Different Seasons - Stephen King [188]
Nowadays writing is my work and the pleasure has diminished a little, and more and more often that guilty, masturbatory pleasure has become associated in my head with the coldly clinical images of artificial insemination: I come according to the rules and regs laid down in my publishing contract. And although no one is ever going to call me the Thomas Wolfe of my generation, I rarely feel like a cheat: I get it off as hard as I can every fucking time. Doing less would, in an odd way, be like going faggot-or what that meant to us back then. What scares me is how often it hurts these days. Back then I was sometimes disgusted by how damned good it felt to write. These days I sometimes look at this typewriter and wonder when it's going to run out of good words. I don't want that to happen. I guess I can bear the pain as long as I don't run out of good words, you know?
'What's this story?' Vern asked uneasily. 'It ain't a horror story, is it, Gordie? I don't think I want to hear no horror stories. I'm not up for that, man.'
'No, it ain't a horror,' Chris said. 'It's really funny. Gross, but funny. Go on, Gordie. Hammer that fucker to us.'
'Is it about Le Dio?' Teddy asked.
'No, it ain't about Le Dio, you fuckin' psycho,' Chris said, and rabbit-punched him. 'It's about this pie-eatin' contest.'
'Hey, I didn't even write it down yet,' I said.
'Yeah, but tell it'
'You guys want to hear it?'
'Sure,' Teddy said. 'Boss.'
'Well, it's about this made-up town, Gretna, I call it. Gretna, Maine.'
'Gretna?' Vern said, grinning. 'What kind of name is that? There ain't no Gretna in Maine.'
'Shut up, fool,' Chris said. 'He just toldja it was made-up, didn't he?'
'Yeah, but Gretna, that sounds pretty stupid -'
'Lots of real towns sound stupid,' Chris said. 'I mean, what about Alfred, Maine? Or Saco, Maine? Or Jerusalem's Lot? Or Castle-fuckin'-Rock? There ain't no castle here. Most town names are stupid. You just don't think so because you're used to 'em. Right, Gordie?'
'Sure,' I said, but privately I thought Vern was right- Gretna was a pretty stupid name for a town. I just hadn't been able to think of another one. 'So anyway, they're having their annual Pioneer Days, just like in Castle Rock -'
'Yeah, Pioneer Days, that's a fuckin' blast,' Vern said earnestly. 'I put my whole family in that jail on wheels they have, even fuckin' Billy. It was only for half an hour and it cost me my whole allowance but it was worth it just to know where that sonofawhore was -'
'Will you shut up and let him tell it?' Teddy hollered.
Vern blinked. 'Sure. Yeah. Okay.'
'Go on, Gordie,' Chris said.
'It's not really much -'
'Naw, we don't expect much from a wet end like you,' Teddy said, 'but tell it anyway.'
I cleared my throat. 'So anyway. It's Pioneer Days, and on the last night they have these three big events. There's an egg-roll for the little kids and a sack-race for kids that are like eight or nine, and then there's the pie-eating contest. And the main guy of the story is this fat kid nobody likes named Davie Hogan.'
'Like Charlie Hogan's brother if he had one,' Vern said, and then shrank back as Chris rabbit-punched him again.
'This kid, he's our age, but he's fat. He weighs like one-eighty and he's always gettin' beat up and ranked out. And all the kids, instead of calling him Davie, they call him Lard Ass Hogan and rank him out whenever they get the chance.'
They nodded respectfully, showing the proper sympathy for Lard Ass, although if such a guy ever showed up in Castle Rock, we all would have been out teasing him and ranking him to the dogs and back.
'So he decided to take revenge because he's, like,