#philip cunningham

eddie's mom, elizabeth franklin, got sick and died when he was 6. she was the reason he loves music and had she a collection of vinyls, the main mentioned being muddy waters. also liked rock and country. she was 19 and from memphis when she met alan.

elizabeth and al got married in march 12, 1966. al kept a bottle of wine from their wedding that he and eddie drink to celebrate ("your mom would want us to drink it together"). also as much as al sucks, it really looks like he loved her, so that's sad i guess.

al taught eddie how to play the guitar, he also disappeared a lot on him even when he was little, so wayne has a bedroom set up for eddie in his trailer so he can come live with him whenever he needs to so a literal child doesn't have to live alone in a house. it's bad.

once he's older and okay with living alone at his place, wayne still drops by sometimes without a warning with a bunch of grocery bags to stock his fridge. it's very sweet, it's very cute.

eventually mess happens and eddie's house gets burned down, so he loses all of his mother's vinyls and a bunch of other shit, maybe everything? i don't know, but wayne saves his guitar and i assume other stuff.

eddie has a childhood best friend, veronica (ronnie) ecker, who lives in the trailer park with her grandmother. her dad is dead and her mom "had gotten sick and started talking to the walls". granny ecker is lovely, she sends wayne homemade food randomly, kind of like he does with eddie, and like calls him skinny or something i dont remember exactly but it's very cute.

ronnie is described as looking a lot like eddie and people mistaking them for siblings, has brown eyes, brown hair, same haircut, etc, except she's taller than him.

she's a straight-a student and gets a nyu scholarship to law school. unlike eddie she has her shit together and kind of takes care of him and everyone in hellfire/corroded coffin. she's the original drummer (she later recommends gareth takes her place when she leaves), she's the first one eddie roped into making a band, and she's also in hellfire. and she's kind of eddie's weak spot. he literally cares about her more than he does about anyone else in this book.

she's probably aroace but like labels like that in the 80s are... you know. but eddie basically tries to kiss her when they're 13, because they would spend a lot of time together as best friends and his dumb ass assumed they would end up dating, she freaks out and runs off and they don't talk for a few days, and once they talk again she tells him she "doesn't think she'll ever like anyone like that" (paraphrasing) and he's like oh okay cool and they remain best friends. so, aroace imo but definitely somewhere a-spec.

also not that you have to agree, but i fancasted diana silvers. she's the same height as joe and has the same big ass brown eyes, so.

eddie mentions having kissed other girls also: nicole summers in 10th grade and cass finnigan earlier in '84. says that those girls were daring themselves and didn't want to know him, just wanted to tell their friends what it was like with the freak. "not exactly heartbreaking. i hadn't been looking to be anybody's boyfriend." denial if you ask me but alas.

gareth doesn't know a lot about dnd when he joins hellfire and eddie is super frustrated by that, it's funny it's cute, he also kills off his first character and gareth thinks hes getting kicked out of hellfire? lmao? but anyway eddie tries to help him make a new character and he has no idea what he's doing because his previous character is one jeff made for him. if anyone reading this watches critical role-- liam & sam energy.

he gets bullied by tommy/jason/a jock that eddie doesnt know the name of lmao also i think he has braces as a freshman iirc.

anyway random unknown jock-- eddie straight up keeps calling him every name he can think of that starts with a c lmao i kind of assume it's chance if i were to guess? but who knows truly.

jeff is described as the only member of hellfire that knows about dnd as much as eddie does, he's been playing with his older brothers for years and eddie seems impressed by that.

he's also the bassist in corroded coffin and the youngest one in the band.

dougie is the name of other cc member, they rehearse in his garage even though his mom hates it (she shuts off their power a lot? lmao). he lives in a pretty nice area of hawkins.

he's in hellfire too but at first didn't want to "join nerd club" except then he got fomo and joined anyway.

he's a senior like eddie and ronnie, so he's not freak, but also i like to pretend that he is idc.

eddie works at the hideout bar actually and that's why they get to play there, the owner lets them play.

the owner of the hideout's name is bev. she has dyed maroon hair, a permanent squint, yells like there's always music blasting. pretty sure she m*rdered her husband?? 😭 according to eddie dude "died under mysterious circumstances 10 years ago" i love her btw also she calls eddie junior (because munson jr).

middle school talent show flashback time--- eddie is surprised when chrissy talks to him because "this was not the type of girl who should be talking to me"

he says she's polished and looks "like she'd skipped off from the cover of some nancy drew novel"

wayne makes it to the talent show, al doesnt.

eddie expects chrissy to pity him when she asks if his dad didn't make it, but says instead that she looked jealous, then gets defensive and says he's running late and chrissy is like god i wish that were me lmao so then he says i'm sorry and she says me too, it's sweet.

he doesn't tell chrissy the name of his band (so she remembers it later because she saw him play and paid attention to him) and doesn't tell her his last name, only says eddie.

describes laura cunningham as "immaculate, poised woman" and philip cunningham as "a blank-faced, suited man"

chrissy gets dragged by jason to the hallway where they're bullying gareth, she clearly doesn't want to be there, the whole time she's begging jason to go and leave it alone, asks him to let them go when eddie shows up to defend gareth.

when tommy starts going on a rant about the munsons being fuckups and says al might "turn up dead on the side of the highway" she lets go of jason and grabs tommy and pulls, tells him to stop then to let gareth go, tommy seems surprised that any jock would stand up to him.

"she's just a sophomore but everyone with a working brain cell knows she's the rising queen of hawkins high" + "perfect teeth, perfect hair, perfect everything" but he doesn't think about her you guys lmao eddie's delusional ass is so cute.

once chrissy stands up to tommy, jason seems to remember she exists and tries to back her up saying steve wont like them hanging around, its too late idc.

a fight starts, higgins shows up, tommy tries to blame eddie says he was hassling chrissy, she says it's not true right away. so does ronnie. they kind of defend him at the same time.

eventually jason drags chrissy away from eddie like laura had dragged chrissy away from eddie at the talent show when she saw her smiling at him.

Eddie knows more about football than he does about hair care.

Read Two for One

Part of the Man to Man series, which follows Eddie navigating relationships with various men in his life.

Rampart St (1985)

© Philip Cunningham

Short answer to a pretty complex question; he was too scared to separate from her, even though they barely had anything resembling a marriage in the end. It’s one thing to see Chrissy a few times a year, it’s another thing to actually leave his emotionally abusive wife who would have made his life a living hell for it. Laura really made him a frail shell of a man and he was just completely dependent on her. I mean, he wasn’t strong enough to defend his own child from her, let alone defend himself. Honestly, it probably would have been more likely that Laura would have left him for daring to have a relationship with Chrissy. But she wouldn’t have brought more scandal on the family name.

Thank you! They both failed their kids, but at least Philip continues to try. He did, he had to fight Laura in sending Chrissy tuition money and coming to see her and the baby, their marriage was really strained thin in the end.