“Your opinion doesn't surprise me.” His headache was all gone now. There had been that one flash of pain, and that was all. His mind felt sharp and accurate, all the way down to millimeters. It was the way he usually felt only when the writing was going extremely well or when he had a threedrink buzz on. That was another thing he had forgotten about Excedrin; he didn't know if it worked for others, but for him crunching three tablets was like an instant high.
Now he said: “What you'd like is some sort of commissioned guidebook that you could hand out free to the guests when they checked in. Something with a lot of glossy photos of the mountains at sunrise and sunset and a lemon-meringue text to go with it. Also a section on the colorful people who have stayed there, of course excluding the really colorful ones like Gienelli and his friends.”
“If I felt I could fire you and be a hundred per cent certain of my own job instead of just ninety-five per cent,” UIIman said in clipped, strangled tones, “I would fire you right this minute, over the telephone. But since I feel that five per cent of uncertainty, I intend to call Mr. Shockley the moment you're off the line… which will be soon, or so I devoutly hope.”
Jack said, “There isn't going to be anything in the book that isn't true, you know. There's no need to dress it up.”
(Why are you baiting him? Do you want to be fired?)
“I don't care if Chapter Five is about the Pope of Rome screwing the shade of the Virgin Mary,” Ullman said, his voice rising. “I want you out of my hotel!”
“It's not your hotel!” Jack screamed, and slammed the receiver into its cradle.
He sat on the stool breathing hard, a little scared now,
(a little? hell, a lot)
wondering why in the name of God he had called Ullman in the first place.
(You lost your temper again, Jack.)
Yes. Yes, he had. No sense trying to deny it. And the bell of it was, he had no idea how much influence that cheap little prick had over Al, no more than he knew how much bullshit Al would take from him in the name of auld lang syne. If Ullman was as good as he claimed to be, and if he gave Al a he-goes-or-I-go ultimatum, might not Al be forced to take it? He closed his eyes and tried to imagine telling Wendy. Guess what, babe? I lost another job. This time I had to go through two thousand miles of Bell Telephone cable to find someone to punch out, but I managed it.
He opened his eyes and wiped his mouth with his handkerchief. He wanted a drink. Hell, he needed one. There was a cafe just down the street, surely he had time for a quick beer on his way up to the park, just one to lay the dust…
He clenched his hands together helplessly.
The question recurred: Why had he called Ullman in the first place? The number of the Surf-Sand in Lauderdale had been written in a small notebook by the phone and the CB radio in the office- plumbers' numbers, carpenters, glaziers, electricians, others. Jack bad copied it onto the matchbook cover shortly after getting out of bed, the idea of calling Ullman fullblown and gleeful in his mind. But to what purpose? Once, during the drinking phase, Wendy had accused him of desiring his own destruction but not possessing the necessary moral fiber to support a full-blown deathwish. So he manufactured ways in which other people could do it, lopping a piece at a time off himself and their family. Could it be true? Was be afraid somewhere inside that the Overlook might be just what he needed to finish his play and generally collect tip his shit and get it together? Was he blowing the whistle on himself? Please God no, don't let it be that way. Please.
He closed his eyes and an image immediately arose on the darkened screen of his inner lids: sticking his hand through that hole in the shingles to pull out the rotted flashing, the sudden needling sting, his own agonized, startled cry in the still and unheeding air: Oh you goddamn fucking son of a bitch…
Replaced with an image two years earlier, himself stumbling into the house at three in the morning, drunk, falling over a table and sprawling full-length on the floor, cursing, waking Wendy up on the couch. Wendy turning on the light, seeing his clothes ripped and smeared from some cloudy parking-lot scuffle that had occurred at a vaguely remembered honky-tonk just over the New Hampshire border hours before, crusted blood under his nose, now looking up at his wife, blinking stupidly in the light like a mole in the sunshine, and Wendy saying dully, You son of a bitch, you woke Danny up. If you don't care about yourself, can't you care a little bit about us? Oh, why do I even bother talking to you?
The telephone rang, making him jump. He snatched it off the cradle, illogically sure it must be either Ullman or Al Shockley. “What?” he barked.
“Your overtime, sir. Three dollars and fifty cents.”
“I'll have to break some ones,” he said. “Wait a minute.”
He put the phone on the shelf, deposited his last six quarters, then went out to the cashier to get more. He performed the transaction automatically, his mind running in a single closed circle like a squirrel on an exercise wheel.
Why had he called Ullman?
Because Ullman had embarrassed him? He had been embarrassed before, and by real masters-the Grand Master, of course, being himself. Simply to crow at the man, expose his hypocrisy? Jack didn't think he was that petty. His mind tried to seize on the scrapbook as a valid reason, but that wouldn't hold water either. The chances of Ullman knowing who the owner was were no more than two in a thousand. At the interview, he had treated the cellar as another country-a nasty underdeveloped one at that. If he had really wanted to know, he would have called Watson, whose winter number was also in the office notebook. Even Watson would not have been a sure thing but surer than Ullman.
And telling him about the book idea, that had been another stupid thing. Incredibly stupid. Besides jeopardizing his job, he could be closing off wide channels of information once Ullman called around and told people to beware of New Englanders bearing questions about the Overlook Hotel. He could have done his researches quietly, mailing off polite letters, perhaps even arranging some interviews in the spring… and then laughed up his sleeve at Ullman's rage when the book came out and he was safely away-The Masked Author Strikes Again. Instead he had made that damned senseless call, lost his temper, antagonized Ullman, and brought out all of the hotel manager's Little Caesar tendencies. Why? If it wasn't an effort to get himself thrown out of the good job Al had snagged for him, then what was it?
He deposited the rest of the money in the slots and hung up the phone. It really was the senseless kind of thing he might have done if he had been drunk. But he had been sober; dead cold sober.
Walking out of the drugstore be crunched another Excedrin into his mouth, grimacing yet relishing the bitter taste.
On the walk outside he met Wendy and Danny.
“Hey, we were just coming after you,” Wendy said. “Snowing, don't you know.”
Jack blinked up. “So it is.” It was snowing hard. Sidewinder's main street was already heavily powdered, the center line obscured. Danny had his head tilted up to the white sky, his mouth open and his tongue out to catch some of the fat flakes drifting down.
“Do you think this is it?” Wendy asked.
Jack shrugged. “I don't know. I was hoping for another week or two of grace. We still might get it.”
Grace, that was it.
(I'm sorry, Al. Grace, your mercy. For your mercy. One more chance. I am heartily sorry-)
How many times, over how many years, had he-a grown man-asked for the mercy of another chance? He was suddenly so sick of himself, so revolted, that he could have groaned aloud.
“How's your headache?” she asked, studying him closely.
He put an arm around her and hugged her tight. “Better. Come on, you two, let's go home while we still can.”
They walked back to where the hotel truck was slantparked against the curb, Jack in the middle, his left arm around Wendy's shoulders, his right hand holding Danny's hand. He had called it home for the first time, for better or worse.
As he got behind the truck's wheel it occurred to him that while he was fascinated by the Overlook, he didn't much like it. He wasn't sure it was good for either his wife or his son or himself. Maybe that was why he had called Ullman.
To be fired while there was still time.
He backed the truck out of its parking space and headed them out of town and up into the mountains.
21. Night Thoughts
It was ten o'clock. Their quarters were filled with counterfeit sleep.
Jack lay on his side facing the wall, eyes open, listening to Wendy's slow and regular breathing. The taste of dissolved aspirin was still on his tongue, making it feel rough and slightly numb. Al Shockley had called at quarter of six, quarter of eight back East. Wendy had been downstairs with Danny, sitting in front of the lobby fireplace and reading.
“Person to person,” the operator said, “for Mr. Jack Torrance.”
“Speaking.” He had switched the phone to his right hand, had dug his handkerchief out of his back pocket with his left, and had wiped his tender lips with it. Then he lit a cigarette.
Al's voice then, strong in his ear: “Jacky-boy, what in the name of God are you up to?”
“Hi, Al.” He snuffed the cigarette and groped for the Excedrin bottle.
“What's going on, Jack? I got this weird phone call from Stuart Ullman this afternoon. And when Stu Ullman calls long-distance out of his own pocket, you know the shit has hit the fan.”
“Ullman has nothing to worry about, Al. Neither do you.”
“What exactly is the nothing we don't have to worry about? Stu made it sound like a cross between blackmail and a National Enquirer feature on the Overlook. Talk to me, boy.”
“I wanted to poke him a little,” Jack said. “When I came up here to be interviewed, he had to drag out all my dirty laundry. Drinking problem. Lost your last job for racking over a student. Wonder if you're the right man for this. Et cetera. The thing that bugged me was that he was bringing all this up because he loved the goddamn hotel so much. The beautiful Overlook. The traditional Overlook. The bloody sacred Overlook. Well, I found a scrapbook in the basement. Somebody had put together all the less savory aspects of Ullman's cathedral, and it looked to me like a little black mass had been going on after hours.”
“I hope that's metaphorical, Jack.” Al's voice sounded frighteningly cold.
“It is. But I did find out-”
“I know the hotel's history.”
Jack ran a hand through his hair. “So I called him up and poked him with it. I admit it wasn't very bright, and I sure wouldn't do it again. End of story.”
“Stu says you're planning to do a little dirty-laundry-airing yourself.”
“Stu is an asshole!” he barked into the phone. “I told him I had an idea of writing about the Overlook, yes. I do. I think this place forms an index of the whole post-World War II American character. That sounds like an inflated claim, stated so baldly… I know it does… but it's all here, Al! My God, it could be a great book. But it's far in the future, I can promise you that, I've got more on my plate right now than I can eat, and-”
“Jack, that's not good enough.”
He found himself gaping at the black receiver of the phone, unable to believe what he had surely heard. “What? Al, did you say-?”
“I said what I said. How long is far in the future, Jack? For you it may be two years, maybe five. For me it's thirty or forty, because I expect to be associated with the Overlook for a long time. The thought of you doing some sort of a scum-job on my hotel and passing it off as a great piece of American writing, that makes me sick.”
Jack was speechless.
