Last May, I traveled to Bangor, Maine, Stephen King's hometown. The result of the trip was an article in Writing magazine's October issue (check out our exclusive King interview). Over the course of the week, I will be posting my journal entries from the trip. The following entry details my long drive and arrival in Bangor.

May 10, 2005

9:51 p.m.

Ugh. Argh. Sigh and et cetera. I am tired. I have arrived.

The rental car is nice. It has air conditioning and cruise control and a CD player. So I listened to the first four CDs of From a Buick 8. I was wrong when I said it was 8 CDs. It’s actually 13! Wow. That's a whole lotta reading. It's pretty good, too. Guess I should mention that. It's all about this car, a Buick (duh) that, for some reason or other, has some sort of evil power to it. One patrolman has already disappeared and the others think the Buick ate him. Spooky.

I wouldn't say this if Mr. King hadn't already said it himself. He's been quoted, in the past, by saying something to the extent of: After a long career, I find myself repeating myself. I didn't use cute little quotation marks because I'm paraphrasing. I also just noticed that I repeated "myself" in the paraphrasing. Sheesh, I must be tired. Anywho, the reason I bring it up is because King wrote an excellent book called Christine a long time back. Christine is a possessed 1958 Plymouth Fury with a taste for bloodlust. That book was awesome. I remember exactly where I was when I read it. I was here in Maine as fate would have it! It was much farther south from Bangor (where I am now) in a town called Pine Point and I was probably about 13 or 14 years old. As I was making the long haul today, I made a pit stop in P.P. and walked by the old family cottage. I got a chill walking down the street.

I remember there was a car that used to be parked there on the street. I remember the exact spot and the feeling I used to get when I walked past it. As if the car was alive, as if it wanted to own me. King affected my mind. He got in. He’s always known how to do that.

So fast-forward to present day. I'm listening to another of his books. And guess what? It's about a car that's possessed. There's two ways to look at this. The nice and gentle way is to say that he’s come full circle. The other, not-so-nice way is to say that he's beginning to repeat himself. True, "Buick" has a bit of a different spin. And yes, I am enjoying it thoroughly. I'm just reiterating what the man has said himself.

Change of subject… like that? No transition necessary.

I'm staying at the Bangor Days Inn and I've already got a few King stories. Julian, the girl at the front desk with the nose ring and the studded jacket says that her friend's mother once met Stephen King in a bookstore here in town. Apparently, the woman was browsing and picked up an sK book. As she was flipping through it, a man came by and said, "Hey, that’s a really good book. You should buy it." She looked up. Guess who it was? Go ahead… guess. She said thank you and he walked away. When she got home later that night, she studied the author picture on the book jacket more closely. When she recognized him, she laughed and screamed in a screamy kinda laughy kinda way.

But that's a third degree of separation story. It loses some of its validity as it travels. Consider Tom. Tom is an older, faithful Days Inn employee. Tom takes his time with conversations. When you ask him a question, he mulls it over for what seems like a really long time before answering. It's not an uncomfortable silence though. You generally respect his speech's privacy and allow it to speak up on its own. In time it does.

"Did you ever meet Mr. King?" I asked.

"Oh yeah… yeah." The pause came. Looking down at the ground and massaging his moustache with a thumb and forefinger, he told his story… slowly. "Yup. I haven’t seen him since his accident. But before that, I’d see him down at the Y all the time."

"Did you ever talk to him?"

"Oh yeah… yeah." Pause. Stash. Pause. "Nothin' much. You know, just stuff you talk about in the locker room. Sports, weather, news, whatever. Same conversation you’d have with anyone really." He paused again and then started to laugh. "The only difference was that when we left, I got into my Pontiac and he drove away in his Jag." His laugh was hearty, full. He enjoyed it. "Both our cars were silver anyway."

I like Tom. I like Julian, too but she has a fiancée and she's a little too punk for my style.

And now I’m starting to ramble so I think I’ll turn off the light and watch Law and Order and fall asleep. Big day tomorrow, you know.