The Regulators by Stephen King
Chapter One
POPLAR STREET/3:45 P.M./JULY 15, 1996
Summer’s here.
Not just summer, either, not this year, but the apotheosis of summer, the avatar of summer, high green perfect central Ohio summer dead-smash in the middle of July, white sun glaring out of that fabled faded Levi’s sky, the sound of kids hollering back and forth through the Bear Street Woods at the top of the hill, the tink! of Little League bats from the ballfield on the other side of the woods, the sound of power mowers, the sound of muscle-cars out on Highway 19, the sound of rollerblades on the cement sidewalks and smooth macadam of Poplar Street, the sound of radios-Cleveland Indians baseball (the rare day game) competing with Tina Turner belting out “Nutbush City Limits”, the one that goes Twenty-five is the speed limit, motorcycles not allowed in it-and surrounding everything like an auditory edging of lace, the soothing, silky hiss of lawn sprinklers.
Summer in Wentworth, Ohio, oh boy, can you dig it. Summer here on Poplar Street, which runs straight through the middle of that fabled faded American dream with the smell of hotdogs in the air and a few burst paper remains of Fourth of July firecrackers still lying here and there in the gutters. It’s been a hot July, a perfect good old by God blue-ribbon jeezer of a July, no doubt about it, but if you want to know the truth, it’s also been a dry July, with no water but the occasional flipped spray of a hose to stir those last shreds of Chinese paper from where they lie. That may change today; there’s an occasional rumble of thunder from the west, and those watching The Weather Channel (there’s plenty of cable TV on Poplar Street, you bet) know that thunderstorms are expected later on. Maybe even a tornado, although that’s unlikely.
Meantime, though, it’s all watermelon and Kool-Aid and foul tips off the end of the bat; it’s all the summer you ever wanted and more here in the center of the United States of America, life as good as you ever dreamed it could be, with Chevrolets parked in driveways and steaks in refrigerator meat-drawers waiting to be slapped on the barbecue in the backyard come evening. (And will there be apple pie to follow? What do you think?) This is the land of green lawns and carefully tended flowerbeds; this is the Kingdom of Ohio where the kids wear their hats turned around backward and their strappy tank-tops hang down over their baggy shorts and their great big galooty sneakers all seem to bear the Nike swoosh.
On the block of Poplar which runs between Bear Street at the top of the hill and Hyacinth at the bottom, there are eleven houses and one store. The store, which stands on the corner of Poplar and Hyacinth, is the ever-popular, all-American convenience mart, where you can get your cigarettes, your Blatz or Rolling Rock, your penny candy (although these days most of it costs a dime), your BBQ supplies (paper plates plastic forks taco chips ice cream ketchup mustard relish), your Popsicles, and your wide variety of Snapple, made from the best stuff on earth. You can even get a copy of Penthouse at the E-Z Stop 24 if you want one, but you have to ask the clerk; in the Kingdom of Ohio, they mostly keep the skin magazines under the counter. And hey, that’s perfectly all right. The important thing is that you should know where to get one if you need one.
The clerk today is new, less than a week on the job, and right now, at 3.45 in the afternoon, she’s waiting on a little boy and girl. The girl looks to be about eleven and is already on her way to being a beauty. The boy, clearly her little brother, is maybe six and is (in the new clerk’s opinion, at least) already on his way to being a first-class boogersnot.
“I want two candybars!” Brother Boogersnot exclaims.
“There’s only money enough for one, if we each have a soda,” Pretty Sis tells him with what the clerk thinks is admirable patience. If this were her little brother, she would be very tempted to kick his ass so high up he could get a job playing the Hunchback of Notre Dame in the school play.
“Mom gave you five bucks this morning, I saw it,” the boogersnot says. “Where’s the rest of it, Marrrrr-grit?”
“Don’t call me that, I hate that,” the girl says. She has long honey-blond hair which the clerk thinks is absolutely gorgeous. The new clerk’s own hair is short and kinky, dyed orange on the right and green on the left. She has a pretty good idea she wouldn’t have gotten this job without washing the dye out of it if the manager hadn’t been absolutely strapped for someone to work eleven-to-seven-her good luck, his bad. He had extracted a promise from her that she’d wear a kerchief or a baseball cap over the dye-job, but promises were made to be broken. Now, she sees, Pretty Sister is looking at her hair with some fascination.
“Margrit-Margrit-Margrit!” the little brother crows with the cheerfully energetic viciousness which only little brothers can muster.
“My name’s really Ellen,” the girl says, speaking with the air of one imparting a great confidence. “Margaret’s my middle name. He calls me that because he knows I hate it.”
“Nice to meet you, Ellen,” the clerk says, and begins totting up the girl’s purchases.
“Nice to meet you, Marrrrr-grit!” the boogersnot brother mimics, screwing his face into an expression so strenuously awful that it is funny. His nose is wrinkled, his eyes crossed. “Nice to meet you, Margrit the Maggot!”
Ignoring him, Ellen says: “I love your hair.”
“Thanks,” the new clerk says, smiling. “It’s not as nice as yours, but it’ll do. That’s a dollar forty-six.”
The girl takes a little plastic change-purse from the pocket of her jeans. It’s the kind you squeeze open. Inside are two crumpled dollar bills and a few pennies.
“Ask Margrit the Maggot where the other three bucks went!” the boogersnot trumpets. He’s a regular little public address system. “She used it to buy a maga zine with Eeeeeeethan Hawwwwke on the cover!”
Ellen goes on ignoring him, although her cheeks are starting to get a little red. As she hands over the two dollars she says, “I haven’t seen you before, have I?” “Probably not-I just started in here last Wednesday. They wanted somebody who’d work eleven-to-seven and stay over a few hours if the night guy turns up late.”
“Well, it’s very nice to meet you. I’m Ellie Carver. And this is my little brother, Ralph.”
Ralph Carver sticks out his tongue and makes a sound like a wasp caught in a mayonnaise jar. What a polite little animal it is, the young woman with the tu-tone hair thinks.
“I’m Cynthia Smith,” she says, extending her hand over the counter to the girl. “Always a Cynthia and never a Cindy. Can you remember that?”
The girl nods, smiling. “And I’m always an Ellie, never a Margaret.”
“Margrit the Maggot!” Ralph cries in crazed six-year-old triumph. He raises his hands in the air and bumps his hips from side to side in the pure poison joy of living. “Margrit the Maggot loves Eeeeethan Hawwwwwke!”
Ellen gives Cynthia a look much older than her years, an expression of world-weary resignation that says You see what I have to put up with. Cynthia, who had a little brother herself and knows exactly what pretty Ellie has to put up with, wants to crack up but manages to keep a straight face. And that’s good. This girl’s a prisoner of her time and her age, the same as anyone else, which means that all of this is perfectly serious to her. Ellie hands her brother a can of Pepsi. “We’ll split the candybar outside,” she says.
“You’re gonna pull me in Buster,” Ralph says as they start toward the door, walking into the brilliant oblong of sun that falls through the window like fire. “Gonna pull me in Buster all the way back home.”
“Like hell I am,” Ellie says, but as she opens the door, Brother Boogersnot turns and gives Cynthia a smug look which says Wait and see who wins this one. You just wait and see. Then they go out.
Summer yes, but not just summer; we are talking July 15th, the very rooftree of summer, in an Ohio town where most kids go to Vacation Bible School and participate in the Summer Reading Program at the Public Library, and where one kid has just got to have a little red wagon which he has named (for reasons only he will ever know) Buster. Eleven houses and one convenience store simmering in that bright bald midwestern July glare, ninety degrees in the shade, ninety-six in the sun, hot enough that the air shimmers above the pavement as if over an open incinerator.