Chapter Text
I hadn’t seen much of Vern Tessio or Teddy Duchamp since the summer of 1959. We were young, dumb, rebellious preteens back then, too stupid to make a good decision. I mean, who the hell goes off to see some dead kid in the woods to get famous? We did. We were stupid.Then Chris had talked me into taking those damn college classes and I got smart. I think all those smart kids knocked some sense into me. That, and the fact that I wasn’t looking for attention I wouldn’t get from my mother and father anymore. I had learned three things from the start of junior high to the day I turned 16, four weeks ago. Number one: Keep your back straight and your eyes ahead. Number two: Don’t be too skinny and don’t be too fat or have too much muscle. Number three (the most important rule of all): Never, ever ever, be stupid. Of course, the first two fit into my third rule, of not being stupid. Now, let me tell you all that I’ve learned while following my rules. Girls will make fun of you for having bad posture, girls will also make fun of you and call you malnourished for not having any muscle (that sucked). Girls and guys also made fun of Vern, I heard, for being a fatass. Girls will scoff at you and avoid you if they think you’ve looked up their skirt. (If you haven’t guessed, most of my problems have revolved around girls not liking me too much). Though, the most stupid things are things that you can never do. There are always exceptions to the first two rules if people like you enough. Here is my (definitely incomplete) list of stupid things you should never do: drink, smoke, have sex, curse in front of your parents, curse in front of your teachers, hang around girls all the time, do sports of any kind, skip studying to go out with stupid people, go on a two day trip to see a dead boy (been there done that). And most important of all the stupid things to never do: talk to Chris Chambers. Yes, my once best friend I could never talk to again. My life was great now that I’d been following my rules, and I couldn’t have Chris messing that up for me, even if he sort of hated me for ditching him. That’s right, Chris hated me. I didn’t mind much, though. He could be stupid if he wanted to. He smoked and drank and had sex. He left me, not the other way around. Enough about Chris, though. Let me tell you just how much my life has changed in four short years. For one, I’m a junior in Castle Rock High School, and on track to graduate top of my class. Another thing is that I’m smart now. I know now how stupid it was of me to ever hang around Teddy and Vern and Chris. Dennis and Paul remind me of that a lot. They’re my new friends that I’ve made in my classes. Along with Kenny, Roger, and Harold. We’re sort of like one big group. I met Kenny because his big brother, Ron was best friends with Denny, my big brother. God, can I be honest? Sometimes I hate Denny. All my teachers pity me because he died, my parents loved him more than me when he was alive and don’t care about me at all now that he’s been dead. My friends, too, when they come over and see his room–still perfectly clean as if nothing had changed: they say ‘sorry for your loss and all, Gordie’. Sure, I miss him, but all that asshole has done is cause me nothing but pain. I guess it’s still better than having Eyeball as an older brother, like Chris. All those boys are washed up young men now with ugly scars from when they carved ‘COBRAS’ into their shoulders. And sure, I’ve got ugly scars, but they sure as hell aren’t on my arms and they definitely aren’t from some shitty high school gang. All of my ugly scars are on my legs, where no one would ever see because I’d never have sex anyways. I wasn’t some skinny nerd with glasses but I was still a nerd who’d never get laid. Not like Chris. God, I couldn’t ever seem to get him off my mind. Everything in my life… This is like Chris, this isn’t like Chris, God I’m glad I’m not Chris, God, I wish I was Chris. Every single time. Maybe I had a problem relating to Chris Chambers.
It was Tuesday afternoon when yet another one of my problems had something to do with Christopher Chambers. I was sat in detention for the first time in five years. The usuals weren’t here, other than Teddy of course. Jane, Bonnie, Willie, Anthony, and Joe Smith had somehow all managed to be on their best behavior. While me, Teddy, Vern, and goddamn Christopher Chambers had been on our worst. I glanced at the other three boys and their unfamiliar faces after I made sure to double check the room number. Teddy had gotten muscles from climbing fences and getting into all other sorts of trouble, and his face was more scarred up than ever. His near-burnt off ear still stuck out like a sore thumb, but a cut on his eyebrow and a few scars on his cheek were new since I’d last seen him. He still had his thick black framed glasses which was familiar enough. Sitting in the very back of the room was Vern. He was still the shortest of the four of us and a little fluffy but not nearly as fat as he used to be. He was still nervous. I think he’d changed the least, other than the fact that he was a football player somehow. He was terrible but he apparently had said he’d rather do it than have to take P.E.. I glanced over at Chris, furthest from the door. He looked the same, in a way. More mature but hadn’t physically changed as much as Teddy and Vern had. He had broad shoulders and strong, not-too-muscley arms. He had a few scars on the back of his hands, I’d noticed. Not like the kind I’d put on my legs, though. They looked like he’d gotten them just being a normal stupid teenager. My gaze moved from his hands to his chest. He seemed to have a pretty flat chest despite supposedly working it out a lot. I glanced at his throat, too, my eyes running over the Adam's Apple that’d taken forever to show. I remember how he used to be so shy about his neck because he said it made him look like a girl. It didn’t. Finally I glanced at his face and his blue eyes met mine for a few moments. They looked angry. Not the kind of hate for the world I knew from four years ago. This was a new kind of anger, and he was angry at me. Which was scarier than almost getting hit by a train while sneaking off to go find a dead boy.
“Hey.”
The word was out of my mouth before I could stop myself. I’d broken my most important rule in an instant because saying ‘hey’ to Chris Chambers and embarrassing myself was most definitely stupid.
“I thought you were a goody two-shoes now, Gordie. What the hell are you doing here?” He scoffed after a few awkward moments. His voice was low and raspy, like he was still maturing. I liked it. My face was red as a beet, I could tell. Oh yeah… I forgot to tell you how I got into this situation in the first place.
“I got into a fight.” I blurted out to Chris. This was technically the truth, since I’d gotten into an argument with Benny Nicholson over him thinking I was messing around with his girl. Though, I hadn’t technically hit him. Mrs. Kipler, mine and Benny’s ELA teacher gave me detention though since she was in an especially sour mood and already somehow didn’t like me.
“Bullshit.” Teddy scoffed as he looked back at Vern who just shrugged his shoulders. Teddy and Vern still hung around each other, since they were both sort of outcasts without any friends. Well, me and Chris were too, but we were less outcasted than Teddy and Vern. Nobody wanted to get caught dead with Teddy or Vern.
“Yeah,” Chris scoffed back. “There’s no way you got into a fight. Who ev-” Coach Miller, who was supervising us cut him off.
“Be quiet. All of you. Just sit down Gordie.”
So I sat down, my face a bright red. I knew it was red because Teddy snickered when I looked at him. Chris just rolled his eyes and started to scribble on his desk. Miller didn’t care. He was widely agreed upon to be the best teacher to have for detention, because all he wanted to do was go home, and that’s what everyone else wanted too. Unless you were Teddy. Then you wanted to get detention as much as you could to avoid going home to your loony dad, even if you wouldn’t admit it.
Not too long into study hall, while Miller had gotten up to use the restroom (smoke a cigarette or two), I felt a balled up piece of paper hit the back of my head. I turned around to glare at Vern, who’d obviously thrown it. He just pointed to the paper. I snatched it off the floor and chucked it back at him. Jeez, I knew he hated me but throwing stuff at me was an asshole move. He scoffed and tossed it back.
“Open it, retard.” Vern scoffed at me. I picked up the paper, still glaring at him. Whatever was on this paper, I didn’t trust it. Even if Vern was the most trustworthy of the three. I finally crumpled the paper open, reading the scribbled words on it.
‘Come to the clubhouse tonight.’
I had expected more. I glanced up at him, my eyebrows furrowed. He just pointed to Teddy, who was trying to look uninterested. I tossed it over to him and he gave Vern the same confused look. I knew it was against my rules to go to the old clubhouse where we’d smoke and play cards and do stupid stuff, back when we were all twelve years old. I knew how stupid it was and yet, some part of me craved to be stupid one more time. A part of me was hoping that Vern would have an idea just as terrible as his idea from four years ago. I glanced over to Teddy, who didn’t have the paper. He used to be our leader, and here I was, begging for his commands. When I received no orders, I looked at Chris, who looked back at me. He wanted an agreement. I knew he’d go if I went. I glared at him, stupidly. After a moment of eye contact that had more tension than I’d like to admit, I looked back at Vern.
“What’s all this about, Vern?” I asked. The other boys seemed to have the same question. Chris threw the paper back to him.
“It’s too much to explain before Coach gets back from his “bathroom break”..” Vern did airquotes around ‘bathroom break’, because everyone in Castle Rock knew that when Miller said, ‘bathroom break’, it meant ‘smoke break’. Speak of the devil, because Miller walked back into the room smelling like a cigarette not even two seconds later. I turned back around in my desk and pretended to work on nothing. Really, though, I was deciding if perhaps there was an exception to every rule and that perhaps just once, before I graduated, I should do something really stupid.