Stephen King: Uncollected, Unpublished - Revised & Expanded Edition (60 page)

The picture of “Jesus” then helped Becka make a modification to the television set that would kill her husband when he turned it on. As Joe turned the TV on Becka realized that it was she, and not “Jesus,” who had been responsible for the modification. When she tried to save Joe she was also killed by the electrical shock. 

In this original version of the tale the events occurred in July of 1973, with Rebecca suffering the gunshot wound about 3pm on the 7th and the couple dying on the 10th. When included in
The Tommyknockers
the story had migrated to the 1988 timeline of that tale, with the picture of Jesus beginning to speak to Rebecca on July 7 and the two dying of electrocution on the July 10. 

Even at the time this stand-alone incarnation was published the story linked to other King works of fiction. Among these links are the mention of the town of Derry being near Haven (by 1984 Derry had already appeared in
The Bird and the Album
,
The Body
,
Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut
,
Pet Sematary
,
The Running Man
and the
Yankee
version of
Uncle Otto’s Truck
); and Haven itself being mentioned in
Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut
, published the same year. Apart from
The Tommyknockers
Rebecca and Joe Paulson and Haven would later be mentioned in
It
; and Derry would, of course, appear in many King stories, becoming the second most featured fictional town in Maine outside of Castle Rock. 

The story was adapted for television as a series episode for the revival of
The Outer Limits
, with the title
The Revelations of ‘Becka Paulson
. It was first screened on 6 June 1997. Brad Wright wrote the Teleplay and Steven Weber, who only weeks earlier had appeared as Jack Torrance in the mini-series of
The Shining
¹³²
,
both directed and played the Guy in the Photo (a normal Joe had replaced Jesus in this version, presumably to avoid offending certain viewers’ sensibilities). Catherine O’Hara played Becka Paulson and John Diehl appeared as Joe Paulson. 

The Revenge of Lard Ass Hogan
(1975) 

The Revenge of Lard Ass Hogan
was originally published in
Maine Review
magazine for July 1975. King updated the story and included it in his novella
The Body
, published in 1982. The scenario was so irresistible that Rob Reiner retained it in the widely loved movie version of the novella,
Stand By Me
. It is very likely that the scene was adapted from
The Body
, rather than this version of the story. 

As an aside, while most experts regard
The Body
as a novella, King described it in his
Entertainment Weekly
column for 22/29 August 2003 as “my short novel.” 

In this Maine Street Horror tale a fat boy plots a spectacular revenge on his tormentors. David “Lardass” Hogan had a glandular problem and was picked on for his size by children and adults alike. Ace Carmody, Eyeball Chambers and Billy Norcross chased him down and forced him to enter the annual pie-eating contest in Gates Falls. But Hogan developed a plan.  

On the day of the contest he climbed the stage after drinking three-quarters of a bottle of castor oil. Pitted against the previous year’s champion, Bill Travis and three other contestants, Hogan ate like a madman. On his third pie he intentionally began to tell himself he was not actually eating pie but in fact other, disgusting, things. 

During his fifth pie, he raised his head and vomited on Bill Travis, causing a chain reaction of vomiting from the contestants and spectators. This, of course, had been his plan all along. 

Among the changes King made for
The Body
was the conversion of the character “Ace” Carmody into the infamous John “Ace” Merrill (played by Kiefer Sutherland in the movie). Ace would later appear in the
Skeleton Crew
version of
Nona
and
The Sun Dog
before meeting an inglorious end in
Needful Things
. The origin of Ace’s nickname is revealed by this change. We know from King’s fiction that pretty much the whole Merrill clan were trouble. Ace’s uncle Reginald (“Pop”), a moneylender and a conman, died as a result of his greed in
The Sun Dog
; Royce Merrill was one of the old farts who ganged up on Mike Noonan and Mattie Devore in
Bag of Bones
; and Roy Merrill was turned out by a town meeting from his job as Road Commissioner in
The Huffman Story
, an unpublished partial manuscript. Roy had employed his wife as secretary and three brothers, four nephews and two cousins on the road crew! 

One of Ace Carmody’s friends in the short story, Billy Norcross becomes Billy Tessio, Vern’s brother in the novella. This version of the story is set in late August of 1960. When Gordie Lachance tells the story as his own in
The Body
he does not give it a particular timeline.  

In
The Body
Gordie Lachance set the contest in the “fictional” town of Gretna, Maine rather than Gates Mills. King also cut out characters for the novella, including the entire balance of the Hogan family. In the short story Lardass’ parents, Robert and Sheila and his sister Bobbi all threw up. There were also references to the mass murderer with whom King had a fascination in his youth, Charles Starkweather and that killer’s girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate (David Hogan was infatuated with her) but these also disappeared from the novella. Considering King’s interest in Starkweather his appearance in this story is an important historical footnote to King’s body of work. 

The principal of David Hogan’s school has a number of different incarnations. In the original short story he appears as Hubert Hansen, principal of Gates Falls High School. In the novella Gordie Lachance names the principal as Hubert Gretna III in the oral version but by the time Gordie had the story “published” he was now John Wiggins, principal of Gretna Elementary School! 

We are told in the novella that Gordon Lachance’s story,
The Revenge of Lard Ass Hogan
(note the subtle difference from
Lardass
in King’s version to
Lard Ass
in Lachance’s) was published in
Cavalier
magazine for March 1975. This is another little in-joke from King, who published many stories in the 1970s in
Cavalier
, a men’s magazine.
The Revenge of Lard Ass Hogan
by Stephen King
was
published in 1975, but as mentioned earlier, in
Maine Review
– perhaps
Cavalier
rejected it? It is also something of a shame that there was no actual story by Stephen King in the March 1975 edition of
Cavalier
!  

Even at this early date in King’s publishing history the story linked to other King fiction through its setting in the town of Gates Falls, Maine. The town had already appeared in
Graveyard Shift
(first published in
Cavalier
for October 1970);
It Grows on You
(first published in
Marshroots
for Fall, 1973) and that same year was mentioned in
‘Salem’s Lot
. It would go on to appear in
The Body
,
The Dark Half
,
The Dead Zone
,
Gramma
,
Hearts in Atlantis
,
Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut
,
Needful Things
,
The Plant
(but only the electronic version),
Rage
,
Riding the Bullet
and also appeared in the unpublished works
Blaze
,
Movie Show
and
Sword in the Darkness
. 

The Revenge of Lard Ass Hogan
is one of the more difficult King stories to find. The particular edition of
Maine Review
rarely appears for sale and then almost exclusively through specialist online King booksellers. However, for serious King fans the search is well worth the effort. This is a tremendously entertaining story in King’s gross-out mode and will remain a signpost for those who wish to study the development of King’s career. 

Stud City
(1969) 

In addition to
The Revenge of Lard Ass Hogan
King converted another short story from earlier in his career to a Gordie Lachance story appearing in
The Body
.
Stud City
was one of King’s earliest published stories, appearing in the University of Maine literary magazine
Ubris
for Fall, 1969. King (or perhaps it was actually Lachance?) heavily revised it for its appearance in
The Body
. In that novella we are told that the story was first published in a college literary magazine (sound familiar?),
Greenspun Quarterly
. 

In this Maine Street Horror tale a boy begins his journey toward manhood. Edward “Chico” May made love to his 16 year old girlfriend Jane for the first time and then drove her home to Auburn. Later, he infuriated his father Sam by telling him he intended to join the Marines. Chico then told Sam of the intense dislike he had for his stepmother, Virginia, whom he believed had “broken” his father’s spirit. 

Later, Virginia confronted Chico and asked if he’d had his girlfriend around while they were out. He told her he had and that the sheets on his bed needed changing. He then left the house and drove off, remembering his real mother and the birth of his brother Billy, which had taken her life. He also recalled having once had sex with Virginia! Chico drove on toward his friend Danny Carter’s home, where he would stay for the night. He would decide his future in the morning. 

This story, not at all in the classic King horror mold of much of his early published stories, is in fact more in line with
The New Yorker
stories of his later career. This piece goes to prove that King had the ability to write powerful mainstream fiction from an early age (he was only 22 when it was published). 

When rewriting the story for
The Body
King made numerous changes. For instance, in the short story Chico’s older brother Johnny had joined the Marines but in the novella he had been killed when a runaway car hit him while he was changing a tire at the Oxford Plains Speedway. He could have worked at the Gates Mills, but chose the speedway so he wouldn’t have to be at home with his stepmother while his father was at work! In other changes the sexual encounter between Chico and his stepmother, Virginia is deleted; and Chico’s natural mother Cathy is no longer mentioned, nor is her death in childbirth.  

Another character deleted from the novella is Duane Conant, a friend of Chico’s who was killed when his Mustang hit a pole on Stackpole Road (no town name is given). There are a number of Stackpole Roads in King’s fiction, including the one in Blainesville, Maine where Nona lead “the prisoner” to a cemetery in the
Shadows
version of
Nona
; the same road in Castle Rock in the
Skeleton Crew
version of
Nona
; in
The Dark Half
, where the Castle Rock cemetery is named as the Stackpole Cemetery on the road of the same name; another in Harlow, Maine in
Rage
and three of the four versions of
It Grows on You
(the Newall house is on it); and in Ludlow, Maine in
Pet Sematary
. The “real” Stackpole Road is in Durham, Maine. Even today anyone visiting the location will see how King, growing up in this isolated rural township, would have found the Stackpole Road, close to the real Runaround Pond, so capable of tragedy.