Bouncing in the Benz 600 on Grand Rollin' a Thousand with My Friend Just Countin' My Ends

111020 Sol Kim

Reading journal of The Body first thirty pages

     







     The first thirty pages of the book are not so interesting, rather dragging on. Gordon, Teddy, Chris, and Vern are kids playing along. Gordon, and other kids too, was twelve going on thirteen, and it was summer-‘the driest and hottest since 1907 according to newspapers (p.294)’. Three of them: Gordon, Teddy, and Chris were playing cards in their treehouse in Castle Rock, and Gordon got out first. He was reading his detective magazines when Vern hurriedly had ran more than two miles and hurriedly rushed into the treehouse. Vern suggests the other three boys to come over to his house, and go see a dead body. The dead body is Ray Brower, a kid their age, who was from Chamberlain and was missing. Vern, who was digging under the porch to find his jar of pennies, overheard the talks his brother Billy and his brother Charlie had without getting noticed. Billy and Charlie, tough guys in town, stole a car and went to Harlow with the girls they used to go out with, and saw dead Ray Brower there, torn out on the railroad. Afraid of getting caught of boosting a car, they decide not to tell anyone but Vern heard it, and suggests an expedition that night to the three boys. Interested, the three boys agree, and then the story what Gordon Lachance wrote begins.

     Gordon is a kid that has a brother ten years older than him. His mother was forty-two when she had him, and his parents really didn’t care about Gordon but always cared about Dennis, his brother. In April Dennis died because of a Jeep accident, and his parents were into pieces. Gordon was like the invisible kid in his house. Teddy had a crazy father who burnt Teddy’s all two ears when Teddy was eight, and Teddy was not that bright either, slightly crazy. Chris, who was the smart one among the boys, had a father who beats him up after getting drunk. He played truant a lot, mostly because getting beaten by his dad. Vern had a fair family compared to others, but he was a ‘feeb’ according to Gordon’s dad.

     The story inserted in the middle of the novel was a ‘pretty fucking melodramatic’ one according to Gordon, the writer himself. The story was published in 1970, ten years after the main experience of the whole novella. Chico has a brother named Johnny who died in a car accident, and he had a stepmother, Virginia. Chico breaks a girl in on Johnny’s bed, where Johnny and Virginia used to make out, in order to stir up Virginia. He thinks Virginia killed Johnny: if Virginia did not have such affair with Johnny, Johnny could have worked in a different place-Gates Mills & Weaving, not where he had the accident. He couldn’t because if he did, Gates Mills & Weaving made him work at night and thus he would have to stay in the house alone with Virginia for days, when his dad is out working. Johnny couldn’t stand it, and that was how he killed. The story ends with Chico getting out of the house.

     What was this all about? After reading the small story, I asked this question and couldn’t find the answer. Expecting to find something else later on, I tried to find the relationship between the whole novella and the inserted story. Gordon lost his brother in a car accident, and Chico also did. Gordon was afraid of going to Dennis’ room because he always imagined of the closet getting opened and bleeding Dennis coming out. Chico also imagines that in the middle of the story, Johnny whispering not to put a hand on his Dodge. Virginia, Jane-the girl Chico broke in on Johnny’s bed-and Chico’s dad were all made-up. Still the story shared some similarities with Gordon. Chico keeps on mentioning ‘knobs of Johnny’s spine (p.325)’, describing the scene of Johnny getting crushed by the car. This, in my expectation, seems to be the description of what he will see from the dead Ray Brower later in the novella.

     I just summarized the whole thirty pages because I couldn’t find any theme of the story yet. To choose my favorite part, still, I would pick the first two paragraphs, especially the first sentence. ‘The most important things are the hardest things to say (p.293).’ The writer then says this: ‘That’s the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear (p.293).’ Yes, I completely agreed with these sentences: there are important things that shrink its significance when it is out in air. It seemed to me that the writer ‘I’, Gordon in the story, tried to explain that important thing by giving the whole story because he couldn’t explain it in just few words. Stephen King, or Gordon, wanted us to fully understand how his world has changed, how his childhood has ended by seeing a dead body, and The Body may deliver the message to us.