Henry Bowers's Attack on Ben Hanscom (Carving H)

On the last day of school in June 1958, Henry Bowers, Victor Criss, and Belch Huggins cornered Ben Hanscom on Kansas Street, just above the drop into the Barrens. Henry, a fifth-grader kept back a year and furious that Ben had refused to let him copy during final exams, pulled a Buck knife engraved with his own name. The attack was the first direct physical violence of that summer, and it set in motion the chain of events that would bring the Losers' Club together.

The Ambush and the Knife

Ben had just left the Derry Public Library, carrying three books—Bulldozer, The Black Stallion, and Hot Rod—and a postcard on which he had written a haiku for Beverly Marsh. He was walking along Kansas Street, lost in a daydream about kissing her, when a hand fell on his shoulder. He screamed. Henry, Victor, and Belch had been waiting in the shade of a big oak tree on the lawn of the Derry Community House, having tracked him from the library. Henry grabbed the front of Ben's sweatshirt and yanked it upward, exposing his belly. "Lookit that gut!" he cried in amazed disgust. Victor twisted Ben's wrist, and Belch giggled. Ben lunged first one way and then the other, but they yanked him back. Henry produced the Buck knife, its tip glittering in the afternoon sunshine. "I'm gonna test you now," he said in a reflective voice. "It's exam time, Tits, and you better be ready."

The Carving

Henry pressed the knife's tip against Ben's stomach, just above his bellybutton. "When somebody says 'Let me copy' during finals, what are you going to say?" he demanded. Ben immediately answered yes, but Henry rejected that as the wrong answer. He slid the blade upward, drawing a bright red line of blood. Victor and Belch, who had been holding Ben's arms, drew away in horror. Henry snatched Ben's sweatshirt all the way up to his nipples and drew the knife down again, operating fast, "like a lunatic battle-surgeon under an aerial bombardment." He connected the two vertical slashes with a short horizontal line, forming the letter "H." Ben could feel blood running into his underpants and a sticky snail-trail creeping down his left thigh. Henry leaned back momentarily, frowning with the studied concentration of an artist painting a landscape.

Escape into the Barrens

Ben pulled forward a little, and Henry shoved him back. Ben added his own force to Henry's, hitting the whitewashed railing between Kansas Street and the drop into the Barrens. As he did, he raised his right foot and planted it in Henry's belly—not as a retaliatory act but to increase his backward force. The railing cracked and splintered, and Ben fell backward into space with a scream that was half a laugh. He hit the slope on his back and buttocks, slid down on a thick cushion of weeds and bracken, and fetched up against a downed tree that nearly broke his left leg. Henry, undeterred, leaped over the railing after him, the knife clenched between his teeth, shrieking "I'm going to kill you, Tits!" Ben managed to trip Henry, who crashed into the bushes. Victor and Belch began descending the embankment, throwing stones. Ben scrambled to his feet and fled deeper into the Barrens, his stomach throbbing, his clothes shredded, his left leg bleeding heavily. He hid in a shallow cave under the roots of an old elm tree, where he dozed off and dreamed of the mummy-clown he had seen on the frozen Canal the previous January.

Aftermath and the First Friendship

When Ben awoke, he made his way downstream and found Bill Denbrough and Eddie Kaspbrak by the remains of their dam. Eddie was propped against the stream-bank, his head thrown back, his aspirator empty, barely breathing. Bill asked Ben for help. Ben stayed with Eddie while Bill rode his bike, Silver, to the Center Street Drug to get a refill. When Bill returned, the three boys talked, and Ben showed them his drawing of a cofferdam. Bill invited Ben to come back the next day to help build a proper dam. "S-See you tuh-huh-morrow," Bill said, and clapped Ben on the back. That invitation marked the beginning of the Losers' Club. The scar from Henry's knife—the letter "H" carved into Ben's belly—remained with him for the rest of his life, a permanent reminder of that first act of violence and the friendship that grew out of it.