Blog-o-ween 2026: Playin' Chicken with Stephen King's Christine — Day 24

Part 3: Chapter 46

It is 5 January 1979. Dennis receives a postcard from Richard McCandless of the Libertyville American Legion. On it is printed the address of George LeBay. From it and a few calls to the telephone operator, Dennis is able to find LeBay’s phone number. He can’t bring himself to call it just yet.

The next day, Dennis’s mind is made up for him by the news that someone — or something — has killed Rudolph Junkins. The Pennsylvania State Police Detective was driven off the road near Blairsville. That night Dennis calls George LeBay.

LeBay is not happy to hear from Dennis. Dennis relates to the man everything terrible thing that has happened to Arnie and to Christine and the people who have crossed them. Dennis wants to know more about Roland LeBay, about his fury, and about something that George seemed he wanted to tell Dennis those few scant months before. George, it seems, believes that his brother was responsible for the deaths of at least four people who had made fun of his as a twelve-year-old child. He also suspects that his brother may have sacrificed his daughter and his wife to Christine, allowing them to die inside of her.

LeBay asks Dennis what he plans to do. Dennis tells him he plans on destroying Christine. George LeBay warns him that by doing so he may be destroying his friend as well…

This is short chapter, but, boy, do I love it. The last time George LeBay sat with us, I said that I loved a good “secret history” reveal in a horror story. I promised then that George would be back to tell us more, and — whew! — his story is a doozy, ain’t it? Murder, mayhem, ritualistic sacrifice — oh, my!

Those of you who have been with us for Blog-o-weens past know how much I love physical media. (I used to work for a audio-visual preservation company where I handled all sorts of odd film and video formats. It was my all-time favorite job.) Be it old books, old films, old audio tape, I’m as much fascinated by the form as I am the content of our shared past.

The ability to shrink photographic images down has been around almost as long as photography itself. In 1839, John Benjamin Dancer was one of the first to produce such microphotographs using a daguerreotype process. He was able to achieve a reduction ratio of 160:1.

Between 1927 and 1935, the Library of Congress microfilmed more than three million pages of books and manuscripts in the British Library. In 1935, Kodak began filming and publishing The New York Times on reels of 35 millimeter microfilm. This method of information storage received the sanction of the American Library Association at its annual meeting in 1936, when it officially endorsed microforms.

Now, it should be noted that when Dennis does a deep dive into Detective Jenkins’s investigation into the deaths surrounding Christine, he is doing so on microfilm. But he also could have been using microfiche. What’s the difference? Well, like any good scientist in a 1950s monster movie, I have a film about it I can show you…

Dennis’s trip to the library also allows him to take part in the time-honored tradition of horror story characters looking at microfilm.

(If only it had been Leigh who went to the library instead!)

The information we get from George LeBay this time around is very disturbing. The last time out, George suggested that his brother was just a jerk with anger management issues. Now we learn that Rollie may have been a murderer to boot. Beginning at the age of twelve, Roland LeBay killed anyone who tormented him or injured him or stood in his way. This may have included, we learn, his own wife and daughter:

“‘Later, Veronica wrote [LeBay’s sister] Marcia a letter and hinted that Rollie had made no real effort to save their daughter. And that, at the very end, he put her back in the car. So she would be out of the sun, he said. But in her letter, Veronica said she thought Rollie wanted her to die in the car.’

[…]

‘And Veronica?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said, ‘The police verdict was suicide, even though there was no note. It may well have been. But the poor woman had made some friends in town, and I have often wondered if perhaps she had hinted to some of them, as she had to Marcia, that Rita’s death was not quite as she and Rollie had reported it. I have wondered if Rollie found out… There’s no proof one way or the other, of course. But I’ve wondered why she would do it the way she did — and I’ve wondered how a woman who didn’t know the slightest thing about cars would know enough to get the hose and attach it to the exhaust pipe and put it in through the window. I try not to wonder about those things. They keep me awake at night.’” (433-4)

I suppose in one way this answers the question once and for all of where the evil in Christine resides: in LeBay or in the car. For his 1983 film adaptation, John Carpenter chose the car, and everything in that movie flows from that choice. Arnie and Christine fall in love, and she kills anyone that gets in the way of that love. Here in King’s book, however, LeBay is behind everything, but not, as his brother tells Dennis,

“‘…in any conscious way… Not any more than I am suggesting that he consciously murdered [his daughter]. If you had known my brother, you would know how ridiculous it is to suspect him of witchcraft or sorcery or trafficking with demons. He believed in nothing beyond his own senses… except, I suppose, for his own will. I am suggesting that he might have had some… some intuition…’” (433)

I like the ambiguity of all this. It’s not as if Roland LeBay discovered some ancient spell during one of his tours of duty in the army. It’s not as if he joined some cult and gained special powers. In the hands of another writer that may have been the case, and we the reader would have been left with an answer but, oddly, without a real resolution to the problem. By leaving it up in the air — “some intuition” — we don’t have a standard boogeyman to blame. There’s no outside evil here — only the human will to survive death if for no other reason than just because you’re a real son-of-a-bitch.

Whelp… there’s the motel up ahead. Before we settle in for the night, I want to call up all the kids I may have bullied back in the day just to be sure none of them are planning to dump me into the nearest lake anytime soon. I also want to circle back to something George LeBay tells Dennis during their conversation. It doesn’t explain anything, but it adds another twist in the tale:

“‘My mother used to call Rollie her changeling… My mother said he was a perfectly good baby until he was six months old. And then… she said that was when Puck came. She said Puck took her good baby for one of his jokes and replaced him with a changeling.’” (432)

A what now?

According to folklore, a changeling (aka an auf or oaf) is a human-like substitute left by a supernatural being when it kidnaps a human being. Usually, the kidnapped human was a child; but there were cases, particularly in Scandinavia and Ireland, where adults were taken.

Just something else I gotta worry about, I guess.

In English folklore, The Puck (aka Robin Goodfellow, Goodfellows, or Hobgoblins) are demons or fairies which can be domestic sprites or nature sprites. They are famous for their mischievous pranks and practical jokes.

I’m not so sure letting your daughter choke to death in your car counts as a joke.

Though Mrs. LeBay is only joking when she calls her son a changeling, George states that the woman would never say it within earshot of Rollie. The changeling their doesn’t solve the problem, but it does add another delightfully creepy wrinkle to the source of LeBay’s power to inhabit Christine.

Okay… that’s all for today. Looks like the pool at the motel is still open. I’ll get us a couple of sandwiches and beers, and we can relax and watch the kids in the water cheat at Marco Polo. There is no reading for tomorrow. It is our last “Free Day” of Blog-o-ween 2026. This novel isn’t the only one where a Plymouth Fury motorvates across the page. Lots of Steven King’s books intersect and overlap. People and places from one story will show up out of the blue in another. You just can’t keep a good killer car down!

Man, I miss spending time in the school library doing research on a paper or some other project. There was nothing better than digging into the old newspaper and magazine archives and reading old advertisements and stories. Sometimes I’d forget to do the work I was there to do, and I’d follow a story from day-to-day and month-to-month just to see how it developed.

I think reading all those old Watergate-era newspaper and magazine articles on the Nixon administration really helped settle my stomach, so to speak, in terms of what we are going through today. What’s happening now is really nothing new. I think it would come as a great relief and a great source of comfort if you went back and read about those crooks of yesteryear. Believe me…

Blog-o-ween 2026: Playin' Chicken with Stephen King's Christine — Day 23

Part 3: Chapter 45

It’s New Year’s Eve, and 1978 is almost history. Dennis needs to convince himself that he and Leigh are on the right track and are doing the right thing. (Hanky-panky notwithstanding.) To do this, Dennis calls up Arnie to see if he is interested in continuing their tradition of spending 31 December together. Before Arnie gets on the line, Regina (ecstatic to hear from Dennis — my, how times have changed) tells Dennis that both she and Michael are afraid to talk to their son. His anger explodes at the drop of a hat. She fears she may be losing him somehow.

Once on the phone, Arnie sounds like a different person. Dennis barely recognizes his friend’s voice. The two old friends (and one new one) make plans to see 1979 across the threshold.

Dennis goes to Arnie’s house and is met by someone he doesn’t know. It is an old man in a young man’s body. It is LeBay. Dennis and Arnie drink beers, eat popcorn and see in the New Year. After, Arnie drives Dennis home. On the way they make a few stops… into the past…

Before we officially begin our dive into Chapter 45, we here at LARP Co. just want to take this opportunity to wish everyone who celebrates it a Happy Silver Shamrock Day.

As you well know, 23 October is the day that the action begins in Tommy Lee Wallace’s Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982). It is a blood-red-letter day for fans of the science-fiction/horror genre, the writing of Nigel Kneale, the sexy antics of Pittsburgh’s own Tom Atkins, and the appeasement of ancient Irish gods with child sacrifice.

That’s one helluva Venn diagram!

Okay, with that bit of housekeeping out of the way, where should we begin? Well, how’s about with Guy Lombardo and Dick Clark?

Who and who?

Sadly, both Guy Lombardo and Dick Clark are probably names lost in the mists of time to many of you younger Blog-o-weeners. So it goes. To Americans of certain vintages, when New Year’s Eve is mentioned both/either Lombardo and/or Clark spring to mind. For some, Ol’ Guy and Dick were the only dates they had on 31 December.

Born in London, Ontario, in 1902, Gaetano Alberto “Guy” Lombardo formed the Royal Canadians in 1924 with his brothers Carmen, Lebert and Victor, and some other cats from his hometown. Lombardo and the Royal Canadians recorded music for a number of labels, including Columbia, Brunswick, Decca, and RCA Victor. All in all, it is estimated that they sold anywhere from 100 to 300 million records.

Lombardo is perhaps best-remembered for his New Year’s Eve broadcasts with his band. Beginning in 1929, the Royal Canadians played live over the airwaves from the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City. These yearly programs were immensely popular. In 1956, their first television special was aired on CBS. In 1959, the show was moved to the Waldorf Astoria Hotel where it remained until Lombardo’s death in 1977. Every program was ended with the song that became synonymous with both the holiday and the bandleader: “Auld Lang Syne.”

Richard Wagstaff Clark (Wagstaff? Wagstaff?!) — better known as Dick Clark — was born in Bronxville, New York, in 1929. Working his way up from the mailroom (literally!) of a local AM radio station, Clark would take the reins of a local Philadelphia television show in 1956 after the original host was arrested for drunk driving. That show — later renamed American Bandstand — would go national in 1957, and Dick Clark’s fame was cemented as “America’s Oldest Teenager.” American Bandstand would run for 37 seasons in different forms and on different networks. 

Not only was Dick Clark’s name synonymous with rock’n roll, but, beginning in 1972, it became associated with New Year’s Eve, too. New Year’s Rockin’ Eve started out on NBC, but soon moved to ABC. Clark, as both producer and host of the show, looked to differentiate his show from Lombardo’s. By focusing on rock’n roll he tapped into the youth market and ratings soared. With Lombardo’s death, Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve took over as the end-of-the-year program people wanted to watch.

I’m all for parents being kinda cool about their underaged sons and daughters tipping one or two beers back for New Year’s, but all the adults in Christine talk like they’ve been slamming oat sodas with kids (and not even their own kids) ever since they were weened off the nipple. Sheesh!

Post-Prohibition (1933), the drinking age fluctuated state-by-state in the United States. In Stephen King’s home state of Maine, the age went from 21 to 20 in 1969, then down to 18 in 1972, then up to 20 in 1977 after the passage of the 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (which established a nationally standardized minimum age of 18 for participation in state and federal elections), then up again to 21 with the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984.

Whew! I could use a drink trying to follow that road.

In Pennsylvania, things are a bit easier to understand. The drinking age is 21. Always has been. The end.

Not only is Arnie putting the beer away like a second Prohibition is coming with the new year, but he is smoking Tiparillos.

Say what now?

The name Tiparillo is a mash-up of the words “tip” (as in the plastic tip you stick in your mouth) and “cigarillo” (a short, narrow cancer stick that sits somewhere between a cigar and a cigarette). The name was trademarked by the Pinkerton Tobacco Company (any relation to the Pinkerton Detective Agency?). Cigar makers hoped that the Tiparillo would attract younger smokers and women.

Nice… but no cigar.

(I regret nothing!)

Dennis’s ride home in Christine is a doozy, ain’t it? It’s a great scene. Maybe my favorite in Christine? (Although… there’s an upcoming scene in the school parking lot that I love quite a bit.) Dennis refers to Christine as “a hellish haunted house that rolled on Goodyear rubber” (415), and that certainly sums up his trip back through time. It’s just another example of the “Return of the Repressed” in the book. Christine is the vehicle (pun intended) of the past’s dead hands reaching out to the present. LeBay’s fury — as well as his Plymouth Fury — may be seeking to teach the shitters of the world a lesson, but it’s no accident that it’s to the 1950s he and she wish to return.

At his home and in Christine, we get the sense that Arnie has gone bye-bye almost fully. He is entirely at LeBay’s mercy (of which the old man has none). Going back to the King’s idea of the myth-pool, we seem to be in Werewolf territory as exemplified by Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Arnie (like the good Dr. Jekyll) cannot control when LeBay (the evil Mr. Hyde) comes to the fore. In Part Two, there were many instances where Arnie is still there, still the dominant personality, still able to sense the danger that he is in. Here, on New Year’s Eve, that no longer seems to be the case. LeBay, like an alcoholic’s bottle or a drug addict’s line of coke, has chipped away at Arnie’s resolve until, finally, all that remains is the gnawing need for more.

When Dennis hobbles his way out to Christine, he can no longer tell himself that what he and Leigh suspect is happening is not true:

“I got hold of the doorhandles with one gloved hand, and a hopeless feeling of dread and revulsion swept over me. It wasn’t until then that I really began to believe it, deep inside, where a person lives. Because that doorhandle felt alive under my hand, It felt like some living beast that was asleep. The doorhandles didn’t feel like chromed steel; dear Christ, it felt like skin. It seemed as if I could squeeze it and wake the beast up, roaring.” (414)

Dennis goes on to speculate about what Christine is deep down inside:

“What was it? Some sort of afreet? An ordinary car that had somehow become the dangerous, stinking dwelling-place of a demon? A weird manifestation of LeBay’s lingering personality, a hellish haunted house that rolled on Goodyear rubber?” (414-5)

We’ve talked quite a bit throughout the month about what is happening in Christine, the novel, and Christine, the car. This is the closest we get to an actual answer, though it isn’t much of one. (We’ll get a little more information once Dennis talks to George LeBay. You tell me if it answers our questions.)

Before we pull into the motel up ahead, let’s go back to a term that Dennis brings up briefly: afreet.

Say what now?

Afreet (aka ifrit, efreet, afrit) is a type of Jinn in Islamic culture. They are associated with the underworld and identified with the spirits of the dead. In Islamic folklore, the afreet are ruthless, wicked, and formed out of smoke and fire. If summoned, an afreet can be controlled by a sorcerer to carry out blood vengeance and avenging murder.

That certainly seems to be what we have here, but was LeBay smart enough or savvy enough to conjure a demon — and a demon closely associated with a religion he’d know nothing about?

We shall see…

All righty… there’s the hotel, and here is where we stop for the night. While I’m checking under the bed and in the closet for demons, why don’t you read Part 3: Chapter 46. Dennis finally gets a hold of George LeBay, and they don’t talk about Ezra Pound. Ol’ Rollie LeBay gets painted in a whole new light, though. Better make sure your shoes are double-knotted, because what Dennis learns is gonna knock your socks off.

I’ve never been much of a fan of going out and celebrating New Year’s Eve. Personally, the thought of being around that many drunk people fills me with a fear and loathing that would make Hunter S. Thompson proud. (Or sad, seeing as he was a bit of a drunk himself.) There is one New Year’s Eve tradition that I am proud to have participated in, however — the Pickle Drop in Dillsburg, PA.

Dillsburg has no known connection to the pickle industry outside of having the word “dill” in its name. That didn’t stop the town fathers and mothers from replacing the light-up ball most New Year’s Eve celebrations use to denote the passing of the old year with a giant, anthropomorphic pickle. When the tradition first began in 1992, it was meant as a celebration of Dillsburg’s Irish founders. They used to drop the pickle at 7 p.m. because that was midnight in Ireland.

Now that makes me very suspicious. I hope we don’t have another “Silver Shamrock” situation brewing in Western Pennsylvania. I’d hate to think that a Dillsburgian Conal Cochran has some sort of pickle-based, mass-sacrifice planned for Samhain. It’s like I always say: fool me into buying Halloween masks loaded with pieces of Stonehenge that will trigger an enormous child sacrifice — shame on you; fool me into congregating in the town square beneath the visage of a giant, smiling, green, hell demon in the shape of a pickle — shame on me.

But, dammit, those deep-fried pickles are so delicious! Ah, well, you’d think I’d know better by now since…

Blog-o-ween 2026: Playin' Chicken with Stephen King's Christine — Day 22

Part 3: Chapter 44

It is three weeks after their clandestine meeting, and Dennis and Leigh have fallen in love. During that time, Dennis sends Leigh to the Libertyville Municipal Offices to get two items: copies of the registration slips for Christine. The ages of those slips of paper are separated by over twenty-one years, but the signatures are a lot closer. Arnie’s signature on the slip from 1978 matches his first signature of Dennis’s cast. The signature on the slip from 1957 is by LeBay, and it matches Arnie’s second signature.

Needing more information, Dennis decides to reach out to George LeBay again. Not knowing his phone number, Dennis contacts one of the men from the Libertyville American Legion who had been at LeBay’s funeral. He hands Richard McCandless a song and dance about needing to talk to LeBay’s brother, and then McCandless, in turn, hands Dennis a story about the time Christine tore the finger off of a fellow veteran during a practical joke.

Some joke…

Oh, Dennis… oh, Leigh… I know that some things can’t be helped, but you two picked a fine time to…

Close, but no.

It’s like the poet once said, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.” Well, I’ll tell you this for free, if falling in love behind a friend’s back is the disease, then the threat of getting run over by his haunted car is the cure. The roll call of the dead — Moochie, Buddy, Richie, Darnell — would be enough to encourage me to keep it in my pants. (Maybe.) Of course, as another poet once said, “The heart wants what it wants,” so… well, so be it.

We get some more hoo-hah about Arnie and LeBay’s signatures merging, but — again — I don’t see it. I guess this is why I don’t work for the FBI.

Still and all, I love me a good trip to an archive or library for a research scene. We don’t follow Leigh to the Libertyville Municipal Offices (maybe we would have had this been a scene in Part Two), but we have the fruits of her labor.

While Dennis and Leigh are comparing signatures for their similarities, Dennis’s dad is noticing something different about Arnie:

“‘I’ve seen him two or three times,’ my father said.

‘You have?’ I said, startled. ‘Where?’

My father shrugged. ‘On the street. Downtown. You know. Libertyville’s not that big, Dennis. He…’

‘He what?’

‘Hardly seemed to recognize me. And he looks older. Now that his face has cleared, he looks much older. I used to think he took after his father, but now—’ He broke off suddenly. ‘Dennis, has it occurred to you that Arnie may be having some sort of nervous breakdown?’” (394)

Oh, yes, Mr. Guilder. The thought has crossed your son’s mind. Of course, you’d need to ask the follow-up question: whose nervous system is having the breakdown? That’s a question I don’t think the best minds in Vienna could answer.

Who knew ol' Siggy invented the "gangsta lean"?

When Dennis calls Richard McCandless to ask about George LeBay’s address, the older man is described as sounding like “Andy Devine and Broderick Crawford” (396).

Who and who?

Andrew Vabre Devine (Vabre? Vabre?) was an American character actor best known for his work in westerns such as Stagecoach (1939), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), and How the West Was Won (1962), as well as countless Roy Rogers films. He was also the voice of “Friar Tuck” in the Disney animated film Robin Hood (1973). Devine was also well known on the radio on such shows as The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok, The Jack Benny Show, and Andy’s Gang.

It was thought that Devine’s distinctive voice — wheezy and crackly — would keep him out of the “talkies,” but just the opposite happened. Instead, it became his calling card. Devine claimed that his voice resulted from a childhood accident in which he fell while running with a curtain rod in his mouth. (Say what?!) The rod pierced the roof of his mouth, and he was left with a scratchy voice. However, it’s been discovered that this is just one of several stories that Devine invented about the source of his voice.

Broderick Crawford was also an actor with a distinctive voice. His distinct barking line delivery saw him cast in plenty of tough-guy roles. It was his portrayal of “Willie Stark” in the film adaptation of Robert Penn Warren's novel All the King's Men (1949) that lifted him out of character actor roles and into the big time. He won both the Academy Award and the Golden Globe for Best Actor. Later, he took on the starring role in the television series Highway Patrol (1955–59).

Crawford was born in Philadelphia, PA. (Maybe he was a Phillies fan?) His family were vaudeville performers. Despite his patchy formal education, Crawford was accepted by Harvard, but he only stayed for a few months. He left college to work as a stevedore on the New York docks. Somehow, the sound of his voice fits better on the docks than in classroom, I think.

When Dennis calls Richard McCandless, he tells the man that he wants to contact George LeBay, because he promised to send him research material on Ezra Pound.

Who now?

Ezra Weston Loomis Pound is a major figure in the history of American poetry, Modernism, and Fascist collaboration. Pound is best known for The Cantos, a poem written in 109 sections between the years 1915 and 1962.

Pound blamed the horrors of the First World War on finance capitalism. (Fair enough, says I.) In 1924, he moved to Italy and embraced both Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler. (Not cool.) During the Second World War, he recorded hundreds of paid radio propaganda broadcasts for the Italian government, as well as the Salò Republic (Italy’s later incarnation as a German puppet state). He attacked the United States government, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Britain, international finance, the arms industry, Jews, and others as abettors and prolongers of the war. At the war’s end, Pound was captured and spent months in a U.S. military detention camp near Pisa, including three weeks in an outdoor steel cage. Ruled mentally unfit to stand trial, Pound was incarcerated for over 12 years at St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C. He died in 1972.

Well, that’s a bit of a bummer, ain’t it, Blog-o-weeners? I see the neon sign of our motel is coming up fast, so let’s try to end on a sweeter note than American Modernism’s troubled history of Fascist sympathizing. Let’s end on America’s troubled history of allowing our pop stars to act and our actors to sing. Let’s talk Dennis’s sister’s favorite singer, Shaun Cassidy.

While still in high school, Shaun Cassidy was signed to Warner Bros. Records, releasing five albums from 1976 to 1980. At about the same time, Cassidy starred (along with Parker Stevenson) in ABC-TV’s The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries. Later, Cassidy turned his talents to writing and producing network and cable television programs. He created, amongst many others, the shows American Gothic (1995–1996 — produced with Sam Raimi) and Roar (1997 — starring Heath Ledger).

I have a confession to make, Blog-o-weeners. I had the 7” single of Shaun Cassidy’s hit “Da Doo Ron Ron” when I was a kid. Hey, wha’d’ya want? I was seven-years-old! I also had the KISS solo albums if that helps my “cool factor” any. (I know… it doesn’t.) I was also known to sing along with Joey Scarbury’s “Believe It or Not (Theme from “The Greatest American Hero”), dance to Ray Parker, Jr.’s “Ghostbusters,” and cry to “Snoopy's Christmas” by The Royal Guardsmen.

Again — wha’d’ya want from me?!

Sure I could say I was listening to The Ramones, King Crimson, and John Coltrane when I was seven, but that would be ridiculous. (I didn’t get into Coltrane until I was nine.) Instead, I’m taking this opportunity to allow myself to be vulnerable and admit to the bad taste of youth that we all experience. I’m sure there are some skeletons in your musical closet that you’re more than a little embarrassed by. It feels good to come clean, so be like me! After all…

Blog-o-ween 2026: Playin' Chicken with Stephen King's Christine — Day 21

Part 3: Chapter 43

After getting his parents and his sister out of the house, Dennis prepares for Leigh’s visit. Both Darnell and Vandenberg’s deaths are big news on television and the newspapers. Dennis senses that things are coming to a head.

Leigh arrives, and the two FVKs (Fearless Vehicle Killers) begin to trade information. They talk about the change in Arnie’s personality, his use of LeBay’s word “shitters,” and his obsession and anger that is so close to LeBay’s own. Dennis tells Leigh about LeBay’s daughter and how she died. Leigh runs to the bathroom and throws up.

Later, Dennis shows Leigh two segments of the cast that was on his leg. Both pieces carry the name “Arnie Cunningham,” but only one of them, Dennis is sure, was actually written by his friend.

Dennis and Leigh seal their conspiracy — as well as their fates (though they don’t know this yet) — with a kiss…

One quick bit of housekeeping before we get into today’s chapter.

As I said before, we are back to good ol’ Dennis Guilder’s narration here in Part Three. King himself has said that the switch from first-person to third-person was somewhat forced on him. He had written himself into a corner with the football injury that Dennis sustained at the end of Part One. Though he tried many times to stick with Dennis’s perspective throughout Part Two, nothing worked. The only way for Dennis to learn what was happening was for him to learn it from visitors or television or newspapers. That isn’t very dramatic. So, he said, “To hell with it,” and switched to third-person.

I think it was the smart choice. Sticking with Dennis may have worked if Christine had remained a short story, but in a novel the reader needs action to carry them forward. The change does beg the question, however: does Dennis learn any of what we learned in Part Two? If so, how? At the beginning of the novel, Dennis’s narration is presented to us as if he were writing it all down or telling it to us directly like two friends bellied up to the bar. Part Two removes us from that intimate proximity. We get more of a bird’s eye view of Libertyville and Arnie and Christine. Can Part Two be ignored and still leave us with a satisfying story? We’d still have to learn somehow about the deaths of Moochie and Buddy and Darnell, about Arnie’s arrest, about Junkins and his investigation, but I think it could have been done. How? King used “non-fiction” asides in his first novel Carrie. I think Part Two could have been done in the same way.

Of course, who am I to second guess the King?

Moving on…

Dennis is catching up with his schoolwork when Leigh comes calling. He says that he picks up a copy of Esquire and tries to read an article entitled “The Next Vietnam” (377). Just like Dennis’s luck in reading it, I had none in finding it. The closest I came was an article by the same name written by Col. Fletcher Prouty.

Leroy Fletcher Prouty was the Chief of Special Operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President John F. Kennedy. A colonel in the United States Air Force, Prouty was a critic of U.S. foreign policy, especially the covert activities of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). He also wrote extensively on the JFK assassination from the 1970s through 1990s. He was the inspiration for the character "X" (portrayed by Donald Sutherland) in Oliver Stone's film JFK (1991).

Prouty’s article “The Next Vietnam” was published in the September 1974 issue of men’s magazine Genesis. Somehow I don’t think Libertyville High has a subscription to that particular periodical.

If there is a reason that this chapter feels familiar, then you can probably thank the Netflix series Stranger Things. That show (especially the first season) owes a great debt to Stephen King’s work.

What we have here is the scene where separate characters come together to share information with one another. In much the same way as the kids and the adults in Stranger Things finally get their acts together long enough to exchange info, characters in many King novels do the same — the Fearless Vampire Killers in ‘Salem’s Lot, the kids (and their adult versions) in It. Here we have Dennis and Leigh finally debriefing one another about what they know and what they suspect about Christine. It’s a good scene!

One of the pieces of evidence that Dennis brings to the table is Arnie’s signature. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again, I don’t think the two signatures are different enough to warrant Dennis and Leigh’s “gosh wow” reaction. I do like that we get actual signatures in the book. (I always like when the typeface in books changes or we get actual handwriting added to the printed words of the story.) I just think King and Co. could have made more of an effort to make them different.

Man, I am loving these single chapter days. Makes the drive so much nicer, don’cha think, Blog-o-weeners? Before we hit the next motel, I want us to talk about one more thing: icemakers.

When Leigh goes into the kitchen to get Dennis and herself a pop, she mentions that her family, too, has an automatic icemaker in their refrigerator. Man, growing up, I was always jealous of the kids whose families had them — that and the water dispenser. Holy smoke! So cool!

Dennis mentions that sometimes the icemaker goes out of control and starts shooting cubes every which way: “It’s like Jimmy Cagney in White Heat. ‘Take that, you dirty rats!”

Who now?

Sadly, James Cagney is one of those Golden Age of Hollywood stars whose work is completely unknown to younger moviegoers. At the height of his fame in the 1930s he was probably the biggest movie star in the world. He could do it all — sing, dance, play it tough, play it soft, be dramatic, do comedy. White Heat is a film he made later in his career in 1949. In a way, he was playing a caricature of the type of gangster character he made famous at Warner Bros. in the 1930s. If you've ever heard someone yell out “Top of the world, Ma!” they are referencing the character of Cody Jarrett, the movies’ second most famous momma’s boy (behind only Norman Bates). The line that Dennis quotes is one of the lines that impressionists from Rich Little to John Byner made famous when doing a Jimmy Cagney bit. Just like Cary Grant never said “Judy, Judy, Judy,” Cagney never said “You dirty rat”… though it’s pretty close to the actual line from Taxi (1931).

Okay! We are at the motel, and I am looking forward to a hot shower and a cold beer. For tomorrow, read Part 3: Chapter 44. We’ve got more signatures to compare and contrast. We’ll discuss Shawun Cassidy, Andy Devine, and Broderick Crawford. (Boy… would those three make for a wacky sit-com!) We’ll also hear another story from LeBay and Christine’s past.

Man, celebrity impressionists were all the rage when I was growing up. People like Rich Little made a fortune pretending to be other people on TV specials and game shows and the Carson show.

When I was a kid, Robin Williams was just making a name for himself as the alien Mork from TV’s Mork and Mindy. I did a pretty mean Mork impersonation on the school playground during recess, if I do say so myself. Friends would drag me to their homes and have me do my schtick in front of their bemused (and confused) parents. Now that I think back on it, I could have passed the hat after I was done and made a little scoot for myself. Of course, it’s easy to be smart after and tell yourself that…