Christine

As in the Prologue, Dennis continues to narrate in Chapter 1 and all of Part 1. It’s the summer of 1978, and Arnie and Dennis have summer jobs working on a highway project. On their way home from work, Arnie spots a red 1958 Plymouth Fury. The car and engine are severely dilapidated, but Arnie wants to buy it.

The car’s owner is an older man, Roland (“Rollie”) LeBay, who is racist and sexist. LeBay joined the Army in 1923, when he was 16. He fought in World War II and now wears an unclean back brace. LeBay offers to sell Arnie the car for $250. Dennis lampoons the transaction but agrees to lend Arnie money, so LeBay holds the car for Arnie for 24 hours. LeBay calls the car Christine. Dennis jokes that Arnie should call it Trouble.

Arnie and Dennis live in Libertyville, Pennsylvania. Many people who teach at Horlicks University live there. Arnie’s father, Michael, teaches history at the college, and his mother, Regina, teaches English there. Arnie’s parents are conscientious, protesting segregation and the Vietnam War among other issues.

When Arnie tells them he bought a car, they’re livid. Regina is the most vocal: She doesn’t want Arnie to spend money he saved for college on a car and blames Dennis for not stopping him. Arnie reminds Regina that Dennis has a car (a 1976 Plymouth Duster). Arnie cusses, and Dennis leaves. He and Arnie have been friends since they were young, and he never witnessed the family fight before.

The next morning, Dennis picks up Arnie for their highway job. Arnie jokingly calls Dennis “Jeeves” and tells Dennis his sinister philosophy about parents: He thinks that his parents want to “kill” their kids because having children makes them more aware of their mortality. Concerning his parents and Christine, Arnie threatened to choose vocational training over college if they didn’t let him buy it. He also said he wouldn’t get it registered or inspected without their approval.

Dennis and Arnie turn down overtime work on the highway so that they can go to LeBay’s house. They listen to contemporary rock music (Foreigner) and, with a mix of humor and seriousness, discuss Arnie’s preoccupation with LeBay’s car.

Arnie is alarmed when the car isn’t outside LeBay’s house. LeBay explains that he moved it into the garage to fix it up a little and protect it from surly neighbors. Dennis inspects the car again. It’s still in bad shape, and the radio receives only AM stations. In the car, Dennis has a supernatural experience: Christine speaks to him, and he feels like he’s in the 1950s.

Startled, Dennis leaves the car and attacks LeBay for taking advantage of Arnie in selling it to him. Arnie calls the car “doll” and gets it to start. As he drives it to the garage of Will Darnell (a disreputable older man who rents space for people to work on vehicles) people hoot at the car and make fun of it. Arnie flips them the middle finger.

On the way to Darnell’s suspicious garage, Christine has a flat tire, and Arnie parks in front of a tacky house. The wife and her two children make fun of the car and want Arnie to move it. The father arrives and escalates the conflict. Dennis lampoons the family and helps buy Arnie a new tire, not a remolded one. After they put it on the car, Dennis flips the outraged father the middle finger.

Dennis reviews Darnell’s criminal connections. He’s involved in selling stolen cars, drugs, fireworks, and other schemes. His garage is crude and messy, but Darnell claims it’s a home for working-class men who must keep their cars operational to provide for their families. Darnell dislikes Dennis’s sarcastic remarks and notices Christine’s dilapidated condition. Nevertheless, he lets Arnie park Christine in stall 20 for $20 a week.

Outside Darnell’s, Arnie has a tantrum, threatening to harm unnamed antagonists. As Arnie cries, Dennis holds him, realizing that people might mistake them for young gay men.

At home, Dennis provides background about his family. He has a playfully cantankerous relationship with his 14-year-old sister, Elaine, who consumes much pop culture. His father, Kenny, was an accountant for Pittsburgh’s largest architectural firm, but a heart attack pushed him to take a less stressful job in tax consultation. Dennis’s mother (unnamed) works as a dental hygienist but wants to be a writer, so she takes a creative writing class at Horlicks. Kenny and Dennis gently make fun of her writing.

Kenny realizes that Dennis is upset, and Dennis tells his father about Christine. Dennis compares teen life to engines. People give a young person the keys to a car, and they start it, but they don’t always have a firm idea of what they’re doing. Dennis thinks of Arnie and Christine as lovestruck and a hasty marriage. That night, Dennis has a nightmare: He’s in LeBay’s garage, where Christine talks to him before trying to attack him. Dennis screams, waking his family.

While at home on a Saturday, Dennis thinks about how Arnie is at Darnell’s garage instead of relaxing in the sun or watching baseball. On Sunday, Dennis and Elaine play croquet, and Elaine accuses him of cheating. The emotive accusation leads Dennis to believe that Eliane is menstruating—a “proud” development for her.

Arnie arrives and tells Dennis about the light work he did on Christine. In addition, Arnie ran some unspecified “errands” for Darnell. Using sexist language, Dennis notes that he believes Arnie is in an unhealthy relationship with Christine. However, Dennis doesn’t know what to do, so he and Arnie watch a karate movie.

Dennis gets Arnie to eat at Gino’s Fine Italian Pizza (a crude but somewhat charming pizza place) by jokingly offering him not one but two Pepsis. At Darnell’s, Arnie fought with Buddy Repperton. Buddy is in a group of wayward young men (which also includes Dan Vandenberg, Sandy Galton, and Peter [“Moochie”] Welch) who, though almost 20, haven’t graduated high school. They spend most of the day in shop class.

Buddy bullied Dennis at a school mixer when Dennis was a freshman. At Darnell’s, he bullied Arnie by knocking over his tools and breaking one of Christine’s headlights. Darnell disappeared as if he knew a fight would occur. When Arnie successfully fought back, Darnell reappeared. Arnie has a black eye and bruises on his body, but his main concern is finding a new place to keep Christine.

Dennis goes to see the movie adaptation of the high school musical Grease (1978) with his girlfriend, Roseanne, who’s a cheerleader. Unmoved by the movie, Dennis goes into the lobby and calls Arnie. He thinks Arnie could continue to keep Christine in LeBay’s garage. Upset, Arnie hangs up. Dennis reads the newspaper and finds out that LeBay died on the day of the fight between Buddy and Arnie. That night, Dennis has a dream about LeBay and Christine but this time represses his scream.