Countdown: The Top 20 Stephen King Works of American Gothic Short Fiction--#9

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#9."The Revelations of 'Becka Paulson"

Note: While best known as a chapter within the King novel The Tommyknockers, this piece was also published as an ostensible short story in a July 1984 issue of Rolling Stone, in an October 1985 special hardcover edition of Skeleton Crew, and in the 1991 anthology I Shudder at Your Touch.


King revels in the low-brow and grotesque in this satiric shocker.  Overweight housewife 'Becka Paulson (a woman who believes that "half a coffee cake and a beer stein filled with cherry Za-Rex" constitutes a "little snack") begins to receive telepathic communications from the framed picture of Jesus set upon her television.  The picture (a wedding present from 'Becka's sister) shows the member of the Holy Trinity "in lifelike 3-D," with His hair combed "a little bit like Elvis after Elvis got out of the Army."  Undoubtedly self-aware of the absurdity of his story premise, King squeezes some (borderline blasphemous) comedy out of it:

Below Him, on the screen, a couple of animated salad bowls were dancing in appreciation of the Hidden Valley ranch dressing they were about to receive.  "And I'd like you to please turn that crap off, if you don't mind.  We can't talk with that thing running.  Also, it makes My feet tingle." 

The actual content of Jesus and 'Becka's talks, though,  pushes this story squarely into American Gothic territory.  As Jesus reveals the secrets of Haven's various residents, the dark side of everyday life in Anytown U.S.A. is brought into sharp focus.  For instance, Moss Harlingen--a poker buddy of 'Becka's husband Joe--killed his own father on a hunting trip, a murder made to look like an accident.  Moss believed he was committing this crime in order to inherit his father's wealth, but his real, underlying motive was vengeance for the sexual abuse his father heaped upon him as a child ("incidents of buggery" that Moss has since repressed).  There are other sordid examples in the story to choose from, but perhaps the most interesting aspect here is 'Becka's reactions to Jesus's revelations.  She's sickened by, yet ravenous for, the dirt dished out to her, finding such gossip terribly compelling: "She couldn't live with such an awful outpouring.  She couldn't live without it, either."

In the course of her conversations with Christ, 'Becka learns that her husband has been having an affair with a co-worker down at the post office.  Rather than encouraging her to turn the other cheek, Jesus helps 'Becka get revenge by instructing her how to booby-trap her television so that it electrocutes Joe when he turns it on.  Here the hints of apocalypse in the story's title take on new meaning.  'Becka is too slow to realize that she hasn't been communicating with her Lord and Savior--she's been manipulated by the alien Tommyknockers.  At the last instant she tries to rescue Joe, but only ends up electrocuting herself as well.  Joe's eyes "burst like grapes in the microwave"; 'Becka is driven by the voltage "up onto her toes like the world's heftiest ballerina en pointe."  As the couple drop dead while their home goes up in flames, King's darkly humorous story draws to a horrific conclusion.

Lesser hands might have reduced this story to the literary equivalent of an episode of 1000 Ways to Die, but King, with his knack for colorful characterization and the dramatization of small-town intrigue, has produced a memorable piece of American Gothic fiction.