STAND BY ME: Chapter 15
Chapter 15
TEARS FOR A FRIEND
The story never did get out. Ace Merrill called the police without giving his name. That was how they found the body. No one became a hero. Not his gang. Not ours. Milo Pressman never said anything, either. Chris’s dad had not noticed Chris was gone. He was too drunk.
Teddy’s mom got worried on the second night and called Vern’s mom. Vern’s mom said we were in the field. She knew because she could see the lights in the tent. Teddy’s mom said she hoped no one was smoking. Vern’s mom said she was sure none of the boys smoked.
About a month later, I was walking down the street when a car stopped in front of me. I knew whose car it was before the doors opened. Ace and Fuzzy got out. I ran, but they caught me. Fuzzy punched me in the balls. Ace broke my nose and gave me a black eye. When I fell, he stepped on my hand. He broke two of my fingers. I heard them crack. It sounded like pretzels breaking. “Don’t let me see you around here again, dipshit,” Ace said. Then they got back in the car and drove away.
Chris had it worse. His brother broke his arm in two places. Chris told the doctor he had fallen down some stairs. They had to fix his elbow with metal pins. Vern and Teddy were hurt too. Vern’s brother knocked him out. He thought he had killed him. Teddy was attacked soon after. They punched him a few times and broke his glasses. So the story never came out.
After that, things changed. When we got better, Vern and Teddy slowly drifted away from us at school. They found new friends to boss around. These kids did whatever they wanted. Vern and Teddy started bringing them to the tree house. So Chris and I went there less and less. The last time I went to the treehouse was in the spring of 1961.
After that, Teddy and Vern became just two more faces at school. We nodded. We said hi. That was all. It happens. Friends come in and out of your life, like waiters in a restaurant.
Sometimes I think about that dream. The dead bodies under the water pull at my legs. When I think about that, it feels right that friends should come and go. Some people drown. It’s not fair. But it happens. Some people drown.
Vern Tessio was killed in a fire in 1966. There was a party in the house the night before. Someone fell asleep with a cigarette. Maybe it was Vern, dreaming of his lost pennies.
Teddy always wanted to join the army. But they refused him. Because of his eyes and ears. Everyone knew they would refuse him. Everyone except Teddy. He started missing school. He went to bad places and hung out with bad people. Later, he got a job fixing roads. He bought a car. One day, he was driving with his friends. They were drinking. He crashed into a tree. The car rolled over six times. No one came out alive.
Chris joined the college classes with me. His parents thought he was crazy. His friends thought he was a pussy. His teachers did not want him there. But we studied together almost every night. We tried to make up for lost time. We were holding on to each other in deep water.
We both graduated. Chris went to college to study law. In 1968, he was standing in line at a fast food restaurant. The two men in front of him started arguing about who was there first. One of them pulled out a knife. Chris was always the best of us at making peace. He stepped between them to stop the fight. He was stabbed in the throat. He died almost instantly.
Chris was in graduate school, and I had already finished college. I was married. When I read about it in the newspaper, I told my wife I was going out to get a drink. I drove out of town, parked on the side of the road and cried. I cried for a long time.
Me? I’m a writer now. Some people think what I write is shit. Maybe they are right. When I wrote this story, it felt like a fairy tale. It felt stupid. I sold it, and they made a movie out of it. The movie was very successful. I was twenty-six. My next two books became movies too. It all feels absurd to me.
I have three kids now. My wife likes having me at home, I think. Most of the time, I am happy. But writing is not as easy or as fun as it was before.
All my friends from those days are dead now. But I saw Ace Merrill once. It was strange. He was driving an old car. He was fat. He looked at me, but he did not recognize me. It was the middle of the afternoon, and he went into a bar. So that’s what happened to Ace Merrill, I thought to myself.
I looked down the street towards the end of town. I could see the Castle River. It flowed under the bridge between Castle Rock and Harlow. The old train bridge is gone now, but the river is still here. So am I.
