Blog-o-ween 2026: Playin' Chicken with Stephen King's Christine — Day 8

Part 1: Chapters 16 & 17

Time passes. It’s the end of September. Arnie, to the consternation of every boy at Libertyville High, is pretty chummy with the new girl in school, Leigh Cabot. Dennis chalks it up to the new, improved Arnie that seems to be emerging from his teenaged, acne-scarred chysalis. Arnie’s complexion continues to clear, and now he is wearing his hair in a new, shorter — and more old-fashioned — manner.

Arnie’s love life may be changing for the better, but other aspects of his high school days remain the same: namely, Buddy Repperton. Buddy and the junior members of the Repperton Youth corner Arnie behind the shop building. Buddy pulls a switchblade. Dennis steps in and gets his balls squeezed for his troubles. Arnie disarms Buddy and stomps on the bully’s hand. Dennis hardly recognizes his friend, but he does recognize a word Arnie uses during the fracas: “Shitter.” A teacher breaks up the fight, and Buddy and his crew are sent to the principal’s office.

Another football game, but this time it is a win for Libertyville. (Go Terriers!) Arnie attends the away game to cheer Dennis on, and he does it in the company of his two best girls — Leigh and Christine. Christine may not be 100% street legal — even though the inspection sticker that Darnell “gave” Arnie gives it the right appearance — but she does look better. Arnie’s repairs do not look as “crazy-quilt-patchwork” as they did in Darnell’s Garage. After the game, Dennis inspects Christine more closely. He comes to the conclusion that he doesn’t like her, and maybe she doesn’t like him either…

The conservatism of high school is a topic near and dear to King’s heart. In his history of horror, Danse Macabre, he states,

“Monstrosity fascinates us because it appeals to the conservative Republican in a three-piece suit who resides within all of us. We love and need the concept of monstrosity because it is a reaffirmation of the order we all crave as human beings… and let me further suggest that it is not the physical or mental aberration in itself which horrifies us, but rather the lack of order which these aberrations seem to imply.” (39)

King gives further shape to this idea by using the work of British writer John Wyndham as an example. Wyndham wrote many fine novels that fall between the borders of science fiction and horror — The Day of the Triffids (1951), The Kraken Wakes (1953), The Midwich Cuckoos (1957).

His 1955 novel The Chrysalids (a.k.a. Rebirth), set in a post-apocalyptic future, tells the story of a community of survivors who must remain ever vigilant for deviations from the norm. Those deemed outside of the community’s standards are considered blasphemies and put to death. The main character’s home is festooned with plaques on the subject: “Only the Image of God Is Man,” “Keep Pure the Stock of the Lord,” “In Purity Our Salvation,” “Blessed Is the Norm,” and “Watch Thou for the Mutant!”

King likens this hyper-vigilance to the ways that high schoolers patrol the halls looking for outsiders. I don’t think you can name a clique of teenagers who isn’t sniffing the air for difference, deviation — in short, mutants!

(I mean, not for nothing does Rush’s 1982 song of the suburbs, “Subdivisions,” include the lyrics:

Subdivisions 

In the high school halls 

In the shopping malls 

Conform or be cast out

Subdivisions 

In the basement bars 

In the backs of cars 

Be cool or be cast out)

For much of his life, Arnie was the consummate outsider — the mutant. His runaway acne was a signal to the group-at-large that he was to be treated as a social outcast. But that acne has almost completely cleared up, and he has the most beautiful girl in school on his arm. It seems as though Arnie has decided to conform and be cool. Who’s the mutant now?

Well, in the eyes of Buddy Repperton, it’s still Arnie.

When I was in high school back, all the kids who smoked hung out across the street from school and got their nicotine fix before the first homeroom bell. We called them “The Cancer Club.” Libertyville’s chapter of The Cancer Club hangs out near the shop building.

I only ever took shop in junior high — and I have a mean Coke can lamp to prove it. In high school, all the Vo-Tech kids — essentially those students who would be looking for hands-on training in skilled labor like construction, maintenance, and engineering — bussed off-site to workshops that offered them the chance to get their hands dirty.

Buddy Repperton — dressed in the shop kid’s uniform de rigueur of tight white T-shirt and jeans — seems to be engaging in an independent study course in Fighting Dirty. Buddy is also armed with the Stephen King bully’s weapon-of-choice: the switchblade.

I’ve never personally seen anyone pull a switchblade out during a fight, but I have seen them up close in calmer situations. When that blade appears out of nowhere with a quietly lethal snik! — it is freakin’ terrifying.

What is it with Stephen King having men tying their long hair back with a hank of rawhide? Bill Denborough wore his hair (what little of it he had, that is) that way in the novel IT. Makes me think of another victim of late-stage male-pattern baldness who kept his hair pulled back: the late, great Reggie Bannister.

During the stand-off between Arnie and Buddy, we get Arnie’s first utterance of Roland LeBay’s favorite word: “shitter.” Dennis is immediately struck by it, as is the reader. Between that word and Arnie’s cool-as-a-cucumber-in-a-bowl-of-hot-sauce takedown of Buddy, Dennis (and we) begins to think that the changes that are happening to Arnie aren’t just on the surface.

Christine is a horror story, and we are reading Christine because we are fans of the genre. (I hope!) As fans, we know what to expect and where the story should go. We know that what is happening to Arnie is not just a case of him finally “winning the war against zits.” There is something more nefarious happening here.

We are getting the story of Christine straight from a single character. (For now!) We are limited to what that character — Dennis — is seeing and hearing and thinking. Dennis doesn’t know exactly what to make of Arnie and Christine. When he puts Arnie’s clearing complexion together with his purchase of Christine, he says,

“Buy an old car and it will what? Change your head, your way of thinking, and thus change your metabolism? Liberate the real you? I seem to hear Stukey James, our old high school math teacher, whispering his oft-repeated refrain in my own head: If we follow this line of reasoning to the bitter end, ladies and gentlemen, where does it take us?

“Where indeed?” (138)

We know damned well where it takes us, and (as readers) we want to get there as soon as possible.

One nice thing about how the novel is structured is that Dennis is telling us this story many years removed from when it took place. Four years to be exact. He already knows the outcome. He’s already followed that line of reasoning to the bitter end, and so he seems to create shortcuts for us from time to time, letting us know that our worst suspicions are true. Though he doesn’t dwell for too long on his doubts and dawning understanding of the situation, the story still demands that he bring us through every station of the cross, so to speak.

(“The Stations of the Cross” — that series of fourteen images and prayers depicting the crucifixion of Jesus so well known to Catholics worldwide — is also known as “The Way of Sorrows.” That’s a rather fitting title for what awaits us, Blog-o-weeners.)

As horror fans who may or may not be already familiar with Christine, we already know why Christine looks so good so fast. And we know why Arnie gets so mad at Dennis for looking at her undercarriage. (Pun intended!) We are beginning to suspect that it isn’t really Arnie looking out at us from behind his eyeglasses and caressing Christine’s hood. We will just have to keep that knowledge to ourselves and wait for Dennis to catch up with us.

In the meantime — Watch Thou for the Mutant!

Whelp… that’s about it for today, Blog-o-weeners. I see a flashing neon Vacancy sign on side of the road up ahead, so let’s pull off and get a good night’s sleep at that travel lodge before we put the pedal to the metal again. For tomorrow, let’s read Part 1: Chapters 18 & 19. That’s only ten pages! Easy-peasy!

It’s Dennis’s last football game. (Though not the team’s, as we shall find out!) We’ll eat some fig bars and Yodels and give each other side-noogies. In a way, it’ll feel like the last warm day before winter jumps on our backs with both feet. Enjoy it while you can, Blog-o-weeners!

What’s that? What social group did I run with in high school? Well, I was… hmmm… “accepted” is too strong a word… I was tolerated by all the strata in school: the sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wastoids, dweebies, dickheads… they all put up with me. Why? Well, apparently they liked hanging out with me because…