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Chapter 4: Brendan Espinoza
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Restart, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Identity, Memory, and Responsibility
Reputation vs. Reality
Masculinity
Social Hierarchies and Bullying
Loyalty
Summary
Analysis
Two weeks later, Chase has shed his shoulder wrap and is out walking when he sees a little girl on a playground, which reminds him of the mysterious blond girl in his one memory. Then he realizes the little girl on the playground is Helene. When she falls off the top of the slide, Chase darts toward her, catches her, and zooms her around in the air. She loves it until she realizes who has caught her, at which point she screams for her mother. When Chase tries to reassure her that it’s just him, her brother, she starts crying and demands to be put down. He puts her on her feet, and she runs for Corinne, who’s approaching.
Helene reacts with fear to Chase’s attempts to help her and play with her. From the intensity of her fear, readers can guess that Chase has bullied her in the past: a disturbing implication, since Helene is only four years old.
Themes
Chase apologizes to Corinne for frightening Helene. Though Corinne thanks Chase for stopping Helene’s fall, Chase thinks her tone is a little cold. When Chase speculates that Helene dislikes him, Corinne says no, it’s only that Chase scares her. Chase, alarmed, wonders what he did to scare his little sister.
Corinne confirms that Helene fears Chase, implying that Chase has purposely scared Helene in the past. That this implication disturbs Chase shows again that losing his memory has changed his moral judgments: the thought of scaring his own little sister doesn’t sit right with him anymore.
Themes
Frank pulls up in a truck labeled Ambrose Electric and calls to Corinne to start the grill at home, because he plans to buy steak. When Frank sees Chase, he asks why Chase isn’t at practice. Chase says the doctor doesn’t want him practicing because of his concussion. Frank pooh-poohs the doctor and invites Chase over for steak, calling it better than Tina’s “rabbit food.” Chase politely declines but mentions seeing Frank’s state championship photo. Frank says that “Ambrose men” have a gift and warns Chase not to let Tina “coddle it out of” him, which is what happened to Johnny. Frank drives off, and Chase says goodbye to Helene, who can’t or won’t hold his gaze.
Frank adheres almost cartoonishly to stereotypes of masculine toughness: he wants to grill steak and contemptuously refers to less meat-heavy dishes as “rabbit food,” mocks the doctor warning Chase to be cautious after a serious head injury, and calls his ex-wife’s less rough-and-tumble parenting style “coddl[ing].” His criticism of Chase’s older brother Johnny is disturbing; it suggests that before the accident, Chase may have acted tough to the point of cruelty in order to avoid harsh and dismissive criticism from his father.
Themes
Chase can tell he has a reputation at school, though not whether it’s positive or negative. He and his jock friends seem to rule the school, but he’s not sure how much he likes his friends. They’re physically violent and verbally cruel to one another as a matter of course. Aaron and Bear try to shield Chase from some of it due to his injury. He respects what they’re doing but doesn’t like being treated as if he’s “weak.” Also, he finds Aaron and Bear’s constant questions about his memory anxiety-inducing. When he admits that his sole memory is a little blond girl, they’re at first shocked and then find it hilarious.
A person’s reputation is, essentially, hearsay about them. When Chase says he has a reputation, it means that other people who have little direct experience of him have heard of him and believe they know things about him. Having a reputation seems to disturb Chase, perhaps because he knows less about himself than apparent strangers do. Chase’s negative reaction to Aaron and Bear’s loyal protection of him—he doesn’t want to seem “weak”—suggests that he has already internalized some of Frank’s macho worldview since waking from his coma.
Themes
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Students not on the football team avoid looking at Chase; some even flee from him. When he asks Aaron and Bear why people would be frightened of him, they trade loaded glances; Aaron notes that Chase really has amnesia. Bear interrupts Chase’s follow-up questions by saying that he and Aaron have to go do community service in an assisted living community, unlike Chase, who was “excused” due to injury.
Though Chase can’t yet tell whether his reputation is positive or negative, the fearful reactions he receives from many other students suggests that it’s largely negative. Aaron’s snarky reference to Chase’s amnesia, meanwhile, suggests that Chase earned his reputation as a scary bully.
Themes
Chase is shocked that a court must have ordered him, Aaron, and Bear to do community service. When he asks what their offense was, Aaron explains that they hid cherry bombs inside a piano being used in a recital. He claims that the prank “was awesome” and that taking a little punishment wouldn’t have bothered the old Chase. Tentatively, Chase replies: “nobody got hurt, so what’s the big deal?” Bear laughs and comments, “Yeah, right.”
Blowing up a piano doesn’t seem particularly “awesome”; Aaron and Bear’s enthusiasm for destruction illustrates their childish view of what strong men do and like. Chase’s focus on whether anyone “got hurt” shows his greater empathy and care for others post-accident, while Bear’s “Yeah, right” disturbingly suggests that people did, in fact, get hurt during the incident.
Themes
Aaron tells Chase that they only got in such big trouble because everyone in town envies their status and freewheeling behavior. When Chase suggests that that’s “not fair,” Bear jokingly bewails the injustice, and Chase thinks that Bear and Aaron are “the toughest.” He thanks them for being honest with him, saying that his mom Tina hid the truth and Frank mentioned she might “coddle” him. Bear praises Frank and expresses hope that Chase will be back on the football team soon. Chase wonders whether his mom was wrong to trust the doctor who said Chase shouldn’t play; he also wonders whether she’s hiding additional information from him.
Rather than accept that they were punished for cruel and dangerous behavior, Aaron childishly insists that adults punished him, Chase, and Bear out of jealousy. Chase interprets Aaron and Bear’s juvenile dismissal of legitimate criticism as “tough[ness],” which shows how too much unreflective investment in masculine strength can justify bullying. Chase’s worry that Frank was right about Tina, meanwhile, suggests that Frank’s overinvestment in Chase’s masculinity and sports career may have undermined Tina’s attempts to responsibly parent Chase in the past.
Themes
Later that day, when Tina gets home from work, Chase confronts her about hiding his arrest and community service from him. Seeming tired, she admits that she has been trying not to disturb him with past events while he’s healing from his traumatic injuries. When Chase asks what other events she’s been hiding, she says that she believes Chase is good “deep down”—but he hasn’t always acted in good ways. Chase, nauseated, recalls all the kids who’ve acted scared of him at school. He wonders whether he earned Shoshanna Weber’s rage.
Tina distinguishes between who Chase is “deep down” and his past behavior. This distinction suggests that people can change—for good or bad—despite having certain essential characteristics. Readers may wonder how Chase’s essential characteristics will express themselves now that he’s forgotten his past—especially since his sickened reaction to the thought of others fearing him suggests that, in his “restarted” state, he no longer wants to be a bully.
Themes
Then Chase remembers Aaron and Bear’s take on the events, so different from Tina’s. He acknowledges that his behavior was unkind but asks why the school reacted so harshly, since it was still just a “prank.” Tina, stonily, points out that the prank made everyone at the recital think an assault was being launched on the school. Only luck prevented audience members from being harmed in the “panic,” and it makes sense that the principal Dr. Fitzwallace called the police. Tina’s account of events makes Chase feel terrible, yet he notes that everyone he meets—Tina, Frank, Aaron, and Bear—interprets him and his behavior differently. He wonders which interpretation he should trust.
Chase has no memories, no direct experience of himself from before the accident. As such, he can only judge his past self based on others’ accounts of him: that is, on his reputation. Yet the different people to whom he speaks have wholly different experiences of pre-accident Chase. That a person’s reputation can be internally contradictory in this way suggests that reputations aren’t a trustworthy guide to who a person really is. Nevertheless, Tina’s description of the fear and possible harm the “prank” could have caused does suggest Aaron and Bear aren’t taking it seriously enough.
Themes
