Song of Susannah (The Dark Tower, #6)

by Stephen King

“Anger is the most useless emotion,” Henchick intoned, “destructive to the mind and hurtful of the heart.”

Two women and a gent of going-on-elderly years were the only customers in the store’s aisles. All three were turned toward the front—toward Roland and Eddie—and on their faces was the eternal uncomprehending look of the gunless civilian. Roland sometimes thought it a grass-eating look, as though such folk—those in Calla Bryn Sturgis mostly no different—were sheep instead of people.

Eddie had also killed this fellow once before. Ten years in the future, if you could believe it. In The Leaning Tower, Balazar’s joint, and with the same gun he now held in his hand. A snatch of an old Bob Dylan lyric occurred to him, something about the price you had to pay to keep from going through everything twice.

“Jack!” Eddie shouted. He had no idea where Andolini might be at this point, and so simply yelled as loud as he could. Having grown up ramming around Brooklyn’s less savory streets, this was quite loud.

While I, Roland thought, feel at least a thousand years older. Yet that was not really true. Yes, he was now suffering—finally—the ills an old man could reasonably expect. But he had a ka-tet to protect again, and not just any ka-tet but one of gunslingers, and they had refreshed his life in a way he never would have expected. It all meant something to him again, not just the Dark Tower but all of it.

Eddie felt a strong urge to take John Cullum’s hand again, to see if something else would happen. There was another Dylan song called “Visions of Johanna.” What Eddie wanted was not a vision of Johanna, but the name was at least close to that.

He felt as if he’d just taken a hard shot to the head. The rose belonged to the Tet Corporation, which was the firm of Deschain, Dean, Dean, Chambers & Oy.

Cat can have kittens in the oven, girl, but that won’t ever make em muffins.”

“Oh, I remember it. It may be the best opening line I ever wrote.” King set his beer aside, then raised his hands with the first two fingers of each held out and bent, as if making quotation marks. “‘The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.’ The rest might have been puff and blow, but man, that was clean.” He dropped his hands and picked up his beer. “For the forty-third time, is this really happening?”

Roland had no interest in the technical aspects that seemed to fascinate King; this was his life they were talking about, after all, his life, and to him it had all been moving forward.

And I think it’s how old I was when I met my wife, but she might dispute that. She has a disputatious nature.”

Can’t remember the last time I spent a totally sober night, but this is one of that dying breed. It actually feels fucked up not to be fucked up. That’s pretty sad, I guess.