Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers sang' Why Do Fools Fall in Love?', as Eddie Cochran sang 'C'mon, Everybody', and Buddy Holly sang 'Rave On'. There were no commercials on WDIL Friday nights, and no deejays. Just the sounds. Gone from the charts but not from our hearts. Every now and then a soothing female voice would break in and tell him what he already knew - that he was listening to WDIL Pittsburgh, the sound of Blue Suede Radio.
Arnie sat dreaming behind the wheel, the red dash lights glowing, tapping his fingers lightly. The aerial was fine. Yes. He had done a good job. It was like Will said; he had a light touch, Look at Christine; Christine proved it. She had been a hunk of junk sitting on LeBay's lawn and he had brought her back; then she had been a hunk of junk sitting in the long-term lot out at the airport and he had brought her back again. He had . . .
Rave on. . . rave on and tell me . . .
Tell me. . . not to be lonely. . . .
He had what?
Replaced the aerial, yes. And he had popped so -me of the dents, he could remember that. But he hadn't ordered any glass (although it was all replaced), he hadn't ordered any new seat covers (but they were all replaced, too), and he had only looked closely under the hood once before slamming it back down in horror at the damage they had done to Christine's mill.
But now the radiator was whole, the engine block clean and glowing, the pistons moving free and clear. And it purred like a cat.
But there had been dreams.
He had dreamed of LeBay behind the wheel of Christine, LeBay dressed in an Army uniform that was spotted and splotched with blue-grey patches of graveyard mould, LeBay's flesh had sloughed and run. White, gleaming bone poked through in places. The sockets where LeBay's eyes had once been were empty and dark (but something was squirming in there, ah, yes, something). And then Christine's headlights had come on and someone had been pinned there, pinned like a bug on a white square of cardboard. Someone familiar.
Moochie Welch?
Maybe. But as Christine suddenly rocketed forward, tyres screaming, it had seemed to Arnie that the terrified face out there on the street ran like tallow, changing even as the Plymouth bore down on it: now it was Repperton's face, now Sandy Galton's, now it was Will Darnell's heavy moon face.
Whoever was out there had jumped aside, but LeBay had thrown Christine into reverse, working the gear lever with black rotting fingers - a wedding ring hung on one, as loose as a hoop thrown over the branch of a dead tree - and then he threw it back into drive as the figure raced for the far side of the street. And as Christine bore down again, the head had turned, throwing a terrified glance backward, and Arnie had seen the face of his mother . . . the face of Dennis Guilder . . . Leigh's face, all eyes under a floating cloud of dark-blond hair . . . and finally his own face, the twisted mouth forming the words No! No! No!
Overriding everything, even the heavy thunder of the exhaust (something underneath had been damaged for sure), was LeBay's rotting, triumphant voice, coming from a decayed larynx, passing lips that were already shrivelled away from the teeth and tattooed with a delicate spidering of dark green mould, LeBay's triumphant, shrieking voice:
Here you go, you shitter! See how you like it!
There had been the heavy, mortal thud of Christine's bumper striking flesh, the gleam of a pair of spectacles rising in the night air, turning over and over, and then Arnie had awakened in his room, curled into a trembling ball and clutching his pillow. It had been quarter of two in the morning, and his first feeling had been a great and terrible relief, relief that he was still alive. He was alive, LeBay was dead, and Christine was safe. The only three things in the world that mattered.
Oh but Arnie, how did you hurt your back?
Some voice inside, sly and insinuating - asking a question he was afraid to answer.
I hurt it at Philly Plains, he had told everyone. One of the junkers started to slip back down the ramp of Will's flatbed and I pushed it back up - didn't think about it; I just did it.