Nowadays, it’s easy to see Stephen King’s name and have a conceived notion of his legacy. He remains well into old age one of the most prolific authors of his generation, producing masterpieces that dig under people’s skin and recontextualizes fears we’ve long taken for granted. In this Short Stop series, I will explore a period before he was the icon we know and love. Even with a handful of bestsellers to his name, his status had yet to cement. That is why I’ve chosen to take a look at his first story collection, “Night Shift,” and hopefully get a glimpse into the writer taking shape, before his style was cemented into a cultural touchstone. Was he always the master of horror, or was there a simpler time when he was as messy and weird as the rest of us? All it takes is turning the page to find out.
Now that we’re in the final quarter of “Night Shift,” it’s time to start asking whether this initial outing was a success for the fledgling author. My experience has been very scattershot and often hints at potential more than success. That would be, at least, if I judged before “Quitters, Inc.” where, all of a sudden, ideas began to click and the horror lined up perfectly with the pathos. Everything since has been a thrill ride, locking in on what I’ve loved about King’s greater career. Following the gargantuan achievement that was “Children of the Corn,” I had to wonder… what could he possibly do with a ladder?
Like every King story, its greatest attribute is the impending doom the reader assumes when reading the first line. “The Last Rung on the Ladder” could stand for many things, whether it be the ladder itself or what lies at the top. To stand upon one in itself can be daunting, for a simple imbalance can leave you in a vulnerable state overlooking obvious danger. Even so, the mystery around where King is going with this is exciting, especially as he puts this in the framework of a flashback where the regret has clearly lingered. It’s unclear what Larry did with his sister Kitty, but the impact has rippled through time. Without specificity, King has already set the intrigue with the announcement that – in present tense – Larry has received a letter.
The plot device is an inspired way to get things moving. The protagonist has crossed out addresses, leaving uncertainty about his whereabouts for his sister. Does he want to keep her distant, or is this some unfortunate circumstance? Another fun tool is how Larry discusses his father in relation to the letter, believing that to tell him would “kill him.” There’s a secrecy among these three individuals to the point that one has to ask… what happened? Is Larry being a coward or is he maintaining some greater sense of order? In simplest terms, it’s a little bit of everything.
Everybody has a story about being a child and reveling in the unsupervised moments where youth gets the best of them. Sometimes the discoveries are sweet, but in a King story, it’s tragic at some point. Anyone who’s read “The Body” will be able to notice him mixing those two tones to greater effect. This one is comparatively straightforward, serving as a simple mystery of what the big regret will be. Much like the present tense, a young Larry feels embarrassed to tell his family what happened because, to put it simply, it was the most irresponsible moment of his life, the one where he broke the promise to Kitty that he would protect her.
The event starts on the day that his parents had to leave for a business meeting. Given that they’re children who live on a farm in Nebraska, they have room to explore. Their favorite spot is in the barn where a ladder sits over bales of hay. Some people have swimming holes, but they have a 70-foot drop from a beam into the itchy straw below. There’s a thrill in the uncertain, the few moments of being free from any safety. Given that the ladder by itself is a nightmare that King revels in great detail, the tension never lets up even during the innocent sections where one can breathe. He splices in childish conversations as the other sibling climbs upward, providing personality and humor that makes this moment seem innocent. To a child, this is a risk well worth taking, where any fear places them inside their body.
There’s a lot of establishment to get to the meat of the story. In order to numb the reader to the experience of hay diving, he goes through the act a few times before landing on the fear. It’s a perfect tension builder. When the moment clicks, there’s a rich sense of history to contrast with the worst-case scenario happening. Nobody wanted it to happen, yet the tempting of fate is part of the thrill. Given how King stylizes the prose, one can presume that Larry is put in the role of hero, which, as a youngin’, wouldn’t be one well-versed in the act of safety precautions.
Despite this being one of the simpler stories, it reflects one of the things I love most about King. Whereas most writers would expedite the heart-racing scenes, he knows how to lean into the mundane and really mess with the audience. It’s not just the assumptions to follow. He’s interested in how the wood cracks, how Kitty hangs with uncertainty. She doesn’t immediately drop, so he’s obsessed with every second of terror running through her body. Meanwhile, he’s exploring the potential hope that could swing in and save the day despite the reader already assuming the worst. For something that happened in a very short window, he makes the reader feel the pain of existence and potential for absolute misery.
To Larry’s credit, he finds a solution that “works.” He throws a lot of hay in the pathway of her collision, hoping it would be enough. Inevitably, she falls. There’s the initial worry as King fixates on the sound of her thud. Everything sounds like it should be over. However, the first page suggests that she’s still alive. Everything seems strange as she rises, barely dazed by what had just happened. It’s a minor miracle, even if they now had to come up with a good excuse for the broken ladder.
Instead of attempting to resolve that matter, Larry grows older and lives with the regret. If there’s a symbol from the ladder, it’s that it broke something deep down between Larry and Kitty. Their personal dark secret lives in their soul. Despite the growing distance between them, Larry seems affectionate toward his sister, whom he considered beautiful and talented. However, it may be due to a parallel remorse. Because he couldn’t protect her, he believes that her life falling apart might be due to that day. She had greater potential than what everything became. Had it been something to do with the childhood risk scaring her into paralysis?
Larry’s guilt may also be self-inflicted, as he seems to have been running away from the situation. He’s moved many times since that day, so her letters often had to be forwarded multiple times to even find him. There wasn’t always a response, as if there was fear of addressing something else, as if he couldn’t move past that day. Even so, he had the potential to repair the relationship but instead stayed distant. He couldn’t be the hero, and she couldn’t be saved. They were as helpless as they were that day.
In one of King’s finest finales, he returns to the letter that opens the story. Having had time to process everything, Larry reads it and realizes that she no longer feels gratitude over him rescuing her. She wishes that the last rung broke without him below. Few gut punches in his career are as strong as that. It turns a good deed into an insult. After living with regret for decades, there’s the realization that they don’t have the strength to withstand the trauma and bad luck. They’d rather live with the darkness of that day going horribly wrong, even if it means Larry would hypothetically be paralyzed by his own incompetence. Instead, she died by suicide as a call girl: a profession of potential risk often codependent on the services of other men.
Very simple in nature, this story is one of the strongest examples of psychological horror in “Night Shift.” Whereas most stories focus on the fear of scary imagery, this one lingers in the unfortunate and really gets to the heart of the pain it produces. It takes a keen observer to make a story this aware of fear coming not from immediacy, but the burden that follows. It’s the type of stuff that can’t be worked through, that can’t be run away from. Instead, one can only process it over and over, wishing to relive it differently and realizing that it’s impossible. The paradox is phenomenal and, more importantly, human.
Despite this being one of his strongest, “The Last Rung on the Ladder” doesn’t have too many adaptations to its name. The major example is a Dollar Baby short from 1987. Even so, it continues the trend of being connected to other King works, including the story preceding this in “Night Shift.” “The Last Rung on the Ladder” takes place in Hemingford Home, which is next door to “Children of the Corn” city of Gatlin. This also means that it’s associated with “The Stand” as well as being the city that Ben from “It” lives in temporarily. To round out the references, there’s “Cell” and “1922.” Even if it’s doubtful that the direct events inform any of these works, it shows how interested King is in building a dense universe full of rich lore even in very mundane corners. It’s arguably why his work continues to be a fun experience for readers wanting to play cross-referencing games.
Even if “Night Shift” started on rockier terrain, I’m happy to say that so much of the final stretch has been an improvement. The past few have found a nice blend of horror and deeper pathos to the point that what’s scary is less something metaphysical and more the results of being human. “The Last Rung on the Ladder” works for many reasons, including how astutely it understands regret. Everyone wishes certain things could have gone differently. What King does is reflect on one that should’ve gone much worse, depending on who was asked. It’s one of his greatest gut punches, but not a dishonest one.
Coming Up Next: “The Man Who Loved Flowers”
Comments
Post a Comment