Hate is a strong word — one I choose not to use often. But when it comes to someone who murders characters you’ve come to care about, to identify with … to love … in unsavory ways, hatred isn’t such an over-the-top emotion, is it?
The first Stephen King novel I ever read was “Carrie.” Carrie was the type of girl I probably would have tried to befriend in high school – shy, insecure, a definite introvert. I’d have dragged her home on the bus with me on Friday night and introduced her to Mom’s homemade spaghetti and the Duke boys. There might have been hair-braiding involved. And MacGyver.
Carrie was a raging INFP-type personality: loyal to a fault, highly uncomfortable in social situations, and perfectly content to live – quite happily – inside her own head. All she ever really needed was that one friend willing to stick by her through it all. Would that have been so much to ask of the cruel puppet master who manipulated her fate?
Apparently.
Because what did Stephen King do instead? He crowned her queen of the Spring Ball and forced her up onto a stage before a roomful of
… people.
There could be no worse fate anywhere for a girl like Carrie. The blood-drenching that came after was a mere formality. Every INFP everywhere knows that the real torture was the recognition.
That was just hateful.
And then there was Tad, portrayed in the movie by a young Danny Pintauro. I confess that I watched the movie “Cujo” before I ever read the book. It was a real nail-biter, but nothing I couldn’t handle. Tad and his mom and dad all made it out alive, after all.
Right.
Imagine my utter desolation when I picked up the book after the fact and read the final chapters. In a single, heartless line of text, my favorite character was wrenched from my arms. I could only exhale what sounded like a curse word and sink, defeated, into a fleeting moment of utter disbelief.
That did not just happen. No way that just happened.
“How long has he been dead, Donna?”
I actually cried when they pulled Tad from the battered Pinto. When was a Pinto ever not bad news anyway?
That was a total ambush, and I hated it.
And then came baby Gage.
“Pet Semetary” was published in 1983. When I read it the following year, Gage was the same age as my own nephew – all bouncing blond hair and blue eyes of him, and my family has always been big on kites.
There were simply no words for what happened to Gage. “Pet Semetary” may have brought on a mild case of PTSD. Or maybe it was simple grief. Regardless, it wasn’t a good feeling, and I hated it.
Just … why?
Sometimes, when I’m plugging away at this thing called writing, I wonder how it would feel if only one person anywhere in the world ever hated me in the same way that I hate Stephen King?
Damn.
What a rush that would be.
Sources:
Quoted from “Cujo,” by Stephen King: New York: Viking Press, 1981.
Image: Jean-Alain, Public Domain
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