The Talisman

by Stephen King

If he cried it off, the cancer would take his mother, and Uncle Morgan might well take him.

Jake somewhat remembers the face of his father

These were annoyances a good-looking twelve-year-old boy in Los Angeles simply learned to put up with, the way a pretty woman learns to put up with being groped occasionally on the subway. You eventually find a way to cope without letting it spoil your whole day. The deliberate passes, such as the one this Ferguson was making, were less of a problem than the sudden gropes from ambush. They could simply be shunted aside.

Wait wut

“I see better than I want to,” Wolf finished forlornly.

Cute

“Then, in Cinema Six, there’s a double feature. Two Ralph Bakshi cartoons. Wizards and The Lord of the Rings.”

Thats a damn fine double-feature kennit?

A poet, smelling what Wolf was smelling at that moment, might have called it the stink of sour dreams.

Godammit thats an incredible sentence

Totally unconfused by the lack of signs and the multitude of choices, he had continued west with all the unerring instinct of a migrating bird.

Aw Wolf u big sweet dummy

He killed no people.

Aw good ole WOLF

These were sacred places, and in a sacred place a Wolf could not kill. That was all.

God this SO KING its sickening (and also just plain sick)

It was the pitcher plant again.

Oh noooooooooo

Gardener was Osmond’s Twinner.

I fuckin knew it, god pound me

inveighing

What an amazing word

Great minds run in the same channel, can you say amen.

“Me and the Reverend was still in Muncie when they brought your queer troublemaker friend into the hospital,” he said.

Why is this book so equally worried about and fucking terrifed of gay shit?

“Shouldn’t have hurt the herd, you bastard,” Wolf whispered. “Oh your Bible this and oh your Bible that—Wolf!—and all you have to do is hear six verses of The Book of Good Farming to know you never . . .” Crackle! “ . . . never . . .” Crunch! “NEVER hurt the herd.”

Fuck yeah Wolf

He felt the approach of black work—very black work.

I love that this is a recurring theme in king stuff

Heck would have given anything in the world just then to be bored again.

HA HA FUCK YOU HECK

“Don’t you sometimes think there’s more to life than order?” He looked over at Richard’s innocent, skeptical face. “Don’t you want just a little magic, Richard?”

Oh stevie

“That’d be so great,” Richard said with a wistfulness that was heartbreaking.

I kinda love that Sloat the Younger is a total flop and nerd. Its another nice character contrast to Jack who is now like fully invested in the plot's crazy. Its not as active of a connection like it was with Wolf but nice to have another foil to jacky so quickly

Jack smiled. “Play it by ear, Richie-boy,” he said. “That’s what I’ve been doing ever since I left New Hampshire. Playing it by ear.”

May it do ya just fine

“Yes. It is their word for one who is hard to see, no matter how hard ye look for that one. Invisibility is impossible—so the Wolfs say—but one can make himself dim if only he knows the trick of it. Most Wolfs do, and this little whoreson knew it, too. So all I remember is how thin he was, and that floating eye, and that he was as ugly as black, syphilitic sin.”

I love how much tonal similarities there are between this and Eyes of The Dragon

Jack looked up sharply at the horizon, imagining that he had momentarily seen the round shape of a head peering over it. And then he had another of those shocks of a sudden displacement, similar to that the Loch Ness monster, or whatever it was, had given him. How could a head peer over the horizon, for God’s sake?

Lol incredible

Our world could look like this someday, Jack thought. What a treat.

A World That Has Moved On

Except for the tiny nose, the creature looming over the boys looked very like a man with the head of a snake.

Taheen?

He means to stick by me—old Rational Richard or not, he really means to stick by me.

Ol travelin' jack's ka-tet grows may it do ya just fuckin fine

Jack opened his mouth and cried out: for Uncle Tommy Woodbine, run down in the street; for an unknown carter, whipped to death in a muddy courtyard; for Ferd Janklow; for Wolf, dead in Sunlight Gardener’s filthy office; for his mother; but most of all, he discovered, for Queen Laura DeLoessian, who was also his mother, and for the crime that was being carried out on the body of the Territories. He cried out as Jason, and his voice was thunder. “TEAR THEM UP!” Jack Sawyer/Jason DeLoessian bellowed, and opened fire on the left.

For The Eld! For THE TOWER! RIIIIZAAAAAAA

was the dreadful barroom cowboy from the Oatley Tap. It was Randolph Scott. It was Elroy. It grinned at Jack; its long tongue snaked out and lapped its wide upper lip.

This is an incredible callback

Oh Richard. Oh my dear one.

JUST KISS ALREADY

Then Richard fell on his knees with his hair in his tired face, and Jack got down there with him, and I can bear to tell you no more—only that they comforted each other as well as they could, and, as you probably know from your own bitter experience, that is never quite good enough.

Godamn thats good

Richard saw the sign first—a simple whitewashed square of wood painted with black letters. It stood on the left side of the tracks, and ivy had grown up its post, as if it had been here for a very long time. The sentiment, however, was quite current. It read: GOOD BIRDS MAY FLY; BAD BOYS MUST DIE. THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE: GO HOME.

GOOD. SHIT.

As they passed the sign, Jack lashed out with one foot in a passably good kung-fu kick and knocked it over.

I also love these occasional goofy flashes of Jack acting like a kid

The Kingsland Motel, he said . . . and Jack found that name did not surprise him much at all.

That ka is a bitchin' wheel, kennit?

It’s the most valuable thing there is,’ he said.

Shades of Hammersköld Plaza and Neibolt House

“Two Morgans, or dozens. It doesn’t matter. Two Lilys, or dozens—dozens of Queens in dozens of worlds, Richard, think of that! How does that mess your mind? Dozens of black hotels—only in some worlds it might be a black amusement park . . . or a black trailer court . . . or I don’t know what. But Richard—”

Or maybe...a Tower, perhaps?

I’ve come the distance, he thought, and shivered. Coast to coast with Travelling Jack Sawyer.

Good on ya Jacky

“You and me. Together. I don’t have the faintest idea of what happens once we get in there, but you and I are going in. No matter who tries to stop us. Just remember that.”

Stephen, your LOTR obession is showing

Jack said, “I’m going to take care of you, Richard. You’re the herd now.”

So good/heartbreaking

Laughing, he began to pace faster and faster, and before long, blood had begun to drip out of his clenched fists.

"Your blood is in my fists, Old Mother. "

God pounds his nails, Wolf would have said.

Pounds em fuckin-a good he does.

Like that, he thought, but somehow he knew it wasn’t; and although he couldn’t remember exactly what had caused the joy, he, like Donny Keegan, never forgot the way the joy had come, all deliciously unbidden—he never forgot that sweet, violent feeling of having touched some great adventure, of having looked for a moment at some beautiful white light that was, in fact, every color of the rainbow.

Beautiful

the worlds, and the spaces between those worlds.

The Tower and Its Beams

It glowed between his palms, waxing and waning, waxing and waning. With my heartbeat, he thought.

A tremedous detail

Richard’s smile shone like the Talisman’s light. “Worlds better,” he said.

V cute Stevie

Never mind. Let it come down the way it will.

There be water if ka wills it so

In Which Many Things Are Resolved on the Beach

Stevie u cheeky fucker u

Morgan tripped him up as easily as a schoolyard bully trips up a younger boy in the play-yard. After Smokey Updike, and Osmond, and Gardener, and Elroy, and something that looked like a cross between an alligator and a Sherman tank, all it really took to bring him down was overweight, hypertensive Morgan Sloat crouched behind a rock, watching and waiting for an overconfident boy named Jack Sawyer to come boogying right down on top of him.

HA

You learned these things, or you died somewhere out in the world where there was no clear light.

Not thinking, Jack came back in for a moment and kissed Richard’s cheek. Richard put his arms around Jack’s neck for a moment, and hugged fiercely. Then he let Jack go. Neither of them said anything.

They love each other

Most of the characters who perform in this book still live, and are prosperous and happy. Some day it may seem worthwhile to take up the story again and see what . . . they turned out to be; therefore, it will be wisest not to reveal any of that part of their lives at present. —MARK TWAIN, Tom Sawyer