Stephen King doesn’t come right out and state either in the novel
or elsewhere that his book, Roadwork, addresses the theme of failure or human
ineptitude in dealing with trivial faux pas before it gets blown out of
proportion. He shoves it right through the transom and drops the responsibility
of peeling back the loaded symbolism into the bosom of that unsuspecting culprit,
Reader’s Discretion—without actually
detracting from the true essence of story. Bart Dawes' son, Charlie dies from
brain cancer and to deal with the emotional strain Dawes invents a split
personality who he calls Fred. As Dawes tells an employee, “In those days there was no slick abortion law. When you got a girl
pregnant, you married her or you ran out on her. End of options.” So it
happened Bart married his girlfriend because somebody slammed the doors downstairs
when they were getting it on and startled him into an orgasm.
Bart said about ending up at the industrial laundry where he
worked after he got his then girlfriend pregnant; “I married her and took the first job I could get, which was here.” The father-son management (at the laundry)
gave him two grand which was a huge sum back then and told him to go get a
college degree, which he did. “Mary (Mary
is Bart’s wife) lost the baby in the
seventh month and the doctor said she’d never have another one.” Bart never
really expressed regrets towards marrying his wife. As Bart notes elsewhere concerning
an unrelated issue, “I wouldn’t be
sticking out my neck if I thought someone was going to cut it off.”
As it’s said in Nigeria; one
thing led to another. Like a dragged out chain reaction, events suggested
themselves to Bart Dawes step by tragic step. First, Bart inherits the laundry as
an underdog manager; his laundry shop had been incorporated into a bigger parent
company. Second, his house was in the line of a government road construction
project and he was compelled to move out. Third, the industrial laundry which
he owed his life and career was about to face the wrecking ball as well. His wife
had become a walking dead since they lost Charlie, their son to brain cancer.
Charlie was
buried in his backyard and Bart couldn’t quite bring himself to go dig him back
up and bury him over again. The grief would be too much of a weight to carry on
his pair of shoulders.
Bart took up the job at the industrial laundry because of an
accidental pregnancy, though he lost the child, eventually. He stayed on and
worked at the laundry, which afforded him the house about to face the wrecking ball
on account of the juvenile mistake. If his house goes down add the laundry to the equation and
Dawes eventually relocates, it would seem as if somebody wiped out his entire life
(something that has taken him twenty some odd years to build) and handed him a
clean slate. Only, it wouldn’t be to a young Dawes with the world in his
sights. It would be instead to a graying, despairing guy married to an old hag (one who is daily
tortured by memories of the son she lost) with only the casket of a dead son to
show for all his effort. The crushing déjà vu of his initial failure (something Stephen King calls fuckaroo) would have been too debilitating
to close the eyes to like somebody putting the ballpoint of a BIC pen to your eye.
Dawes inevitably, loses his job after botching moves to purchase a new facility
and then his wife Mary dumps him when she learns that contrary to Bart’s assertion,
he'd done nothing in the area of getting them relocated. There it was finally out in the open and just what Dawes had been gaining at from the start without actually knowing it himself. His wife,
gone, the job their youthful indulgence shoved down his throat blown out the
backdoor. His only take-away prize lay in his backyard concealed
within a marked grave to guarantee he stays put-the remains of his dead son, Charlie.
To Bart Dawes, it was a perfect alibi
for an explosive suicide.
Keep
your pen bleeding.
Akpan
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