The Road to The Dark Tower (60 page)

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Authors: Bev Vincent

BOOK: The Road to The Dark Tower
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Part 2: Keystone Earth
  • March 19, 1846: Calvin Tower’s great-great-great-grandfather writes his will.
  • September 21, 1859: Tak first released in the China Pit mine.
  • 1898: Ted Brautigan is born in Milford, Connecticut.
  • 1916: Ted Brautigan tries to enlist as a telepath but goes to Harvard instead.
  • 1935: Ted Brautigan is mugged in Akron and kills his attacker.
  • 1936: Claudia y Inez Bachman writes
    Charlie the Choo-Choo.
    (A year of 19.)
  • 1938: Beryl Evans writes
    Charlie the Choo-Choo.
  • 1938: Odetta Walker is born.
  • 1943: Benjamin Slightman Jr. publishes
    The Dogan
    /
    The Hogan.
  • 1943: A brick hits Odetta Walker.
  • October 1946: Susannah shows Mia her mother.
  • 1947: Stephen King is born. Ed Deepneau dies.
  • August 1948: Ice cream snow flurries in western Maine.
  • September 1955: Ted Brautigan applies for a job.
  • October 31, 1955: Ted Brautigan becomes a Breaker.
  • 1956: Henry Dean is born.
  • 1957: Odetta becomes involved in the Movement.
  • 1957: Father Callahan graduates from seminary in Boston, goes to Lowell, Massachusetts.
  • July 1959: Snowfall in western Maine.
  • August 19, 1959: Odetta loses her legs from the knees down—and half her mind.
  • October 1959: Dan Holmes has the first of many heart attacks.
  • April 26, 1960: Ted Brautigan escapes from Devar-Toi to Connecticut.
  • 1962: Odetta’s father dies, leaving her millions in trust until she turns twenty-five.
  • Summer 1963: Odetta vanishes for three weeks. Returns with a bruise on her cheek.
  • November 22, 1963: JFK is assassinated.
  • 1964: Father Callahan requests a transfer from Lowell, Massachusetts, to Spofford, Ohio.
  • February 1964: Eddie Dean is born.
  • February 21, 1964: Odetta goes to Oxford, Mississippi.
  • June 19, 1964: Three voter-registration workers go missing in Mississippi.
  • July 19, 1964: Susannah stays at the Blue Moon Hotel in Oxford. Sings “Maid of Constant Sorrow.”
  • July 20, 1964: Odetta goes to jail in Oxford.
  • August 5, 1964: Missing voter-registration workers’ bodies are found in Mississippi.
  • 1965: Bobby Garfield gets a letter from Ted Brautigan full of rose petals.
  • 1966: Jake Chambers is born. A drunk driver kills Eddie’s sister.
  • 1969: Callahan transfers from Dayton to ’Salem’s Lot, Maine.
  • 1970: Paul Prentiss is laid off from Attica and becomes warden of Blue Heaven.
  • January 1971: A tornado in western Maine.
  • Summer 1972: Joe Collins enters Mid-World.
  • 1974: Callahan fights vampires in ’Salem’s Lot.
  • March 1975: A Type Three vampire bites Lupe Delgado.
  • April 1975: Callahan kills his first vampire.
  • October 1975: Callahan flees ’Salem’s Lot for New York. Works at the Home shelter.
  • December 1975: Callahan sees his first vampire in New York.
  • May 1976: Lupe falls ill with AIDS and dies. Callahan falls off the wagon.
  • Summer 1976: Callahan wanders, does day jobs, drinks, and kills vampires.
  • July 15, 1976: Calvin Tower signs a letter agreeing not to sell the lot at the corner of Forty-sixth and Second, in return for which he receives $100,000 from Enrico Balazar.
  • August 1976: Callahan’s vampire toll hits six. Low men are following him. Decides to leave New York. Crosses into a different America.
  • May 9, 1977: Jake dies at the hands of Jack Mort, run over by a car.
  • May 9, 1977: Jake doesn’t die at the hands of Jack Mort.
  • May 31, 1977: Jake goes truant. He meets Calvin Tower, buys a book of jokes and
    Charlie the Choo-Choo.
    He enters the empty lot, finds a key and sees the rose. Jake, Eddie and Oy return to this date when they go todash near the Calla.
  • May 31, 1977: Jake, Eddie and Oy go todash to New York.
  • June 1, 1977: Jake takes his father’s gun, meets young Eddie Dean in Co-Op City (Brooklyn), and opens the door to Mid-World.
  • June 2, 1977: The ka-tet goes todash to New York, where time is moving fast.
  • June 23, 1977: Eddie goes to New York to make a deal with Calvin Tower.
  • June 24, 1977: Callahan goes to New York to get the zip code.
  • June 26, 1977: Callahan steals a book of maps from the New York Public Library.
  • June 27, 1977: Callahan goes to Stoneham, Maine.
  • July 9, 1977: Eddie and Roland go to Stoneham, Maine. The ambush.
  • July 12, 1977: Stephen King decides Roland needs some friends.
  • July 15, 1977: Calvin Tower’s agreement with Balazar expires.
  • July 19, 1977: Stephen King sees
    Star Wars.
    Decides to publish the five parts of
    The Gunslinger
    in F&SF.
  • August 9, 1978: Kirby McCauley sells the first part of
    The Gunslinger
    to F&SF.
  • September 9, 1978: F&SF magazine with “The Gunslinger” comes out.
  • 1979: Stephen King buys Cara Laughs on Turtleback Lane.
  • October 29, 1979: “The Way Station” accepted by F&SF. King lives in Orrington, the inspiration for
    Pet Sematary.
  • June 19, 1980: Don Grant suggests doing
    The Gunslinger
    as a limited edition.
  • Spring 1981: Callahan arrives in California after five years of wandering Americas.
  • May 19, 1981: Callahan is attacked by the Hitler Brothers. Cross carved in his forehead. Rescued by Tower and Aaron Deepneau.
  • May 25, 1981: Callahan released from the hospital.
  • May 31, 1981: The Hitler Brothers found shot to death.
  • February 1982: Callahan hits bottom in a jail cell in Topeka. Gives himself a year to quit drinking.
  • Fall 1982: Callahan no longer wants to drink. Sees traces of the low men, so moves to Detroit and works at the Lighthouse Shelter.
  • July 27, 1983: King decides to add
    The Dark Tower
    to the front of
    Pet Sematary.
  • December 1983: Sombra Corporation invites Father Callahan to accept grant.
  • December 19, 1983: Father Callahan dies and goes to the way station in the desert.
  • February 21, 1984: Publication of
    Pet Sematary
    generates an onslaught of demand for
    The Gunslinger.
    Owen King’s seventh birthday.
  • August 14, 1984: NAL and King’s agent pitch him the idea of doing
    The Gunslinger
    as a trade paperback, but King passes. Wants to work on
    It
    instead.
  • November 18, 1984: King comes up with the notion of the world resting on a turtle’s back to solve a plotting problem in
    It.
  • 1986: Eddie and Henry Dean solemnly pledge to never become needle freaks.
  • June 10, 1986: King starts to think about returning to the
    Dark Tower
    story.
  • June 13, 1986: King has a dream of Roland telling him to start with the lobstrosities.
  • June 15, 1986: King starts
    The Drawing of the Three.
  • June 24, 1986: Captain Trips ravages the world the ka-tet enters in Topeka.
  • July 16, 1986: King has written three hundred pages of
    The Drawing of the Three.
  • September 19, 1986: King finishes
    The Drawing of the Three,
    two days before his birthday.
  • Fall 1986: Eddie crosses from the land of Recreational Drugs into the Kingdom of Really Bad Habits.
  • 1987: Eddie smuggles drugs. Roland and Eddie kill Enrico Balazar and Jack Andolini.
  • June 19, 1987: King receives his copy of
    The Drawing of the Three
    from Grant. Decides to let NAL do the first two books as trade paperbacks.
  • August 5, 1987: Helen and Ed Deepneau are married.
  • October 19, 1987: King starts to confront his drinking problems.
  • December 1987: Susannah joins Eddie and Jake Toren in Central Park.
  • 1988: The Tet Corporation firebombs Sombra Enterprises in New Delhi.
  • April 12, 1988: Walk-ins article pasted into King’s journal.
  • June 19, 1989: King has been sober for a year.
  • July 12, 1989: King reads
    Shardik
    by Richard Adams.
  • 1989: John Cullum is shot and killed by low men.
  • September 21, 1989: King receives roses for his birthday. Hypnotizes himself. Ready to return to the
    Dark Tower.
  • October 7, 1989: King starts writing
    The Wastelands.
  • October 9, 1989: King decides to call it
    The Waste Lands
    instead.
  • January 9, 1990: King finishes
    The Waste Lands.
  • 1990: Calvin Tower dies of a heart attack.
  • November 27, 1991: King starts getting mail about the cliff-hanger ending to
    The Waste Lands.
  • 1992: Aaron Deepneau dies of cancer.
  • March 23, 1992: King receives a letter from a cancer patient asking for the ending of the
    Dark Tower
    series.
  • July 1992: Ed Deepneau flips out; Ralph Roberts hears about the Crimson King.
  • September 22, 1992: Grant edition of
    The Waste Lands
    sells out.
  • April 1993: Ralph Roberts gets insomnia.
  • 1993: Tyler Marshall is born.
  • October 8, 1993: Ralph meets the Crimson King, saves Patrick Danville’s life.
  • January 2, 1994: Ralph marries Lois Chasse.
  • July 9, 1994: A driver kills Chip McCausland on Route 7 in western Maine.
  • 1994: The Tassenbaums buy John Cullum’s house in western Maine.
  • 1994: Chew Chew Mama’s becomes Dennis’s Waffles and Pancakes.
  • July 1995: Tak unleashed and possibly destroyed in Desperation, Nevada.
  • June 19, 1995: King feels the wind blowing again.
  • July 19, 1995: King is two hundred pages into
    Wizard and Glass.
  • September 2, 1995: King watches
    The Seven Samurai
    and sees in it inspiration for the next book.
  • October 19, 1995: King finishes
    Wizard and Glass.
  • Mid-1990s: Callahan travels todash to Mexico for Ben Mears’s funeral.
  • 1997: Moses Carver retires as head of Tet Corporation.
  • August 19, 1997: King gets first copies of
    Wizard and Glass.
  • Summer 1997: King knows story of
    Wolves of the Calla
    , but it seems like too much work. Starts on
    Hearts in Atlantis
    instead.
  • July 6, 1998: King works on
    Hearts in Atlantis
    and sees the
    Dark Tower
    as his überstory. He contemplates easing back or retiring when it’s finished.
  • August 1998: Ralph Roberts dies in Derry, Maine.
  • August 7, 1998: King hears about walk-ins.
  • January 2, 1999: King dreams about June 19, 1999. O Discordia.
  • June 1, 1999: Mia crosses from the Calla into New York.
  • June 12, 1999: The Kings move back to the summerhouse by the lake. Mordred kills Randall Flagg/Walter o’Dim.
  • June 17, 1999: King talks about doing
    Rose Red
    as a miniseries.
  • June 18, 1999: Eddie is killed in Blue Heaven.
  • June 19, 1999: King is killed in an auto-pedestrian accident in Maine.
  • June 19, 1999: Jake sacrifices his life to save King. Roland and Irene drive toward New York.
  • June 20, 1999: Irene and Roland stay in Harwich, Connecticut.
  • June 21, 1999: Roland goes to New York one last time.
  • Summer 1999: Bobby Garfield receives a message from Ted Brautigan.
  • September 11, 2001: Black Thirteen is crushed beneath the World Trade Center.
  • August 2002: Stephen King writes about Roland rejoining Susannah in Fedic.
APPENDIX III:
MID-WORLD GLOSSARY

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