A Writer’s Justice

In June of 1999, prolific author Stephen King was out for his daily four mile walk when he was struck by a drunk driver. The horrific impact flung King fourteen feet through the air and deposited King’s bloody glasses in the front passenger seat of the drunk guy’s vehicle. King spent three weeks in the hospital with a gashed head, punctured lungs, and breaks or fractures in his ribs, pelvis, hip, and thigh. He endured multiple operations then attended physical therapy that lasted longer than the hospitalization. Considering the circumstances, King is lucky to be alive.

The driver pleaded to a lesser charge allowing him to walk away with a figurative slap on the wrist, despite a lengthy rap sheet of eleven prior convictions for driving under the influence. No jail time. A suspended, but not revoked driver’s license.

Most of us would be furious if we were in King’s position. Hit and nearly killed by a habitual drunk who should not have been driving, unable to work and do the thing you love for several weeks, only to watch the cause of your pain and agony let off easy. King was mad, but most of his ire was reserved for the prosecutors who allowed this miscarriage of justice to happen. As for the man who almost took his life, King was mostly cordial. In a Dateline interview five months after the accident, King said “There isn't really anything that he's got that I want except his license.” A year later the driver passed away from a painkiller overdose. Even then, King’s kindness continued. King called his death untimely and said “Our lives came together in a strange way. I'm grateful I didn't die. I'm sorry he's gone.”

Stephen King is a master of the English language. On this earthly realm, he is possibly more gracious and considerate than I would be if such a tragedy had happened to me. The fictional world is a different story; there King is absolutely savage.

image courtesy of Get Literary

King began writing the Dark Tower series early in his career. The first book was published in 1982 and the most recent release came out in 2012. Not only did King create a continuous story spanning multiple books, he also weaved in characters and settings from several of his other works, forming a shared universe connecting all of King’s fictional bibliography. In the final chronological book in the Dark Tower series, King added a new character, a hapless servant of the Crimson King – the main antagonist through all of the books. King named him Bryan after the man who pulverized him five years earlier. The fictional version of the real life Bryan was more reckless and portrayed to be dimwitted. The character Bryan is distracted by a dog while driving and kills one of the story’s protagonists, just like the real Bryan was distracted by a dog when he ran into Stephen King.

However, The Dark Tower isn’t the only fictional depiction of Bryan Smith. In 2004, Steven King created a TV series called Kingdom Hospital. The main character of the story is hit by a van driven by a person distracted by their dog. However, King made this character mirror the real life inspiration even more. The driver is seen later in the series taking pills from an unmarked bottle, referencing the real Bryan’s overdose death.

This is justice for a writer. There is a general rule with writers: don’t make them mad. If you get on their wrong side, they will turn you into a villain in their next book, or give a character based on you a gruesome death.

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This is the way our brain works. Instead of allowing our grievances to become a memory between the two of us, the harm you caused becomes immortalized on paper to be published, republished, and read by our fans. Instead of your wrongs fading into obscurity, it becomes entertainment for millions. It might be vindictive, yet it is also poetic. For many writers, this literary form of revenge is cathartic. It allows us to process our grief and anger without lashing out. When justice isn’t carried out in court, our words might be the only justice served.

There’s another kind of justice, a reverse vendetta. I don’t know if there’s an actual term for it so I’ll just call it redneck justice. In redneck justice, the wrongdoer seeks vengeance against bystanders when caught committing heinous acts. They harass the person or people who reported their crime in hopes to intimidate them. Redneck justice is used get away with their misdeeds by bullying those who impede their ways, silence their accusers, and continue their nefarious life free from the penalty of consequence or accountability. Redneck justice is a violent avoidance of true justice.

Recent events reminded me of this story from the life of Stephen King. I pondered writers’ habits of basing villainous characters on their real-world abusers and make readers vicariously experience the pain we endured so they might root for our heroes and heroines. As I find myself on the brunt end of redneck justice, I feel more empowered than ever because I’m a writer. The timing of unfortunate happenings is convenient as I am working on my first fantasy novel and my book needed a second villain. While the details of the perpetrator of redneck justice will (for now) remain private, my book now has a secondary antagonist. Even if the courts fail, I will have my writer’s justice.