheyney looked at him calmly …” Interestingly, this error had not been corrected by the time
The Reploids
was last published. 

One is left with the distinct impression that King was intending a longer, more interesting story, that he abandoned it for some reason at this very point but still submitted it for publication. We know from the opening paragraph that “The Reploids” would become worldwide news the following morning
–
in the storyline Johnny Carson’s disappearance would obviously make news but there is no indication of how “The Reploids” would not only be revealed but come to the attention of the media.
The Reploids
is one of the least satisfying of King’s published works perhaps because it is, as suggested, nothing more than the opening salvo of an originally much longer work. 

King’s Characters as Writers 

King has provided us with a long and interesting list of characters who are writers, presumably reflecting parts of his own life to us through his fiction. He kindly updates us on many of them in later works (for instance in
The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla
we find that Ben Mears of
‘Salem’s Lot
has died). Some of the more prominent and interesting are listed below. (Readers will note that an unhealthy proportion of King’s major writer characters are now dead!) 

Major Characters as Writers 

Roberta (“Bobbi”) Anderson
The Tommyknockers
(also
The Stand
) 

Thad Beaumont
The Dark Half
(also
Bag of Bones
) 

(…and George Stark)
The Dark Half
(also
Bag of Bones
and
Needful Things
) 

Richard Dees
The Dead Zone
and
The Night Flier 

William Denbrough
It
(also
Bag of Bones
,
Dreamcatcher
) 

Carlos Detweiller
The Plant 

Richard Hagstrom
Word Processor of the Gods 

Peter Jefferies
Dedication 

Howard Fornoy
The End of the Whole Mess 

James (“Jim” or “Gard”) Gardener
The Tommyknockers
 

Richard Kinnell
The Road Virus Heads North 

Stephen King
The Dark Tower V, VI and VII 

Gordon (“Gordie”) Lachance
The Body
(also
Needful Things
) 

Samuel Landry
Umney’s Last Case 

John Marinville
Desperation 

Benjaman Mears
‘Salem’s Lot
(and
The Dark Tower V
) 

Gerald Nately
The Blue Air Compressor 

Michael Noonan
Bag of Bones 

Morton Rainey
Secret Window, Secret Garden 

Paul Sheldon
Misery
(also
The Library Policeman
and
Rose Madder
) 

Reg Thorpe
The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet 

John (“Jack”) Torrance
The Shining
(also
Before the Play, Misery
) 

William (“Bill”) Weiderman
Sorry, Right Number 

Other Characters of Interest 

Claudia y Inez Bachman
The Dark Tower V