Characters in The Body

“You should have come with us to see your Uncle Pete and Aunt Ann,” his father says. He eats a frank in three quick bites. “You’re getting to be like a stranger around here, Eddie. I don’t like that. Not while we provide the bed and board.”

One night when I was nine, just to see what would happen: I said, “Please pass those goddam spuds.” And my mom said: Denny, Auntie Grace called today and she asked after you and Gordon.

Just gone to the show like we was gonna!” Charlie and Billy went with a couple of scags named Marie Dougherty and Beverly Thomas; you never saw such gross-looking broads outside of a carnival show—pimples, moustaches, the whole works.

His cheeks and forehead were smeared with blueberry juice, and he looked like an extra in a minstrel show. He was done—done before the legendary Bill Travis had finished half of his first pie. Startled applause went up as the Mayor examined Lard Ass’s pie-plate and pronounced it clean enough.

For a moment he sits inside silently, listening to the rain. It is like being inside a steel drum. Inside, Billy is watching Carl Stormer and His Country Buckaroos on the TV set. When Chico comes in, Billy jumps up, excited. “Eddie, hey Eddie, you know what Uncle Pete said?

In baseball you had to have him play the fences, way beyond Chris in left field and Billy Greer in right. You just hoped no one would hit one that far because Teddy would go grimly after it, see it or not.

… Eyeball was always guzzling Purple Jesuses with Ace Merrill and Charlie Hogan and Billy Tessio. What, he asked me, did I think his chances 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 …

From right to left, then, the eaters were Bill Travis, David “Lard Ass” Hogan, Bob Cormier, principal John Wiggins, and Calvin Spier holding down the stool on the far left.

… of Nixon and Lodge would take the torch of freedom from Our Great and Beloved General and hold it high for— Calvin Spier’s belly rumbled noisily—goinnngg! There was laughter and even some applause. Sylvia Dodge, who knew perfectly well that Calvin was both a Democrat and a Catholic (either would …

For a moment he sits inside silently, listening to the rain. It is like being inside a steel drum. Inside, Billy is watching Carl Stormer and His Country Buckaroos on the TV set. When Chico comes in, Billy jumps up, excited. “Eddie, hey Eddie, you know what Uncle Pete said?

He wasn’t afraid of Milo, who had a pot belly and was at least forty, but every kid in Castle Rock squeezed his balls between his legs when Chopper’s name was mentioned. “Okay,” I said. “Odd man goes?” “That’s you, Gordie,” Chris said, smiling. “Odd as a cod.”

… one and all, Man, I just can’t believe I’m doing this; Chuck Day, who had received a generous portion of Bill Travis’s surprise gift, threw up on his Hush Puppies and then blinked at them wonderingly, knowing full well that stuff would never come off suede; John Wiggins, principal of …

Go again.” “No, man,” Vern said earnestly. “A goocher, that’s really bad. You remember when Clint Bracken and those guys got wiped out on Sirois Hill in Durham? Billy tole me they was flippin for beers and they came up a goocher just before they got into the car.

… Ways or a maniac that went crazy and chopped a lot of people into veal cutlets before the hero, Curt Cannon, “cut the subhuman, screeching madman to pieces with round after round from his smoking .45 automatic.” In my stories, there were always rounds. Never bullets. For a change of …

“In his new stud car. Funky.” He tastes puke on his lips and in his throat and coating his sinuses. He doesn’t want a cigarette. Danny Carter will let him sleep over. Tomorrow will be time enough for further decisions. He pulls back onto Route 14 and gets rolling.

If you get me.” Nobody said anything and Vern plunged on: “I mean, sometimes I get nightmares. Like . . . aw, you guys remember the time Danny Naughton left that pile of old funnybooks, the ones with the vampires and people gettin cut up and all that shit?

Next, Mayor Charbonneau introduced Lard Ass. “A new participant in the annual Great Gretna Pie-Eat, but one we expect great things from in the future . . . young Master David Hogan!”

“Hey Lachance, who the fuck is that?” “My kid brother and you better watch your mouth, Davis. He’ll beat the crap out of you. Gordie’s tough.” They gather around me for a moment, huge, impossibly tall, just a moment of interest like a patch of sun.

Eyeball had fulfilled his responsibility by going off with Ace and his j.d. buddies, leaving nine-year-old Sheldon, five-year-old Emery, and two-year-old Deborah to sink or swim on their own. Teddy’s mom got worried the second night and called Vern’s mom.

He didn’t say a word until he was weighing up the hamburger. “I know you. You’re Denny Lachance’s brother. Ain’t you?” The toothpick journeyed from one corner of his mouth to the other, as if on ball bearings.

I said I thought they were from some other town, or from “up the city”—a phrase everyone understood to mean Lewiston-Auburn. They took me to Dr. Clarkson in the station wagon—Dr.

He is not a Catholic and he’s surely not a Mexican: his real name is Edward May and his friends all call him Chico because his hair is black and he greases it back with Brylcreem and he wears boots with pointed toes and Cuban heels.

Eyeball had fulfilled his responsibility by going off with Ace and his j.d. buddies, leaving nine-year-old Sheldon, five-year-old Emery, and two-year-old Deborah to sink or swim on their own. Teddy’s mom got worried the second night and called Vern’s mom.

“Shut up! Let’s get out of here!” I screamed, and grabbed him by the shirt. As we ran, the back door of the Blue Point jerked open and Francine Tupper stepped out in her white rayon waitress’s uniform. “Who did that? Who’s letting off cherry-bombs back here?”

“So just say that I stole the milk-money but then old lady Simons stole it from me. Just suppose I told that story. Me, Chris Chambers. Kid brother of Frank Chambers and Eyeball Chambers. You think anybody would have believed it?” “No way,” I whispered. “Jesus Christ!”

Beneath them, in Roman Gothic script, were the words WILD CARD. The doors flew open; Ace Merrill and Fuzzy Bracowicz stepped out. “Cheap hood, right?” Ace said, smiling his gentle smile. “My mother loves the way I do it to her, right?” “We’re gonna rack you, baby,” Fuzzy said.

The owner, a man named George Dusset, got the meat and then leaned by his cash register, one hammy hand planted on the counter by the big bottle of hardcooked eggs, a toothpick in his mouth, his huge beer belly …

As he told friends later, he felt he was in a real contest for the first time since 1957, when George Gamache gobbled three pies in four minutes and then fainted dead away. He had to wonder, he said, if he was up against a boy or a demon.

… Scooby-Doo on channel 38 out of Boston, and I am feeling the most like the pre-adolescent Gordon Lachance that once strode the earth, walking and talking and occasionally crawling on his belly like a reptile. That boy was me, I think. And the thought which follows, chilling me like a …

Some said he was half German shepherd, some said he was mostly boxer, and a kid from Castle View with the unfortunate name of Harry Horr claimed that Chopper was a Doberman pinscher whose vocal cords had been surgically removed so you couldn’t hear him when he was on the …

“And then there’s this guy who’s a disc jockey at a radio station up in Lewiston, he ain’t exactly fat but he’s sorta chubby, you know. And the last guy was Hubert Gretna the Third, who was the principal of Lard Ass Hogan’s school.”

Charlie Hogan and Vern’s brother Billy stepped through them, cursing and wiping water out of their eyes. I felt a lead ball drop into my belly. It grew bigger as Jack Mudgett, Fuzzy Bracowicz and Vince Desjardins stepped out behind Charlie and Billy. “Here we all are,” Ace said, grinning.

… toughest guy in Castle Rock who wasn’t in our gang (we all agreed it was Jamie Gallant, who gave Mrs. Ewing the finger and then sauntered out of her class with his hands in his pockets while she shouted at him), the best TV show (either The Untouchables or Peter …

He smiles suddenly. His face shines. It is nearly magical. “I’ll see you Monday, Janey-Jane. Still friends, right?” “You know we are,” she says, and kisses him again . . . but when he cups a breast through her jumper, she pulls away. “Don’t. My father might see.”

Folks would come in to get a muffler replaced or their wheelbearings greased, and would sit in the theater chairs ranged along one wall (Jerry Maling, who owned the Amoco, had salvaged them from the old Gem Theater when it was torn down in 1957), drinking Cokes and Moxies from …

buddies. “I think all that’ll work,” I told Chris. “What about John and Marty?” John and Marty DeSpain were two other members of our regular gang. ‘They’re still away,” Chris said. “They won’t be back until Monday.” “Oh. That’s too bad.” “So are we set?”

… and then blinked at them wonderingly, knowing full well that stuff would never come off suede; John Wiggins, principal of Gretna Elementary, opened his bluelined mouth and said reprovingly: “Really, this has . . . YURRK!” As befitted a man of his breeding and position, he did it in his …

On the far wall is a movie poster from Easy Rider—Two Men Went Looking for America and Couldn’t Find It Anywhere. The room had more life when Johnny lived here. Chico doesn’t know how or why; only that it’s true. And he knows something else, as well.

And 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.

… get ready for some future mortality; that’s why all the verbs in stories have -ed endings, Keith my good man, even the ones that sell millions of paperbacks. The only two useful artforms are religion and stories. I was pretty drunk that night, as you may have guessed. What I …

… the table as if to explain to the gaping audience just what was happening, and puked on the head of Marguerite Charbonneau, the Mayor’s wife. She screamed and backed away, pawing futilely at her hair, which was now covered with a mixture of crushed berries, baked beans, and partially digested …

She turned to her good friend Maria Lavin and threw up on the front of Maria’s buckskin jacket. In rapid succession, like a replay of the firecrackers: Bill Travis blew a great—and seemingly supercharged—jet of vomit out …

Just gone to the show like we was gonna!” Charlie and Billy went with a couple of scags named Marie Dougherty and Beverly Thomas; you never saw such gross-looking broads outside of a carnival show—pimples, moustaches, the whole works.

buddies. “I think all that’ll work,” I told Chris. “What about John and Marty?” John and Marty DeSpain were two other members of our regular gang. ‘They’re still away,” Chris said. “They won’t be back until Monday.” “Oh. That’s too bad.” “So are we set?”

Wiggins managed to beam paternally and frown sternly down on the audience at the same time. Next, Mayor Charbonneau introduced Lard Ass. “A new participant in the annual Great Gretna Pie-Eat, but one we expect great things from in the future . . . young Master David Hogan!”

I wanted to tell him how Vern and I had almost gotten run down by a freight train on the trestle which spans the Castle River. About Milo Pressman and his fearless—if stupid—sidekick, Chopper the Wonder-Dog. About the blood-suckers, too.

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 real glad. This Invisible Man is about a Negro. Nobody ever notices him at all unless he fucks up.

Jerry tossed his cookies in his own lap and told folks later he only thanked Providence he had been wearing his coveralls. And Miss Norman, who taught Latin and English Fundamentals at the Gretna Consolidated High School, vomited into her own purse in an agony of propriety.

“People. People drag you down.” “Who?” I asked, thinking he must mean the teachers, or adult monsters like Miss Simons, who had wanted a new skirt, or maybe his brother Eyeball who hung around with Ace and Billy and Charlie and the rest, or maybe his own mom and dad.

We discussed at some length the relative merits of the teachers we had had. We agreed that Mr. Brooks was the biggest pussy in Castle Rock Elementary—he would just about cry if you sassed him back.

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 was smart, really smart, but he played truant a lot, and Mr. Halliburton, the town truant officer, was always showing up at Chris’s house, driving his old black Chevrolet with the NO RIDERS sticker in the corner of the windshield.

Mrs. Brockway, the Methodist minister’s wife, made a long, basso belching noise which was followed by a gusher of degenerated roast beef and mashed potatoes and apple cobbler.

When Mrs. Burroughs from next door came over to ask if Teddy was all right—she’d heard the screaming—Teddy’s dad pointed the shotgun at her. Mrs. Burroughs went out of the Duchamp house at roughly the speed of light, locked herself into her own house, and called the police.

We agreed that Mr. Brooks was the biggest pussy in Castle Rock Elementary—he would just about cry if you sassed him back. On the other hand, there was Mrs. Cote (pronounced Cody)—she was just about the meanest bitch God had ever set down on the earth.

… Castle Rock who wasn’t in our gang (we all agreed it was Jamie Gallant, who gave Mrs. Ewing the finger and then sauntered out of her class with his hands in his pockets while she shouted at him), the best TV show (either The Untouchables or Peter Gunn—both Robert Stack …

… the broken bones together, and used a nickel in the pay phone to call Mrs. McGinn—he told me later it was the first collect call he had ever made and he was scared to death that she wouldn’t accept the charges—but she did. “Chris, are you all right?” she asked.

“Jesus save us!” moaned Sylvia Dodge, and then her outraged supper—fried clams, cole slaw, butter-and-sugar corn (two ears’ worth), and a generous helping of Muriel Harrington’s Bosco chocolate cake—bolted out the emergency exit and landed with a large wet splash on the back of the Mayor’s Robert Hall suitcoat.

The orderly saluted, and Teddy’s dad snapped it right back at him. A few minutes after the ambulance left, the state police arrived and relieved Norman Duchamp of duty.

Then she just stared out the window, her back to me. I went on eating. I was trembling all over. 31 The story never did get out. Oh, I don’t mean that Ray Brower’s body was never found; it was. But neither our gang nor their gang got the credit.

The next-eldest, Richard (his right eye was all funny and jittery, which was why everybody called him Eyeball), had dropped out of high school in the tenth grade, and chummed around with Charlie and Billy Tessio and their j.d. buddies. “I think all that’ll work,” I told Chris.

Richie Jenner, a kid who hung around with us until his family moved to Nebraska in 1959, was the first one to find out that I wanted to be a writer when I grew up, that I wanted to do that for …

The night Dennis graduated with honors from Castle Rock High School I played sick and stayed home. I got Stevie Darabont’s oldest brother Royce to buy me a bottle of Wild Irish Rose and I drank half of it and puked in my bed in the middle of the night.

They ride past the Grange hall and the Volunteer Fire Department and Brownie’s Store. Sally Morrison’s T-Bird is parked by Brownie’s hi-test pump, and Chico raises a hand to her as he turns off onto the old Lewiston road. “Who’s that?” “Sally Morrison.” “Pretty lady.”

Billy hollers and laughs and kicks him in the shins. “Cut it out, now,” Sam May says, coming into the room. “Cut it out, you two. You know how your mother feels about the rough-housing.” He has pulled his tie down and unbuttoned the top button of his shirt.

She went and left Eyeball in charge of the younger kids. Eyeball had fulfilled his responsibility by going off with Ace and his j.d. buddies, leaving nine-year-old Sheldon, five-year-old Emery, and two-year-old Deborah to sink or swim on their own.

The night Dennis graduated with honors from Castle Rock High School I played sick and stayed home. I got Stevie Darabont’s oldest brother Royce to buy me a bottle of Wild Irish Rose and I drank half of it and puked in my bed in the middle of the night.

… of the third week you got down to the real business: Could you hit Stinky Fiske in the back of the head with your Art-Gum while the teacher was putting The Principal Exports of South America on the board? How many good loud squeaks could you get off on the …

When Chico comes in, Billy jumps up, excited. “Eddie, hey Eddie, you know what Uncle Pete said? He said him and a whole mess of other guys sank a kraut sub in the war! Will you take me to the show next Saturday?” “I don’t know,” Chico says, grinning.

What we didn’t know as we walked around The Bluffs was that Billy Tessio, Charlie Hogan, Jack Mudgett, Norman “Fuzzy” Bracowicz, Vince Desjardins, Chris’s older brother Eyeball, and Ace Merrill himself were all on their way to take a look at the body themselves—in a weird kind of way, Ray …