Salem's Lot

All of you want chocolate? I'll see what I can do.

Roberto! Excuse me.

Happy Thanksgiving. All the best. Happy Thanksgiving. God bless you.

Happy Thanksgiving. All the very best.

Bless you.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Get the police.

Get on the radio.

Coming through!

BP's 80/40. He's already had a liter of D5W.

Happy Thanksgiving, guys. Get the priest into C, now.

- Who's the perp? - Benjamin Mears, age 37. New York license.

- Hold him in A. - A, as in abused by a priest?

It hurt a bit?

Well, that's nothing compared to the fires you'll face on Judgment Day.

Now, let's see what we have here.

Hey, buddy. Wake up.

Yeah, that's it.

Now give me one good reason why...

...as a good Christian, I shouldn't let you die right here.

Jerusalem's Lot.

No one pronounced Jerusalem's Lot dead on the morning of February 6th.

No one knew it was.

By and large, the town, not knowing it was dead...

...would go off to their jobs with no inkling...

...of what lay ahead.

Looking at Jerusalem's Lot...

...is like peering through a pane of ice at your childhood.

It's wavy and misty, but most of it's the same.

McDougall!

Lawrence Crockett is the richest man in Salem's Lot, but the IRS will never know.

Like his neighbors, he relies on the community to keep his secrets.

The social pact is the foundation of every small town.

Macy, tell Richard Straker I'll be 10 minutes late.

Oh, a Mr. Mears stopped by.

- I told him you'd be out at the trailer park. - Mears?

Balls. The writer. You told him I was here?

I'm sorry, Larry. You have to tell me when you're hiding.

Larry?

Ben Mears. Can I interest you in a mobile home?

Great little place to raise a family.

I'll just take the keys to the house, thanks.

- Still living in New York City? - Yeah.

I was, till I sublet my place.

I saw the Marsten house from the road. It's empty, right?

No, I sold it. I'm sorry.

Finally did. Same people who bought the Laundromat.

I have an agreement to rent that. I have the paperwork in my car.

So sue me. I'm sorry.

Look, Eva Prunier runs a clean boarding house on Clift Street.

Who would buy that house?

- Two gentlemen, antique dealers. - And they're aware of its story?

- I suppose. How could they not be? - But you didn't tell them.

- I don't remember. - But you remember our agreement.

What do you want me to say, Mr. Mears? The deal is done.

Would you mind moving your car?

Go on, Mears. You wanna be a Bloody Pirate, don't you?

Come on, Mears. We've all been inside.

You a wuss or a Pirate?

The town has secrets, but sees through lies...

...even the ones you tell yourself.

What are you doing coming back to the place where you lived as a boy?

Trying to recapture something that was irrevocably lost?

What magic do you expect to recapture by walking roads you once walked?

They're now probably asphalted...

...and straightened...

...and litter-shot with tourist beer cans.

Do you even know?

The kids who ride Charlie Rhodes' school bus are the best-behaved in town.

In the entire school district, for that matter. Charlie Rhodes is a bitter vet...

...who runs his bus the same way he ran Kilo Company in Da Nang.

Living proof that time does not heal all wounds.

You got a lot to talk about?

Take it outside.

Don't romanticize the town because it's small.

Or because you fished its waters for pickerel and steelies as a boy.

This town knows darkness.

You can't find them, grind them.

Who said that?

Champ.

The town knows darkness...

...and the poor kids, like Mark Petrie...

...know more than their village peers about the darkness of the human soul.

Surprise, surprise.

Salem's Lot is an accumulation of three parts.

Ass-wipe!

The sum of which are greater than their whole.

What the hell are you two making all those signs for?

He got my hat. He won't give it back.

The town is the people, the buildings they've erected to den or do business in.

There you go. Problem solved.

And it is the land.

Screw Charlie Rhodes. I'd walk every day...

...if my mother wasn't tweaked about the "preverts."

You meet a lot of preverts, Ralphie?

More than I know. Look at Charlie...

...a normal jagoff, till you look under the visor of his bus.

- Shut up. - I know kids who've seen them.

- Seen what? - Pictures. Porn.

Charlieprevert. Com.

Dude, we gotta check this, all right?

We'll hook up tonight, see how Charlie gets his rocks off.

Hey, Petrie...

The people are Scotch, English and French.

There are others, of course...

...a smattering, like a fistful of pepper thrown in a bucket of salt.

Matt Burke teaches English at the high school...

...and is a life-long bachelor.

- Morning, Matt. - Morning.

Matt's alternative life in Portland is tolerated...

...so long as he keeps it out of the classroom.

The buildings here are nearly all constructed of honest wood.

And when I was a boy, it was largely agreed that Hubie Marsten...

...built the finest home in Jerusalem's Lot...

...before going soft in the attic.

Mr. Mears?

Mr. Mears, I'm Susan Norton.

We traded e-mails a few years back. You probably don't remember.

I went to Boston University and couldn't decide between art and English.

- Please, sit. - If I'm not bothering you.

Not at all.

- So what'd you choose? - Art.

Nothing against writing.

Everyone knows you grew up here. I found it inspiring.

- Oh, thank you. - I lived in New York for a year after school.

But I couldn't paint the rent. So I'm home reevaluating.

New York's for artists with generous parents.

And the Lot is for hobbyists who paint lighthouses and lobster boats.

I wish you'd been more persistent with your e-mails, Susan.

Because I'm interesting or blonde?

Because you're an interesting blonde.

- What brings you back? - Work.

A new book. Boring People in the Perfect Town?

It surrounds the Marsten house, but I'm not telling anyone.

A haunted house. Not your genre.

Complex characters can elevate genre.

Hubie Marsten, a respected pillar of the community until the moment...

...he blew his wife away and hung himself from a rafter.

Small-town Shakespeare.

You are the one who found them.

Yes.

- I tried to rent the place. - You actually wanted to live there?

Yeah, it's my...

...attraction-repulsion compulsion.

Kinky things went on in that place in Hubie's day.

I heard.

- You met the owners? - Two guys. I hope they're gay.

It might alleviate some of the gossip off me.

Can I get you something?

Hello. I'm Susan's mother.

It's good to meet both of you.

Susan Norton, Norton's Cafe.

I'm slinging latte here till I can move back to New York.

I think that building you mentioned might be a metaphor for something bigger in your life.

Does it always have to be something bigger?

Like a theme?

There would be if it were my book.

The land is granite-bodied.

Farming it is a thankless, miserable business.

You sure you wanna live out here, Dud? It's getting cold.

I got a stove in the shack, Mike. I'm all right.

We need the leaves and tree cutting for fill.

- Don't burn them. - I won't burn them, Mike.

- What you got there? - He must have got thirsty.

- Hey, put that down. - It's for my girlfriend.

You got a girlfriend now? Who?

Let's go, gimp!

- Who? - I can't say!

Okay, Floyd!

You better toss it away anyway. She'll think you're a freak!

The Rogers family ran a dairy here for generations till Dud was born.

It was sold to the town, which built the hospital Dud needs...

...but can't visit without insurance.

- Royce, could you excuse us, please? - Why?

This is what Sandy McDougall gave up high school for.

Your son has a significant contusion.

I wanna talk to Sandy about it...

...alone.

A winter malaise is epidemic in small towns.

Dr. James Cody fights it with fine dining and new clothes.

Others self-medicate with alcohol and television.

Little Roy hasn't had breakfast.

What happened, Sandy?

I turned my back for a second, and he fell off the changing table.

It's the truth.

Sandy, how long have you been married, now?

Six months.

Still live in Crockett's trailer park?

Not having money doesn't make us bad parents.

No, of course not.

Sandy, I'm required by law to report this type of injury.

- It's not what you think, Jimmy. - It's not?

Sandy, was it Royce?

Look, this marriage isn't all I thought, but little Roy's okay.

We had some fun times didn't we?

Dancing? New Year's at Dell's?

Please, don't report it. Give us a chance.

Bring the baby back tomorrow.

You're a good man, Jimmy.

And a good doctor.