Billy Summers

by Stephen King

Billy’s whistle isn’t part of the act, which he doesn’t think of as an act but as his dumb self, the one he shows to guys like Nick and Frank and Paulie. It’s like a seatbelt. You don’t use it because you expect to be in a crash, but you never know who you might meet coming over a hill on your side of the road. This is also true on the road of life, where people veer all over the place and drive the wrong way on the turnpike.

has no problem with bad people paying to have other bad people killed. He basically sees himself as a garbageman with a gun.

You’ll be okay no matter how long it takes. Snug as a bug in a rug. I’m not gonna point, but I’m sure you can count to five, right?” Sure, Billy thinks, I can even walk and chew gum at the same time.

Lady Justice is based on Iustice, a Roman goddess more or less invented by the emperor Augustus.

This isn’t a house, it’s the architectural equivalent of red golf pants.

“Nah, nah,” Frankie says. “Let Paulie. He needs the exercise.” Paulie holds his middle finger against his tie like a clip, but he takes the bag.

Nick’s not telling him. Maybe that doesn’t matter. Maybe it does. As Trump says at least once a day, Who knows?

Billy likes people, and he likes to keep them at arms’ length. It sounds like a contradiction, but it’s not.

“That’s hours away,” Derek says. “I’m bored right now.” “Me too,” Shanice says. “If I had a phone, I could play Crossy Road.”

but you can’t help how you feel. Feelings are like breathing, they come in and go out.

If he calls the cops, he’ll burn it. Then the rest of his identity will catch fire, because what is it made of? Just paper.

Billy read the Bible from cover to cover while he was in the suck, every Marine got one on request. He has often regretted it and this is one of those times. The Bible has a story to puncture every equivocation and denial. The Bible—New Testament as well as Old—does not forgive.

Before he goes under his last thought is of Monopoly, about how you try to stop the slide into bankruptcy by selling your properties one by one. It rarely works.

According to William Wordsworth, the best writing is about strong emotion recalled in tranquility.

He brings the phone out of his pocket and breathes a sigh of relief. It’s the one that belongs to Dalton. He’s gotten away with one potential mistake. He can’t make another. The fates are unforgiving.

Foreshadowing...?

People in hell want ice water.

He thinks of The Things They Carried, surely one of the best books about war ever written, maybe the best.

Saving to maybe look at later

Neither of them knows—no one does—that a rogue virus is going to shut down America and most of the world in half a year, but by their fourth day in the basement apartment, Billy and Alice are getting a preview of what sheltering in place will be like.

First time I've seen covid in a book

Used to be a resort hotel there, but it burned flat many a moon ago.” He drops his voice. “It was reputed to be haunted.”

“And way across, on the other side, this is crazy, but I thought I saw that hotel you talked about. Then I blinked my eyes—the wind was so strong they were tearing up—and when I looked again, it was gone.” Bucky doesn’t smile. “You’re not the only person who’s seen that. I’m not a superstitious man, but I wouldn’t go anywhere near where the Overlook Hotel used to stand. Bad stuff happened there.”

She takes the hand not holding the razor and gives it a squeeze. “Thank you. For everything.” Her thanking him is simultaneously crazy and perfectly reasonable. A paradox, in other words. He keeps this to himself and tells her she’s welcome.

“When I was writing, I forgot to be sad. I forgot to worry about the future. I forgot where I was. I didn’t know that could happen. I could pretend we were in the Bide-A-Wee Motel outside of Davenport, Iowa. Only it wasn’t like pretending, even though there’s no such place. I could see the fake wood walls and the blue bedspread and the bathroom glass in its plastic bag with writing on it that said SANITIZED FOR YOUR HEALTH. But that wasn’t the most important part.”

Did you know that you could sit in front of a screen or a pad of paper and change the world? It doesn’t last, the world always comes back, but before it does, it’s awesome. It’s everything. Because you can have things the way you want and I want you to still be alive and in the story you are and always will be.”

She stands looking across the gulf of cold air between this side and that, hands in her pockets, thinking she could create worlds. Billy gave her that chance. She is here. She is found.