Lecture 15: “It will go fast, now.”

Time and Place in ’Salem’s Lot

English 104AUC Santa Barbara

Spring 2012

21 May 2012

“She hefted it. ‘Feels pretty goddamned thick to me. A Stephen King book for sure. He sells by the inch, America buys by the pound.’”

—Irene Tassenbaum in Stephen King’s The Dark Tower, part 3, ch. 3, sec. 15

In the beginning …

● Sept. 5● Ben Mears arrives in ’salem’s Lot (19; ch. 1, sec. 1).

● Sept. 16● Ben meets Susan (26; ch. 2, sec. 1).● Ben & Susan’s first date (49; ch. 2, sec. 6).

● Sept. 17● Mark Petrie dethrones Richie Boddin (82; ch. 3, sec. 9).● Ben has dinner at the Nortons’ (108; ch. 3, sec. 16).● Ralphie Glick abducted (116; ch. 3, sec. 18).● Midnight: Straker sacrifices Ralphie Glick (123; ch. 3,

sec. 20).

● Sept. 18● Search for Ralphie Glick begins (127; ch. 4, sec. 1).

● Sept. 20● Susan cooks Ben dinner at Eva’s boardinghouse

(130; ch. 4, sec. 2).

● Sept. 22● Danny Glick taken to hospital (127; ch. 4, sec. 1).● Barlow arrives from London (138; ch. 4, sec. 5).● Hank Peters thinks Straker killed Ralphie Glick (149;

ch. 4, sec. 6).

● Sept. 23● Straker buys groceries at Milt Crossen’s store; pays

with a fifty-year-old bill (153; ch. 4, sec. 8).

● Sept. 24● Danny Glick dies in the hospital (169; ch. 4, sec.

14).● Parkins Gillespie interviews Ben at Eva’s

boardinghouse (156; ch. 4, sec. 9) and Straker at the shop (162; ch. 4, sec. 10); puts in inquiries about them to the FBI (165; ch. 4, sec. 11).

● Sept. 25● Ben has dinner with the Nortons (171; ch. 5, sec.

1); goes for a late-night walk with Susan (175; ch. 5, sec. 2). Susan tells Ben she loves him (185; ch. 5, sec. 5).

● Ben goes to Dell’s; encounters Weasel Craig and meets Matt Burke (185; ch. 5, sec. 6).

● Sept. 28● Danny Glick’s funeral (201; ch. 6, sec. 2).● Danny Glick rises and infects Mike Ryerson (217; ch.

6, sec. 4).● Parkins Gillespie receives a response from the FBI

(227; ch. 6, sec. 7).● Dud Rogers infected by Barlow (234; ch. 6, sec. 8).

● Sept. 30● Ben visits Matt Burke’s high-school English class

(242; ch. 7, sec. 1) and has dinner with Matt (244; ch. 7, sec. 2).

● Oct. 2● Matt Burke takes Mike Ryerson home after meeting

him at Dell’s (253; ch. 7, sec. 3).

● Oct. 3● Mike Ryerson dies (262; ch. 7, sec. 5).● Matt calls Ben; articulates his vampire theory during

Ben’s visit to the hospital (270; ch. 8, sec. 3).● Mike Ryerson pronounced dead (282; ch. 8, sec. 5).● Floyd Tibbets attacks Ben; Ben hospitalized (290; ch. 8,

sec. 10).● Ann Norton tells Susan about Ben’s past (292; ch. 9, sec.

1).● Susan visits Ben in the hospital (303; ch. 9, sec. 2), then

Matt at home (305; ch. 9, sec. 4).● Mike Ryerson visits Matt Burke (312; ch. 9, sec. 5); Matt

has a heart attack (318; ch. 9, sec. 6).

In the middle ...

Saturday, Oct. 4, 1975 (day)

● Danny Glick infects Randy McDougall (327; ch. 10, sec. 1); Sandy finds him (328; ch. 10, sec. 2).

● Mike Ryerson infects Carl Foreman (327; ch. 10, sec. 1).

● Marjorie Glick (333; sec. 3) and Floyd Tibbets (326; sec. 1) are partially infected.

● Ben argues for Matt’s vampire theory to Susan (336; ch. 10, sec. 4).

● Floyd Tibbets dies in jail (345; ch. 10, sec. 5).

Saturday, Oct. 4, 1975 (night)

● Ben takes Matt a crucifix in the hospital (352; ch. 10, sec. 7).

● Reggie Sawyer catches his wife cheating with Corey Bryant (354; ch. 10, sec. 8).

● Corey Bryant infected by Barlow (363; ch. 10, sec. 9).

● Bodies of Floyd Tibbets and Randy McDougall disappear from morgue (367; ch. 10, sec. 11).

● Danny Glick visits Mark Petrie and is sent away (368; ch. 10, sec. 12).

Sunday, Oct. 5, 1975 (day)

● Ben and Susan tell Dr. Cody their vampire theory (385; ch. 11, sec. 4).

● Matt Burke begins library research (452; ch. 13, sec. 1).

● Marjorie Glick reported dead (390; ch. 11, sec. 5).

● Susan (394; ch. 11, sec. 8) and Mark (422; ch. 12, sec. 1) go up to the Marsten House; both captured (435; ch. 12, sec. 2); Susan infected (447; ch. 4, sec. 12); Mark escapes (448; ch. 12, sec. 4).

Sunday, Oct. 5, 1975 (night)

● Ben and Dr. Cody watch Marjorie Glick’s body at Maury Green’s funeral parlor (404; ch. 11, sec. 10).

● Marjorie Glick rises and attacks Ben and Dr. Cody (406; sec. 10).

● Ben and Dr. Cody tell Sheriff McCaslin their story about the morgue body-snatcher (416; ch. 12).

● Father Callahan visits Matt in the hospital (452; ch. 13, sec. 1); agrees to join the vampire hunters (466; ch. 13, sec. 2).

● Susan, hungry, visits Mark Petrie; is turned away (449; ch. 12, sec. 5).

In the end …

● Monday, Oct. 6 (morning)● Susan and another vampire infect Homer McCaslin

(479; ch. 14, sec. 2); Susan infects Ann Norton (479).● Jack Griffen, infected by Danny Glick, infects his older

brother, Hal (480; ch. 14, sec. 2).● Mark visits Ben at Eva’s boardinghouse; tells him

Susan is infected (482; sec. 3).● Ben and Mark meet Matt and Jimmy Cody at the

hospital (487; sec. 6).● Fr. Callahan takes Ben’s confession (497; sec. 9).

Monday, Oct. 6, 1975 (afternoon)

● Callahan, Mark, Jimmy, and Ben buy garlic, but not roses (501; ch. 14, sec. 10)

● Straker’s body (507; sec. 11) and Barlow’s letter (510; sec. 13) found in the Marsten house; Barlow is absent.

● Ben pounds a stake through Susan’s heart (517; sec. 15).

● The vampire hunters meet Matt at the hospital (524; sec. 17).

Monday, Oct. 6, 1975 (evening)

● Barlow attacks and kills Henry and June Petrie; Mark vows revenge and escapes (534; ch. 14, sec. 20).

● Fr. Callahan loses the fight with Barlow (542; sec. 20) and leaves ’salem’s Lot via Greyhound bus (561; sec. 26).

● Ann Norton tries to attack Matt Burke (545; sec. 21).

● Mark Petrie reveals that he has seen blue chalk on Barlow’s hands (553; sec. 25).

● Charlie Rhodes infected by schoolchildren (564; sec. 27).

● Ann Norton dies (565; sec. 28)

● Weasel Craig infects Eva Miller (568; sec. 29); Corey Bryant infects Bonnie and Reggie Sawyer (574; sec. 32).

Tuesday, Oct. 7, 1975 (daytime)

● Mike Ryerson discovered in Barlow & Straker’s store (580; sec. 34).

● Ben makes stakes (586; sec. 36).● Jimmy and Mark search the town, finding the

McDougalls (588; sec. 37) and the Evanses (592; sec. 38).

● Matt Burke dies (596; sec. 39).● Jimmy Cody realizes Barlow is in Eva Miller’s

boardinghouse (597; sec. 40).

Tuesday, Oct. 7, 1975 (daytime)

● Mark and Jimmy enter Eva’s boardinghouse; Jimmy killed by a trap (600; ch. 14, sec. 40).

● Mark tells Ben that Jimmy is dead; Ben convinces him to keep fighting vampires (605; sec. 43).

● Ben and Mark hear of Matt’s death (607; sec. 44).

● Ben and Mark enter Eva’s boardinghouse (615; sec. 47).

● Barlow killed (628; sec. 49).

Tuesday, Oct. 7, 1975 (night)

● Ben and Mark flee ’salem’s Lot (631; ch. 14, sec. 50) for New Hampshire (633; ch. 15, sec. 2)

● Larry Crockett infects Royal Snow.● Mabel Werts infected by Glynis Mayberry.● Delbert Markey infected by Carl Foreman and

Homer McCaslin.● Milt Crossen infected by several customers.● George Middler infects several high-school

boys (634; ch. 15, sec. 3).

The aftermath ...

● Wednesday, Oct. 8, 1975● Ben burns his manuscript and smashes the snow

globe he’d stolen as a boy from the Marsten house (636; ch. 15, sec. 4).

● Ben scatters Barlow’s teeth (637; sec. 5).● Ben buries Jimmy Cody (638; sec. 6).● Ben and Mark head southwest (639; sec. 6).

● Wednesday, Oct. 6, 1976● Ben burns ’salem’s Lot (652; epilogue, sec. 3)

Time and the River

There are numerous references throughout ’Salem’s Lot to Thomas Wolfe’s Of Time and the River (1935). For instance:● Weasel Craig: “Ah God and sonny Jesus, time was

like a river and he wondered if that writer fella knew that.” (82; ch. 3, sec. 8)

● Ben: “This town has the wrong name. It ought to be Time.” (176; ch. 5, sec. 2)

Rural & non-rural populationfrom the time of Babbitt through The Human Stain

“the Lot’s knowledge of the country’s torment was academic.” (44)

“What ’salem’s Lot knew of wars and burning and crises in government it got mostly from Walter Cronkite on TV. Oh, the Potter boy got killed in Vietnam and Claude Bowie’s son came back with a mechanical foot—stepped on a land mine—but he got a job with the post office helping Kenny Danles and so that was all right.” (43-44; ch. 2, sec. 4)

“‘So what’s new in town?’ Floyd asked, knowing the answer already. Nothing new, not really.” (114; ch. 3, sec. 17)

(And yet, change arrives)

[Ben:] “Do you remember the Nordica [theater]? That was right here in town.”

[Susan:] “Sure. It closed in 1968. I used to go on double dates there when I was in high school.” (35; ch. 2, sec. 2)

“Charles Griffen’s father had marketed his own milk, but that was no longer practical. The conglomerates had eaten up the last of the independents.” (66; ch. 3, sec. 3)

Charlie Rhodes: “They understood each other. They understood what was going on in the country. They understood how the kid who had been ‘just talking a little too loud’ on the school bus in 1958 was the kid who had been pissing on the flag in 1968.” (77; ch. 3, sec. 7)

“Crockett had been worth nearly two million dollars. He had done this as a result of land speculation in a great many neighboring towns […], based on the conviction that the mobile-home industry was going to grow like a mad bastard. It did, and my God how the money rolled in.” (134; ch. 4, sec. 3)

Vinnie Upshaw: “Hard to tell the way things are these days.” (155; ch. 4, sec. 8)

Susan, to her mother: “I suppose I bother you—you can’t feel your job is complete until you see me married and settled down to a good man you can put your thumb on. Settled down with a fellow who’ll get me pregnant and turn me into a matron in a hurry. That’s the scoop, isn’t it? Well, what about what I want?” (297; ch. 9, sec. 1)

Matt Burke’s thoughts: “After thirty-plus years of teaching, he believed that nobody beat the system or won the game, and only suckers ever thought they were ahead.” (242; ch. 7, sec. 1)

Narrative speed

● Larry Crockett, thinking back to pre-spring, 1975: “Then things began to happen.” (101; ch. 3, sec. 11)

● Ben, October 5: “Things have developed.” (376; ch. 11, sec. 2)

● Ben, October 5: “Things were going very fast now.” (391; ch. 11, sec. 5)

● Mark, October 5: “It will go fast, now.” (428; ch. 12, sec. 1)

● Fr. Callahan, October 6: “If only things weren’t going so fast, if only he had time to think.” (540; ch. 14, sec. 20)

Fear and horror

“If a fear cannot be articulated, it can’t be conquered. And the fears locked in small brains are much too large to pass through the orifice of the mouth.” (315-16; ch. 9, sec. 6)

“There is no group therapy or psychiatry or community social services for the child who must cope with the thing under the bed or in the cellar every night, the thing which leers and threatens just beyond the point where vision will reach. The same lonely battle must be fought night after night and the only cure is the eventual ossification of the imaginary faculties, and this is called adulthood.” (373; ch. 10, sec. 13)

Ben: “That word can’t blocks up everything.” (337; ch. 10, sec. 4)

Susan: “some fears were larger than comprehension, apocalyptic and nearly paralyzing. This equation was insoluble.” (432; ch. 12, sec. 1)

“There was nothing else to say. The essential and defining characteristic of childhood is not the effortless merging of dream and reality, but only alienation. There are no words for childhood’s dark turns and exhalations.” (449; ch. 12, sec. 4)

“And it came to him [Fr. Callahan], in this moment of the most extreme terror he had ever known. It was the face of Mr. Flip, his own personal bogeyman, the thing that hid in the closet during the days and came out after his mother closed the bedroom door.” (537; ch. 14, sec. 20)

Ben, on his confession to Father Callahan: “There was no sense of catharsis—only the dull embarrassment that came with telling a stranger the mean secrets of his life. […] There was something medieval about it, something accursed—a ritual act of regurgitation.” (498-99; ch. 14, sec. 9)

The town of Jerusalem’s Lot

“The town is an accumulation of three parts which, in sum, are greater than the sections. The town is the people who live there, the buildings which they have erected to den or do business in, and it is the land.” (321; ch. 10, sec. 1)

“The town cares for devil’s work no more than it cares for God’s or man’s. It knew darkness. And darkness was enough.” (327; sec. 1)

Susan: “’Salem’s Lot is my town. […] If something is happening here, it’s real. Not philosophy.” (342; ch. 10, sec. 4)

Jimmy Cody: “It’s a bedroom town for Portland and Lewiston and Gates Falls, mostly. There’s no in-town industry where a rise in absenteeism would be noticed. The schools are three-town consolidated, and if the absence list starts getting a little longer, who notices? A lot of people go to church over in Cumberland, a lot more don’t go at all. And TV has pretty well put the kibosh on the old neighborhood get-togethers, except for the duffers who hang around Milt’s store. All this could be going on with great effectiveness behind the scenes.” (392; ch. 11, sec. 7)

Ben: “A person from out of town could drive through the Lot and not know a thing was wrong. Just another one-horse town where they roll up the sidewalks at nine. But who knows what’s going on behind the scenes?” (393; ch. 11, sec. 7)

“Tourists and through-travelers still passed by on Route 12, seeing nothing of the Lot but an Elks billboard and a thirty-five-mile-an-hour speed sign. Outside of town they went back up to sixty and perhaps dismissed it with a single thought: Christ, what a dead little place.” (634-35; ch. 15, sec. 3)

Barlow, on why he chose ’salem’s Lot

“‘I might have bypassed such a rustic community as this […] I might have gone to one of your great and teeming cities. Bah! […] What do I know of cities? I should be run over by a hansom crossing the street! I should choke on nasty air! […] How should a poor rustic like myself deal with the hollow sophistication of a great city … even an American city? No! And no and no! I spit on your cities!’

“‘Oh yes!’ Corey cried.” (362; ch. 10, sec. 9)

“‘The folk here are still rich and full-blooded, folk who are stuffed with the aggression and darkness so necessary to … there is no English for it. […] The people have not cut off the vitality which flows from their mother, the earth, with a shell of concrete and cement. Their hands are plunged into the very waters of life. They have ripped the life from the earth, whole and beating! Is it not true?’

“‘Yes!’ […]“‘You are a good boy. A fine, strong boy. I don’t

think you want to leave this so-perfect town, do you?’

“‘No...’ Corey whispered. […]“‘And so you shall not. Ever again.’” (362-3; ch.

10, sec. 9)