Different Seasons

The adult Gordon LaChance is looking back to his childhood and recounting the coming-of-age event that most influenced the course of his life. He talks about how difficult it is sometimes to put important thoughts and ideas into words that will make sense to another person.

In August, near the end of a long, hot summer, the narrator, Gordon “Gordie” LaChance, and his friends, Chris and Teddy, are hanging out in their club, a treehouse overhanging a vacant lot in Castle Rock. Gordie describes it as a kind of social club with no name and a loose and fluctuating membership. They play cards and smoke and tell stories. The three boys are playing cards when their friend, Vern Tessio, arrives out of breath.

Vern tells them something that he overheard from his older brother. Three days earlier, Ray Brower, a boy their own age from nearby Chamberlain, had gone missing. Vern just overheard his older brother, Billy, talking with a friend about finding Ray Brower’s body but being unable to tell anyone about it because they had found it while joyriding in a boosted car. They found the body near the train tracks and theorized that he must have been lost and following the tracks to get home and was hit by a train. The boys concoct a plan to tell their parents that they are camping out in a field near Vern’s house and go instead to find the body.

Gordie explains how the four boys are able to get away with disappearing overnight without their parents knowing. Chris’s father is violent and usually drunk. Teddy’s father is in an asylum, having gone on a violent rampage in which he pressed Teddy’s ears to a hot stove, burning them badly. Teddy is reckless and impulsive, prone to death-defying stunts. Gordie’s parents had never wanted a second son, so when his older brother, Denny, died, they seemed almost to forget about Gordie’s existence. Gordie sometimes feels that his family wishes that he was the one who died.

Gordie interpolates a story that he wrote much later called “Stud City.” The story is about Eddie “Chico” May, a young man whose older brother, Johnny, recently died in a car wreck just like Gordie’s own brother did. Its family dynamics are full of anger, betrayal, secrets, and even a little love. After a big family argument, Eddie takes off in his car with no destination but the future.

The boys collect their camping equipment. Chris and Gordie meet first, and Chris shows Gordie his father’s .45 pistol, which he has taken just in case they run into any trouble. The four boys meet at the field behind Vern’s house near noon, and they plan their route. They plan to follow the railroad tracks directly to the town of Harlow where Vern’s brother saw the body. They estimate it to be about a 20-mile walk.

The day is hot, and they soon run out of water and realize that no one thought to bring any food. They decide to refill their canteens at the faucet at the town dump, then pool their money, coming up with $2.37.

The boys hear a train approaching, and three of them go down the bank to a safe distance, but daredevil Teddy declares that he is going to dodge the train. He positions himself in the middle of the tracks, but Gordie grabs him and drags him off just in time. Teddy attacks Gordie, screaming with rage as the train roars past.

When peace is finally restored, the boys climb the fence surrounding the dump and fill their canteens, then lie down for a rest. The dump is an exciting place in which Chopper lives—the dog belonging to the dump-keeper, Milo Pressman. Chopper is a rarely-seen creature rumored to be a combination wolf/Irish wolfhound/Doberman/German Shepherd trained by Milo to “sic” specific points of anatomy. A first-time trespasser might lose a foot, a leg or a hand, but on second offense, Milo would (allegedly) issue the command to “Sic! Balls!”

After a rest, the boys flip coins to decide who will walk down the road to the small shop to buy food. On the first toss, they come up with equal heads and tails. On the second toss, they come up four tails, a very bad omen. On the third toss, Gordie comes up heads and the other three show tails. Gordie feels a thrill of fear as if fate had thrown a shadow over the other three.

Gordie leaves the others and goes down the road to the Florida Market where he buys food for the rest of the trip. The owner tries to cheat him first by putting a thumb on the meat scale, then adding up the total wrong. When Gordie corrects him both times, the owner calls him a smartass and other slurs and threatens to punch him if he ever comes back.

Returning to the dump, Gordie decides to take a shortcut through the yard. As he is climbing over the gate, he is spotted by Milo Pressman. Gordie runs for the other side of the yard and climbs the fence to rejoin his friends moments before Chopper catches him. Gordie realizes that Chopper is just an ordinary mutt. An enraged Milo Pressman taunts Teddy by calling his father a “loony,” and the boys have difficulty holding Teddy back from climbing over the fence and attacking the big man. The confrontation ends with the boys walking away.

Gordie reflects that maybe their adventure is a lot more serious than they had understood at the outset and that maybe they deserve their bad luck. As he is thinking this, Teddy suddenly bursts into hysterical tears over Milo’s insults about his father. None of the boys knows what to do until Chris, the toughest of them all, puts his arm around Teddy and comforts him. Gordie wonders how Teddy can be so fiercely protective of his father when his father nearly killed him.

When Teddy recovers his composure, he apologizes for ruining the good time, but Vern says that their quest isn’t supposed to be fun. It is supposed to be solemn–even scary. Vern is afraid to look at the body, but he feels like he has to, no matter the consequences.

The boys reach the Castle River. The only way to cross is over the railroad trestle. Being on the tracks when a train came would be certain death. Chris and Teddy go first, then Gordie and Vern. Halfway across, a train comes up behind them. Chris and Teddy get off, and Gordie forces Vern along ahead of him. They leap off the tracks just as the train roars by.