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Chapter 8: Chase Ambrose
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
When Chase goes to the locker room door after the scrimmage, he comes upon Aaron shutting out another video club member, Hugo. Hugo explains to Chase that he’s trying to film the football team. Chase asks why, given that Ms. DeLeo assigned him that task; Hugo admits the video club worried Chase would “forget.” Bear, having heard Chase’s voice, opens the door and drags him inside the locker room. Chase manages to get Hugo in too by telling Bear that they’re both there to film the team for video yearbook.
The video-club kids thought that Chase would “forget” the video-yearbook assignment that the club’s faculty advisor Ms. DeLeo gave him. Here, “forget” seems to be a euphemism for “blow off”—the video-club kids aren’t yet willing to believe that their former bully is capable of changing or exploring interests beyond football.
Themes
When Chase explains why he’s there, the football team is upset; they were hoping he’d tell them he could play again. They criticize him for following his doctor’s orders and hanging out with the video club. Aaron defends Chase, saying that sidelining Chase was his wimpy doctor’s decision and that he’s covering the Hurricanes to make them look good in the yearbook. Chase tells everyone he’ll start playing football again as soon as the doctor says he can—which makes Hugo look at him funny. A football player throws a ball at Chase; he catches it easily, making him feel like he’s regaining “an old self.”
The football team fails to understand that concussions are dangerous and criticize Chase for taking his seriously. Even Aaron, who defends Chase out of loyalty, blames the doctor’s “wimpiness” rather than pointing out that Chase has a serious head injury. This irrational obsession with toughness hints that too much investment in stereotypical masculinity can be dangerous. Meanwhile, Chase likes the feeling of getting “an old self” back, even though he has private misgivings about who he used to be, which illustrates how important having an identity (even a negative one) is to him.
Themes
The football players give Chase good interview quotes, though they’re monosyllabic with Hugo. Chase feels so happy and at “home” with the team that when Aaron announces he and Bear have to go do community service, Chase says he’ll go too. Aaron reminds him he has a medical excuse not to go, and Bear suggests he’s really an amnesiac if he wants to go back to the assisted living facility where they do community service, but Chase insists.
The football players’ willingness to talk to Chase, even though he now belongs to the video club, suggests that they still see him as “one of them,” even as he pursues new interests. Chase’s desire to continue feeling at “home” shows how much lacking a stable identity has disturbed him.
Themes
At the Portland Street Assisted Living Residence, Chase, Aaron, and Bear report to head nurse Nurse Duncan. Though taken aback that Chase is voluntarily completing his community service, Nurse Duncan quickly assigns the three boys to the snack cart. Aaron and Bear pilfer the cart for snacks and call all the residents “Dumbledore” or “Dumbledora,” while Chase ends up volunteering to do various small tasks for residents, like finding lost items.
Albus Dumbledore is the elderly headmaster at Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series; Aaron and Bear show their disrespect for the elderly by referring to all the seniors by variants of Dumbledore rather than their real names. Nurse Duncan’s surprise that Chase would voluntarily help the seniors implies that, prior to his amnesia, Chase was as disrespectful as Aaron and Bear still are—an implication that emphasizes how important memory is to identity and behavior.
Themes
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When Aaron makes a rude comment about the facility, Chase tells him to keep it down so the residents don’t hear. Bear claims they can’t hear, and Chase snaps that one woman certainly heard Bear farting in her room. Aaron finds this hilarious. Chase thinks mean jokes are funny among the three of them, but the residents—many of whom have interesting, historical life stories—merit “more respect.”
Unlike Aaron and Bear, Chase recognizes that mean jokes are appropriate in some contexts and not others: you shouldn’t “punch down” by insulting people who can’t hear, and you should show the elderly “more respect” than you might show your peers.
Themes
In room 121, the resident (later revealed to be Mr. Solway) is asleep in his chair. Chase is leaving snacks on his table when he notices a black-and-white photo of the resident as a younger man accepting a Medal of Honor from President Truman. Aaron and Bear, uninterested, try to hurry Chase out of the room, but Chase wonders aloud what the man won the medal for. Aaron suggests the man “slew a triceratops”—and the man, waking up, snarks: “It was a pterodactyl.” Then he tells the boys that he’s occupied (though he clearly isn’t), so they should leave. The boys leave.
President Harry S. Truman (1884—1972) was president of the United States from 1945 to 1953. The Medal of Honor is the highest decoration a member of the U.S. military can receive. A medal is something like a physical symbol of a person’s high status and good reputation; it makes sense that Chase, who has a high social status but a bad reputation, would be curious about how the elderly man earned his reputation. Aaron and Bear are uninterested because the man is old, as evidenced by Aaron’s joke that the man killed a “triceratops” (that is, a dinosaur)—while the old man’s comeback that he killed a “pterodactyl” suggests that he’s mentally quick and sarcastic.
Themes
Aaron and Bear inform Chase that they only have one more resident to visit, an old woman so confused she thinks she’s staying at a hotel. Sure enough, the woman is very confused, but Chase doesn’t find it funny the way Aaron and Bear seem to. He helps her rearrange her furniture, and then they deposit her snacks and begin to leave, when she tries to hand Chase a $20 tip. Chase tries to refuse it. Then Bear swipes it, grinning, and says: “Enjoy your stay.”
Chase doesn’t find an elderly woman’s cognitive decline amusing, showing that—without his memories and history of bullying—he doesn’t like to “punch down” on people who are suffering. By contrast, Bear is willing to take money from the elderly woman under false pretenses.
Themes
Bear and Aaron bolt from the old woman’s room. Chase runs after them. When he tells them they’re stealing, Bear retorts that it’s “discrimination” to say that the woman can’t tip them just because she’s elderly and confused. Chase points out that if anyone realizes they’re taking money from the residents, they could be punished with more than community service. Bear retorts that Chase doesn’t need to do community service anyway, and Chase demands the money back.
Chase doesn’t want Bear to take the woman’s money both because it’s cruel to trick an elderly person in cognitive decline and because he recognizes there could be serious negative consequences for him, Aaron, and Bear. Bear, who lacks Chase’s thoughtfulness, discounts Chase’s objections to his bullying a helpless elderly woman and uses the language of fairness to claim—in entirely bad faith—that not accepting her money would be “discrimination.”
Themes
Aaron, trying to mediate, says that returning the money and rubbing the old woman’s nose in her confusion will upset her. Chase recognizes that Aaron’s argument is self-serving but “kind of right.” He suggests that they give the money to charity instead—and Bear suggests donating it to the “Take a Bear to Lunch Fund.” Aaron and Bear get their timesheets signed by Nurse Duncan, and the three boys head out for pizza—but Chase feels so bad that, without explaining to his friends what he’s doing, he runs back and slips a $20 under the old woman’s door.
Aaron is more thoughtful than Bear, in that he’s capable of inventing a “kind of” reasonable justification for bullying behavior toward a confused, elderly woman. Yet Aaron isn’t troubled by conscience any more than Bear is: when Bear suggests that they could donate the old woman’s money to the “Take a Bear to Lunch Fund” rather than a real charity, Aaron immediately goes along with it. Chase, by contrast, sacrifices his own money rather than stealing. Since Chase hung out with Aaron and Bear a lot prior to his accident, it seems likely that Chase’s conscience is resurfacing due to his lack of memories—another indication of how important memories and experiences are to individuals’ behavior.
Themes
Walking back out of the facility, Chase checks the nameplate on Room 121: Mr. Julius Solway. The door’s ajar. Mr. Solway spots Chase and demands to know what he wants. Chase asks which war he won the medal in. Mr. Solway claims it was the Trojan War—but, after Chase apologizes for bothering him and begins to leave, he admits he won it during the Korean War. When Chase marvels at Mr. Solway’s heroism, Mr. Solway says the heroes are among the dead—he just happened to be picked to be honored. Chase asks what he did to get the medal. Mr. Solway claims to have forgotten and slams the door on Chase.
The Trojan War is the subject of the ancient Greek poet Homer’s epic poem The Iliad, which was composed sometime around the 8th century BCE. When Mr. Solway claims to have won his medal during the Trojan War, he’s making another sarcastic comment about his own age. The Korean War (1950-1953), in which Mr. Solway won the medal, was a conflict between capitalist South Korea and communist North Korea; U.S. soldiers fought on behalf of South Korea. Mr. Solway denies his own heroism, even though Medals of Honor are supposed to be awarded for extraordinary acts of military bravery; his denial suggests that the medal represents not who Mr. Solway is but the gap between his reputation and how he sees himself.
Themes
