It’s a messed up thing to say. Derry is a dark and evil place, but I truly miss my time spent there. In that world. In those words.
Stephen King's It is maybe the scariest book I've ever read. It affected me in a way that no other book has: I dreamed about it. I had dreams - not quite nightmares - about Pennywise the clown and all the forms that It takes, chasing me, hunting me and being hunted by me. This was over the course of the first few weeks I read the book, when the scenes were set in 1958 and the poor kids of Derry, Maine, had to contend with a monster that they knew nothing about. These dreams faded and slowed as I got further into the book, but the fears didn't.
Derry is a messed up place. The evil in the monster of It seeps into the bones of the town. Throughout the book, we get history lessons in the fictional town. Pieces of the past where evil showed its ugly face and, more than the monster beneath the sewers, humans committed acts of violence and evil. Almost none of these acts even need a monster. In fact, many of them are based on true events from the history of the actual town Bangor, Maine. The killing of a gay man by men violently beating him and throwing him off of a bridge that opens the book It, actually happened in Bangor in 1984. Three men murdered Charlie Howard by throwing him over a bridge. In the novel, characters do this to Adrian Melon, though he does not die as he lands in the waters below. It, the monster, is waiting down below for him and finishes the job. Even though there is a monster in the novel, it is not what commits the evil acts. The evil is not supernatural, it’s the most natural thing in the world. The murder of Charlie Howard was committed by people, by citizens of Bangor. Through the novel, King shows that the fictional Adrian’s murder really was not Pennywise at all, but the men who thought to assault another human. The evil was theirs to commit.
That is the most glaring of true events pilfered by King and used in this book. Not maliciously, but to shine a light on the evil in everyday life. All of the stories in It: the psychopath bully who murders his brother, the burning of a black officer's club by racist townsfolk, the beating of children by their parents, happen. They are real, maybe not in Bangor, but in all the small towns that Derry represents. But the inverse is true: the boy, riding a bike too large for him, zipping at 40 miles an hour down the biggest hill in town. That's real. The kids, making a clubhouse and messing about with "ancient Indian rituals" and playing in abandoned lots. That's real. Outcasts making friends with each other and going to the movies and playing cheesy board games and growing up together over the course of a summer. That's real too. Those are the things I miss about Derry.
Somehow, in this book, King captured childhood, better than I've ever seen it in writing before. The good and the bad of growing up is all shown in this ghost story. It has a monster, sure, but it really is about growing up.
Derry, and this book, capture that feeling of nostalgia and melancholy memory better than I've ever felt before. I miss my childhood sometimes, waxing and remembering the good of it despite the dark times. There’s a feeling there, not quite nostalgia or wanting, but a wish to feel like I did as a kid. I remember all the dark moments: the abusive ones, the deaths of parents and relative, and all the other fun bits I chat with my therapist about. Even so, there’s a wanting for the simplicity of childhood. Even in the dark times, there were pleasant moments. The glimmers of candlelight in the darkness of night. Those are the ones I miss. That's the Derry I wish I could get back to.
We only get to grow up once, and on the spectrum of human feeling, we all have a best - and a worst - day. We can compare scars and say your worst day was worse, or my best was better, but we all only know what we felt then, in those moments, and that doesn't change the good feelings or the bad.
Somehow in a summer, King captures Bill's worst day, the day of his brother Georgie, and he takes us through the awful grief felt by that young boy. But he also shows us Silver. King shows Bill riding a bike far too big for him, skirting death in his own grief filled expression of want, racing through the streets of Derry at speeds he should definitely have a helmet on for, though it probably wouldn't do any good, and he shows us the joy in the sadness. As an adult, Bill yearns for the feeling of riding Silver, his bike, down the streets of his hometown, those moments of expressed grief, now, if not happy, nostalgic memories to him.
That's the Derry I miss.
I miss growing up with the Loser's Club, the good within the bad. I miss my own childhood; good, bad, and ugly. But childhood is a one-way path. King shows this through sex in the novel It, but whether or not his method resonates, doesn't change the fact that the message is true. You can't unflush the toilet. You can't un-grow up. We're stuck with our memories, personal and imperfect. We can miss our time growing up, but we can't go back. We can miss Derry, despite the darkness, because there was light. There were good moments. In every childhood, there were wonderful moments, buried in the darkness though they may seem. Sometimes all we want is to capture that slim feeling of love and joy and warmth from that singular moment of good we had growing up.
I miss that moment despite - or because of - never being able to relive it. That's ok. Some things are best remembered.
I miss Derry, Maine. I'm glad it’s a memory of mine now.
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Love ya!
Max