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Chapter 11: Aaron Hakimian
Themes
and Colors
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
Tina has been sharing photos with Chase, hoping to jog his memory. When she shows him a photo of Johnny’s dorm, Chase retrieves a memory: as a seventh grader, he went with Tina to drop a terrified Johnny off at his freshman dorm—and felt contempt for his older brother’s perceived wimpiness. Chase is shocked by his past negative opinion of Johnny, given how caringly Johnny visited him while he was in the hospital. He realizes Johnny’s care probably wasn’t payback for any “wonderful brotherly loyalty” he’d given Johnny, and he wonders once again exactly how different he was before the accident.
Macho Frank has repeatedly criticized Johnny’s supposed wimpiness in front of Chase. Though this scene doesn’t explicitly say so, it’s implied that pre-accident Chase became contemptuous of Johnny by witnessing their father Frank’s contempt of him. Because Chase now has very few memories of Frank and Johnny’s relationship, he’s able to judge Johnny on his own terms and recognize for himself that Johnny is a good person, caring for Chase not to reciprocate “brotherly loyalty” but because it’s the right thing to do. Chase’s recognition of his own past poor judgment makes him wonder, yet again, about his pre-accident identity.
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Themes
At Chase’s next appointment, the doctor tells him that his brain is fine, as evidenced by his ability to remember everything that’s happened since his accident. Chase, queasily, remembers with particular clarity how good it felt to stop Joey from bullying Brendan using “physical power.” He wonders whether Shoshanna’s right that he’s a violent person—whether the physical aggression he engaged in before the accident is reemerging. He feels as though he knows himself less well the more he learns about his past.
Chase’s enjoyment of exercising “physical power” over others suggests that while he doesn’t want to bully anyone physically anymore, physical bullying isn’t totally alien to his personality. His belief that the more he learns about his pre-accident identity, the less he knows himself indicates that his instincts and values “deep down” are at odds with the choices he was making prior to his accident.
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The doctor tells Chase that even though he seems recovered, he shouldn’t play football this season because doctors still don’t fully understand concussions’ effects over the long term. Noting how upset Chase looks, Tina tries to sympathize, but Chase isn’t sure she understands that he’s upset because of how integral football was to his past identity. His father Frank only seems to talk to him about his football playing. Aaron and Bear are his only former friends who still speak to him, and he suspects they only do that because they hope he’ll come back to the team.
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Chase knows that Aaron and Bear judge him for enjoying community service, but he enjoys helping people—especially knowing that he’s hurt people in the past. He enjoys learning things from the assisted living residents, too. In particular, he thinks that Mr. Solway—who once threw a grenade into an enemy tank—is amazing. By contrast, Mr. Solway doesn’t think that that one action defines him; he says that he’d never have done it if he’d stopped to consider it.
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Mr. Solway can’t find his Medal of Honor. He believes he lost it somehow, and he blames cognitive decline that dates to his wife’s death. When he tells Chase that his life has been functionally over since she died, Chase tries to give him a pep talk, telling him he has friends. Mr. Solway informs Chase that everyone at the assisted living facility hates him; even the nurses call him “Mr. Happy Face” sarcastically. When Chase says he thinks he used to be a Mr. Happy Face too, Mr. Solway tells him he was—the accident improved his personality.
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When Chase points out that the accident took his memories, Mr. Solway quips that “[m]emory is overrated” and admits he can’t remember the act for which he earned his Medal of Honor: the army medic told him he lost the memory due to the trauma of seeing a grenade explosion inside the occupied tank. Chase tries to comfort Mr. Solway by telling him that he was fighting an enemy during wartime, but Mr. Solway retorts that he still prefers to “forget the whole rotten business.”
Chase wonders whether he can’t remember being a bully because he doesn’t want to, the way that Mr. Solway has repressed traumatic memories. He concludes that the situations aren’t parallel; besides, he’s begun remembering decontextualized images—though he’s not convinced they’re “real.” He dreams about cherry bombs going off in a kid’s piano, but when he checks an old yearbook, he discovers Joel Weber wasn’t the kid in his dream. He even dreams about blowing himself up during the Korean War because he can’t bring himself to drop a live grenade into a tank. His realest-seeming memory is still of the girl in the fancy dress.
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Chase is helping video club with the yearbook. So many kids flee when he comes to interview them that he’s started preemptively mentioning Brendan’s name. Though most video club kids are fine with Chase now, Shoshanna still makes snide remarks about him joining. Kimberly has joined too. She’s terrible at film, but Brendan defends her so spiritedly from criticism that Chase suspects he likes her.
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After Brendan shows the club his latest YouTube short, Shoshanna tells him he should stop wasting his time and contribute to her National Video Journalism Contest project, which could be great if they choose the right interviewee. Chase suggests Mr. Solway. Shoshanna just glares, but Kimberly asks who Mr. Solway is. When Chase explains that he’s a veteran who won the Medal of Honor, Shoshanna asks how Chase would know “someone like that.” Chase awkwardly admits he knows him from community service. When faculty advisor Ms. DeLeo compliments Chase’s idea, Shoshanna looks furious.
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