Bag of Bones: Chapter 8 (pages 106-120)

After Chapter One, Chapter Eight might be the best written section of this novel. King starts out strong with a nice writer's exercise in depicting an almost deserted greasy spoon. It's all about the details when it comes to making fiction resemble reality and there are some details here that make the diner stand out in the readers' mind. The old line cook "maybe fifty-five, maybe seventy," is depicted particularly well. The beef-blood soaked clothes but his hands are still clean. King wants to say that underneath all the grime, the cook is just as "professional" as any the "city."
Mike eats his burger and thinks about Mattie Devore and wonders where he has heard that last name before. After a little thinking and a flip through the phone book (the book written in 1998 is already dated in some parts, Mike thinks it's unusual that the phone book isn't attached to a cord to prevent theft but then thinks that's because no one would want to steal a Castle Rock directory because it's such a small town. Now the question is, "Who wants any phone book?" I can't remember the last time I opened one myself.) comes to the conclusion that Mattie's deceased husband was somehow related to the wealthy and reclusive millionaire Max Devore.
Mike leaves the diner and drives back to Sara Laughs and remembers that in his nightmares a radio station bumper sticker was stuck onto the entrance sign of his house. The other two vivid details of his dream had appeared in real life and he wants to know if this third one was real also. There's no sticker on the sign when Mike checks but he feels a "sticky residue" where the sticker would've been and decides to take a look through the garbage where the caretaker might have thrown it away. (A neat little aside that King throws in: The garbage bags are not stored in cans but in an old cabinet so the raccoons won't get in them. Since it's not a can they won't know that it contains garbage. I wonder if that actually works.) And sure enough, the bumper sticker is there, exactly the one Mike dreamed of.
King then has a nice little scene of Mike swimming in "Dark Score Lake" that is just outside his house. This is really the first appearance of the lake in the novel and I have a feeling we'll get more of it before the book is over. In the last chapter when Mike mishears Mattie say her daughter's name is "Kia," Mike has an odd reaction of tasting water in his mouth and out in the lake he realizes he was tasting Dark Score water.
Later on he settles back with a can of Pepsi (remember, he's no longer "troubled" and has forgotten to buy a six pack of beer while he was in town.) and watches the fireworks show from across the lake. But just when the fireworks begin, the phone rings and it's none other than Max Devore the millionaire!
Max wants to know about the incident with his granddaughter, Kyra. Mike denies that anything happened that would appear to make Mattie a bad mother. Max knows Mike is lying and gets angry. A good line that King adds in this section when referring to Max is, "this is a man who hasn't had to conceal his emotions in a lot of years." (116). Because Max is very rich he can rant and rave and be angry any time he wants and there's nothing anyone can do to stop him. I've never thought about that before. For most people with a boss and coworkers who are more or less equal to ourselves we have to be civil and cordial. We have to be "polite." If we are not things can breaks down pretty quickly and we can find ourselves fired from a job or ostracized from a social group. But rich people don't have to act in quite the same way. If they are angry they can be angry. They're too rich to have to be polite. Nice work King, something I've never thought of.
The troubling part of this section is the introduction of Joann's "voice" inside Mike's head talking to him, giving him advice. Why can't this just be Mike's own thought processes depicted instead of his dead wife's. I can see this getting annoying very fast and am fearful of my ability to finish this book if this gets out of hand. The dumbest line she "says" is that when Mike's talking to Max and deciding not to tell him the truth she says, "Be careful Mike. Beware of Maxwell's silver hammer." It took me a while to understand why this was said. Let me take you through my thought process A) It's a reference to the Beatles song off of Abbey Road. B) The song is about a science student going on a killing spree with a hammer. Is Max going to kill Mike with a hammer? Didn't make a lot of sense. Then I saw the name Maxwell-Max. Okay. Then the word silver, meaning money. Max has a lot more money than Mike and will use that money to make Mike regret his decision not to help him. Maxwell's "silver" "hammer." Man ,that's a long way to go for one throwaway line.
Mike goes to sleep and in the middle of the night he starts to hear the child crying again, and then the crying drifts away like "the child is being carried away." An inadvertently funny line is when Mike hears the crying he knows that it's not his imagination and says aloud, "it's scary." You know you're struggling with the horror element in your book when you have to have your main character declare to the reader, "it's scary." The chapter ends with Mike coming to the realization that "Sara is alive" and it's his "home." What this means we're not really sure yet. We'll have to keep reading to find out.

(Quick side note: In this chapter Mike mentions how much me he likes the Beach Boys song, "Don't Worry Baby." And how it's his favorite. It's far from my favorite but a good song, so I looked up the lyrics and to my surprise they're about drag racing and how his girlfriend's love will protect the frightened protagonist from harm during the race. An unusual part of the song happens when Brian Wilson sings loud and clear, "Oh what she does to me/when she makes love to me/and she says/ Don't worry baby." I just wonder what came to most people's minds when he sang that lyric. Was it the old-fashioned "make love to-" meaning sweet talking /flirting or actual sex? This is the mid-sixties and I'd be surprised if most of the listeners didn't think about sex but it was still a popular song and the most groups like the Beatles or even the Stones we're singing about was I want to hold your hand or the most the Stones could get away with (and they still got censored) was "Let's spend the night together." ) Unusual...