Ed Deepneau's Road Rage Incident

Ed Deepneau's Road Rage Incident is the pivotal early event in Stephen King's Insomnia that first reveals the radical, violent transformation of a mild-mannered research chemist into a paranoid fanatic, and it marks the moment Ralph Roberts is drawn into the supernatural conflict that will define his final years. Occurring in July 1992 on the Harris Avenue Extension near the Derry County Airport, the incident involves Deepneau's reckless driving, a collision with a pickup truck, and his subsequent, unprovoked verbal and physical assault on the truck's driver, John Tandy. Ralph's intervention prevents a potential murder, but the encounter exposes Deepneau's delusional belief system—centered on the 'Crimson King' and the murder of unborn children—and introduces the mysterious figure of Dorrance Marstellar, who issues a cryptic warning about 'long-time business.'

Causes and Background

Ralph Roberts, a seventy-year-old widower whose wife Carolyn is dying of a brain tumor, has taken to long, exhausting walks through Derry's hot July afternoons to escape the sound of the 'deathwatch' ticking inside her. On one such walk, he has wandered much farther out the Harris Avenue Extension than usual, falling into a trance, and is startled back to awareness by a United Airlines flight landing at the Derry County Airport. He realizes he has walked over five miles and is now near the airport's service entrance, a place he knows well as the gathering spot for the 'Harris Avenue Old Crocks,' a group of elderly men who play chess and cards in a nearby picnic area. The thunderheads building over the airport promise a storm, but Ralph decides to walk back rather than call a cab, a choice that puts him in the path of the oncoming Datsun.

What Happens

Ralph spots Ed and Helen Deepneau's brown Datsun leaving the General Aviation terminal and racing toward the closed service gate at high speed. The car screeches to a halt just in time, and an arm emerges from the driver's window, waving frantically at the gate to hurry up. As the gate opens, Ralph hears the driver screaming a torrent of obscenities—"You son of a bitch fucker! You bastard! Eat my cock!"—a voice he initially cannot believe belongs to Ed, whom he knows as one of the kindest, most civil young men he has ever met. The Datsun then leaps through the gate and collides with a blue Ford Ranger driven by John Tandy, a heavyset man in a West Side Gardeners cap. Ed leaps from his car, his slim shoulders squared, wearing a tee-shirt and a white silk scarf with Chinese figures embroidered on it. He walks toward Tandy with a stiff-legged, high-shouldered strut, his eyes wide and unblinking, and Ralph sees "murder" in that gaze. Ed slaps Tandy across the face and accuses him of being a murderer, shouting, "How many have you killed?" and "Hey, hey, Susan Day, how many kids did you kill today?" Ralph runs to intervene, grabbing Ed's shoulders, and feels an unnerving heat beneath his tee-shirt. He manages to restrain Ed, who eventually calms down after Tandy opens a barrel of organic fertilizer to prove it does not contain dead babies. The incident ends with Ed apologizing, and the two drivers agreeing to settle the matter privately, exchanging names and phone numbers. Ralph, however, is left deeply unsettled, noting that Ed's smile does not reach his eyes and that the man seems to be studying him, assessing how much he has seen and will remember.

Consequences and Aftermath

The road rage incident is the first concrete evidence of Ed Deepneau's severe mental deterioration, a condition that will escalate over the following year into full-blown paranoid delusion. Ralph's memory of the event—particularly Ed's rant about dead babies and the scarf with its Japanese characters—becomes a crucial piece of evidence when he later tries to explain Ed's madness to Detective John Leydecker. The incident also introduces the figure of Dorrance Marstellar, the oldest of the Harris Avenue Old Crocks, who appears during the confrontation and warns Ralph, "I wouldn't touch him anymore, if I were you. I can't see your hands." This cryptic remark, which Ralph initially dismisses as the rambling of a senile old man, will later prove to be a direct reference to the supernatural 'auras' and 'balloon-strings' that Ralph himself will soon begin to see. The event also establishes a connection between Ed and the Derry County Airport—he had a key-card to the service gate—which Ralph later learns is because Ed was taking flying lessons at SoloTech, a school that would eventually enable his final, suicidal act. The road rage incident is thus the seed from which the entire supernatural and political conflict of the novel grows, marking the point at which Ralph's ordinary life begins to intersect with the 'long-time business' of the little bald doctors and the Crimson King.