There were several political cartoons in Johnny’s notebooks. All of them showed Stillson’s infectious slantwise grin, and in all of them he was wearing his construction helmet. One by Oliphant showed Greg rolling a barrel of oil marked PRICE CEILINGS
straight down the middle aisle of the House, the helmet cocked back on his head. Up front was Jimmy Carter, scratching his head and looking puzzled; he was not looking Greg’s way at all and the implication seemed to be that he was going to get run down.
The caption read: OUTTA MY WAY, JIMMY!
The helmet. The helmet somehow bothered Johnny more than anything else. The
Republicans had their elephant, the democrats their donkey, and Greg Stillson had his construction helmet. In Johnny’s dreams it sometimes seemed that Stillson was wearing a motorcycle helmet. And sometimes it was a coal-scuttle helmet.
2.
In a separate notebook he kept the clippings his father had sent him concerning the fire at Cathy’s. He had gone over them again and again, although for reasons that Sam, Roger, or even his father could not have suspected.
PSYCHIC PREDICTS FIRE. ‘MY DAUGHTER WOULD HAVE DIED TOO,’
TEARFUL, THANKFUL MOM PROCLAIMS (the tearful, thankful mom in question
had been Patty Strachan’s). Psychic Who Cracked Castle Rock Murders Predicts Flash Fire. ROADHOUSE DEATH-TOLL REACHES 90. FATHER SAYS JOHNNY SMITH
HAS LEFT NEW ENGLAND, REFUSES TO SAY WHERE. Pictures of him. Pictures
of his father. Pictures of that long-ago wreck on Route 6 in Cleaves Mills, back in the days when Sarah Bracknell had been his girl. Now Sarah was a woman, the mother of two, and in his last letter Herb had said Sarah was showing a few gray hairs. It seemed impossible to believe that he himself was thirty-one. Impossible, but true.
Around all these clippings were his own jottings, his painful efforts to get it straight in his mind once and for all. None of them understood the true importance of the fire, its implication on the much larger matter of what to do about Greg Stillson.
He had written: ‘I have to do something about Stillson. I have to. I was right about Cathy’s, and I’m going to be right about this. There is absolutely no question in my mind.
He is going to become president and he is going to start a war – or cause one through simple mismanagement of the office, which amounts to the same thing.
‘The question is: How drastic are the measures that need to be taken?
‘Take Cathy’s as a test-tube case. It almost could have been sent to me as a sign, God I’m starting to sound like my mother, but there it is. Okay, I knew there was going to be a fire and that people were going to die. Was that sufficient to save them? Answer: it was not sufficient to save all of them, because people only truly believe after the fact. The ones who came to the Chatsworth house instead of going to Cathy’s were saved, but it’s important to remember that R.C. didn’t have the party because he believed my prediction.
He was very upfront about that. He had the party because he thought it would help me have peace of mind. He was … humoring me. He believed after. Patty Strachan’s mother believed after. After-after-after. By then it was too late for the dead and the burned.
‘So, Question – Could I have changed the outcome?
‘Yes. I could have driven a car right through the front of the place. Or, I could have burned it down myself that afternoon.
‘Question 3: What would the results of either action have been to me?
‘Imprisonment, probably. If I took the car option and then lightning struck it later that night, I suppose I could have argued … no, it doesn’t wash. Common experience may recognize some sort of psychic ability in the human mind, but the law sure as hell doesn’t.
I think now, if I had it to do over again, I would do one of those things and never mind the consequences to me. Is it p0sssible that I didn’t completely believe my own prediction?
‘The matter of Stillson is horribly similar in all respects, except, thank God, that I have a lot more lead time.