The Road to The Dark Tower (60 page)

Read The Road to The Dark Tower Online

Authors: Bev Vincent

BOOK: The Road to The Dark Tower
6.86Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
Part 2: Keystone Earth
  • March 19, 1846: Calvin Tower’s great-great-great-grandfather writes his will.
  • September 21, 1859: Tak first released in the China Pit mine.
  • 1898: Ted Brautigan is born in Milford, Connecticut.
  • 1916: Ted Brautigan tries to enlist as a telepath but goes to Harvard instead.
  • 1935: Ted Brautigan is mugged in Akron and kills his attacker.
  • 1936: Claudia y Inez Bachman writes
    Charlie the Choo-Choo.
    (A year of 19.)
  • 1938: Beryl Evans writes
    Charlie the Choo-Choo.
  • 1938: Odetta Walker is born.
  • 1943: Benjamin Slightman Jr. publishes
    The Dogan
    /
    The Hogan.
  • 1943: A brick hits Odetta Walker.
  • October 1946: Susannah shows Mia her mother.
  • 1947: Stephen King is born. Ed Deepneau dies.
  • August 1948: Ice cream snow flurries in western Maine.
  • September 1955: Ted Brautigan applies for a job.
  • October 31, 1955: Ted Brautigan becomes a Breaker.
  • 1956: Henry Dean is born.
  • 1957: Odetta becomes involved in the Movement.
  • 1957: Father Callahan graduates from seminary in Boston, goes to Lowell, Massachusetts.
  • July 1959: Snowfall in western Maine.
  • August 19, 1959: Odetta loses her legs from the knees down—and half her mind.
  • October 1959: Dan Holmes has the first of many heart attacks.
  • April 26, 1960: Ted Brautigan escapes from Devar-Toi to Connecticut.
  • 1962: Odetta’s father dies, leaving her millions in trust until she turns twenty-five.
  • Summer 1963: Odetta vanishes for three weeks. Returns with a bruise on her cheek.
  • November 22, 1963: JFK is assassinated.
  • 1964: Father Callahan requests a transfer from Lowell, Massachusetts, to Spofford, Ohio.
  • February 1964: Eddie Dean is born.
  • February 21, 1964: Odetta goes to Oxford, Mississippi.
  • June 19, 1964: Three voter-registration workers go missing in Mississippi.
  • July 19, 1964: Susannah stays at the Blue Moon Hotel in Oxford. Sings “Maid of Constant Sorrow.”
  • July 20, 1964: Odetta goes to jail in Oxford.
  • August 5, 1964: Missing voter-registration workers’ bodies are found in Mississippi.
  • 1965: Bobby Garfield gets a letter from Ted Brautigan full of rose petals.
  • 1966: Jake Chambers is born. A drunk driver kills Eddie’s sister.
  • 1969: Callahan transfers from Dayton to ’Salem’s Lot, Maine.
  • 1970: Paul Prentiss is laid off from Attica and becomes warden of Blue Heaven.
  • January 1971: A tornado in western Maine.
  • Summer 1972: Joe Collins enters Mid-World.
  • 1974: Callahan fights vampires in ’Salem’s Lot.
  • March 1975: A Type Three vampire bites Lupe Delgado.
  • April 1975: Callahan kills his first vampire.
  • October 1975: Callahan flees ’Salem’s Lot for New York. Works at the Home shelter.
  • December 1975: Callahan sees his first vampire in New York.
  • May 1976: Lupe falls ill with AIDS and dies. Callahan falls off the wagon.
  • Summer 1976: Callahan wanders, does day jobs, drinks, and kills vampires.
  • July 15, 1976: Calvin Tower signs a letter agreeing not to sell the lot at the corner of Forty-sixth and Second, in return for which he receives $100,000 from Enrico Balazar.
  • August 1976: Callahan’s vampire toll hits six. Low men are following him. Decides to leave New York. Crosses into a different America.
  • May 9, 1977: Jake dies at the hands of Jack Mort, run over by a car.
  • May 9, 1977: Jake doesn’t die at the hands of Jack Mort.
  • May 31, 1977: Jake goes truant. He meets Calvin Tower, buys a book of jokes and
    Charlie the Choo-Choo.
    He enters the empty lot, finds a key and sees the rose. Jake, Eddie and Oy return to this date when they go todash near the Calla.
  • May 31, 1977: Jake, Eddie and Oy go todash to New York.
  • June 1, 1977: Jake takes his father’s gun, meets young Eddie Dean in Co-Op City (Brooklyn), and opens the door to Mid-World.
  • June 2, 1977: The ka-tet goes todash to New York, where time is moving fast.
  • June 23, 1977: Eddie goes to New York to make a deal with Calvin Tower.
  • June 24, 1977: Callahan goes to New York to get the zip code.
  • June 26, 1977: Callahan steals a book of maps from the New York Public Library.
  • June 27, 1977: Callahan goes to Stoneham, Maine.
  • July 9, 1977: Eddie and Roland go to Stoneham, Maine. The ambush.
  • July 12, 1977: Stephen King decides Roland needs some friends.
  • July 15, 1977: Calvin Tower’s agreement with Balazar expires.
  • July 19, 1977: Stephen King sees
    Star Wars.
    Decides to publish the five parts of
    The Gunslinger
    in F&SF.
  • August 9, 1978: Kirby McCauley sells the first part of
    The Gunslinger
    to F&SF.
  • September 9, 1978: F&SF magazine with “The Gunslinger” comes out.
  • 1979: Stephen King buys Cara Laughs on Turtleback Lane.
  • October 29, 1979: “The Way Station” accepted by F&SF. King lives in Orrington, the inspiration for
    Pet Sematary.
  • June 19, 1980: Don Grant suggests doing
    The Gunslinger
    as a limited edition.
  • Spring 1981: Callahan arrives in California after five years of wandering Americas.
  • May 19, 1981: Callahan is attacked by the Hitler Brothers. Cross carved in his forehead. Rescued by Tower and Aaron Deepneau.
  • May 25, 1981: Callahan released from the hospital.
  • May 31, 1981: The Hitler Brothers found shot to death.
  • February 1982: Callahan hits bottom in a jail cell in Topeka. Gives himself a year to quit drinking.
  • Fall 1982: Callahan no longer wants to drink. Sees traces of the low men, so moves to Detroit and works at the Lighthouse Shelter.
  • July 27, 1983: King decides to add
    The Dark Tower
    to the front of
    Pet Sematary.
  • December 1983: Sombra Corporation invites Father Callahan to accept grant.
  • December 19, 1983: Father Callahan dies and goes to the way station in the desert.
  • February 21, 1984: Publication of
    Pet Sematary
    generates an onslaught of demand for
    The Gunslinger.
    Owen King’s seventh birthday.
  • August 14, 1984: NAL and King’s agent pitch him the idea of doing
    The Gunslinger
    as a trade paperback, but King passes. Wants to work on
    It
    instead.
  • November 18, 1984: King comes up with the notion of the world resting on a turtle’s back to solve a plotting problem in
    It.
  • 1986: Eddie and Henry Dean solemnly pledge to never become needle freaks.
  • June 10, 1986: King starts to think about returning to the
    Dark Tower
    story.
  • June 13, 1986: King has a dream of Roland telling him to start with the lobstrosities.
  • June 15, 1986: King starts
    The Drawing of the Three.
  • June 24, 1986: Captain Trips ravages the world the ka-tet enters in Topeka.
  • July 16, 1986: King has written three hundred pages of
    The Drawing of the Three.
  • September 19, 1986: King finishes
    The Drawing of the Three,
    two days before his birthday.
  • Fall 1986: Eddie crosses from the land of Recreational Drugs into the Kingdom of Really Bad Habits.
  • 1987: Eddie smuggles drugs. Roland and Eddie kill Enrico Balazar and Jack Andolini.
  • June 19, 1987: King receives his copy of
    The Drawing of the Three
    from Grant. Decides to let NAL do the first two books as trade paperbacks.
  • August 5, 1987: Helen and Ed Deepneau are married.
  • October 19, 1987: King starts to confront his drinking problems.
  • December 1987: Susannah joins Eddie and Jake Toren in Central Park.
  • 1988: The Tet Corporation firebombs Sombra Enterprises in New Delhi.
  • April 12, 1988: Walk-ins article pasted into King’s journal.
  • June 19, 1989: King has been sober for a year.
  • July 12, 1989: King reads
    Shardik
    by Richard Adams.
  • 1989: John Cullum is shot and killed by low men.
  • September 21, 1989: King receives roses for his birthday. Hypnotizes himself. Ready to return to the
    Dark Tower.
  • October 7, 1989: King starts writing
    The Wastelands.
  • October 9, 1989: King decides to call it
    The Waste Lands
    instead.
  • January 9, 1990: King finishes
    The Waste Lands.
  • 1990: Calvin Tower dies of a heart attack.
  • November 27, 1991: King starts getting mail about the cliff-hanger ending to
    The Waste Lands.
  • 1992: Aaron Deepneau dies of cancer.
  • March 23, 1992: King receives a letter from a cancer patient asking for the ending of the
    Dark Tower
    series.
  • July 1992: Ed Deepneau flips out; Ralph Roberts hears about the Crimson King.
  • September 22, 1992: Grant edition of
    The Waste Lands
    sells out.
  • April 1993: Ralph Roberts gets insomnia.
  • 1993: Tyler Marshall is born.
  • October 8, 1993: Ralph meets the Crimson King, saves Patrick Danville’s life.
  • January 2, 1994: Ralph marries Lois Chasse.
  • July 9, 1994: A driver kills Chip McCausland on Route 7 in western Maine.
  • 1994: The Tassenbaums buy John Cullum’s house in western Maine.
  • 1994: Chew Chew Mama’s becomes Dennis’s Waffles and Pancakes.
  • July 1995: Tak unleashed and possibly destroyed in Desperation, Nevada.
  • June 19, 1995: King feels the wind blowing again.
  • July 19, 1995: King is two hundred pages into
    Wizard and Glass.
  • September 2, 1995: King watches
    The Seven Samurai
    and sees in it inspiration for the next book.
  • October 19, 1995: King finishes
    Wizard and Glass.
  • Mid-1990s: Callahan travels todash to Mexico for Ben Mears’s funeral.
  • 1997: Moses Carver retires as head of Tet Corporation.
  • August 19, 1997: King gets first copies of
    Wizard and Glass.
  • Summer 1997: King knows story of
    Wolves of the Calla
    , but it seems like too much work. Starts on
    Hearts in Atlantis
    instead.
  • July 6, 1998: King works on
    Hearts in Atlantis
    and sees the
    Dark Tower
    as his überstory. He contemplates easing back or retiring when it’s finished.
  • August 1998: Ralph Roberts dies in Derry, Maine.
  • August 7, 1998: King hears about walk-ins.
  • January 2, 1999: King dreams about June 19, 1999. O Discordia.
  • June 1, 1999: Mia crosses from the Calla into New York.
  • June 12, 1999: The Kings move back to the summerhouse by the lake. Mordred kills Randall Flagg/Walter o’Dim.
  • June 17, 1999: King talks about doing
    Rose Red
    as a miniseries.
  • June 18, 1999: Eddie is killed in Blue Heaven.
  • June 19, 1999: King is killed in an auto-pedestrian accident in Maine.
  • June 19, 1999: Jake sacrifices his life to save King. Roland and Irene drive toward New York.
  • June 20, 1999: Irene and Roland stay in Harwich, Connecticut.
  • June 21, 1999: Roland goes to New York one last time.
  • Summer 1999: Bobby Garfield receives a message from Ted Brautigan.
  • September 11, 2001: Black Thirteen is crushed beneath the World Trade Center.
  • August 2002: Stephen King writes about Roland rejoining Susannah in Fedic.
APPENDIX III:
MID-WORLD GLOSSARY

Other books

The Elusive Wife by Callie Hutton
How to Get Famous by Pete Johnson
The Grey Man by John Curtis
Scholar of Decay by Tanya Huff
Hell's Half Acre by Baer Will Christopher
WC02 - Never Surrender by Michael Dobbs
A Man to Remember by Engels, Mary Tate
Demon's Kiss by Devereaux, V. J.