Desperation by Stephen King

book of essays that might cause the critics to entirely rethink their image of him, a book of essays that might even get him back on the bestseller lists, if . . . if  . . .
    â€œIf it was bighearted,” he said. His heart was thumping hard in his chest, but for once the feel of that didn’t scare him. “Bighearted like Blue Highways. Bighearted like . . . well, like Steinbeck.”
    Sitting there in his office chair with the telephone burring harshly at his feet, what Johnny Marinville had seen was nothing less than redemption. A way out.
    He had scooped the telephone up and called his agent, his fingers flying over the buttons.
    â€œBill,” he said, “it’s Johnny. I was just sitting here, thinking about some essays I wrote when I was a kid, and I had a fantastic idea. It’s going to sound crazy at first, but hear me out . . .”

4
    As Johnny made his way up the sandy slope to the highway, trying not to pant too much, he saw that the guy standing behind his Harley and writing down the plate number was the biggest damned chunk of cop he had ever seen—six-six at least, and at least two hundred and seventy pounds on the hoof.
    â€œAfternoon, Officer,” Johnny said. He looked down at himself and saw a tiny dark spot on the crotch of his Levi’s. No matter how much you jump and dance, he thought.
    â€œSir, are you aware that parking a vehicle on a state road is against the law?” the cop asked without looking up.
    â€œNo, but I hardly think—”
    â€”it can be much of a problem on a road as deserted as U.S. 50 was how he meant to finish, and in the haughty “How dare you question my judgement?” tone that he had been using on underlings and service people for years, but then he saw something that changed his mind. There was blood on the right cuff and sleeve of the cop’s shirt, quite a lot of it, drying now to a maroon glaze. He had probably finished moving some large piece of roadkill off the highway not very long ago—likely a deer or an elk hit by a speeding semi. That would explain both the blood and the bad temper. The shirt looked like a dead loss; that much blood would never come out.
    â€œSir?” the cop asked sharply. He had finished writing down the plate number now but went on looking at the bike, his blond eyebrows drawn together, his mouth scrimped flat. It was as if he didn’t want to look at the bike’s owner, as if he knew that would only make him feel lousier than he did already. “You were saying?”
    â€œNothing, Officer,” Johnny said. He spoke in a neutral tone, not humble but not haughty, either. He didn’t want to cross this big lug when he was clearly having a bad day.
    Still without looking up, his notepad strangled in one hand and his gaze fixed severely on the Harley’s taillight, the cop said: “It’s also against the law to relieve yourself within sight of a state road. Did you know that ?”
    â€œNo, I’m sorry,” Johnny said. He felt a wild urge to laugh bubbling around in his chest and suppressed it.
    â€œWell, it is. Now, I’m going to let you go . . .” He looked up for the first time, looked at Johnny, and his eyes widened. “. . . go with a warning this time, but . . .”
    He trailed off, eyes now as wide as a kid’s when the circus parade comes thumping down the street in a swirl of clowns and trombones. Johnny knew the look, although he had never expected to see it out here in the Nevada desert, and on the face of a gigantic Scandahoovian cop who looked as if his reading tastes might run the gamut from Playboy ’s Party Jokes to Guns and Ammo magazine.
    A fan, he thought. I’m out here in the big nowhere between Ely and Austin, and I’ve found a by-God fan.
    He couldn’t wait to tell Steve Ames about this when they met up in Austin tonight. Hell, he might call