Stephen King's Stand By Me - Every Boy's Story

Okay. All of the men, who love this movie, raise your hand. Quite a few, that’s what I thought. Now, all of the women who love this movie raise your hand. There aren’t a lot of you, are there? No, this movie seems to be the exact opposite of a “chick flick” and appeals mainly to men. Personally, I love the movie and the novella that it is based on.

The Body is a novella written by Stephen King and is part of the collection in DIFFERENT SEASONS. The book contains four novellas, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption (The Shawshank Redemption), Apt Pupil (Apt Pupil), The Body (Stand by Me) and The Breathing Method; three of which were made into movies, the movie titles in are in parentheses. I enjoyed each story and each adaptation but The Body and Stand by Me struck on a personal basis. The title of this post calls it “every boy’s story” and I think that is reasonably accurate; not every boy has set out to find a dead body but it is the adventurer in us.

The story is a first person account of four (4) 12 year-old friends, Gordie, Chris, Teddy and Vern. Vern overhears his older brother telling a few friends – the town thugs - about a dead boy, Ray Brower, he found and heads to the treehouse to relay the news. The boys decide to tell their parents they are going camping in a big field owned by Vern’s parents and go out in search of the body. They want to find him and be the heroes. They grab their gear and head out in search for poor Ray Brower. They walk along the train tracks and cut across a big field. There is a time when they come across a large pool of water in the woods and have to wade through it – if you have seen the movie or read the book you will know why this is the most difficult scene in the whole story…. They finally find Ray lying lifeless in the bushes when the thugs show up. They want to get credit for finding Ray but Gordie and the gang won’t let them. Chris had brought his fathers’ gun, just in case, and Gordie threatened the thugs, scaring them off. The boys finally decide to phone in an anonymous tip. The story ends with a recap of their lives after that trip.

I touched upon the highlights purposely not going into detail because I cannot do justice and I want to encourage everyone to experience it for themselves. This post wasn’t meant to be an essay about the story but rather what it means to me and guys the world over. It’s about being with your best friends, and exploring the world around you. It’s about adventure and going into the unknown driven only by your sense of curiosity. What a great time in your life – you are old enough to go out and explore and young enough not to have a lot of responsibility weighing you down. Over the years, I have written about some of my adventures in my early teen years; maybe that is one of the appeals of the story. I can envision this story being played out by Joe, Len, John and Jim although our lives were much different than Gordie, Chris, Teddy and Vern. We even had an overnight camping trip that was quite an adventure itself when we were about 16 and a bit of adventure involving train tracks but that is for another story. We had plenty of others and I look back fondly over those times. We have each gone our separate ways and have families of our own. I can’t remember the last time the four of us have been in the same room but suspect it has been more than 20 years and that is a shame.

I originally wrote this in 2016 for a blogging community I was involved in. I was initially inspired to write this after walking into the living room when my son was watching the movie on television. I had been writing most of the day. I took a break and was walking through the living room where my son was watching a movie. I arrived in time to see Gordie put his hands on the railroad tracks and yell “Train!” I could feel a smile growing on my face and a wave of nostalgia come over me. I woke up the next morning with the title and the rest just started writing itself. I know I have watched the movie with my wife (and possibly my daughter) but don’t really remember; she usually just smiles when she sees it is on and continues on. I can’t count how many times I have watched it with my son and have watched it countless times when I was alone. Even though the subject matter isn’t exactly “feel good” nor is the movie itself but it can always lift me up when I am having a bad day and isn’t that what a good story is supposed to do?

Well, last week I was flipping through the channels looking for something to watch and, guess what I found! I came in just as Vern was digging around under the porch looking for his pennies. I only meant to watch for a short time until my wife was done with whatever she was doing so that we could watch a movie we had recorded. My son walked in, saw what I was watching and sat down on the couch. My wife looked in, saw what we were watching and walked away knowing that her viewing pleasure was being put on hold. There is something about the movie - when I start watching it I can't just walk away. It's like having a bag of potato chips and trying to "eat just one." Yeah. Right!

This isn’t a typical Stephen King story and many people wouldn’t know it was if you didn’t tell them. It is just a great story about a group of kids trying to something good and the obstacles they have to overcome along the way. In other words, it is about life. I encourage you to read the novella and then, if you are so inclined, watch the movie. This is one of those rare cases where I enjoy both rather equally but the novella has much more detail and treats you to the references to other works that we have come to expect from Stephen.

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