It: Chapter 3 Summary & Analysis

On the night of May 28, 1985, Stanley Uris takes a bath. Patricia Uris, his wife, later tells her mother that she should have known from that that something was wrong, for Stanley never took baths at 7:00 PM in the evenings. Earlier, he was reading a book by William Denbrough, a childhood friend of Stanley’s. Patty observes that Denbrough’s books upset and depressed Stanley. Patty is a sweet, kind woman who finds it difficult to articulate what makes the books “bad.” She recalls that they were horror books, filled with monsters “chasing after little children.” There seemed to be something pornographic about them, though she had never spoken that word.

That night in May, Stanley and Patricia Uris are sitting on their living room sofa, watching Family Feud. She is proud of the comfortable home in which they live, as well as their ability to afford two luxury cars. Patricia feels that she has come a long way from the outcast Jewish girl who was refused entry into the after-prom party at a country club in 1967. While reviewing these memories, she remembers, too, having tried to read a book by Bill Denbrough—a book about werewolves. She wonders what a man like Denbrough would know about werewolves.

Patricia Uris, then “Patricia Blum,” meets Stanley Uris at a sorority party. He is at this time a scholarship student at New York State University. They are introduced by a mutual friend and, by the end of the evening, Patricia is convinced that she is in love. When they plan to marry, her parents, Ruth and Herbert Blum, suspect that Stanley will be unable to support her. His plans to become an accountant are unimpressive. Stanley’s parents, Donald Uris and Andrea Bertoly, are equally concerned, despite having also married in their twenties. Only Stanley is sure of their future and, when Patricia secures a job teaching shorthand and business English in Traynor, Georgia, it is the beginning of their promising lives together.

Stanley and Patricia Uris are married on August 19, 1972. Patty goes to her bed a virgin and, before making love, Stanley assures her that he will never hurt her. He keeps this promise until the night of May 28, 1985. In the ‘70s, Patricia’s teaching job goes well and Stanley gets a job driving a bakery truck. In November 1972, Stanley takes a job at an H&R Block. Three years later, Stanley quits H&R Block to open his own accounting business. Around the same time the couple begins trying to have a child. Despite the reservations of Herbert Blum, Stanley lands an account with Corridor Video, “a pioneer in the nascent videotape business,” which asks him to do “an independent marketing survey.” The work puts him in contact with Atlanta’s richest men. By 1983, the Urises are earning six figures.

Ruth Blum writes her daughter letters in which she asks when the couple expects to have children, for Patricia Uris is not getting any younger. Both Patricia and Stanley agree, as they do about most other things, that they want children, but they cannot get pregnant. In 1976, they go to a doctor who informs them that nothing should be preventing them from having a baby if they want one and that the problem could be that of nerves. Stanley wonders if there is something wrong with his life—something that haunts him in his dreams and is related to a problem he thought he solved a long time ago.

Back on the night of May 28, 1985, Stanley Uris answers the ringing telephone in his living room. Patricia feels an instant fright and wonders if it is her mother, but Stanley greets someone named “Mike.” At the end of the mysterious call, Patricia asks him who was on the phone. Stanley assures her that it was no one and says that he is going to take a bath. When she asks him about taking a bath at seven o’clock, outside of his routine, he does not answer her. She later goes upstairs and lightly raps at the bathroom door. Stanley does not answer and she hears only the sound of dripping water.

The bathroom door is locked. When Patricia Uris gets the key and opens the door, she finds that Stanley has “slit his inner forearms open from the wrist to the crook of the elbow,” then crossed them “just below the Bracelets of Fortune, making a pair of bloody capital T's.” He has also dipped a forefinger into his own blood, just before dying. On the wall tile, he has scrawled a message in his blood: “IT.” Another drop of water falls into the tub and Patricia finds the voice that eluded her when she tried to call for help. She stares at her husband’s “dead and sparkling eyes” and begins to scream.

Mike Hanlon next calls Richie Tozier, who manages the news about It pretty well, until he starts vomiting. Mike asks how much Richie remembers. Richie admits to remembering little about what happened when they were boys, but enough to agree to go to Derry anyway. He calls his travel agent, Carol Feeny, who agrees to make arrangements for transportation quickly, in exchange for Richie doing a few impressions for her amusement. Richie then calls the Derry Town House to reserve a room. Calling Derry sends him into a flashback of his childhood—particularly being bullied by Victor Criss and Henry Bowers.

Richie Tozier then calls his program director Steve Covall and tells him that he cannot interview Clarence Clemons of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band because he has to go back to Derry, Maine, his hometown, and fulfill a promise that he made when he was eleven. Steve is incredulous, but Richie packs anyway and stuffs his pockets full of cash from his barrel safe. He suddenly remembers all of his old friends and recalls what a “bunch of losers” they had been. There are other things, too, just under the surface that he has not thought about in years: the house on Neibolt Street, the sewers, and Bill Denbrough’s dead brother, George. The onrush of these memories causes Richie to vomit, and afterward he feels cleansed. He goes out, tosses his suitcases into the trunk of his car and tells himself that he is going home now.

On the night of May 28, 1985, Ben Hanscom, named “perhaps the most promising architect in America” by Time magazine, is at the Red Wheel. Its proprietor, Ricky Lee, finds it odd that Ben is coming in on a weekday. Hanscom always comes in on Fridays and Saturdays. Ben is Ricky’s favorite customer. Two years earlier, Hanscom was in London, building the controversial BBC communications center. This evening, Hanscom looks pale and distracted. When Ricky goes to draw him a beer, Ben requests a beer stein full of whisky—Wild Turkey—instead. Ben then shows Ricky a trick that he learned in Peru in 1978. He proceeds to squeeze the juice from two of the four lemon wedges into his nostrils, then drinks some of the whisky. The trick is that one is so concerned with the burning in their nose that they don’t notice “what’s going down [their] throat.”

Ben Hanscom then reminisces with Ricky Lee about his childhood, mentioning that he was “a regular butterball.” He talks about how he was bullied by Reginald “Belch” Huggins, Victor Criss, and Henry Bowers, then lifts his shirt to show the “H” that Bowers carved into his stomach. He squeezes the juice from two more lemon wedges and takes two more big swallows from the stein. Ben then offers Ricky the “three cartwheel silver dollars” that his father left him when he died. Ben was four when his father died. He wants Ricky’s children to have the coins. He says that he gave the fourth one to his old friend Bill Denbrough, who is a writer now. Ricky worries that Hanscom may be planning to kill himself.

Ben tells Ricky Lee about the call from Mike Hanlon. He says that he will fly back to Derry tonight—but not on his own plane; he has booked a flight. Ben insists that he has to go back, believing that everything he has accomplished so far is due to what he and the other members of the Losers’ Club were able to do back in 1958. When Ben leaves the bar, Ricky is convinced that he will never see him again.

Around the same time, Eddie Kaspbrak is busy stuffing his tote-bag full of “bottles and jars and tubes and squeeze-bottles and spray-bottles” from his medicine cabinet. His wife, Myra, calls after him. While Eddie is a short man with “a timid, rabbity sort of face,” Myra is “huge.” She demands to know where he is going, but Eddie says he can’t tell her. She then says that he cannot go, for he promised to get her Al Pacino’s autograph. Eddie says that Myra will have to drive the actor herself, but Myra complains that none of her uniforms fit anymore. Eddie looks at Myra and realizes that she and his mother, Sonia Kaspbrak, resemble each other so much that they could be sisters. Myra begs Eddie not to leave and he commands her to stop. As he makes his way to the front door, she wails, as though in agony.

Eddie Kaspbrak strides away from his wife, Myra, faster and faster to get to the taxi. Along the way, he is plagued by the voice of his mother and memories of all that he was forbidden to do as a boy—participate in physical education or use the X-ray machine at a shoe store—due to his mother’s fears of mortal illness. When he gets to the cab, he sees Myra standing in the doorway. He waves good-bye to her and directs the cabbie to Penn Station. On the way, he recalls memories of Patrick Hocksetter and Henry Bowers. He wonders where Henry is now and figures that he is probably in prison or a state asylum or even drifting around the country. He holds his aspirator tightly and feels dizzy as he imagines, not only going back home, but back in time.

At Beverly Marsh Rogan’s Chicago home, her husband, Tom Rogan, is nearly asleep when the phone rings. Tom is angry that Beverly is on the phone with someone he does not know and is even angrier to find her smoking. She then tosses a suitcase onto the bed and pulls a bunch of casual clothes out of her bureau. After seeing the cigarette, Tom does not care about who she was talking to or where she thinks she’s going. He recalls a night when they were heading home after a movie and he slapped her for smoking. He demanded then that she promise not to smoke again without his permission, and she agreed. Now, she is smoking again, requiring another one of his “lessons.” Tom’s “lessons” result in Beverly wearing sunglasses on gray days and turtlenecks and cardigans on hot days.

Tom Rogan goes to a belt “hanging from a hook” in the closet. He recalls his mother giving him “whuppins” for being “bad.” He was the eldest of four children and was left responsible for them after his father Ralph died. Beverly Rogan appears scared and frightened—not of Tom, but of what she heard on the phone. She continues to smoke her cigarette, which juts out of her mouth. She explains that she was speaking to an old friend and, before she announces what she has to do, Tom demands that she shut up and says that he has to give her a “whuppin.” Unfazed, Beverly tells him to put the belt down. Tom suddenly feels invisible while Beverly recalls her childhood in Derry and tells him who Bill and George Denbrough are.

Tom Rogan swings the belt at his wife, Beverly, who grabs it away from him. He scolds her for this. A fight ensues after he runs toward her like a bull, with his head down and the belt swinging wildly. Beverly goes toward the vanity and throws bottles at him, screaming that she is going to the airport. Blood runs into Tom’s right eye. Beverly looks hard at Tom and says that if he ever comes near her again, she will kill him. Tom rushes at his wife, but she stands her ground. She pushes the vanity table toward him, it falls, and its mirror breaks. She remembers all of the times that she has thought of leaving Tom. She decides now that she is leaving and will stay gone.

Tom Rogan goes after his wife once more, but Beverly now has his belt, swings it, and hits him in the mouth. Blood pours out of his mouth and between his fingers. This is the same belt that Tom has used to hit Beverly on the legs, buttocks, and breasts for all kinds of perceived offenses—working late at the studio and forgetting to call, getting a parking ticket, serving dinner cold.

Tom goes after Beverly again, but this time, she swings the belt low and hits him between the legs. As he crouches in pain, she senses a “new Beverly” take over. She steps onto a chunk of glass while grabbing her suitcase. She lets the belt drop from her hands while Tom screams after her. He threatens to kill her. Beverly leaves the house and walks three blocks before realizing that she has left her wallet and credit cards at home. She sits down on a low stone wall and begins to laugh. She is frightened but free. She picks up her suitcase and flees into the night, still laughing.  

In England, Bill Denbrough explains to his wife, Audra Phillips, that he must go back to Derry, Maine. She asks him who was on the other end of the phone that has recently rung. He looks at her and imagines her concern within the context of a story. This reminds him of his years at the University of Maine on a scholarship, when he takes a creative writing course and gets Cs for most of the stories he writes. He gets an “F” for one entitled “The Dark,” which he later sends off to the men’s magazine White Tie and gets published. His writing instructor, with whom he regularly clashes, is unimpressed by the notice of Denbrough’s publication, asking if Bill thinks that money means anything. Bill thinks to himself that, indeed, it does.

Bill Denbrough goes on to write his first novel in his senior year of college and sends it off to The Viking Press because he likes the publisher’s logo. Viking publishes the book when Bill is twenty-three, and three years later, he meets and marries Audra Phillips—a woman five years his senior. Gossip columnists give the marriage seven months. They meet while he is writing the screenplay for his novel The Black Rapids, which is retitled Pit of the Black Demon. His agent, Susan Browne, with whom he has an affair, warns him not to do it. Bill insists. He needs to get out of New England. He thinks the title of the film is terrible, but the production is quite good. Audra is the star of the film. They meet during production in Hollywood and fall in love.

Audra tells Bill what she knows about him. She recalls stories he has told her about his past, about how he lost his brother, George, and how he later worked his way through university. She recalls how they met when she was addicted to drugs and alcohol and caught up in the fast life of Hollywood. She was drawn to his slow speech and his steady manner, knowing that she would be able to depend him. Now, someone calls from the United States, saying that he must leave her. Bill admits that he never told her the full truth of what happened to George, only his name and who he was. He mentions the blood oath that he and other members of the Losers’ Club took in 1958. He notices that the scar on his hand, where he and the other children cut their palms, becomes more visible after Mike Hanlon’s call.

Bill says that the children took an oath to return to Derry if It “ever started to happen again.” Audra asks what Bill is talking about. Bill starts talking about how he lost his stutter, which he attributes partly to speech classes, but mainly to leaving Derry and forgetting everything that happened there. Now, his stutter is coming back, just as the scars are coming back. Audra asks to go with Bill to Derry. He insists that she must never go to Derry and makes her promise never to set foot in the town. She agrees and asks when she will see him again. He hugs her “tightly,” but he never answers her question.