Misery

him as she had before, possibly because she couldn’t get at the dirty birdie of a scriptwriter who had cheated Rocket Man out of the Hudson before it went over the cliff, he did not move at all — he could see the seeds of her current instability in the window of past she had just opened for him, but he was also awed by it — the injustice she felt was, in spite of its childishness, completely, inarguably real.
She didn’t hit him; she seized the front of the robe he was wearing and dragged him forward until their faces were nearly touching.
“DO YOU?”
“Yes, Annie, yes.” She stared at him, that furious black gaze, and must have seen the truth in his face, because after a moment she slung him contemptuously back in the chair.
He grimaced against the thick, grinding pain, and after a while it began to subside.
“Then you know what is wrong,” she said.
“I suppose I do.” Although I’ll be goddamned if I know how I’m going to fix it.
And that other voice returned at once: I don’t know if you’ll be damned by God or saved by him, Paulie, but one thing I do know: if you don’t find a way to bring Misery back to life a way she can believe — she’s going to kill you.
“Then do it,” she said curtly, and left the room.

Paul looked at the typewriter. The typewriter was there. N’s! He had never realized how many n’s there were in an average line of type.
I thought you were supposed to be good, the typewriter said — his mind had invested it with a sneering and yet callow voice- the voice of a teen-age gunslinger in a Hollywood western, a kid intent on making a fast reputation here in Deadwood. You’re not so good. Hell, you can’t even please one crazy overweight ex-nurse. Maybe you broke your writing bone in that crash, too… only that bone isn’t healing.
He leaned back as far as the wheelchair would allow and closed his eyes. Her rejection of what he had written would be easier to bear if he could blame it on the pain, but the truth was that the pain had finally begun to subside a little.
The stolen pills were safely tucked away between the mattress and the box spring. He had taken none of them — knowing he had them put aside, a form of Annie-insurance, was enough. She would find them if she took it into her head to turn the mattress, he supposed, but that was a chance he was prepared to take.
There had been no trouble between them since the blowup over the typewriter paper. His medication came regularly, and he took it. He wondered if she knew he was hooked on the stuff.
Hey, come on now, Paul, that’s a bit of a dramatization, isn’t it?
No, it wasn’t. Three nights ago, when he was sure she was upstairs, he had sneaked one of the sample boxes out and had read everything on the label, although he supposed he had read everything he needed when he saw what Novril’s principal ingredient was. Maybe you spelled relief R-0-L-A-I-D-S, but you spelled Novril C-O-D-E-I-N-E.
The fact is, you’re healing up, Paul. Below the knees your legs look like a four-year-old’s stick-drawing, but yau are healing up. You could get by on aspirin or Empirin now. It’s not you that needs the Novril; you’re feeding it to the monkey.
He would have to cut down, have to duck some of the caps. Until he could do that, she would have him on a chain as well as in a wheelchair — a chain of Novril capsules.
Okay. I’ll duck one of the two capsules she gives me every other time she brings them. I’ll put it under my tongue when I swallow the other one, then stick it under my mattress with the other pills when she takes the drinking glass out. Only not today. I don’t feel ready to start today. I’ll start tomorrow.
Now in his mind he heard the voice of the Red Queen lecturing Alice: Down here we got our act clean yesterday, and we plan to start getting our act clean tomorrow, but we never clean up our act today.
Ho-ho, Paulie, you’re a real riot, the typewriter said in the tough gunsel’s voice he had made up for it.
“Us dirty birdies are never all that funny, but we never stop trying — you have to give us that,” he muttered.
Well, you better start thinking about all the dope you are taking, Paul. You better start thinking about it very seriously.
He decided suddenly, on the spur of the moment, that he would start dodging some of the medication as soon as he got a first chapter that Annie liked on paper — a chapter which Annie decided wasn’t a cheat.
Part of him — the part that listened to even the best, fairest editorial suggestions with ill-grace — protested that the woman was crazy, that there was no way to tell what she might or might not accept; that anything he tried would be only a crapshoot.
But another part — a far