I finished reading the first story in Stephen King’s newest collection, You Like It Darker. The story is about “Two Talented Bastids,” as the title so eloquently describes.
These two bastid besties grow up in a small town in Maine. Around midlife, seemingly out of nowhere, their latent talents bloom, and they suddenly become wildly successful, each in their own right. One as a writer, and the other as an artist. Through the years, this rags-to-riches story catches the eyes of reporters who basically want to know: What’s the secret? Neither bastid answers this question and, eventually, both of them die. The writer’s son, our story narrator, discovers the secret to his daddy’s success after his father passes away. Long story summed up so I don’t spoil too much: The bastids got some outside help.
Warning: Spoilers Ahead
Mild spoilers follow because, to explain why I had such a visceral reaction to this story, I need to include some details. So if you can, go read it and come back to me.
I’ll wait.
…
…
…
Okay. Time’s up.
The gift of magic you already have
Vague story summation: Some events happen in the story and the two bastids, in thanks for a kindness, receive a gift from a grateful stranger. The pair ask what this helpful gift does.
They are told:
“There is no word for what it does except primal. A way to use what you are not using because of…” He bent forward, brow furrowed, then looked up. “Because of the noise in your lives. Because of your thoughts. Thoughts are pointless. Worse, dangerous.”
I was bemused. “Does it grant wishes? Like in a fairy tale?”
He laughed, then looked surprised…as if he hadn’t known he could laugh. “Nothing can give you what isn’t already there. This is axiomatic.”
“Two Talented Bastids” by Stephen King
In other words, the gift-giver says that the two talented bastids have had the magic inside of them all along. They have talent.
Creative success! Ding ding ding!
At the end of the day, the two bastids are blessed with the filter all creative beings want. The ability to focus and bring their creative visions to life. They move forward in life and have amazing creative careers. As a middle-aged human who is also pursuing a creative career, I am happy for them. King certainly understands the wish fulfillment all us creatives are looking for. The two bastids have talent, are given an opportunity, and they seize it. Awesome.
But King adds a different angle.
The narrator’s perspective
The story is narrated by the writer bastid’s son, who is now middle-aged, just like his father all those years ago. After learning his father’s secret, he finds the gift his bastid dad and his dad’s bastid friend received all those years ago. The narrator only has one dream, really: to play one particular song in a nightclub really, really well. He tries to use the gift his dad was given, and… nothing happens.
I remembered the young man saying nothing can give you what isn’t already there.
“It’s all right,” I said and laughed a little.
It wasn’t all right. It stung, but I understood the sting would go away. I’d go back to my life and the sting would go away. I had my famous father’s affairs to tie up, that would keep me busy, and I’d have plenty of money. Maybe I’d go to Aruba. It’s all right to want what you can’t have. You learn to live with it.
“Two Talented Bastids” by Stephen King
Having no talent is, um, bullshit
The story ends with our poor narrator believing he is not blessed with talent. “Nothing can give you what isn’t already there.”
And here is where the story sent me totally off the rails. That you MUST have talent to be successful at something. This idea is so far outside of my internal matrix that I both teared up and wanted to throw the book across the room.
The idea of accepting talent as the be-all and end-all, as something you either have or you don’t, is galling to me. Everyone has talent for something, but it’s our efforts, our ability to do the work, that truly separate the wheat from the chaff.
Sure, I understand that the world can beat you down. I understand you can do everything right and never once be recognized for your work. If I may paraphrase Viriginia Woolf: The creative world is strewn with the wreckage of those the world refused to acknowledge.
Emily Dickinson, Vincent Van Gogh, and Edgar Allan Poe all died as “failures.” You’ll note, however, that though the world called them talentless, rejected them, and left them to die unrecognized, they still did the work. All of them were incredibly prolific. You can wallpaper houses with Dickinson’s number of poems. Original Van Goghs are still being found. Edgar Allan Poe’s collected works can be used for barbells they’re so heavy. They worked and strove and learned and changed the creative landscape.
I get that the world may not recognize genius when it’s right in front of them. But to say that those talents were just naturally talented is BS. They worked.
Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard
(Yes, I know it’s “meme wisdom” but I truly believe it.)
I just cannot accept the narrator’s “It stung” as an acceptable reaction to essentially being told, “You have no talent.”
It is one thing for the narrator in this story to say that day dreams are “the ordinary fantasies of those who would give anything to be chosen and are not.” I believe we all have a longing to be chosen. Totally get that, believe me. There are days when I look at the words I just typed and go “Who the hell will want to read this?” I know this longing can be thwarted.
It is entirely another thing to choose not to do something because you’ve been told you have no talent. You cannot control whether other people choose you; they will or they won’t. But you always have a chance to choose whether you will pursue the daydream or not.
For example, our narrator, whom I kind of want to punch in the face, can choose to hold on to the piano daydream and learn this song he so badly (theoretically) wants to play “…just once.” Literally nothing is in his way. He has money. His daddy was a millionaire. He can buy a piano. He can pay a piano teacher. He doesn’t have to work; he has time to practice.
The only difference I see between the narrator and the “two talented bastids” is that upon receiving the gift, both bastids started working. Daddy, the writer bastid, pulled out a notebook and started a story. Dad’s friend, the artist bastid, whipped out a sketchbook and started drawing.
But narrator bastid doesn’t touch a keyboard, shrugs the sting away, and goes to Aruba.
I hope he enjoys sitting in the Aruban sand and wondering why he feels empty inside. I hope he remembers sunscreen. I hope the water laps his little toes and he feels relaxed. And I hope, when he goes to the cabana after his long day of tanning and doing nothing, that he enjoys the music played by the band in the corner.
Because all of those band members got up at the crack of dawn to get in two hours of practice before they went to their nine-to-fives, so they would be ready for tonight’s performance. And maybe that band will never cut an album or have a world tour, but the applause they earn tonight is real.
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