Ship Manifesto
Pairing: Chris/Gordie
Fandom: Stand By Me
Author: Leah1878
Warnings: Some swearing (the movie is rated R)
Spoilers: The whole movie and the book The Body by Stephen King
“Chris and Gordie belong to a bunch of people who allowed them to do their thing so blatantly that even a then 12-year old me picked up on it” {Sofie 'Melle' Werkers}
You don’t have to venture very far out of the canon for this pairing because it’s all right there. This is the first slash pairing I ever read and the only thing that surprised me was that there weren’t more stories about them. It’s very cliché, the two best friends who are always there for each other no matter what, but it’s so sweet and perfect that you don’t care.
There are so many slash moments in the book (and the movie), and to really appreciate them, we have to understand the characters first.
Chris Chambers~
Chris (played by River Phoenix in the movie) is sort of the unofficial leader of their gang. He’s very laid back and always the peacekeeper, breaking up fights between Teddy and Vern and not letting anyone walk off angry. Even though he seems very tough and sort of the strong one compared to everyone else in the group, he’s someone who feels things deeply, and thinks about them long after they happen.
Like during the scene in the junkyard (in both the book and the movie), when Chris tells Gordie that he still has dreams about the time he saved Teddy when he fell out of a tree:
“I dream about that every now and then,” Chris said, looking at me with strangely defenseless eyes. “Except in the dream I have, I always miss him. I just get a couple of his hairs and down he goes. Weird, huh?”
“Weird,” I agreed, and just for one moment we looked into each other’s eyes and saw some of the true things that made us friends. Then we looked away again and watched Teddy and Vern throwing water at each other, screaming and laughing and calling each other pussies.
“Yeah, but you didn’t miss him.” I said. “Chris Chambers never misses does he?”
“Not even when the ladies leave the seat down,” he said. He winked at me, formed an O with his thumb and forefinger, and spit through it.
“Eat me raw, Chambers,” I said.
“Through a Flavored Straw,” he said, and we grinned at each other.
{Page 338}
Chris has a lot of problems, though, most of which center around his family.
Chris’s Family~
“Chris Chambers was the leader of our gang, and my best friend. He came from a bad family, and everyone just knew he'd turn out bad. Including Chris.” {From the movie}
A lot of what we come to learn about Chris has to do with his family, and, more specifically, his father. In the very beginning of the movie, one of the first things he says is that his dad will probably hit him for going off to find Ray Brower’s body.
This seems to be a normal occurrence, and in the book Gordie talks more about Chris’s dad:
“Chris’s dad was always on a “mean streak,” more or less; he was a drunk who got welfare off and on- mostly on- and spent most of his time hanging out in Sukey’s Tavern with Junior Merrill, Ace Merrill’s old man, and a couple of other local rumpots.” {Page 306}
Although it’s not really shown in the movie, Chris’s father’s drinking does have an effect on him, other then just contributing to his resolve to get out of Castle Rock and not end up like his dad and his brother, Eyeball.
He was the only guy in our gang who would never take a drink, even to show he had, you know, big balls. He said he wasn’t going to grow up to be a fucking tosspot like his old man. And he told me privately- this was after the DeSpain twins showed up with a six-pack they’d hawked from their old man and everybody teased Chris because he wouldn’t take a drink or even a swallow- that he was scared to drink. He said his father never got his nose all the way out of the bottle anymore, and that Eyeball was always guzzling Purple Jesuses with Ace Merrill and Charlie Hogan. What, he asked me, did I think his chances were of letting go of the bottle would be once he picked it up? Maybe you think that’s funny, a twelve-year-old worrying that he might be an incipient alcoholic, but it wasn’t funny to Chris. Not at all. He’d thought about the possibility a lot. He’d had occasion to.
{Page 329}
Chris didn’t talk much about his dad, but we all knew he hated him like poison. Chris was marked up every two weeks or so, bruises on his cheeks and neck or one eye swelled up and as colorful as a sunset, and once he came to school with a big clumsy bandage on the on the back of his head.
{Page 306}
Chris’s whole reputation is based on what the town knows about his family, and it’s pretty clear that everyone only sees him that way. Everyone except Gordie, that is. He knows Chris pretty well (he says that they’ve been best friends for years) and sticks by him even when no one else does, constantly defending him to his father.
Gordie’s father: Why can't you have friends like Denny's?
Gordie: Dad, they're okay.
Gordie’s Father: Sure they are. A thief and two feebs?
Gordie: Chris isn't a thief.
Gordie’s Father: He stole the milk money at school. He's a thief in my book.
{From the movie}
“It made me mad, because I didn’t think he was being fair. He was judging Vern the way he judged all my friends, from having seen them off and on, mostly going in and out of the house. He was wrong about them. And when he called Chris a thief I always saw red, because he didn’t know *anything* about Chris.”
{Page 309}
Chris also has an older brother, Eyeball, who, along with Ace Merrel, Charlie Hogan, and Billy Tessio (Vern’s brother), seem to spend a lot of their time torturing them.
In one of the first scenes in the movie, Ace and Eyeball take Gordie’s hat (the hat his brother who recently died gave to him) and basically make fun of them until Ace gets bored and they leave.
But sad as those scenes are, they’re also very sweet, because Gordie and Chris constantly stick up for each other, and after Ace walks away with Gordie’s hat, Chris, who obviously can’t stand to see him upset, kind of teases and distracts him until he forgets to be sad.
Eyeball: (As Gordie and Chris are talking, Ace and Eyeball come out of Irby's Billiard hall and confront them) Hey, girls. Where you goin'? (Ace snatches Gordie's Yankee cap)
Gordie: Hey, come on man! My brother gave me that!
Ace: And now you're givin' it to me.
Gordie: (Trying to retrieve his cap) Give it to me! Com' ... come on man, that's mine!
Chris: (To Ace) You're a real asshole, you know that?
Ace: (Ace flips his cigarette away and hands the cap to Eyeball)
Ooh. Your brother's not very polite, Eyeball.
Eyeball: Now Christopher, I know you didn't mean to insult my friend.
Ace: I know he didn't mean to insult me. That's why I'm gonna give him the opportunity of taking it back. (Ace grabs Chris and takes him to the sidewalk, straddling him face down)
Chris: Oh, shit!
Ace: Take it back!
Chris: Oh! (As Ace sits on him)
Gordie: Come on, man! Stop it! You're hurting him!
Chris: Bastard! Let go, man! Shit!
Gordie: Stop it, man!
Ace: Take it back!
Gordie: Cut it out! Cut it out!
Ace: Take it back! (Ace picks up his cigarette from the sidewalk beside Chris and menaces him with it, bringing it closer and closer to his face)
Chris: Okay, okay! I take it back! I take it back!
Ace: (Ace flips the cigarette away and lets Chris up)
There. Now I feel a whole lot better about this. How about you?
(No response from Chris and Gordie) Good.
Eyeball: (Ace and Eyeball leave Chris and Gordie behind, and Gordie has lost his Yankee cap) See you later, girls.
Chris: (Gordie watches hatefully as Ace and Eyeball walk away. Eyeball is wearing his Yankee cap. Chris tries to comfort Gordie)
Come on, just forget 'em.
(As they walk away, Chris glances at him, then twists his leg behind him so he’s kicking Gordie in the butt. Gordie looks over at him, almost smiling, and kicks him back)
{From the movie}
Gordie~
“That summer at home I had become the invisible boy.”
{From the movie}
Gordie is this quiet sensitive writer, whose older brother Denny (the only person in his family who really paid any attention to him) has recently died. And as bad as Chris’s parents are, Gordie’s are almost worst, I think, because they really don’t seem to care one way or the other about him.
This business about being ignored; I could never really pin it down until I did a book report in high school on this novel called ‘The Invisible Man’. When I agreed to do the book for Miss Hardy I thought it was going to be the science fiction story about the guy in bandages and Foster Grants- Claude Rains played him in the movies. When I found out this was a different story, I tried to give the book back but Miss Hardy wouldn’t let me off the hook. I ended up being really glad. This ‘Invisible Man’ is about this guy who nobody ever notices at all unless he fucks up. People look right through him. When he talks, nobody answers. He’s like a black ghost. Once I got into it, I ate that book up like it was a John D. MacDonald, because that cat Ralph Ellison was writing about *me*. At the dinner table it was Denny how many did you strike out and Denny who asked you to the Sadie Hawkins dance and Denny I want to talk to you man to man about that car we were looking at. I’d say, “Pass the butter,” and Dad would say: Denny, are you sure the Army is what you want? I’d say, “Pass the butter, someone, okay?” and Mom would ask Denny if he wanted her to pick him up one of the Pendleton shirts on sale downtown, and I’d end up getting the butter myself.
{Page 310}
Something unique, though, about Gordie are his stories. His parents, of course, don’t realize that he has any talent for that sort of thing until one of them gets published when he’s in college, but his friends (Chris especially~ more examples of that later) are constantly there supporting and encouraging him.
Richie {Gordie’s friend} sat right there on the end of my bed for most of the afternoon reading his way through the stuff I had been doing, most of it influenced by the same sort of comic books as the ones that gave Vern nightmares. And when he was done, Richie looked at me in a strange new way that made me feel very peculiar, as if he had been forced to re-appraise my whole personality. He said: You’re pretty good at this. Why don’t you show these to Chris? I said no, I wanted it to be a secret, and Richie said: Why? It ain’t pussy. I mean, it ain’t *poetry*.
Still, I made him promise not to tell anybody about my stories and of course he did and it turned out that most of them liked to read the stuff I wrote.
{Page 364}
And I’d just like to point out the significance of the fact that Richie says Chris’s name rather then Teddy or Vern as the person who Gordie should show his stories to. Even he seems to see the closeness between them, not just that they’re best friends, but that Gordie obviously trusts him and Richie seems to know that Chris won’t tease Gordie about something he’s clearly sensitive about.
Gordie’s friends seem to be the only people who pay any attention to him, and Chris especially is the one to notice whenever Gordie’s mood changes.
Chris: (As they walk down the street together) Wanna see something?
Gordie: (Acting distant.) Sure, what?
Chris: (Sensing Gordie's mood.) Are you okay?
Gordie: (Trying to snap out of it) Yeah, I'm fine.
Chris: Come on, man! (They run around the corner and into the alley behind the Blue Point Diner)
{From the movie}
Their Relationship~
Gordie seems to be the one person who sees Chris for who he is instead of Eyeball’s brother or just one of the Chambers. He understands him and is there for him when no one else is, just like Chris is for him.
{After the scene in the junkyard where Milo Pressman is making fun of Teddy’s dad}
At last, when the force of Teddy’s crying had trailed off a little, it was Chris who went to him. He was the toughest guy in our gang (maybe even tougher than Jamie Gallant, I thought privately), but he was also the guy who made the best peace. He had a way about it. I’d seen him sit down on the curb next to a little kid with a scraped knee, a kid he didn’t even fucking *know*, and get him talking about something- Shrine Circus that was coming to town or Huckleberry Hound on TV- until the kid forgot he was supposed to be hurt. Chris was good at it. He was tough enough to be good at it.
{Page 351}
They also know each other well enough that their “arguments” (if you can even call them that) aren’t very long. They seem able to get over things and go back to being friends pretty quickly.
After the gun accidentally goes off:
Gordie: (Angrily) You knew it was loaded, you wet end! I'm gonna be in trouble now, that Tupper babe saw me!
Chris: Shit, Gordie. She thought it was firecrackers.
Gordie: I don't care! That was a mean trick, Chris!
Chris: (Chris takes Gordie by the arm and stops him. Chris is serious now) Hey, Gordie. I didn't know it was loaded. Honest.
Gordie: You swear?
Chris: Yeah, I swear.
{From the movie}
Chris knows Gordie well enough to know when he is really upset about something, and he immediately stops teasing. Gordie believes him and then they move on, because, no matter what, Chris is his best friend.
The Stolen Milk Money~
A center point in both the movie and the book is the issue with the stolen milk money.
The year before, Chris had been suspended from school for three days. A bunch of milk money disappeared when it was Chris’s turn to be room-monitor and collect it, and because he was a Chambers from those no-account Chamberses, he had to take a hike even though he always swore he never hawked that money. That was the time Mr. Chambers put Chris in the hospital for an overnight stay; when his dad heard Chris was suspended, he broke Chris’s nose and his right wrist. Chris came from a bad family, all right, and everybody thought he would turn out bad… including Chris.
{Page 307}
(Chris gets up and walks a few paces, taking a seat against a nearby tree. Gordie gets up and joins him)
Gordie: Maybe you could go into the college courses with me.
Chris: That'll be the day.
Gordie: Why not? You're smart enough.
Chris: They won't let me.
Gordie: What do you mean?
Chris: It's the way people think of my family in this town. It's the way they think of me. I’m just one of those low-life Chambers kids.
Gordie: That's not true.
Chris: Oh, it is. No one even asked me if I took the milk money that time. I just got a three-day vacation.
Gordie: Did you take it?
Chris: Yeah, I took it. You knew I took it. Teddy knew I took it. Everyone knew I took it. Even Vern knew it, I think.
(Pause)
But maybe I was sorry, and I tried to give it back.
Gordie: You tried to give it back?
Chris: Maybe, just maybe—and maybe I took it to old lady Simons and told her, and all the money was there. But I still got a three-day vacation because it never showed up. And maybe the next week old lady Simons had a brand new skirt on when she came to school.
Gordie: Yeah, yeah! It was brown, and had dots on it!
Chris: Yeah, so let's just say that I stole the milk money, but old lady Simons stole it back from me. Just suppose that I told this story. Me, Chris Chambers, kid brother to Eyeball Chambers. Do you think that anybody would have believed it?
Gordie: No.
Chris: And do you think that that bitch would have dared to try something like that if it would have been one of those douche bags from up on The View if they had taken the money?
Gordie: No way!
Chris: Hell no! But with me?! (Pauses and looks down) I'm sure she had her eye on that skirt for a long time. Anyway, she saw her chance and she took it. I was the stupid one for even trying to give it back.
(Chris starts crying)
I just never thought—I never thought that a teacher... Oh, who gives a fuck anyway?! (He pauses, still crying) I just wish that I could go someplace where nobody knows me.
(Chris looks up at Gordie)
I guess I'm just a pussy, huh?
Gordie:(Whispering and stroking his arm) No way, man. No way.
Chris/Gordie Moments ~
Chris: Hey, I'll race ya.
Gordie: Nah, I don't think so.
Chris: Aw—right to the pump, man. Come on.
Gordie: Ahh, I'm kind of tired ... GO!!
Chris: Oh! You're a dead man, Lachance!
(Gordie has a head start, but Chris gives chase, quickly catching up and calling the race as he runs)
It looks like Lachance has got him this time. He's got Chambers beat! But, what's this? Chambers is making his move! Lachance is fading on it! Chambers at the tape! The crowd goes wild! Chhhhhhh! (Chris imitates the sound of a roaring crowd. He and Gordie grin at each other, and Chris wraps his arm around Gordie’s neck, pulling him over to the water pump)
{From the movie}
And for comparison sake, here’s the same scene from the book:
“Race you,” Chris said.
“In this heat? You’re off your gourd.”
“Come on,” he said, still grinning. “On my go.”
“Okay.”
“Go!”
We raced, our sneakers digging up the hard, sunbaked dirt, our torsos leaning out ahead of our flying bluejeaned legs, our fists doubled. It was a dead heat, with both Vern on Chris’s and Teddy on mine holding up their middle fingers at the same moment. We collapsed laughing in the still, smoky odor of the place, and Chris tossed Vern his canteen. When it was full, Chris and I went to the pump and first Chris pumped for me and then I pumped for him, the shocking cold water sluicing off the soot and the heat all in a flash, sending our suddenly freezing scalps four months ahead into January.
{Page 339}
And the train scene:
“One train already went by,” I said reluctantly. “And there probably isn’t any more then one, two trains a day that go through Harlow. Look at this.” I kicked the weeds growing up through the railroad ties with one sneaker. There were no weeds growing between the tracks which ran between Castle Rock and Lewiston.
“There. See?” Teddy triumphant.
“But there’s still a *chance*,” I added.
“Yeah,” Chris said. He was looking only at me, his eyes sparkling. “Dare you, Lachance.”
“Dares go first.”
“Okay,” Chris said. He widened his gaze to take in Teddy and Vern. “Any pussies here?”
{Page 357}
I really like this paragraph (and the one where they’re talking about Teddy falling out of the tree), just because it shows that Gordie and Chris are close not just in that they care about each other but that they can also tease each other and still be regular guys. So much of their relationship is spent being sensitive of each other’s feelings, which is nice and all, but I think my most favorite moments are the ones when they flirt and make fun of each other.
Of course, the moments when you can see that they really care about each other are pretty memorable too. One reason I like the book so much is all the detail Stephen King puts in to re-enforce this:
I clapped my hands over my ears and dug my face into the hot dirt as the freight went by, metal squalling against metal, the air buffeting us. I had no urge to look at it. It was a long freight but I never looked at all. Before it had passed completely, I felt a warm hand on my neck and knew it was Chris’s.
When it was gone- when I was *sure* it was gone- I raised my head like a soldier coming out of his foxhole at the end of a day-long artillery barrage. Vern was still plastered into the dirt, shivering. Chris was sitting cross-legged between us, one hand on Vern’s sweaty neck, the other still on mine.
When Vern finally sat up, shaking all over and licking his lips compulsively, Chris said: “What you guys think if we drink those cokes? Could anybody use one besides me?”
We all thought we could use one.
{Page 362}
You can also see how Chris and Gordie interact with each other in the second scene in the movie when they’re talking about their plan for going to find the body:
Vern: I don't know. Billy will know where I found out.
Gordie: He's not gonna care, 'cause it's gonna be us guys that find him, not Billy and Charlie Hogan in a boosted car. They'll probably pin a medal on you, Vern.
Vern: Yeah, you think so?
Gordie: Sure!
Vern: (Looks concerned) What'll we tell our folks?
Gordie: Exactly what you said. We'll all tell our folks we're tenting out in your back field. You tell your folks you're sleeping over at Teddy's. Then we say we're goin' over to the drag races the next day. We're rock solid 'til dinner tomorrow night.
Chris: (Smiles at him and does that stroking “giving skin” -hand thing) Man, that's a plan-and-a-half!
{From the movie}
And this scene, just because it’s *Gordie* who Chris always seems to check with.
Chris: If we follow the tracks all the way into Harlow, should be about twenty miles. Sound about right to you, Gordie?
Gordie: Yeah. Yeah, it might even be thirty.
{From the movie}
Gordie: Do you think I'm weird?
Chris: Definitely.
Gordie: No man, seriously. Am I weird?
Chris: Yeah, but so what? Everybody's weird.
{From the movie}
And when Gordie is telling his story, Chris continues to defend him to Teddy and Vern:
“Well it’s about this made up town. Gretna, I call it. Gretna, Maine.”
“*Gretna*?” Vern said, grinning. “What kind of name is that? There ain’t no Gretna in Maine.”
“Shut up, fool,” Chris said. “He just toldja it was made up, didn’t he?”
“Yeah, but *Gretna*, that sounds pretty stupid-”
“Lots of real towns sound stupid,” Chris said. “I mean, what about *Alfred*, Maine? Or Jerusalem’s Lot? Or Castle-fuckin-Rock? There ain’t no castle here. *Most* town names are stupid. You just don’t think so because you’re used to em. Right, Gordie?”
“Sure,” I said, but privately I thought Vern was right- Gretna was a pretty stupid name. I just hadn’t been able to think of another one.
{Page 306}
Chris: Hey, Gordo. Why don't you tell us a story?
Gordie: Ah, I don't know.
Chris: Oh, come on.
{From the movie}
“No shit, she looks like a Thanksgiving turkey, and this one time-”
“Will you shut the fuck *up*, Vern?” Chris cried violently. “For the last time! Honest to God!” He had finished his Coke and now he turned the hourglass- shaped green bottle upside down and brandished it over Vern’s head.
“Yeah, right, I’m sorry. Go on, Gordie. It’s a swell story.”
I smiled. I didn’t really mind Vern’s interruptions, but of course I couldn’t tell Chris that; he was the self-appointed Guardian of Art.
{Page 367}
“Yeah, that’s cool, then what happened?” Teddy asked eagerly.
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t *know*?” Teddy asked.
“It means it’s the end. When you don’t know what happens next, that’s the end.”
“*Whaaaat*?” Vern cried. There was an upset, suspicious look on his face, like he thought maybe he’d just gotten rooked playing penny-up Bingo at the Topsham Fair. “What’s all this happy crappy? How’d it come *out*?”
“You have to use your imagination.” Chris said patiently.
“No I ain’t!” Vern said angrily. “*He’s* supposed to use *his* imagination! He made up the fucking story!”
“Yeah, what happened to him?” Teddy persisted. “Come on, Gordie, tell us.”
“I think his dad was at the Pie-Eat and when he came home he beat the living crap out of Lard Ass.”
“Yeah, right,” Chris said. “I bet that’s just what happened.”
“And,” I said, “the kids went right on calling him Lard Ass. Except that maybe some of them started calling him Puke-Yer-Guts, too.”
“That ending sucks,” Teddy said sadly.
“That’s why I didn’t want to tell it.”
“You could have made it so he shot his father and ran away and joined the Texas Rangers,” Teddy said. “How about that?”
Chris and I exchanged a glance. Chris raised one shoulder in a barely perceptible shrug.
“I guess so.” I said.
{Page 378}
We walked in silence for awhile.
That’s a really fine story.” Chris said suddenly. “They’re just a little too dumb to understand.”
“No, it’s not that hot. It’s a mumbler.”
“That’s what you always say. Don’t give me that bullshit you don’t believe. Are you gonna write it down? The story?”
“Probably. But not for awhile. I can’t write em down right after I tell em. It’ll keep.”
“What Vern said? About the ending being a gyp?”
“Yeah?”
Chris laughed. “*Life’s* a gyp, you know? I mean, look at us.”
“Nah, we have a great time.”
“Sure,” Chris said. “All the fucking time, you wet end.”
I laughed. Chris did, too.
“They come outta you just like bubbles out of soda-pop,” he said after awhile.
“What does?” But I thought I knew what he meant.
“The stories. That really bugs me, man. It’s like you could tell a million stories and still only get the ones on top. You’ll be a great writer someday, Gordie.”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Yeah, you will. Maybe you’ll even writ about us guys if you ever get hard up for material.”
“Have to be pretty fucking hard up.” I gave him the elbow and he grinned.
{Page 379}
In the next scene Chris and Gordie are talking about school, and just by listening to what Chris is saying to him, it’s obvious that he really understands Gordie and his relationship with his father and doesn’t want to hold him back:
“Junior High,” Chris said. “And you know what, Gordie? By next June, we’ll all be quits.”
“What are you talking about? Why would *that* happen?”
“It’s not gonna be like grammer school, that’s why. You’ll be in the college courses. Me and Teddy and Vern, we’ll all be in the shop courses, playing pocket-pool with the rest of the retards, making ashtrays and birdhouses. Vern might even have to go into Remedial. You’ll meet a lot of new guys. Smart guys. That’s just the way it works, Gordie. That’s how they got it set up.”
“Meet a lot of pussies is what you mean,” I said.
He gripped my arm. “No, man. Don’t say that. Don’t even *think* that. They’ll get your stories. Not like Vern and Teddy.”
“Fuck the stories. I’m not going in with a lot of pussies. No way.”
“If you don’t, then you’re an asshole.”
“What’s asshole about wanting to be with your friends?”
He looked at me thoughtfully, as if deciding whether or not to tell me something. We had slowed down: Vern and Teddy had pulled almost half a mile ahead. The sun, lower now, came at us through the overlacing trees in broken, dusty shafts, turning everything gold- but it was a tawdry gold, dime-store gold, if you can dig that. It was still hot. The sweat rolled off us, slicking our bodies.
“It’s asshole if your friends can drag you down,” Chris said finally. “I know about you and your folks. They don’t give a shit about you. Your big brother was the one they cared about. Your dad doesn’t beat you, but maybe that’s even worse. He’s got you asleep. You could tell him you were enrolling in the fucking shop courses and you know what’d he do? He’d turn to the next page in his paper and say: Well, that’s nice, Gordon, now go ask your mother what’s for dinner. And don’t try to tell me different. I’ve met him.”
I didn’t try to tell him different. It’s scary to find out that someone else, even a friend, knows just how things are with you.
“You’re just a kid, Gordie-”
“Gee, thanks, Dad.”
“I wish to fuck I was your father!” He said angrily. “You wouldn’t go around talking about takin those stupid shop courses if I was! It’s like God gave you something, all those stories you can make up, and He said: This is what we got for you, kid. Try not to lose it. But kids lose everything unless somebody looks out for them and if your folks are too fucked up to do it then maybe I ought to.”
His face looked like he was expecting me to take a swing at him; it was set and unhappy in the green-gold late afternoon light. He had broken the cardinal rule for kids in those days. You could say anything about another kid, you could rank him to the dogs and back, but you didn’t say a bad word *ever* about his mom and dad. That was the Fabled Automatic, the same way not inviting your Catholic friends home for dinner on Friday unless you checked first to make sure you weren’t having meat was the Fabled Automatic. If a kid ranked out your mom and dad, you had to feed him some knuckles.
“Those stories you can tell, they’re no good to anybody but you, Gordie. If you go along with us just because you don’t want the gang to break up, you’ll wind up just another grunt, makin C’s to get on the teams. You’ll get to High and take the same fuckin shop courses and throw erasers and pull your meat along with the rest of the grunts. Get detentions. Fuckin *suspensions*. And after awhile all you’ll care about is getting a car so you can take some skag to the hops or down to the fuckin Twin Bridges Tavern. Then you’ll knock her up and spend the rest of your life in the mill or some fuckin shoe shop in Auburn or maybe even up to Hillcrest pluckin chickens. And that pie story will never get written down. *Nothin’ll* get written down. Cause you’ll just be another wiseguy with shit for brains.”
Chris Chambers was twelve when he said all that to me. But while he was saying it his face crumpled and folding into something older, oldest, ageless. He spoke tonelessly, colorlessly, but nevertheless, what he said struck terror into me. It was as if he had lived that whole life already, that life where they tell you to step right up and spin the Wheel of Fortune, and it spins so pretty and the guy steps on a pedal and it comes up double zeros, house number, everybody loses.
{Page 382}
When they hear the coyote:
I sat bolt upright, scared. “Chris?”…{Vern and Teddy talk for a while, then-}
“Shut up, Vern,” Chris said, and beneath his usual authoritative toughness I could hear the hollow boom of awe. I wondered if his arms and back and belly were as stiff with gooseflesh as my own were, and if the hair on the nape of his neck was trying to stand up in hackles, as mine was.
“It’s a bird, it’s it?” I asked Chris.
“No. At least, I don’t think so. I think it’s a wildcat. My dad says they scream bloody murder when they’re getting ready to mate. Sounds like a woman, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I said. My voice hitched in the middle of the word and two ice-cubes broke off in the gap.
“But no woman could scream that loud,” Chris said… and then added helplessly: “Could she, Gordie?”
{Page 389}
Gordie:(Stands right next to Chris, and looks up at him with his eyes big and wide.) What is it, Chris?
{From the movie}
Gordie:(Time passes uneventfully as the boys sleep. Vern takes his turn and spends it nervously pointing the pistol at noises in the woods. Next it's Chris' turn to stand guard. He hears Gordie groaning in his sleep) Uhmmm. Uhmmmmm.
Gordie’s Father: (In Gordie's dream he is standing with his family and other mourners at his brother's burial site as the coffin is lowered into the grave. Gordie's dad puts his hand on Gordie's shoulder and says...) It should have been you, Gordon.
Gordie: Uhmmmmmm. Ahhh! (Gordie snaps awake)
Chris: Are you okay?
Gordie: Huh?
Chris: You were dreaming.
Gordie:(Gordie makes no response, but he is awake now and pensive for a few moments before he speaks) I didn't cry at Denny's funeral. (Pause. Chris is attentive, but does not speak)
I miss him, Chris. I really miss him.
Chris: I know. (Pause) Go back to sleep.
{From the movie}
Gordie: Vern, there's something on your neck!
Vern: Yeah, right. I'm not falling for that one, Lachance.
Chris:(The boys stop fighting as they look at Vern's neck) No, Vern. There is something on your neck.
Teddy: It's a leech. Leeches! Jesus Christ, get 'em off!
(The boys exit the water and frantically strip down to their shorts to check each other for leeches. The dialog here is not totally verbatim because everyone is shouting at once)
Chris: Hey Gordie, man, there's some on your back!
Gordie: Get 'em off!
Chris: Are there any on mine, man?!
Gordie: (Gordie feels something in his shorts. He looks down the front and sees a leech)
Oh, Chris.
(Almost crying now)
Oh shit, Chris. Oh shit, man.
(Gordie reaches down and extracts the leech, leaving his hand bloody. As he holds his bloody hand up to look at it, he faints)
Chris: Gordie, man, are you okay? Can you hear me? Gordie, are you there?
Vern: Maybe he's dead.
Teddy: He's not dead. He's still breathing, you idiot.
Vern: Well, I don't know.
Chris: Hey, hey, just cool it you guys. He just fainted. Gordie?
Vern: God. I never met anybody who fainted before.
Teddy: Maybe he made a bad mistake and looked at your face.
Chris: Shut up, Teddy. You okay, Gordie?
Gordie: (Starting to come around now) Yeah.
Chris: Let's go.
{From the movie}
This scene from the book is pretty good (although a little weird) too, so I thought I’d put it in, even if it does mean more typing for me:
Hitting the water was fantastic- clean and cool. I swam across to Chris, loving the silky feel of having nothing on but water. I stood up and we grinned into each other’s faces.
“Boss!” We said it at exactly the same instant.
“Fucking jerkoff,” he said, splashing water in my face, and swam off the other way.
{Then they notice the leeches and run like hell out of the water. Damn leeches, now Chris and Gordie don’t get to flirt in the lake naked anymore}
Chris turned his back to me. “Gordie? Are there any more? Take em off if there are, please, Gordie!” There were more, five or six, running down his back like grotesque black buttons. I pulled their soft, boneless bodies off him.
I brushed even more off my legs, then got Chris to do my back.
I was starting to relax a little- and that was when I looked down at myself and saw the granddaddy of them all clinging to my testicles, its body swelled to four sizes its normal size. Its blackish-gray skin had gone a bruised purplish-red. That was when I began to lose control. Not outside, at least not in any big way, but inside, where it counts.
I brushed its slick, glutinous body with the back of my hand. It held on. I tried to do it again and couldn’t bring myself to actually touch it. I turned to Chris, tried to speak, couldn’t. I pointed instead. His cheeks, already ashy, went whiter still.
“I can’t get it off,” I said through numb lips. “You… can you…”
But he backed away, shaking his head, his mouth twisted. “I can’t, Gordie,” he said, unable to take his eyes away. “I’m sorry but I can’t. No. Oh. No.” He turned away, bowed with one hand pressed to his midsection like the butler in a musical comedy, and was sick in a stand of juniper bushes.
You got to hold onto yourself, I thought, looking at the leech that hung off me like a crazy beard. Its body was still visibly swelling. You got to hold onto yourself and get him. Be tough. It’s the last one. The, Last. One.
I reached down again and picked it off and it burst between my fingers. My own blood ran across my palm and inner wrist in a warm flood. I began to cry.
Still crying, I walked back to my clothes and put them on. I wanted to stop crying, but I just didn’t seem able to turn off the waterworks. Then the shakes set in, making it worse. Vern ran up to me, still naked.
“They off, Gordie? They off me? They off me?”
I nodded that they were and just kept on crying. It seemed like crying was going to be my new career. I tucked my shirt in a buttoned it all the way to the neck. I put on my socks and my sneakers. Little by little the tears began to slow down. Finally there was nothing left by a few hitches and moans, and then they stopped too.
Chris walked over to me, wiping his mouth with a handful of elm leaves. His eyes were wide and mute and apologetic.
{Page 397-398}
Not exactly slashy, necessarily, but there is something… I don’t know, real about this scene and their relationship the way Stephen King writes it. They seem less like the typical ‘oh-how-sweet-adorable-cute’ slash couple and more like they’re real people instead of just characters in a book.
And here’s the fainting part, because it’s sweet too, in it’s own way:
We walked further down the tracks- I don’t know just how far- and I was starting think: Well, okay, I’m going to be able to handle it, it’s all over anyway, just a bunch of leeches, what the fuck; I was still thinking it when waves of whiteness suddenly began to come over my sight and I fell down.
I must have fallen hard, but landing on the crossties was like plunging into a warm and puffy feather bed. Someone turned me over. The touch of hands was faint and unimportant. Their words came in gentle oscillations, fading in and out.
“…him?”
“…be all…”
“…if you think the sun…”
“Gordie, are you…”
Then I must have said something that didn’t make much sense because they began to look *really* worried.
“We better take him back, man,” Teddy said, and then the whiteness came over everything again.
When it cleared, I seemed to be all right. Chris was squatting next to me, saying: “Can you hear me Gordie? You there, man?”
“Yes,” I said, and sat up. A swarm of black dots exploded in front of my eyes, and then went away.
“You scared the shit outta me, Gordie,” he said. “You want a drink of water?”
“Yeah.”
He handed me his canteen, half-full of water, and I let three warm gulps roll down my throat.
{Page 399}
And one of my favorite scenes from the movie, when Gordie breaks down after finding the body:
Chris: Let's look for some long branches. We'll build him a stretcher. (Gordie sits down on a log and stares at the body, not moving, not saying anything. Chris is concerned) Gordie?
Gordie: (Staring at the body) Why did you have to die?
Vern: What's the matter with Gordie?
Chris: Nothing. Why don't you guys just go over there and look for some branches, okay?
Teddy: Okay. (Teddy and Vern wander off)
Gordie: Why did he have to die, Chris? Why did Denny have to die? Why?
Chris: I don't know.
Gordie: It should've been me.
Chris: Don't say that.
Gordie: It should have been me.
Chris: Don't say that, man!
Gordie: I'm no good. My dad said it, I'm no good. (Gordie starts crying)
Chris: He doesn't know you.
Gordie: He hates me.
Chris: He doesn't hate you.
Gordie: He hates me.
Chris: No! He just doesn't know you.
Gordie: He hates me. My dad hates me. He hates me, I'm no good.
(Now crying harder)
Chris: (Puts his arm around Gordie’s shoulder) You're gonna be a great writer someday, Gordie. You might even write about us guys, if you ever get hard up for material.
Gordie: (Cries for a few more minutes, then composes himself) Guess I'd have to be really hard up, huh?
Chris: (grins at him) Yeah.
{From the movie}
Chris: (Ace and his gang leave, and the boys are alone with Ray Brower once more) 'Suck my fat one?'—Who ever told you you had a fat one, Lachance?
Gordie: Biggest one in four counties.
Chris: Yeah. (Chris chuckles, as Vern and Teddy return from hiding)
{From the movie}
Worth pointing out that Chris does agree with him, after all. How’s that for proof? :)
In the book version, it’s Chris who picks up the gun. Part of the talking to Ace scene:
“Stick with me, Gordie,” Chris said in a low, shaky voice. “Stick with me, man.”
“I’m right here.”
{Page 415}
(After the older boys leave)
“Stay right here,” Chris told me, and he started across the bog.
“Chris!” I said, panicky.
“I got to. Stay here.”
It seemed he was gone for a very long time. I became convinced that either Ace or Eyeball had lurked behind and grabbed him. I stood my ground with nobody by Ray Brower for company and waited for somebody- anybody- to come back. After a while, Chris did.
“We did it,” He said. “They’re gone.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. Both cars.” He held his hands up over his head, locked together with the gun between them, and shook the double fist in a wry championship gesture. Then he dropped them and smiled at me. I think it was the saddest scaredest smile I ever saw. “’Suck my fat one’- who ever told you you had a fat one, Lachance?”
“Biggest one in four counties,” I said. I was shaking all over.
We looked at each other warmly for a second, and then, maybe embarrassed by what we were seeing, looked down together.
{Page 416}
Man, even Stephen King seems to realize how slashy these two are, and adds in a ‘despite what everyone thought, we weren’t gay’ line (I’m paraphrasing) probably as a precaution since this story was written in the… 80’s, I believe. Which… uh huh, nice try.
But moving on…
The Very Depressing Ending~
Then of course there’s the end. Which (and there is no way to say this nicely) sucks. I mean- Chris dies! And Gordie hadn’t seen him in more then ten years! What?? After everything; their whole childhood, this body story, their families, high school, getting out of Castle Rock- suddenly they just stop being friends and don’t see each other for ten years?
Just more proof that *something* happened there. *Something* very important is missing from this story, and I’m starting to think that Stephen King let it out on purpose just to fuck with our heads. Mostly though, authors don’t really address that, I think the only person to even bring that up was Sofie ‘Melle’ Werkers in her story ‘Summer Heat’.
One more quote, because it’s my favorite part in the book, and no matter how cramped my fingers are, I have to have it in here.
But first, the same scene from the movie, just to compare the two:
Chris: I'm never gonna get out of this town am I, Gordie?
Gordie: You can do anything you want, man.
Chris: Yeah, sure. (pauses) Give me some skin.
Gordie: I'll see ya.
Chris: Not if I see you first.
“Hey, man,” Teddy said awkwardly. “No hard feelings, okay?”
“No, Chris said, and suddenly his somber, tired face broke into a sweet and sunny grin. “We did it, didn’t we? We did the bastard.”
“Yeah,” Vern said. “You’re fuckin-A. Now Billy’s gonna do me.”
“So what?” Chris said. “Richie’s gonna tool up on me and Ace is probably gonna tool up on Gordie and someone else’ll tool up on Teddy. But we did it.”
“That’s right,” Vern said. But he still sounded unhappy.
Chris looked at me. “We did it, didn’t we?” He asked softly. “It was, worth it?”
“Sure it was,” I said.
{Teddy and Vern walk off, then…}
I hesitated for a second.
“Walk with you,” Chris offered.
“Sure, okay.”
We walked a block or so without talking, then Chris said: “They’ll tell,”
“You bet they will. But not today or tomorrow, if that’s what you’re worried about. It’ll be a long time before they tell, I think. Years, maybe.”
He looked at me, surprised.
“They’re scared, Chris. Teddy, especially, that they won’t take him in the army. But Vern’s scared too. They’ll lose some sleep over it, and then… you know what? It sounds fucking crazy, but… I think they’ll almost forget it ever happened.”
He was nodding slowly. “I didn’t think of it just like that. You see through people, Gordie.”
“Man, I wish I did.”
“You do though.”
We walked another block in silence.
“I’m never gonna get out of this town,” Chris said, and sighed. “When you come back from college on summer vacation, you’ll be able to look me and Vern and Teddy up down at Sukey’s bar. If you want to. Except you’ll probably never want to.” He laughed a creepy laugh.
“Quit jerking yourself off,” I said, trying to sound tougher then I felt. I wanted to say something more to Chris and didn’t know how to.
“Gimme some skin, man,” he said, sounding tired.
“Chris-”
“Skin.”
I gave him some skin. “I’ll see you.”
He grinned- that same sweet, sunny grin. “Not if I see you first, fuckface.”
He walked off, still laughing, moving easily and gracefully, as though he didn’t hurt like me and have blisters like me. As if he didn’t have a care in the world, as if he was going to some real boss place instead of just home to a three-room house (shack would have been closer to the truth) and a brother who would probably kill him as soon as he set food in the front yard. Even if I’d known the right thing to say, I probably couldn’t have said it. Speech destroys the functions of love, I think- that’s a hell of a thing for a write to say, I guess, but I believe it to be true. If you speak to tell a deer you mean it no harm, it glides away with a single flip of it’s tail. The word is the harm. Love isn’t what these asshole poets like McKuen want you to think it is. Love has teeth; they bite; the wounds never close. No word, no combinations of words can close those lovebites. It’s the other way around. If those wounds dry up, the words die with them. Take it from me. I’ve made my life from words, and I know that it is so.
[Page 426}
Further Reading~
Down By The River by i-nv-u50~ {My favorite Stand By Me story} http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1383793/1/
Promise by i-nv-u50~ http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1336385/1/
Leaving by Aleka~{Not specified as slash, but it’s very much implied} http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1131768/1/
Summer Heat by Sofie ‘Melle’Werkers~ http://www.fanfiction.net/s/124324/1/
Let the Butterfly Soar by Goddess Myzt~ http://www.fanfiction.net/s/354335/1/
I’m Under The Milk Crate Tonight by the masked penguin~ {20 chapters} http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1456457/1/
If You Jump by moonriverandme~ {This story is more of a friendship piece then slash, but it’s very implied during the first couple chapters} http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1512149/1/
Testing The Water by itbeme~ http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1567906/1/
Pairing: Chris/Gordie
Fandom: Stand By Me
Author: Leah1878
Warnings: Some swearing (the movie is rated R)
Spoilers: The whole movie and the book The Body by Stephen King
“Chris and Gordie belong to a bunch of people who allowed them to do their thing so blatantly that even a then 12-year old me picked up on it” {Sofie 'Melle' Werkers}
You don’t have to venture very far out of the canon for this pairing because it’s all right there. This is the first slash pairing I ever read and the only thing that surprised me was that there weren’t more stories about them. It’s very cliché, the two best friends who are always there for each other no matter what, but it’s so sweet and perfect that you don’t care.
There are so many slash moments in the book (and the movie), and to really appreciate them, we have to understand the characters first.
Chris Chambers~
Chris (played by River Phoenix in the movie) is sort of the unofficial leader of their gang. He’s very laid back and always the peacekeeper, breaking up fights between Teddy and Vern and not letting anyone walk off angry. Even though he seems very tough and sort of the strong one compared to everyone else in the group, he’s someone who feels things deeply, and thinks about them long after they happen.
Like during the scene in the junkyard (in both the book and the movie), when Chris tells Gordie that he still has dreams about the time he saved Teddy when he fell out of a tree:
“I dream about that every now and then,” Chris said, looking at me with strangely defenseless eyes. “Except in the dream I have, I always miss him. I just get a couple of his hairs and down he goes. Weird, huh?”
“Weird,” I agreed, and just for one moment we looked into each other’s eyes and saw some of the true things that made us friends. Then we looked away again and watched Teddy and Vern throwing water at each other, screaming and laughing and calling each other pussies.
“Yeah, but you didn’t miss him.” I said. “Chris Chambers never misses does he?”
“Not even when the ladies leave the seat down,” he said. He winked at me, formed an O with his thumb and forefinger, and spit through it.
“Eat me raw, Chambers,” I said.
“Through a Flavored Straw,” he said, and we grinned at each other.
{Page 338}
Chris has a lot of problems, though, most of which center around his family.
Chris’s Family~
“Chris Chambers was the leader of our gang, and my best friend. He came from a bad family, and everyone just knew he'd turn out bad. Including Chris.” {From the movie}
A lot of what we come to learn about Chris has to do with his family, and, more specifically, his father. In the very beginning of the movie, one of the first things he says is that his dad will probably hit him for going off to find Ray Brower’s body.
This seems to be a normal occurrence, and in the book Gordie talks more about Chris’s dad:
“Chris’s dad was always on a “mean streak,” more or less; he was a drunk who got welfare off and on- mostly on- and spent most of his time hanging out in Sukey’s Tavern with Junior Merrill, Ace Merrill’s old man, and a couple of other local rumpots.” {Page 306}
Although it’s not really shown in the movie, Chris’s father’s drinking does have an effect on him, other then just contributing to his resolve to get out of Castle Rock and not end up like his dad and his brother, Eyeball.
He was the only guy in our gang who would never take a drink, even to show he had, you know, big balls. He said he wasn’t going to grow up to be a fucking tosspot like his old man. And he told me privately- this was after the DeSpain twins showed up with a six-pack they’d hawked from their old man and everybody teased Chris because he wouldn’t take a drink or even a swallow- that he was scared to drink. He said his father never got his nose all the way out of the bottle anymore, and that Eyeball was always guzzling Purple Jesuses with Ace Merrill and Charlie Hogan. What, he asked me, did I think his chances were of letting go of the bottle would be once he picked it up? Maybe you think that’s funny, a twelve-year-old worrying that he might be an incipient alcoholic, but it wasn’t funny to Chris. Not at all. He’d thought about the possibility a lot. He’d had occasion to.
{Page 329}
Chris didn’t talk much about his dad, but we all knew he hated him like poison. Chris was marked up every two weeks or so, bruises on his cheeks and neck or one eye swelled up and as colorful as a sunset, and once he came to school with a big clumsy bandage on the on the back of his head.
{Page 306}
Chris’s whole reputation is based on what the town knows about his family, and it’s pretty clear that everyone only sees him that way. Everyone except Gordie, that is. He knows Chris pretty well (he says that they’ve been best friends for years) and sticks by him even when no one else does, constantly defending him to his father.
Gordie’s father: Why can't you have friends like Denny's?
Gordie: Dad, they're okay.
Gordie’s Father: Sure they are. A thief and two feebs?
Gordie: Chris isn't a thief.
Gordie’s Father: He stole the milk money at school. He's a thief in my book.
{From the movie}
“It made me mad, because I didn’t think he was being fair. He was judging Vern the way he judged all my friends, from having seen them off and on, mostly going in and out of the house. He was wrong about them. And when he called Chris a thief I always saw red, because he didn’t know *anything* about Chris.”
{Page 309}
Chris also has an older brother, Eyeball, who, along with Ace Merrel, Charlie Hogan, and Billy Tessio (Vern’s brother), seem to spend a lot of their time torturing them.
In one of the first scenes in the movie, Ace and Eyeball take Gordie’s hat (the hat his brother who recently died gave to him) and basically make fun of them until Ace gets bored and they leave.
But sad as those scenes are, they’re also very sweet, because Gordie and Chris constantly stick up for each other, and after Ace walks away with Gordie’s hat, Chris, who obviously can’t stand to see him upset, kind of teases and distracts him until he forgets to be sad.
Eyeball: (As Gordie and Chris are talking, Ace and Eyeball come out of Irby's Billiard hall and confront them) Hey, girls. Where you goin'? (Ace snatches Gordie's Yankee cap)
Gordie: Hey, come on man! My brother gave me that!
Ace: And now you're givin' it to me.
Gordie: (Trying to retrieve his cap) Give it to me! Com' ... come on man, that's mine!
Chris: (To Ace) You're a real asshole, you know that?
Ace: (Ace flips his cigarette away and hands the cap to Eyeball)
Ooh. Your brother's not very polite, Eyeball.
Eyeball: Now Christopher, I know you didn't mean to insult my friend.
Ace: I know he didn't mean to insult me. That's why I'm gonna give him the opportunity of taking it back. (Ace grabs Chris and takes him to the sidewalk, straddling him face down)
Chris: Oh, shit!
Ace: Take it back!
Chris: Oh! (As Ace sits on him)
Gordie: Come on, man! Stop it! You're hurting him!
Chris: Bastard! Let go, man! Shit!
Gordie: Stop it, man!
Ace: Take it back!
Gordie: Cut it out! Cut it out!
Ace: Take it back! (Ace picks up his cigarette from the sidewalk beside Chris and menaces him with it, bringing it closer and closer to his face)
Chris: Okay, okay! I take it back! I take it back!
Ace: (Ace flips the cigarette away and lets Chris up)
There. Now I feel a whole lot better about this. How about you?
(No response from Chris and Gordie) Good.
Eyeball: (Ace and Eyeball leave Chris and Gordie behind, and Gordie has lost his Yankee cap) See you later, girls.
Chris: (Gordie watches hatefully as Ace and Eyeball walk away. Eyeball is wearing his Yankee cap. Chris tries to comfort Gordie)
Come on, just forget 'em.
(As they walk away, Chris glances at him, then twists his leg behind him so he’s kicking Gordie in the butt. Gordie looks over at him, almost smiling, and kicks him back)
{From the movie}
Gordie~
“That summer at home I had become the invisible boy.”
{From the movie}
Gordie is this quiet sensitive writer, whose older brother Denny (the only person in his family who really paid any attention to him) has recently died. And as bad as Chris’s parents are, Gordie’s are almost worst, I think, because they really don’t seem to care one way or the other about him.
This business about being ignored; I could never really pin it down until I did a book report in high school on this novel called ‘The Invisible Man’. When I agreed to do the book for Miss Hardy I thought it was going to be the science fiction story about the guy in bandages and Foster Grants- Claude Rains played him in the movies. When I found out this was a different story, I tried to give the book back but Miss Hardy wouldn’t let me off the hook. I ended up being really glad. This ‘Invisible Man’ is about this guy who nobody ever notices at all unless he fucks up. People look right through him. When he talks, nobody answers. He’s like a black ghost. Once I got into it, I ate that book up like it was a John D. MacDonald, because that cat Ralph Ellison was writing about *me*. At the dinner table it was Denny how many did you strike out and Denny who asked you to the Sadie Hawkins dance and Denny I want to talk to you man to man about that car we were looking at. I’d say, “Pass the butter,” and Dad would say: Denny, are you sure the Army is what you want? I’d say, “Pass the butter, someone, okay?” and Mom would ask Denny if he wanted her to pick him up one of the Pendleton shirts on sale downtown, and I’d end up getting the butter myself.
{Page 310}
Something unique, though, about Gordie are his stories. His parents, of course, don’t realize that he has any talent for that sort of thing until one of them gets published when he’s in college, but his friends (Chris especially~ more examples of that later) are constantly there supporting and encouraging him.
Richie {Gordie’s friend} sat right there on the end of my bed for most of the afternoon reading his way through the stuff I had been doing, most of it influenced by the same sort of comic books as the ones that gave Vern nightmares. And when he was done, Richie looked at me in a strange new way that made me feel very peculiar, as if he had been forced to re-appraise my whole personality. He said: You’re pretty good at this. Why don’t you show these to Chris? I said no, I wanted it to be a secret, and Richie said: Why? It ain’t pussy. I mean, it ain’t *poetry*.
Still, I made him promise not to tell anybody about my stories and of course he did and it turned out that most of them liked to read the stuff I wrote.
{Page 364}
And I’d just like to point out the significance of the fact that Richie says Chris’s name rather then Teddy or Vern as the person who Gordie should show his stories to. Even he seems to see the closeness between them, not just that they’re best friends, but that Gordie obviously trusts him and Richie seems to know that Chris won’t tease Gordie about something he’s clearly sensitive about.
Gordie’s friends seem to be the only people who pay any attention to him, and Chris especially is the one to notice whenever Gordie’s mood changes.
Chris: (As they walk down the street together) Wanna see something?
Gordie: (Acting distant.) Sure, what?
Chris: (Sensing Gordie's mood.) Are you okay?
Gordie: (Trying to snap out of it) Yeah, I'm fine.
Chris: Come on, man! (They run around the corner and into the alley behind the Blue Point Diner)
{From the movie}
Their Relationship~
Gordie seems to be the one person who sees Chris for who he is instead of Eyeball’s brother or just one of the Chambers. He understands him and is there for him when no one else is, just like Chris is for him.
{After the scene in the junkyard where Milo Pressman is making fun of Teddy’s dad}
At last, when the force of Teddy’s crying had trailed off a little, it was Chris who went to him. He was the toughest guy in our gang (maybe even tougher than Jamie Gallant, I thought privately), but he was also the guy who made the best peace. He had a way about it. I’d seen him sit down on the curb next to a little kid with a scraped knee, a kid he didn’t even fucking *know*, and get him talking about something- Shrine Circus that was coming to town or Huckleberry Hound on TV- until the kid forgot he was supposed to be hurt. Chris was good at it. He was tough enough to be good at it.
{Page 351}
They also know each other well enough that their “arguments” (if you can even call them that) aren’t very long. They seem able to get over things and go back to being friends pretty quickly.
After the gun accidentally goes off:
Gordie: (Angrily) You knew it was loaded, you wet end! I'm gonna be in trouble now, that Tupper babe saw me!
Chris: Shit, Gordie. She thought it was firecrackers.
Gordie: I don't care! That was a mean trick, Chris!
Chris: (Chris takes Gordie by the arm and stops him. Chris is serious now) Hey, Gordie. I didn't know it was loaded. Honest.
Gordie: You swear?
Chris: Yeah, I swear.
{From the movie}
Chris knows Gordie well enough to know when he is really upset about something, and he immediately stops teasing. Gordie believes him and then they move on, because, no matter what, Chris is his best friend.
The Stolen Milk Money~
A center point in both the movie and the book is the issue with the stolen milk money.
The year before, Chris had been suspended from school for three days. A bunch of milk money disappeared when it was Chris’s turn to be room-monitor and collect it, and because he was a Chambers from those no-account Chamberses, he had to take a hike even though he always swore he never hawked that money. That was the time Mr. Chambers put Chris in the hospital for an overnight stay; when his dad heard Chris was suspended, he broke Chris’s nose and his right wrist. Chris came from a bad family, all right, and everybody thought he would turn out bad… including Chris.
{Page 307}
(Chris gets up and walks a few paces, taking a seat against a nearby tree. Gordie gets up and joins him)
Gordie: Maybe you could go into the college courses with me.
Chris: That'll be the day.
Gordie: Why not? You're smart enough.
Chris: They won't let me.
Gordie: What do you mean?
Chris: It's the way people think of my family in this town. It's the way they think of me. I’m just one of those low-life Chambers kids.
Gordie: That's not true.
Chris: Oh, it is. No one even asked me if I took the milk money that time. I just got a three-day vacation.
Gordie: Did you take it?
Chris: Yeah, I took it. You knew I took it. Teddy knew I took it. Everyone knew I took it. Even Vern knew it, I think.
(Pause)
But maybe I was sorry, and I tried to give it back.
Gordie: You tried to give it back?
Chris: Maybe, just maybe—and maybe I took it to old lady Simons and told her, and all the money was there. But I still got a three-day vacation because it never showed up. And maybe the next week old lady Simons had a brand new skirt on when she came to school.
Gordie: Yeah, yeah! It was brown, and had dots on it!
Chris: Yeah, so let's just say that I stole the milk money, but old lady Simons stole it back from me. Just suppose that I told this story. Me, Chris Chambers, kid brother to Eyeball Chambers. Do you think that anybody would have believed it?
Gordie: No.
Chris: And do you think that that bitch would have dared to try something like that if it would have been one of those douche bags from up on The View if they had taken the money?
Gordie: No way!
Chris: Hell no! But with me?! (Pauses and looks down) I'm sure she had her eye on that skirt for a long time. Anyway, she saw her chance and she took it. I was the stupid one for even trying to give it back.
(Chris starts crying)
I just never thought—I never thought that a teacher... Oh, who gives a fuck anyway?! (He pauses, still crying) I just wish that I could go someplace where nobody knows me.
(Chris looks up at Gordie)
I guess I'm just a pussy, huh?
Gordie:(Whispering and stroking his arm) No way, man. No way.
Chris/Gordie Moments ~
Chris: Hey, I'll race ya.
Gordie: Nah, I don't think so.
Chris: Aw—right to the pump, man. Come on.
Gordie: Ahh, I'm kind of tired ... GO!!
Chris: Oh! You're a dead man, Lachance!
(Gordie has a head start, but Chris gives chase, quickly catching up and calling the race as he runs)
It looks like Lachance has got him this time. He's got Chambers beat! But, what's this? Chambers is making his move! Lachance is fading on it! Chambers at the tape! The crowd goes wild! Chhhhhhh! (Chris imitates the sound of a roaring crowd. He and Gordie grin at each other, and Chris wraps his arm around Gordie’s neck, pulling him over to the water pump)
{From the movie}
And for comparison sake, here’s the same scene from the book:
“Race you,” Chris said.
“In this heat? You’re off your gourd.”
“Come on,” he said, still grinning. “On my go.”
“Okay.”
“Go!”
We raced, our sneakers digging up the hard, sunbaked dirt, our torsos leaning out ahead of our flying bluejeaned legs, our fists doubled. It was a dead heat, with both Vern on Chris’s and Teddy on mine holding up their middle fingers at the same moment. We collapsed laughing in the still, smoky odor of the place, and Chris tossed Vern his canteen. When it was full, Chris and I went to the pump and first Chris pumped for me and then I pumped for him, the shocking cold water sluicing off the soot and the heat all in a flash, sending our suddenly freezing scalps four months ahead into January.
{Page 339}
And the train scene:
“One train already went by,” I said reluctantly. “And there probably isn’t any more then one, two trains a day that go through Harlow. Look at this.” I kicked the weeds growing up through the railroad ties with one sneaker. There were no weeds growing between the tracks which ran between Castle Rock and Lewiston.
“There. See?” Teddy triumphant.
“But there’s still a *chance*,” I added.
“Yeah,” Chris said. He was looking only at me, his eyes sparkling. “Dare you, Lachance.”
“Dares go first.”
“Okay,” Chris said. He widened his gaze to take in Teddy and Vern. “Any pussies here?”
{Page 357}
I really like this paragraph (and the one where they’re talking about Teddy falling out of the tree), just because it shows that Gordie and Chris are close not just in that they care about each other but that they can also tease each other and still be regular guys. So much of their relationship is spent being sensitive of each other’s feelings, which is nice and all, but I think my most favorite moments are the ones when they flirt and make fun of each other.
Of course, the moments when you can see that they really care about each other are pretty memorable too. One reason I like the book so much is all the detail Stephen King puts in to re-enforce this:
I clapped my hands over my ears and dug my face into the hot dirt as the freight went by, metal squalling against metal, the air buffeting us. I had no urge to look at it. It was a long freight but I never looked at all. Before it had passed completely, I felt a warm hand on my neck and knew it was Chris’s.
When it was gone- when I was *sure* it was gone- I raised my head like a soldier coming out of his foxhole at the end of a day-long artillery barrage. Vern was still plastered into the dirt, shivering. Chris was sitting cross-legged between us, one hand on Vern’s sweaty neck, the other still on mine.
When Vern finally sat up, shaking all over and licking his lips compulsively, Chris said: “What you guys think if we drink those cokes? Could anybody use one besides me?”
We all thought we could use one.
{Page 362}
You can also see how Chris and Gordie interact with each other in the second scene in the movie when they’re talking about their plan for going to find the body:
Vern: I don't know. Billy will know where I found out.
Gordie: He's not gonna care, 'cause it's gonna be us guys that find him, not Billy and Charlie Hogan in a boosted car. They'll probably pin a medal on you, Vern.
Vern: Yeah, you think so?
Gordie: Sure!
Vern: (Looks concerned) What'll we tell our folks?
Gordie: Exactly what you said. We'll all tell our folks we're tenting out in your back field. You tell your folks you're sleeping over at Teddy's. Then we say we're goin' over to the drag races the next day. We're rock solid 'til dinner tomorrow night.
Chris: (Smiles at him and does that stroking “giving skin” -hand thing) Man, that's a plan-and-a-half!
{From the movie}
And this scene, just because it’s *Gordie* who Chris always seems to check with.
Chris: If we follow the tracks all the way into Harlow, should be about twenty miles. Sound about right to you, Gordie?
Gordie: Yeah. Yeah, it might even be thirty.
{From the movie}
Gordie: Do you think I'm weird?
Chris: Definitely.
Gordie: No man, seriously. Am I weird?
Chris: Yeah, but so what? Everybody's weird.
{From the movie}
And when Gordie is telling his story, Chris continues to defend him to Teddy and Vern:
“Well it’s about this made up town. Gretna, I call it. Gretna, Maine.”
“*Gretna*?” Vern said, grinning. “What kind of name is that? There ain’t no Gretna in Maine.”
“Shut up, fool,” Chris said. “He just toldja it was made up, didn’t he?”
“Yeah, but *Gretna*, that sounds pretty stupid-”
“Lots of real towns sound stupid,” Chris said. “I mean, what about *Alfred*, Maine? Or Jerusalem’s Lot? Or Castle-fuckin-Rock? There ain’t no castle here. *Most* town names are stupid. You just don’t think so because you’re used to em. Right, Gordie?”
“Sure,” I said, but privately I thought Vern was right- Gretna was a pretty stupid name. I just hadn’t been able to think of another one.
{Page 306}
Chris: Hey, Gordo. Why don't you tell us a story?
Gordie: Ah, I don't know.
Chris: Oh, come on.
{From the movie}
“No shit, she looks like a Thanksgiving turkey, and this one time-”
“Will you shut the fuck *up*, Vern?” Chris cried violently. “For the last time! Honest to God!” He had finished his Coke and now he turned the hourglass- shaped green bottle upside down and brandished it over Vern’s head.
“Yeah, right, I’m sorry. Go on, Gordie. It’s a swell story.”
I smiled. I didn’t really mind Vern’s interruptions, but of course I couldn’t tell Chris that; he was the self-appointed Guardian of Art.
{Page 367}
“Yeah, that’s cool, then what happened?” Teddy asked eagerly.
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t *know*?” Teddy asked.
“It means it’s the end. When you don’t know what happens next, that’s the end.”
“*Whaaaat*?” Vern cried. There was an upset, suspicious look on his face, like he thought maybe he’d just gotten rooked playing penny-up Bingo at the Topsham Fair. “What’s all this happy crappy? How’d it come *out*?”
“You have to use your imagination.” Chris said patiently.
“No I ain’t!” Vern said angrily. “*He’s* supposed to use *his* imagination! He made up the fucking story!”
“Yeah, what happened to him?” Teddy persisted. “Come on, Gordie, tell us.”
“I think his dad was at the Pie-Eat and when he came home he beat the living crap out of Lard Ass.”
“Yeah, right,” Chris said. “I bet that’s just what happened.”
“And,” I said, “the kids went right on calling him Lard Ass. Except that maybe some of them started calling him Puke-Yer-Guts, too.”
“That ending sucks,” Teddy said sadly.
“That’s why I didn’t want to tell it.”
“You could have made it so he shot his father and ran away and joined the Texas Rangers,” Teddy said. “How about that?”
Chris and I exchanged a glance. Chris raised one shoulder in a barely perceptible shrug.
“I guess so.” I said.
{Page 378}
We walked in silence for awhile.
That’s a really fine story.” Chris said suddenly. “They’re just a little too dumb to understand.”
“No, it’s not that hot. It’s a mumbler.”
“That’s what you always say. Don’t give me that bullshit you don’t believe. Are you gonna write it down? The story?”
“Probably. But not for awhile. I can’t write em down right after I tell em. It’ll keep.”
“What Vern said? About the ending being a gyp?”
“Yeah?”
Chris laughed. “*Life’s* a gyp, you know? I mean, look at us.”
“Nah, we have a great time.”
“Sure,” Chris said. “All the fucking time, you wet end.”
I laughed. Chris did, too.
“They come outta you just like bubbles out of soda-pop,” he said after awhile.
“What does?” But I thought I knew what he meant.
“The stories. That really bugs me, man. It’s like you could tell a million stories and still only get the ones on top. You’ll be a great writer someday, Gordie.”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Yeah, you will. Maybe you’ll even writ about us guys if you ever get hard up for material.”
“Have to be pretty fucking hard up.” I gave him the elbow and he grinned.
{Page 379}
In the next scene Chris and Gordie are talking about school, and just by listening to what Chris is saying to him, it’s obvious that he really understands Gordie and his relationship with his father and doesn’t want to hold him back:
“Junior High,” Chris said. “And you know what, Gordie? By next June, we’ll all be quits.”
“What are you talking about? Why would *that* happen?”
“It’s not gonna be like grammer school, that’s why. You’ll be in the college courses. Me and Teddy and Vern, we’ll all be in the shop courses, playing pocket-pool with the rest of the retards, making ashtrays and birdhouses. Vern might even have to go into Remedial. You’ll meet a lot of new guys. Smart guys. That’s just the way it works, Gordie. That’s how they got it set up.”
“Meet a lot of pussies is what you mean,” I said.
He gripped my arm. “No, man. Don’t say that. Don’t even *think* that. They’ll get your stories. Not like Vern and Teddy.”
“Fuck the stories. I’m not going in with a lot of pussies. No way.”
“If you don’t, then you’re an asshole.”
“What’s asshole about wanting to be with your friends?”
He looked at me thoughtfully, as if deciding whether or not to tell me something. We had slowed down: Vern and Teddy had pulled almost half a mile ahead. The sun, lower now, came at us through the overlacing trees in broken, dusty shafts, turning everything gold- but it was a tawdry gold, dime-store gold, if you can dig that. It was still hot. The sweat rolled off us, slicking our bodies.
“It’s asshole if your friends can drag you down,” Chris said finally. “I know about you and your folks. They don’t give a shit about you. Your big brother was the one they cared about. Your dad doesn’t beat you, but maybe that’s even worse. He’s got you asleep. You could tell him you were enrolling in the fucking shop courses and you know what’d he do? He’d turn to the next page in his paper and say: Well, that’s nice, Gordon, now go ask your mother what’s for dinner. And don’t try to tell me different. I’ve met him.”
I didn’t try to tell him different. It’s scary to find out that someone else, even a friend, knows just how things are with you.
“You’re just a kid, Gordie-”
“Gee, thanks, Dad.”
“I wish to fuck I was your father!” He said angrily. “You wouldn’t go around talking about takin those stupid shop courses if I was! It’s like God gave you something, all those stories you can make up, and He said: This is what we got for you, kid. Try not to lose it. But kids lose everything unless somebody looks out for them and if your folks are too fucked up to do it then maybe I ought to.”
His face looked like he was expecting me to take a swing at him; it was set and unhappy in the green-gold late afternoon light. He had broken the cardinal rule for kids in those days. You could say anything about another kid, you could rank him to the dogs and back, but you didn’t say a bad word *ever* about his mom and dad. That was the Fabled Automatic, the same way not inviting your Catholic friends home for dinner on Friday unless you checked first to make sure you weren’t having meat was the Fabled Automatic. If a kid ranked out your mom and dad, you had to feed him some knuckles.
“Those stories you can tell, they’re no good to anybody but you, Gordie. If you go along with us just because you don’t want the gang to break up, you’ll wind up just another grunt, makin C’s to get on the teams. You’ll get to High and take the same fuckin shop courses and throw erasers and pull your meat along with the rest of the grunts. Get detentions. Fuckin *suspensions*. And after awhile all you’ll care about is getting a car so you can take some skag to the hops or down to the fuckin Twin Bridges Tavern. Then you’ll knock her up and spend the rest of your life in the mill or some fuckin shoe shop in Auburn or maybe even up to Hillcrest pluckin chickens. And that pie story will never get written down. *Nothin’ll* get written down. Cause you’ll just be another wiseguy with shit for brains.”
Chris Chambers was twelve when he said all that to me. But while he was saying it his face crumpled and folding into something older, oldest, ageless. He spoke tonelessly, colorlessly, but nevertheless, what he said struck terror into me. It was as if he had lived that whole life already, that life where they tell you to step right up and spin the Wheel of Fortune, and it spins so pretty and the guy steps on a pedal and it comes up double zeros, house number, everybody loses.
{Page 382}
When they hear the coyote:
I sat bolt upright, scared. “Chris?”…{Vern and Teddy talk for a while, then-}
“Shut up, Vern,” Chris said, and beneath his usual authoritative toughness I could hear the hollow boom of awe. I wondered if his arms and back and belly were as stiff with gooseflesh as my own were, and if the hair on the nape of his neck was trying to stand up in hackles, as mine was.
“It’s a bird, it’s it?” I asked Chris.
“No. At least, I don’t think so. I think it’s a wildcat. My dad says they scream bloody murder when they’re getting ready to mate. Sounds like a woman, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I said. My voice hitched in the middle of the word and two ice-cubes broke off in the gap.
“But no woman could scream that loud,” Chris said… and then added helplessly: “Could she, Gordie?”
{Page 389}
Gordie:(Stands right next to Chris, and looks up at him with his eyes big and wide.) What is it, Chris?
{From the movie}
Gordie:(Time passes uneventfully as the boys sleep. Vern takes his turn and spends it nervously pointing the pistol at noises in the woods. Next it's Chris' turn to stand guard. He hears Gordie groaning in his sleep) Uhmmm. Uhmmmmm.
Gordie’s Father: (In Gordie's dream he is standing with his family and other mourners at his brother's burial site as the coffin is lowered into the grave. Gordie's dad puts his hand on Gordie's shoulder and says...) It should have been you, Gordon.
Gordie: Uhmmmmmm. Ahhh! (Gordie snaps awake)
Chris: Are you okay?
Gordie: Huh?
Chris: You were dreaming.
Gordie:(Gordie makes no response, but he is awake now and pensive for a few moments before he speaks) I didn't cry at Denny's funeral. (Pause. Chris is attentive, but does not speak)
I miss him, Chris. I really miss him.
Chris: I know. (Pause) Go back to sleep.
{From the movie}
Gordie: Vern, there's something on your neck!
Vern: Yeah, right. I'm not falling for that one, Lachance.
Chris:(The boys stop fighting as they look at Vern's neck) No, Vern. There is something on your neck.
Teddy: It's a leech. Leeches! Jesus Christ, get 'em off!
(The boys exit the water and frantically strip down to their shorts to check each other for leeches. The dialog here is not totally verbatim because everyone is shouting at once)
Chris: Hey Gordie, man, there's some on your back!
Gordie: Get 'em off!
Chris: Are there any on mine, man?!
Gordie: (Gordie feels something in his shorts. He looks down the front and sees a leech)
Oh, Chris.
(Almost crying now)
Oh shit, Chris. Oh shit, man.
(Gordie reaches down and extracts the leech, leaving his hand bloody. As he holds his bloody hand up to look at it, he faints)
Chris: Gordie, man, are you okay? Can you hear me? Gordie, are you there?
Vern: Maybe he's dead.
Teddy: He's not dead. He's still breathing, you idiot.
Vern: Well, I don't know.
Chris: Hey, hey, just cool it you guys. He just fainted. Gordie?
Vern: God. I never met anybody who fainted before.
Teddy: Maybe he made a bad mistake and looked at your face.
Chris: Shut up, Teddy. You okay, Gordie?
Gordie: (Starting to come around now) Yeah.
Chris: Let's go.
{From the movie}
This scene from the book is pretty good (although a little weird) too, so I thought I’d put it in, even if it does mean more typing for me:
Hitting the water was fantastic- clean and cool. I swam across to Chris, loving the silky feel of having nothing on but water. I stood up and we grinned into each other’s faces.
“Boss!” We said it at exactly the same instant.
“Fucking jerkoff,” he said, splashing water in my face, and swam off the other way.
{Then they notice the leeches and run like hell out of the water. Damn leeches, now Chris and Gordie don’t get to flirt in the lake naked anymore}
Chris turned his back to me. “Gordie? Are there any more? Take em off if there are, please, Gordie!” There were more, five or six, running down his back like grotesque black buttons. I pulled their soft, boneless bodies off him.
I brushed even more off my legs, then got Chris to do my back.
I was starting to relax a little- and that was when I looked down at myself and saw the granddaddy of them all clinging to my testicles, its body swelled to four sizes its normal size. Its blackish-gray skin had gone a bruised purplish-red. That was when I began to lose control. Not outside, at least not in any big way, but inside, where it counts.
I brushed its slick, glutinous body with the back of my hand. It held on. I tried to do it again and couldn’t bring myself to actually touch it. I turned to Chris, tried to speak, couldn’t. I pointed instead. His cheeks, already ashy, went whiter still.
“I can’t get it off,” I said through numb lips. “You… can you…”
But he backed away, shaking his head, his mouth twisted. “I can’t, Gordie,” he said, unable to take his eyes away. “I’m sorry but I can’t. No. Oh. No.” He turned away, bowed with one hand pressed to his midsection like the butler in a musical comedy, and was sick in a stand of juniper bushes.
You got to hold onto yourself, I thought, looking at the leech that hung off me like a crazy beard. Its body was still visibly swelling. You got to hold onto yourself and get him. Be tough. It’s the last one. The, Last. One.
I reached down again and picked it off and it burst between my fingers. My own blood ran across my palm and inner wrist in a warm flood. I began to cry.
Still crying, I walked back to my clothes and put them on. I wanted to stop crying, but I just didn’t seem able to turn off the waterworks. Then the shakes set in, making it worse. Vern ran up to me, still naked.
“They off, Gordie? They off me? They off me?”
I nodded that they were and just kept on crying. It seemed like crying was going to be my new career. I tucked my shirt in a buttoned it all the way to the neck. I put on my socks and my sneakers. Little by little the tears began to slow down. Finally there was nothing left by a few hitches and moans, and then they stopped too.
Chris walked over to me, wiping his mouth with a handful of elm leaves. His eyes were wide and mute and apologetic.
{Page 397-398}
Not exactly slashy, necessarily, but there is something… I don’t know, real about this scene and their relationship the way Stephen King writes it. They seem less like the typical ‘oh-how-sweet-adorable-cute’ slash couple and more like they’re real people instead of just characters in a book.
And here’s the fainting part, because it’s sweet too, in it’s own way:
We walked further down the tracks- I don’t know just how far- and I was starting think: Well, okay, I’m going to be able to handle it, it’s all over anyway, just a bunch of leeches, what the fuck; I was still thinking it when waves of whiteness suddenly began to come over my sight and I fell down.
I must have fallen hard, but landing on the crossties was like plunging into a warm and puffy feather bed. Someone turned me over. The touch of hands was faint and unimportant. Their words came in gentle oscillations, fading in and out.
“…him?”
“…be all…”
“…if you think the sun…”
“Gordie, are you…”
Then I must have said something that didn’t make much sense because they began to look *really* worried.
“We better take him back, man,” Teddy said, and then the whiteness came over everything again.
When it cleared, I seemed to be all right. Chris was squatting next to me, saying: “Can you hear me Gordie? You there, man?”
“Yes,” I said, and sat up. A swarm of black dots exploded in front of my eyes, and then went away.
“You scared the shit outta me, Gordie,” he said. “You want a drink of water?”
“Yeah.”
He handed me his canteen, half-full of water, and I let three warm gulps roll down my throat.
{Page 399}
And one of my favorite scenes from the movie, when Gordie breaks down after finding the body:
Chris: Let's look for some long branches. We'll build him a stretcher. (Gordie sits down on a log and stares at the body, not moving, not saying anything. Chris is concerned) Gordie?
Gordie: (Staring at the body) Why did you have to die?
Vern: What's the matter with Gordie?
Chris: Nothing. Why don't you guys just go over there and look for some branches, okay?
Teddy: Okay. (Teddy and Vern wander off)
Gordie: Why did he have to die, Chris? Why did Denny have to die? Why?
Chris: I don't know.
Gordie: It should've been me.
Chris: Don't say that.
Gordie: It should have been me.
Chris: Don't say that, man!
Gordie: I'm no good. My dad said it, I'm no good. (Gordie starts crying)
Chris: He doesn't know you.
Gordie: He hates me.
Chris: He doesn't hate you.
Gordie: He hates me.
Chris: No! He just doesn't know you.
Gordie: He hates me. My dad hates me. He hates me, I'm no good.
(Now crying harder)
Chris: (Puts his arm around Gordie’s shoulder) You're gonna be a great writer someday, Gordie. You might even write about us guys, if you ever get hard up for material.
Gordie: (Cries for a few more minutes, then composes himself) Guess I'd have to be really hard up, huh?
Chris: (grins at him) Yeah.
{From the movie}
Chris: (Ace and his gang leave, and the boys are alone with Ray Brower once more) 'Suck my fat one?'—Who ever told you you had a fat one, Lachance?
Gordie: Biggest one in four counties.
Chris: Yeah. (Chris chuckles, as Vern and Teddy return from hiding)
{From the movie}
Worth pointing out that Chris does agree with him, after all. How’s that for proof? :)
In the book version, it’s Chris who picks up the gun. Part of the talking to Ace scene:
“Stick with me, Gordie,” Chris said in a low, shaky voice. “Stick with me, man.”
“I’m right here.”
{Page 415}
(After the older boys leave)
“Stay right here,” Chris told me, and he started across the bog.
“Chris!” I said, panicky.
“I got to. Stay here.”
It seemed he was gone for a very long time. I became convinced that either Ace or Eyeball had lurked behind and grabbed him. I stood my ground with nobody by Ray Brower for company and waited for somebody- anybody- to come back. After a while, Chris did.
“We did it,” He said. “They’re gone.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. Both cars.” He held his hands up over his head, locked together with the gun between them, and shook the double fist in a wry championship gesture. Then he dropped them and smiled at me. I think it was the saddest scaredest smile I ever saw. “’Suck my fat one’- who ever told you you had a fat one, Lachance?”
“Biggest one in four counties,” I said. I was shaking all over.
We looked at each other warmly for a second, and then, maybe embarrassed by what we were seeing, looked down together.
{Page 416}
Man, even Stephen King seems to realize how slashy these two are, and adds in a ‘despite what everyone thought, we weren’t gay’ line (I’m paraphrasing) probably as a precaution since this story was written in the… 80’s, I believe. Which… uh huh, nice try.
But moving on…
The Very Depressing Ending~
Then of course there’s the end. Which (and there is no way to say this nicely) sucks. I mean- Chris dies! And Gordie hadn’t seen him in more then ten years! What?? After everything; their whole childhood, this body story, their families, high school, getting out of Castle Rock- suddenly they just stop being friends and don’t see each other for ten years?
Just more proof that *something* happened there. *Something* very important is missing from this story, and I’m starting to think that Stephen King let it out on purpose just to fuck with our heads. Mostly though, authors don’t really address that, I think the only person to even bring that up was Sofie ‘Melle’ Werkers in her story ‘Summer Heat’.
One more quote, because it’s my favorite part in the book, and no matter how cramped my fingers are, I have to have it in here.
But first, the same scene from the movie, just to compare the two:
Chris: I'm never gonna get out of this town am I, Gordie?
Gordie: You can do anything you want, man.
Chris: Yeah, sure. (pauses) Give me some skin.
Gordie: I'll see ya.
Chris: Not if I see you first.
“Hey, man,” Teddy said awkwardly. “No hard feelings, okay?”
“No, Chris said, and suddenly his somber, tired face broke into a sweet and sunny grin. “We did it, didn’t we? We did the bastard.”
“Yeah,” Vern said. “You’re fuckin-A. Now Billy’s gonna do me.”
“So what?” Chris said. “Richie’s gonna tool up on me and Ace is probably gonna tool up on Gordie and someone else’ll tool up on Teddy. But we did it.”
“That’s right,” Vern said. But he still sounded unhappy.
Chris looked at me. “We did it, didn’t we?” He asked softly. “It was, worth it?”
“Sure it was,” I said.
{Teddy and Vern walk off, then…}
I hesitated for a second.
“Walk with you,” Chris offered.
“Sure, okay.”
We walked a block or so without talking, then Chris said: “They’ll tell,”
“You bet they will. But not today or tomorrow, if that’s what you’re worried about. It’ll be a long time before they tell, I think. Years, maybe.”
He looked at me, surprised.
“They’re scared, Chris. Teddy, especially, that they won’t take him in the army. But Vern’s scared too. They’ll lose some sleep over it, and then… you know what? It sounds fucking crazy, but… I think they’ll almost forget it ever happened.”
He was nodding slowly. “I didn’t think of it just like that. You see through people, Gordie.”
“Man, I wish I did.”
“You do though.”
We walked another block in silence.
“I’m never gonna get out of this town,” Chris said, and sighed. “When you come back from college on summer vacation, you’ll be able to look me and Vern and Teddy up down at Sukey’s bar. If you want to. Except you’ll probably never want to.” He laughed a creepy laugh.
“Quit jerking yourself off,” I said, trying to sound tougher then I felt. I wanted to say something more to Chris and didn’t know how to.
“Gimme some skin, man,” he said, sounding tired.
“Chris-”
“Skin.”
I gave him some skin. “I’ll see you.”
He grinned- that same sweet, sunny grin. “Not if I see you first, fuckface.”
He walked off, still laughing, moving easily and gracefully, as though he didn’t hurt like me and have blisters like me. As if he didn’t have a care in the world, as if he was going to some real boss place instead of just home to a three-room house (shack would have been closer to the truth) and a brother who would probably kill him as soon as he set food in the front yard. Even if I’d known the right thing to say, I probably couldn’t have said it. Speech destroys the functions of love, I think- that’s a hell of a thing for a write to say, I guess, but I believe it to be true. If you speak to tell a deer you mean it no harm, it glides away with a single flip of it’s tail. The word is the harm. Love isn’t what these asshole poets like McKuen want you to think it is. Love has teeth; they bite; the wounds never close. No word, no combinations of words can close those lovebites. It’s the other way around. If those wounds dry up, the words die with them. Take it from me. I’ve made my life from words, and I know that it is so.
[Page 426}
Further Reading~
Down By The River by i-nv-u50~ {My favorite Stand By Me story} http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1383793/1/
Promise by i-nv-u50~ http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1336385/1/
Leaving by Aleka~{Not specified as slash, but it’s very much implied} http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1131768/1/
Summer Heat by Sofie ‘Melle’Werkers~ http://www.fanfiction.net/s/124324/1/
Let the Butterfly Soar by Goddess Myzt~ http://www.fanfiction.net/s/354335/1/
I’m Under The Milk Crate Tonight by the masked penguin~ {20 chapters} http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1456457/1/
If You Jump by moonriverandme~ {This story is more of a friendship piece then slash, but it’s very implied during the first couple chapters} http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1512149/1/
Testing The Water by itbeme~ http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1567906/1/
From: wearemany
2005-06-28 06:42 (link) Select
oooh, thank you for this, and for inspiring me to reread the story, which i haven't looked at in years.
one small addition: i requested and received an AMAZING. stand by me story for the yuletide rare fandoms challenge this past holiday: Letting Go http://www.yuletidetreasure.org/archive/10/lettinggo.html , by Kass. probably rated an R or so. not all that long but really great.
Wonderful.
So many people prefer to ignore slash when it applies to anyone under 18. We all know the perfectly good reasons why, but it's a shame not to examine a relationship like this one that is as clear -- or more so -- than adult/over-18 relationships.
The amount of work you've done is obvious and commendable.
I love this pairing. I have since I first read King's story, though moreso after seeing the movie...
Thanks!
Brian
Boy love . . .
King is also great at throwing in that boyish eroticism (like he does in "It").
There was definitely a special connection between these two. And I'd love to know what the actors, Wil Wheaton and River Phoenix, thought about the relationship.
Thanks for sharing!