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Chapter 6
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Body, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Loss of Innocence
Fate, Luck, and Chance
Confronting Mortality
The Power and Limitation of Friendship
Making Meaning through Stories
Summary
Analysis
This chapter is a short story Gordie published in 1970 called “Stud City.” On a rainy March morning, Chico (Edward May) stares out of a window in the room that used to belong to his brother, Johnny. He’s just had sex with his girlfriend, Jane. Chico can see Johnny’s Dodge up on blocks in the yard, and behind it, the highway out of town. A few months earlier, while he was working nights at the Oxford Plains Speedway, a car spun out of control and ran into Johnny, killing him instantly.
Gordie spends five of the first six chapters explaining what his life was like before he went on the quest to find Ray’s body. Then he presents one of his later short stories as commentary on his life at the time. The first and most notable thing about this story is how stuck Chico feels—in the opening scene he can see the highway but it’s out of reach and the only visible vehicle, Johnny’s Dodge, is up on blocks, implying that it can’t take him anywhere.
Themes
Jane draws Chico back to bed and they have sex again. Then he drives her home through the rain. When he gets back, his father Sam, stepmother Virginia, and little brother Billy have returned. Chico immediately gets into a fight with his father. Sam thinks Chico has grown disrespectful, and Chico feels that Virginia has ruined Sam, the family, and everything. The fight intensifies when Virginia correctly accuses Chico of having a girl over. He storms out of the house and climbs into his car.
Like Gordie, Chico also has a bad relationship with his parents. But where Gordie’s parents barely acknowledge his existence, Chico can’t escape his parents’ surveillance and control. Importantly, part of the conflict stems from the question of whether Chico is still a child, under his father’s authority, or whether his brother’s death and his relationship with Jane make him a man. Like Gordie, Chico is fighting to grow up.
Themes
As Chico pulls out of the driveway, he takes a last look at Johnny’s Dodge. Johnny told Sam that he’d taken the Speedway job because that way he could get cheap parts to fix up his car. But Chico knows the real reason: Virginia seduced Johnny, and Johnny needed to work nights so they could have sex during the day when Sam was at work. Chico blames Virginia for Johnny’s death. Remembering all this, he pulls to the side of the road to vomit. A fancy, new Ford, a “stud car,” speeds past him, racing toward Stud City.
The story veers into the salacious when it reveals the affair between Virginia and her teenage stepson. But this still echoes Gordie’s larger sense throughout his story that adults cannot be trusted, especially to protect the children in their care. Importantly, the short story ends on an ambiguous note. Chico has left the house but hasn’t made it out of town, and readers are left to wonder if he ever escapes, suggesting that there are some things in life that a person can’t avoid.
Themes
