victor criss strikes it unlucky.
It.
Bill. Richie. Beverly. Victor. Macabre baseball and lost chances.
I originally did this as a Yuletide New Year's Resolution a little while back, but I'm starting to... uh, consolidate isn't the right word. But I want to start compiling most of my fic in this journal, so here it is.
He and Richie and Beverly had been down at Tracker Brothers... and hadn't Victor Criss approached them? A very frightened Victor Criss? Yes, that had happened. Things had been rapidly approaching the end by then, and Bill thinks now that every kid in Derry had sensed it - the Losers and Henry's group most of all.
-from It, "Chapter 17: Another One of the Missing"
---
"Meanwhile, back in the jungle..."
-The Cadets, Stranded In The Jungle
_______________________________________
He remembered sickly intestines as baselines, liver and lungs as bases, a swollen heart as home plate. The batter gripping a muscled arm, tendons severed just above the elbow, preparing to swing. A hollowed out torso as the catcher's chest-protector. The pitcher winding up, and--
Bill had never been able to look at a baseball field the same way again after he'd finished reading that dog-eared copy of Haunt of Fear at the barbershop. Not even the one behind Tracker Brothers' Truck Depot, well-loved and familiar as it was with its canvas bases and basepaths drawn by nothing more than the sneaker tracks of restless kids.
Other than whenever Stan dragged them down to watch him play outfield, he and his friends hadn't spent much time there this summer, and with good reason. Belch Huggins's talent for hitting balls that "could've been out of fuckin' Yankee Stadium" (so sayeth Tony Tracker) had made him the field's star of 1958, and they didn't need any excuses to run into Henry Bowers. So when Victor Criss lunged across the field towards them that day, Bill didn't like to think it was completely irrational that from a distance, he saw the boy carrying a gaunt, disembodied head inside his catcher's mitt instead of a ball unraveling twine.
He, Richie, and Beverly had just finished pooling what was left of their allowances at the bleachers, intending to go for chocolate frappes at Center Street Drug across the road, before they heard the winded, hitching breaths that told them they weren't alone.
"Oh, shit," said Richie eloquently.
The frightened, almost rabbity expression of Victor's usually steely face - identical to how he'd looked when he and Bill had squared off at the rock fight - was the only thing that made Bill resist from grabbing the others' arms, leaping onto Silver, and pedaling away that instant.
"W-wuh-wait," he muttered under his breath. Although Beverly and Richie exchanged looks over his shoulder, neither moved.
There was no question that Victor was one of the bigger kids in Derry, dwarfed only by Belch's impressive six-foot frame; with the combination of his black pompadour and green nylon jacket, Burke's Garage embroidered on the back, there was no mistaking him. But there was nothing remotely threatening about him now.
"Look--" he prefaced when he was only several yards away. He slowed his pace, sliding his hands into his pockets. "I don't want any trouble, all right?"
Maybe Richie would have been the one to point out the irony of this statement, but then Victor closed the gap between them in a few long strides, and the rest came spilling out; rushed, messy sentences that seemed to compete with one another to leave his mouth first.
He was scared - real fucking scared - of what Henry might do, of what Henry might make happen, because they didn't understand, not like he did, they didn't know that he actually intended to do something far beyond sending some crying kid home with a fractured wrist, that he may even kill someone, because this wasn't just kids' shit anymore, this was straying way past the boundaries of fine-as-paint and taking wild gallops towards what Victor considered to be TOO FAR, and he didn't need to end up
(like who, Victor? like Len? like)
getting his own hide slaughtered and smoked on someone else's account.
Bill said nothing while he spoke, only listened with a calm intensity. It wasn't until the older boy finished that he asked slowly, quietly: "Wuh-wuh-why are yuh-you t-t-telling us this?"
Victor shrugged helplessly. He didn't know why he'd felt the sudden urge to walk over when he saw the three of them across the baseball field, had no clue what it would even accomplish; he'd only known that something bad was about to go down. And there was something terrifying about the fact that he was the only one of his friends to see that.
"I didn't know who else to tell," he finally managed.
If the Losers expected an invitation to lemonade and a game of Parcheesi after this revelation, they'd have been sorely disappointed. Victor abruptly muttered that he had to get home. A curt nod was the closest to a good-bye they got before he took off in the opposite direction, not a glance thrown back their way.
"He's just a regular Jimmy Dean, ain't he?" Richie muttered. "Rebel without a clue."
By the stiff-shouldered way that the older boy stalked off before disappearing from sight, it was as if he thought a single look back might betray the conversation (if it could even be called that) they'd just shared, and he'd be lynched by the rest of his friends.
Although, to toss one in ol' Vic's corner, so to speak-- one couldn't put anything past Henry Bowers at this point.
"I don't want any trouble, you guys," and suddenly Richie's voice was slung down low and easy in a passable imitation of Criss. "I don't want any trouble, now," he drawled, half-Criss, half-Dean, all-Richie-with-a-mild-case-of-bronchitis, and if Bill didn't feel so confused and tired he might have laughed, "but this-- this thing, this in-dee-sih-shin, it's tearing me, like, apart. It's like it's ripping my soul, you know? My soul--"
The monologue, which gained steam after Richie flipped up an invisible collar and raked his fingers down non-existent sideburns, ended when Bill aimed a comfortable punch at his arm.
"Buh-buh-beep--"
"--beep Richie, yeah, you fuckin' squares, I get it," Richie finished, sliding his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. He looked more sullen than offended. "Thanks for spoiling my excitement over the fact that we've just founded Derry's very first Asshole Delinquent Outreach Program."
"Well," Bill said, smiling sweetly, "Bev and I are always glad to help out asshole delinquents like you," and Richie didn't even need to interject You know you don't always as he so often thought of doing, because he could tell by the expression on Bill's face that today, he knew.
Not missing a beat, Richie immediately stooped his shoulders into a painful lurch and shuffled his feet around.
"Oh, lord almighty! That there stutterin' Denbrough boy, he has a way with words, yes, he does!" he cried in his Granny Grunt voice. "Why, he could be writin' speeches for Eisenhower one day! That stutterin' boy, he's gonna be a Pul-it-ZER winner one day, why, yes, he is, that stutterin' Denbrough boy! He's gonna have corn and po-tay-tahs as far as the eye can see, makin' corn and po-tay-tah stew, and corn and po-tay-tah salad, and corn and po-tay-tah waffles--"
Beverly watched in dry bemusement, arms crossed. Bill mimed looping a noose around his own neck and jerked it to the side, tongue lolling appropriately.
"I only wish I had something to contribute," she said after a moment, as Richie spouted the praises of corn and potato milkshakes.
"Ruh-Ruh-Richie, you could g-guh-give a chainsaw a huh-headache," Bill said, not unkindly. Richie beamed.
The conversation home had a different aftertaste to it.
"...wuh-we shouldn't ignore h-him. Not j-just b-because of huh-huh-how he acted buh-before."
"What do you mean?" Bev asked.
"I juh-juh-just think w-we ought to th-think about what he s-suh-said."
"What're we supposed to do?" Richie shot back. "Start holding hands with our new buddy, Vic, and go skipping home from school together? Dum-dum-dum-dum, come 'n go with me? Because last I checked, he'd rather let Butch Bowers pull out his teeth with a rusty pair of pliers than be seen bopping along with us. So, tell me, is that it, Big Bill?"
"I d-duh-don't know," Bill answered, honestly, and Richie fell silent.
---
There were plenty of things about junior high that sucked the root. School assemblies were one of the worst.
Richie always got stuck beside sourpusses like Patty O'Hara, a magnificent tattler who was never the least bit amused with any of his impressions, and Elmer Crenshaw, whose fascination with stamp-collecting made Stan's birdwatching look like try-or-die prizefighting.
And of course, on this most beautiful of early spring days, friendly sunlight streaming in through the gymnasium windows (time which would surely be much better spent passed out on his father's hammock in the backyard), Richie found himself on a metal folding chair squeezed between both Patty and Elmer - two people nearly as far down on the chuckalicious list as one could go; ranking only, in his humble opinion, a little above Stalin, Hitler, and whoever invented tardy slips.
Richie and Mrs. Gondry knew each other well enough for them to both know that this seating arrangement had been no accident.
Recognition assemblies also carried a sense of irony with them. No one knew why they were even called "recognition" assemblies, seeing as everyone went home that day with a little red ribbon, 'Derry Junior High' embossed on it in gold foil along with the year and the name of their homeroom teacher. And though the damn things took forever... well.
It seemed that the roll calls still got a little shorter each year in Derry.
Principal William Mervin, whom the kids called Bill the Pill behind his back (and whose high, wheezy voice Richie was already pretty good at imitating, if he did say so himself), looked up from the list he held in one pink, meaty hand and waved the other around, as if trying to quiet the audience of raucous kids. If so, it was an effort in vain.
Mervin smiled, unphased, about to begin reciting.
Richie smiled, leaning back in his chair, about to take a nap.
"--iel Caldwell..."
He nearly jumped out of his chair, head jerking up abruptly. It took a moment to realize that Patty O'Hara's tight pinch on his arm was what startled him awake. She paid no heed to his glare, only primly returned her hand to her lap as she stared obediently ahead at Mervin.
"Margaret Combs..."
"Elmer Crenshaw..."
"Elizabeth Dane..."
Richie noticed with sticky-slow, dreamlike realization - like struggling to swim out from a sea of molasses - that a name had been omitted between Elmer and Elizabeth Dane's.
This was disturbing for a reason he couldn't quite remember, but forgotten the instant he successfully managed to attach a scrap of composition paper to the back of Patty's blouse, cheerfully inviting others to "Ask me about my stick enema!"
---
Beverly was having a cigarette in the Barrens the second time she saw Victor Criss that week.
Walking head low, hands shoved almost comically deep into his pockets, she spotted him long before he realized she was there, which gave her ample time to decide whether to bolt or not.
Out of all the Losers, it was Bev who knew him best - not that it was saying much - if only because their fathers were bowling pals, and Victor's family had been invited to the Marshes' apartment for dinner a few times. (In truth, Andy Criss and Al Marsh's friendship went further back than weekly bowling trips, as Mike Hanlon would discover when he did a little digging on the Bradley Gang massacre of 1929.) They'd exchanged muttered hellos, meeting their mothers' approvals before ignoring one another in favor of their plates. The most significant thing she'd learned about him over the last few years was that he didn't like carrots; not the best basis for character judgment.
She couldn't say that it hadn't occurred to her that his confession the other day had been a prelude to some sort of elaborate trap, some plan of Henry's.
But Bill believed him. And that was enough for her.
Clearing her throat, she raised her hand in a tentative wave before letting it fall back down to her side. The movement was enough to catch his eye, and after a sweeping glance of his surroundings, he made his way over to where she sat, engineer boots kicking up clouds of dust as he moved.
With his gleaming dark hair, serious expression, and strong curve of a jaw, she supposed that he could probably be considered handsome, but the realization brought no attraction with it - not the way that looking too long at Bill's eyes or sunburned arms sometimes did. It was only a detached, clinical interest, and she wouldn't wonder about why that was until later. He was far from being public enemy number one, after all, and the worst he'd ever done to her - the worst unassociated with Henry Bowers, that is - was the one time he seized her ponytail in one smart, extremely painful jerk after she'd accidentally stepped on his foot, passing where he stood smoking in front of Shook's Drug Store. She had been on her way home from picking up groceries for her mother, in too much of a rush to get home to pay attention to where she was going.
And, to be fair, she hadn't exactly stopped to apologize before he decided to turn her hair into a yo-yo.
Victor Criss had still been far from her main concern that day; she'd thanked God five times in her prayers that night that none of the groceries had fallen or become damaged after he grabbed her. (A sore scalp was miles better than fresh bruises lining her arms the next day because she'd broken the eggs and her father decided to teach her a lesson about being more careful.)
She fished in her pocket and held out her last Marlboro, an unspoken peace offering. His eyes narrowed briefly in suspicion. But instead of telling her just where she could stick it, he accepted it silently. Dangling the cigarette from the corner of his mouth with the ease of a regular smoker, he hesitated before settling himself roughly onto the ground beside her, smelling heavily of Brylcreem and sweat. He amazed her even further by keeping still when she struck a match to light it for him. (Peace offering or no, Bev still didn't quite trust anyone who called Henry Bowers a friend, and the very last way she intended to die was because she gave someone like Victor Criss a match within easy distance of igniting her hair.)
After a few long drags, he plucked the cigarette from his mouth and stared at it, rolling it between long, rough fingers - fastpitcher's hands - and for no reason she could discern, Beverly suddenly felt sorry for him.
She thought of Bradley Donovan, the boy who went to speech therapy with Bill, of how he seemed to be less there that day when he'd been pitching pennies in the alley with Ben and Eddie, and how he wasn't one of them - whatever that meant. Some abstract part of her consciousness was warning her that Victor Criss wasn't one of them, either, and a voice eerily like Richie's MovieTone Narrator reeled off:
So sorry, boy, but we've already got our lucky seven, you surely understand that, don't you, no room at the inn, so they say, for bullies with a sudden change of heart, and to quote a close pal of mine I like to call Little Richard, keep a-knockin' but you won't get in, so--
She pushed it from her mind.
They continued to sit in silence, the heady tobacco smoke scenting the air a comforting shield between them.
---
Victor Criss made it his business that the other kids in Derry were filled with a special sort of awe whenever they passed the newer section of the local cemetery. They'd all been told that his brother, Len, had died last winter while drag-racing a bunch of hot rodders - that he'd flipped his impressive behemoth of a Plymouth Fury, a '58 model the color of a Maraschino cherry, like some story straight from the pages of Two-Fisted Tales.
He was the only one who knew how the stupid asshole had really died; how he'd gotten too drunk to handle himself before walking straight into traffic while out visiting his girlfriend in South Orrington for the weekend. Fortunately enough, Mrs. Criss helped keep up the charade without even knowing it when she sold her son's car out of town a few days after the accident.
"I just couldn't stand to think of looking at it anymore," Victor heard her telling his father, and later, he felt dull anger mingling with the relief he felt. Neither of them had approved much of Len's most prized possession in the first place.
Len had never been the greatest guy, exactly; never took him along when he went fishing as a kid, or any of that other shit that Boy Scout handbooks rattled off like the rosary of brotherhood. And he sure as fuck never let Vic anywhere near his car. He'd been all right, though, sometimes helping him out with his more difficult math homework whenever he had a day off at the garage, sometimes sneaking him a beer or two when their parents were out for the night. Little things like that.
Even if he hadn't been all right, Victor would still never wish for anyone to get their face nearly ripped off the way that his brother's had been by the grill of that GMC 9100.
He thought he could still hear Len's voice, sometimes; calling to him from the bathtub drain, the faucet, the goddamned kitchen sink, for Christ's sake, and although his parents would think he was one for Juniper Hill if he ever told them, it would be nothing compared to how the guys would react.
Victor hated to think that probably the bravest thing he'd ever done in his life was approaching those kids about it. God, those fuckin' kids.
Stuttering Denbrough. Four-eyes Tozier. Al Marsh's girl. They'd all done their part to get ol' Hank good and pissed off this summer, and that had only meant more trouble for Victor, which - as he'd told the three of them - he wanted no part of.
They'd reacted so calmly - almost tolerant, like they were adults who already understood the situation their none-too-bright child just discovered - and that irritated him as much as it made the cold reality sink in:
Henry Bowers was one-hundred percent, abso-dootly-lutely, screw-loose, bughouse fucking nuts.
If Vic Criss was a gambling man, and he was, he'd say that soon, someone was going to end up with far worse than a broken arm or an initial carved into their gut. And he intended to be far as fuck away as possible before things finally went TOO FAR.
"I'm going out awhile," he called to his father. Andy Criss barely glanced up from his paper.
"You'll be back before dark if you don't want to spend the night out on the porch, boy," he said, turning a page. His son wouldn't be returning home at all.
---
When Frankenstein's monster came to him in the sewers, it wasn't Boris Karloff who staggered forward, familiar in grey-green grease paint. It wasn't like anything out of the movies at all. Because the cold, simple truth was this - stitched with zealous care onto the walking corpse's skull, dark eyes angry and reproachful, was Len's face.
His nose was smashed into the same thick pulp that the morticians hadn't been able to do much with, the right corner of his lip pulled up and stitched awkwardly into a permanent, grotesque grin. Thick shots of blood flowed freely from his nostrils, the gaps in his stitches, the corners of his eyes.
"I've come for ya, Vic," he croaked without opening his mouth. "We'll go for a ride in my car just like you always wanted, and we'll cruise through the sewers tonight and every night, and we'll float, too, Vic buddy, we'll float we'll float we'll float we'll float--"
Bill. Richie. Beverly. Victor. Macabre baseball and lost chances.
I originally did this as a Yuletide New Year's Resolution a little while back, but I'm starting to... uh, consolidate isn't the right word. But I want to start compiling most of my fic in this journal, so here it is.
He and Richie and Beverly had been down at Tracker Brothers... and hadn't Victor Criss approached them? A very frightened Victor Criss? Yes, that had happened. Things had been rapidly approaching the end by then, and Bill thinks now that every kid in Derry had sensed it - the Losers and Henry's group most of all.
-from It, "Chapter 17: Another One of the Missing"
---
"Meanwhile, back in the jungle..."
-The Cadets, Stranded In The Jungle
_______________________________________
He remembered sickly intestines as baselines, liver and lungs as bases, a swollen heart as home plate. The batter gripping a muscled arm, tendons severed just above the elbow, preparing to swing. A hollowed out torso as the catcher's chest-protector. The pitcher winding up, and--
Bill had never been able to look at a baseball field the same way again after he'd finished reading that dog-eared copy of Haunt of Fear at the barbershop. Not even the one behind Tracker Brothers' Truck Depot, well-loved and familiar as it was with its canvas bases and basepaths drawn by nothing more than the sneaker tracks of restless kids.
Other than whenever Stan dragged them down to watch him play outfield, he and his friends hadn't spent much time there this summer, and with good reason. Belch Huggins's talent for hitting balls that "could've been out of fuckin' Yankee Stadium" (so sayeth Tony Tracker) had made him the field's star of 1958, and they didn't need any excuses to run into Henry Bowers. So when Victor Criss lunged across the field towards them that day, Bill didn't like to think it was completely irrational that from a distance, he saw the boy carrying a gaunt, disembodied head inside his catcher's mitt instead of a ball unraveling twine.
He, Richie, and Beverly had just finished pooling what was left of their allowances at the bleachers, intending to go for chocolate frappes at Center Street Drug across the road, before they heard the winded, hitching breaths that told them they weren't alone.
"Oh, shit," said Richie eloquently.
The frightened, almost rabbity expression of Victor's usually steely face - identical to how he'd looked when he and Bill had squared off at the rock fight - was the only thing that made Bill resist from grabbing the others' arms, leaping onto Silver, and pedaling away that instant.
"W-wuh-wait," he muttered under his breath. Although Beverly and Richie exchanged looks over his shoulder, neither moved.
There was no question that Victor was one of the bigger kids in Derry, dwarfed only by Belch's impressive six-foot frame; with the combination of his black pompadour and green nylon jacket, Burke's Garage embroidered on the back, there was no mistaking him. But there was nothing remotely threatening about him now.
"Look--" he prefaced when he was only several yards away. He slowed his pace, sliding his hands into his pockets. "I don't want any trouble, all right?"
Maybe Richie would have been the one to point out the irony of this statement, but then Victor closed the gap between them in a few long strides, and the rest came spilling out; rushed, messy sentences that seemed to compete with one another to leave his mouth first.
He was scared - real fucking scared - of what Henry might do, of what Henry might make happen, because they didn't understand, not like he did, they didn't know that he actually intended to do something far beyond sending some crying kid home with a fractured wrist, that he may even kill someone, because this wasn't just kids' shit anymore, this was straying way past the boundaries of fine-as-paint and taking wild gallops towards what Victor considered to be TOO FAR, and he didn't need to end up
(like who, Victor? like Len? like)
getting his own hide slaughtered and smoked on someone else's account.
Bill said nothing while he spoke, only listened with a calm intensity. It wasn't until the older boy finished that he asked slowly, quietly: "Wuh-wuh-why are yuh-you t-t-telling us this?"
Victor shrugged helplessly. He didn't know why he'd felt the sudden urge to walk over when he saw the three of them across the baseball field, had no clue what it would even accomplish; he'd only known that something bad was about to go down. And there was something terrifying about the fact that he was the only one of his friends to see that.
"I didn't know who else to tell," he finally managed.
If the Losers expected an invitation to lemonade and a game of Parcheesi after this revelation, they'd have been sorely disappointed. Victor abruptly muttered that he had to get home. A curt nod was the closest to a good-bye they got before he took off in the opposite direction, not a glance thrown back their way.
"He's just a regular Jimmy Dean, ain't he?" Richie muttered. "Rebel without a clue."
By the stiff-shouldered way that the older boy stalked off before disappearing from sight, it was as if he thought a single look back might betray the conversation (if it could even be called that) they'd just shared, and he'd be lynched by the rest of his friends.
Although, to toss one in ol' Vic's corner, so to speak-- one couldn't put anything past Henry Bowers at this point.
"I don't want any trouble, you guys," and suddenly Richie's voice was slung down low and easy in a passable imitation of Criss. "I don't want any trouble, now," he drawled, half-Criss, half-Dean, all-Richie-with-a-mild-case-of-bronchitis, and if Bill didn't feel so confused and tired he might have laughed, "but this-- this thing, this in-dee-sih-shin, it's tearing me, like, apart. It's like it's ripping my soul, you know? My soul--"
The monologue, which gained steam after Richie flipped up an invisible collar and raked his fingers down non-existent sideburns, ended when Bill aimed a comfortable punch at his arm.
"Buh-buh-beep--"
"--beep Richie, yeah, you fuckin' squares, I get it," Richie finished, sliding his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. He looked more sullen than offended. "Thanks for spoiling my excitement over the fact that we've just founded Derry's very first Asshole Delinquent Outreach Program."
"Well," Bill said, smiling sweetly, "Bev and I are always glad to help out asshole delinquents like you," and Richie didn't even need to interject You know you don't always as he so often thought of doing, because he could tell by the expression on Bill's face that today, he knew.
Not missing a beat, Richie immediately stooped his shoulders into a painful lurch and shuffled his feet around.
"Oh, lord almighty! That there stutterin' Denbrough boy, he has a way with words, yes, he does!" he cried in his Granny Grunt voice. "Why, he could be writin' speeches for Eisenhower one day! That stutterin' boy, he's gonna be a Pul-it-ZER winner one day, why, yes, he is, that stutterin' Denbrough boy! He's gonna have corn and po-tay-tahs as far as the eye can see, makin' corn and po-tay-tah stew, and corn and po-tay-tah salad, and corn and po-tay-tah waffles--"
Beverly watched in dry bemusement, arms crossed. Bill mimed looping a noose around his own neck and jerked it to the side, tongue lolling appropriately.
"I only wish I had something to contribute," she said after a moment, as Richie spouted the praises of corn and potato milkshakes.
"Ruh-Ruh-Richie, you could g-guh-give a chainsaw a huh-headache," Bill said, not unkindly. Richie beamed.
The conversation home had a different aftertaste to it.
"...wuh-we shouldn't ignore h-him. Not j-just b-because of huh-huh-how he acted buh-before."
"What do you mean?" Bev asked.
"I juh-juh-just think w-we ought to th-think about what he s-suh-said."
"What're we supposed to do?" Richie shot back. "Start holding hands with our new buddy, Vic, and go skipping home from school together? Dum-dum-dum-dum, come 'n go with me? Because last I checked, he'd rather let Butch Bowers pull out his teeth with a rusty pair of pliers than be seen bopping along with us. So, tell me, is that it, Big Bill?"
"I d-duh-don't know," Bill answered, honestly, and Richie fell silent.
---
There were plenty of things about junior high that sucked the root. School assemblies were one of the worst.
Richie always got stuck beside sourpusses like Patty O'Hara, a magnificent tattler who was never the least bit amused with any of his impressions, and Elmer Crenshaw, whose fascination with stamp-collecting made Stan's birdwatching look like try-or-die prizefighting.
And of course, on this most beautiful of early spring days, friendly sunlight streaming in through the gymnasium windows (time which would surely be much better spent passed out on his father's hammock in the backyard), Richie found himself on a metal folding chair squeezed between both Patty and Elmer - two people nearly as far down on the chuckalicious list as one could go; ranking only, in his humble opinion, a little above Stalin, Hitler, and whoever invented tardy slips.
Richie and Mrs. Gondry knew each other well enough for them to both know that this seating arrangement had been no accident.
Recognition assemblies also carried a sense of irony with them. No one knew why they were even called "recognition" assemblies, seeing as everyone went home that day with a little red ribbon, 'Derry Junior High' embossed on it in gold foil along with the year and the name of their homeroom teacher. And though the damn things took forever... well.
It seemed that the roll calls still got a little shorter each year in Derry.
Principal William Mervin, whom the kids called Bill the Pill behind his back (and whose high, wheezy voice Richie was already pretty good at imitating, if he did say so himself), looked up from the list he held in one pink, meaty hand and waved the other around, as if trying to quiet the audience of raucous kids. If so, it was an effort in vain.
Mervin smiled, unphased, about to begin reciting.
Richie smiled, leaning back in his chair, about to take a nap.
"--iel Caldwell..."
He nearly jumped out of his chair, head jerking up abruptly. It took a moment to realize that Patty O'Hara's tight pinch on his arm was what startled him awake. She paid no heed to his glare, only primly returned her hand to her lap as she stared obediently ahead at Mervin.
"Margaret Combs..."
"Elmer Crenshaw..."
"Elizabeth Dane..."
Richie noticed with sticky-slow, dreamlike realization - like struggling to swim out from a sea of molasses - that a name had been omitted between Elmer and Elizabeth Dane's.
This was disturbing for a reason he couldn't quite remember, but forgotten the instant he successfully managed to attach a scrap of composition paper to the back of Patty's blouse, cheerfully inviting others to "Ask me about my stick enema!"
---
Beverly was having a cigarette in the Barrens the second time she saw Victor Criss that week.
Walking head low, hands shoved almost comically deep into his pockets, she spotted him long before he realized she was there, which gave her ample time to decide whether to bolt or not.
Out of all the Losers, it was Bev who knew him best - not that it was saying much - if only because their fathers were bowling pals, and Victor's family had been invited to the Marshes' apartment for dinner a few times. (In truth, Andy Criss and Al Marsh's friendship went further back than weekly bowling trips, as Mike Hanlon would discover when he did a little digging on the Bradley Gang massacre of 1929.) They'd exchanged muttered hellos, meeting their mothers' approvals before ignoring one another in favor of their plates. The most significant thing she'd learned about him over the last few years was that he didn't like carrots; not the best basis for character judgment.
She couldn't say that it hadn't occurred to her that his confession the other day had been a prelude to some sort of elaborate trap, some plan of Henry's.
But Bill believed him. And that was enough for her.
Clearing her throat, she raised her hand in a tentative wave before letting it fall back down to her side. The movement was enough to catch his eye, and after a sweeping glance of his surroundings, he made his way over to where she sat, engineer boots kicking up clouds of dust as he moved.
With his gleaming dark hair, serious expression, and strong curve of a jaw, she supposed that he could probably be considered handsome, but the realization brought no attraction with it - not the way that looking too long at Bill's eyes or sunburned arms sometimes did. It was only a detached, clinical interest, and she wouldn't wonder about why that was until later. He was far from being public enemy number one, after all, and the worst he'd ever done to her - the worst unassociated with Henry Bowers, that is - was the one time he seized her ponytail in one smart, extremely painful jerk after she'd accidentally stepped on his foot, passing where he stood smoking in front of Shook's Drug Store. She had been on her way home from picking up groceries for her mother, in too much of a rush to get home to pay attention to where she was going.
And, to be fair, she hadn't exactly stopped to apologize before he decided to turn her hair into a yo-yo.
Victor Criss had still been far from her main concern that day; she'd thanked God five times in her prayers that night that none of the groceries had fallen or become damaged after he grabbed her. (A sore scalp was miles better than fresh bruises lining her arms the next day because she'd broken the eggs and her father decided to teach her a lesson about being more careful.)
She fished in her pocket and held out her last Marlboro, an unspoken peace offering. His eyes narrowed briefly in suspicion. But instead of telling her just where she could stick it, he accepted it silently. Dangling the cigarette from the corner of his mouth with the ease of a regular smoker, he hesitated before settling himself roughly onto the ground beside her, smelling heavily of Brylcreem and sweat. He amazed her even further by keeping still when she struck a match to light it for him. (Peace offering or no, Bev still didn't quite trust anyone who called Henry Bowers a friend, and the very last way she intended to die was because she gave someone like Victor Criss a match within easy distance of igniting her hair.)
After a few long drags, he plucked the cigarette from his mouth and stared at it, rolling it between long, rough fingers - fastpitcher's hands - and for no reason she could discern, Beverly suddenly felt sorry for him.
She thought of Bradley Donovan, the boy who went to speech therapy with Bill, of how he seemed to be less there that day when he'd been pitching pennies in the alley with Ben and Eddie, and how he wasn't one of them - whatever that meant. Some abstract part of her consciousness was warning her that Victor Criss wasn't one of them, either, and a voice eerily like Richie's MovieTone Narrator reeled off:
So sorry, boy, but we've already got our lucky seven, you surely understand that, don't you, no room at the inn, so they say, for bullies with a sudden change of heart, and to quote a close pal of mine I like to call Little Richard, keep a-knockin' but you won't get in, so--
She pushed it from her mind.
They continued to sit in silence, the heady tobacco smoke scenting the air a comforting shield between them.
---
Victor Criss made it his business that the other kids in Derry were filled with a special sort of awe whenever they passed the newer section of the local cemetery. They'd all been told that his brother, Len, had died last winter while drag-racing a bunch of hot rodders - that he'd flipped his impressive behemoth of a Plymouth Fury, a '58 model the color of a Maraschino cherry, like some story straight from the pages of Two-Fisted Tales.
He was the only one who knew how the stupid asshole had really died; how he'd gotten too drunk to handle himself before walking straight into traffic while out visiting his girlfriend in South Orrington for the weekend. Fortunately enough, Mrs. Criss helped keep up the charade without even knowing it when she sold her son's car out of town a few days after the accident.
"I just couldn't stand to think of looking at it anymore," Victor heard her telling his father, and later, he felt dull anger mingling with the relief he felt. Neither of them had approved much of Len's most prized possession in the first place.
Len had never been the greatest guy, exactly; never took him along when he went fishing as a kid, or any of that other shit that Boy Scout handbooks rattled off like the rosary of brotherhood. And he sure as fuck never let Vic anywhere near his car. He'd been all right, though, sometimes helping him out with his more difficult math homework whenever he had a day off at the garage, sometimes sneaking him a beer or two when their parents were out for the night. Little things like that.
Even if he hadn't been all right, Victor would still never wish for anyone to get their face nearly ripped off the way that his brother's had been by the grill of that GMC 9100.
He thought he could still hear Len's voice, sometimes; calling to him from the bathtub drain, the faucet, the goddamned kitchen sink, for Christ's sake, and although his parents would think he was one for Juniper Hill if he ever told them, it would be nothing compared to how the guys would react.
Victor hated to think that probably the bravest thing he'd ever done in his life was approaching those kids about it. God, those fuckin' kids.
Stuttering Denbrough. Four-eyes Tozier. Al Marsh's girl. They'd all done their part to get ol' Hank good and pissed off this summer, and that had only meant more trouble for Victor, which - as he'd told the three of them - he wanted no part of.
They'd reacted so calmly - almost tolerant, like they were adults who already understood the situation their none-too-bright child just discovered - and that irritated him as much as it made the cold reality sink in:
Henry Bowers was one-hundred percent, abso-dootly-lutely, screw-loose, bughouse fucking nuts.
If Vic Criss was a gambling man, and he was, he'd say that soon, someone was going to end up with far worse than a broken arm or an initial carved into their gut. And he intended to be far as fuck away as possible before things finally went TOO FAR.
"I'm going out awhile," he called to his father. Andy Criss barely glanced up from his paper.
"You'll be back before dark if you don't want to spend the night out on the porch, boy," he said, turning a page. His son wouldn't be returning home at all.
---
When Frankenstein's monster came to him in the sewers, it wasn't Boris Karloff who staggered forward, familiar in grey-green grease paint. It wasn't like anything out of the movies at all. Because the cold, simple truth was this - stitched with zealous care onto the walking corpse's skull, dark eyes angry and reproachful, was Len's face.
His nose was smashed into the same thick pulp that the morticians hadn't been able to do much with, the right corner of his lip pulled up and stitched awkwardly into a permanent, grotesque grin. Thick shots of blood flowed freely from his nostrils, the gaps in his stitches, the corners of his eyes.
"I've come for ya, Vic," he croaked without opening his mouth. "We'll go for a ride in my car just like you always wanted, and we'll cruise through the sewers tonight and every night, and we'll float, too, Vic buddy, we'll float we'll float we'll float we'll float--"