Christine Recaps: Part Six
by thethreepennyguignol
After the absolute existential psychosexual carfucking nightmare of the last recap, I am approaching this one with…some level of caution to say the least. What horrible revelations will I have about myself at fifteen this week? Only time will tell. Let’s get into it!
We start things off with one of my all-time favourite artists, Elvis Costello, and his classic Less Than Zero (any Brett Easton Ellis books it might share a name with purely incidental):
The next chapter opens with Dennis visiting the Cunningham household, where the family are preparing for a trip away to mend some of the strain that has plagued them since Arnie got Christine.
Arnie’s father takes Dennis aside and asks him to keep an eye on Arnie and Christine for him; to his father, Arnie’s obsession with the car is just a means to an end, a way for him to land dates (not that he would need to, given his profoundly loving relationship with Dennis, but anyway) – Dennis isn’t sure whether it’s better or worse that Arnie’s interest is truly just in Christine.
Arnie arrives, and Dennis does not beat the romance allegations:
“It occurred to me that his face was almost handsome – not in a jut-jawed, lifeguard, king of the prom way, but in an interesting, thoughtful way. He would never be Roseanne’s type, but…”
But he’s yours, right, Dennis? The fact that we’re once again getting one of the few mentions of Dennis’ girlfriend’s name in the context of who would find Arnie attractive is…certainly something, like Dennis is putting a woman’s point of view between Arnie and him. I’ve been resisting reading this story as some version of a love story between Dennis and Arnie, but there’s only so much denial I can live in, you know?
The next day, Dennis goes to visit Christine at Darnell’s at the request of Arnie’s father, and finds that she’s looking much better. Only thing is, there are repairs here that Arnie couldn’t possibly have done in the time he’s had her – and little evidence of the work or materials he would have needed to do them. The web of cracks on the windscreen is smaller, a dent in the bumper is gone, the paintjob is already better – Christine, it seems like, has been fixing up herself (particularly interesting so close to Dennis’ acknowledgement of Arnie’s improved looks, too).
Dennis, disturbed, wants to look under the hood, but he can’t get in to the car to release it:
“It was as if it knew I wanted to get inside and pull the release. And because it didn’t want me to do that, it had locked its own doors.”
We’re really getting into Christine as a more active participant in the story now, given that most of the encounters with her so far have been in Dennis’ head, limited to uneasy feelings and hearing voices.
Darnell, the owner of the garage, approaches Dennis with some suspicion – but, upon finding out his father used to work for Darnell, he invites him to the office to talk about Arnie. Darnell has been confused and even a little disturbed with the fervour with which Arnie has gone about fixing up Christine, and, to Dennis’ surprise, he reveals that Roland LeBay used to frequent Darnell’s garage himself to work on Christine. While it’s not a huge surprise, given how small this community is, I do love the idea of Christine returning to the same place to fix herself up – turning something as mundane as a garage into a place where she can cultivate some mystic energy is very true to a lot of the worlds King creates.
Anyway, as Dennis leaves, we’re at the end of this chapter, and we start off the next one with a good dose of the ol’ Steely Dan:
School begins again, and Dennis notices Arnie putting some distance between them as he’s distracted by the garage and Darnell’s – spending time with a mechanic from the garage out on the plains rather than with Dennis. Such is their space from each other that Dennis doesn’t notice Arnie’s carrying an injury till his mother points it out when Arnie visits for the game. Arnie dismisses it as nothing more than an accident from driving, but Dennis senses there’s more to the story than he’s giving away – with Christine’s sudden fixing-up in mind, it’s hard not to wonder if she’s drawing on Arnie’s wellbeing to make that happen.
Dennis breaks up with his girlfriend (still just “the cheerleader”, unless he can use her to pretend that he isn’t checking out Arnie), and, I’ll be honest here, what comes next is a lot of football talk. Dennis is on the football team, which is struggling for the first time in a long time, and it’s getting him down. While I think this section could absolutely tie in to his fears of ageing, and what it represents for him for his glory days in football to be over and done with, it’s also a lot of talk about scores, teams, and training that I don’t think adds a huge amount to the story. I get it, Stephen King loves his sports (The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is proof of that alone), but this is a pretty dull chapter for me.
Which, most importantly, brings us to the next chapter – and the introduction of Leigh. Well, once we enjoy some obscure Beach Boys, of course:
We get our introduction to Leigh Cabot here, who’s going to serve as the fourth major player in Christine; a recent transfer from Massachusetts, Dennis admires her as Arnie lends her his English assignment. And, yes, in case you really needed a throwback to the Carrie recaps, Stephen King does go out of his way to describe her “firm, high” breasts in a weirdly offputting way.
Dennis wants to ask Leigh out, but he notices that she seems more interested in Arnie, much to Dennis chagrin:
“Leigh and Arnie studied each other surreptitiously while I studied Arnie surreptitiously…he looked…older.”
It’s really interesting to me that Dennis despises his own ageing so much, but, here, Arnie looking older is a good thing – like he’s shed the teenage skin that held him back, and now, he’s actually attractive to women. Leigh and Arnie flirt a little, and afterwards (well, after she left, “hips undulating gently under her green knitted skirt” – seriously, King has a knack for making his narrators commenting on teenage girls sound like the most rampant, slavering weirdos imaginable), Dennis ribs him about it before they agree to meet to eat lunch on the bleachers. Dennis reflects on Leigh’s apparent attraction to Arnie, reasoning (and I think quite accurately) that Arnie’s previous unattractiveness has put other girls in their school off dating him, his social status secured by his ugliness, and that it’s Leigh’s ability to see him for what he is now that has her interested.
But, as Dennis heads out to the bleachers, he overhears a commotion – and finds Arnie being confronted by Repperton, who assaulted him earlier in the book. Except this time, Repperton is brandishing a switchblade.
Arnie, to Dennis’ surprise, isn’t as scared as he would expect – instead, he refers to Repperton as a “shitter”, which Dennis rightly recalls is a word Roland was fond of. After some posturing, Dennis intervenes, and takes a nasty hit to the balls before a teacher steps in and breaks it up. Repperton and his cronies are swiftly removed from the school after the switchblade is revealed, and Arnie and Dennis agree to head back to class after lunch.
But Arnie, Dennis notices, isn’t as spooked as you would expect – like Dennis commented on earlier in the chapter, he’s mature in a way that he wasn’t before, able to stare down Repperton and his friends. And, instead of hanging around after school to meet Dennis after their ordeal, he heads straight to Darnell’s to work on Christine. Even with Leigh in the picture, there’s still only one woman in Arnie’s life right now.
And that brings us to the end of this recap – a bit of a shorter one this time around, thanks to so much of it being dedicated to Sports Team Stuff, but I’ll be back at it soon!
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