Blog-o-ween 2024: Day 10

Lots of ‘Salem’s Lot

Part One

Chapter 6: The Lot (II)

Sections 5-9

Sunrise: 6:54 AM

Sunset: 6:24 PM

Mark Petrie builds a model of Frankenstein’s Monster as he listens to his parents discuss his coolness in the face of Danny Glick’s funeral. Roy McDougall, drunk, stumbles home to his trailer to find his wife abusing their baby. Parkins Gillespie gets answers from the FBI to his questions about Ben Mears, Richard Straker, and Kurt (with a “K”) Barlow. All three men seem to be clean. Dud Rogers notices that there are more rats than usual at the dump. Bigger ones, too. That night, while watching the trash fires burn, he receives a visitor. Like Roy McDougall, Father Callahan is drunk. While cleaning up spilled whisky, he wishes that Evil (with a capital “E”) would make itself known so that he could rise up to meet it.

Careful what you wish for, Father. Amirite?

Mark Petrie is one of us; he’s a Monster Kid. While overhearing his parents talk about him (some would say eavesdropping), Mark is working on something that I always wished I had had the patience and talent to paint and build: an Aurora Monster Model kit.

Aurora Plastics Corporation began in 1950. Although it started out offering model kits similar to their rivals Revell and Monogram — World War I and II aircraft and popular car models such as Jaguar and Alfa-Romeo — Aurora found their own niche in 1961 when it acquired a license from Universal Studios to produce model kits based on the motion picture studio’s famous monster lineup. The first model to be offered to their customers was Frankenstein’s Monster. Dracula, the Wolf-Man, the Mummy, and a host of others soon followed — thirteen in all. These kits were released in various versions through the early 1970s.

The brand name of the monster model is never mentioned (which is odd given King’s love of dropping other brand names in his fiction as a way of grounding the horror in the real world), but we have to assume it’s an Aurora and not some knock-off brand Mark’s parents picked up at Woolworth’s or K-Mart or (God forbid!) Zayre. Mark is a good kid, and I think his parents would buy him only the best.

One other thing before we leave Mark to get ready for bed. Mark’s mother’s reading habits are mentioned:

“His mother would be holding a novel by Jane Austen on her lap, or perhaps Henry James. She read them over and over again, and Mark was darned if he could see the sense in reading a book more than once. You knew how it was going to end.”

Heh-heh…yeah…what kind of idjit reads the same book over and over again. What a maroon!

Okay! Enough fooling around with whatever else is going on in the Lot. I know what you want to talk about, and it ain’t what The Excellent Café is serving in lieu of ham on rye. We’ve got a vampire sighting! And not just any vampire neither. We got the big boy hisownself — Kurt (with a “K”) Barlow!

There’s something poetic about our introduction to Barlow happening at the town dump. And that his first victim is the hunchback Dud Rogers.

(Or is he? Ralphie Glick is fed to whatever demonic forces Barlow needs to appease before he can set foot in ‘salem’s Lot. And somebody feeds on Danny Glick — that can only be Barlow, right? These waters will become muddier when we discuss the adaptations of ‘Salem’s Lot.)

Not to keep putting off our discussion of Barlow, but we haven’t talked about the fact that Dud Rogers is a hunchback. Thanks to the talents of Lon Chaney in The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Dwight Frye in Frankenstein, the hunchback became a part of the extended Mt. Rushmore of monsters. Although, as comedian Gilbert Gottfried pointed out, if you think about it, it’s a little weird. I mean — there’s Frankenstein’s Monster, who is made out of the dead…Dracula, who is a bloodsucking creature of the night…the Wolf-Man, a man who becomes a wolf when the moon is full and the wolfsbane blooms…and last but not least…some poor guy with a physical disability. How is that okay?!

Dwight Frye’s Karl (not even a cool name like Igor…he’s just…Karl) is a jerk not because he has a hunched back, but because he tortures the poor monster with fire. The same could be said about Dud Rogers. He’s a jerk because he gets his kicks from killing rats and fantasizing about high school girls, not because of his appearance. Although…his appearance does cause the people in town like Ruthie Crockett to treat him poorly, so maybe the real monster is…society?

Anywho…where was I?

Oh, yeah...Barlow.

Even though he is stepping out amongst the smoldering piles of burning trash, the man does know how to make a first impression:

“The face that was discovered in the red glow of the dying fire was high-cheekboned and thoughtful. The hair was white, streaked with oddly virile slashes of iron gray. The guy had it swept back from his high waxy forehead like one of those fag concert pianists. The eyes caught and held the red glow of the embers and made them look bloodshot…Dud noticed with surprise that the guy was all tricked out in a suit, vest and all.”

The homophobic epithet notwithstanding, this is pretty striking. This won’t be the only time in the novel that someone in town uses that ugly term to describe how Barlow wears his hair — keep in mind, this novel was written around the time in this country’s history when choosing to wear your hair long put you at odds with “real men.” King himself tells of being tossed out of bars and threatened with a beating for the length of his hair in the late-60s. Ain’t Amurrica grand, kiddies? Length of hair aside, Barlow seems to be dressed for a board meeting. (More on the meaning of that in a later Blog-o-ween entry!)

Much will be made about the power of the vampire’s eyes in coming chapters. Here, Barlow’s eyes are described as “wide-set, and still rimmed with the dump’s sullen fire.” As Dud Rogers stares into them, they “seemed to be expanding, growing, until they were like dark pits ringed with fire, pits you could fall into and drown in.” Dud is drawn to Barlow even though he knows that the man is hypnotizing him. Later, we will learn that the vampire must be invited into one’s home in order to gain entrance — and it will use any means necessary to be given that invitation — but it seems that the same goes for an individual person’s sense of self and private space. Barlow could probably overpower Dud. Yet, he takes his time and pours pretty promises into his ears. At the end, King writes: “As the stranger came closer, Dud understood everything and welcomed it, and when the pain came, it was as sweet as silver, as green as still waters at dark fathoms.” So, it’s not enough to simply take the blood he needs, Barlow seems to need his victim to desire his/her/their fate. And that’s kind of oogie.

One last thing…there seems to be some connection between Barlow and the dump’s rats, no? And this isn’t the first mention of rats in the novel. It’s almost as if we were building towards something, no? Maybe…maybe not…

We’ve come to the end of another day and another chapter. Tomorrow, I want you should read Part 1, Chapter 7: Matt. We’ll learn more about Ben’s book and Hubie Marsten. We’ll also talk more about the vampire’s need for an invitation. Don’cha just hate needy people?

In the meantime, remember that when it comes to inviting people over to your house for drinks, it’s best to…