****SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS****
we're in arkansas when chapter 9 opens. enter nick, a deaf-mute drifter, who is currently receiving a down-home ass-whooping by a few local "good ole boys." if they were half as smart as they are brutish, they may actually realize that he's deaf, but all they care about is exacting their pound of flesh for whatever slight they perceive he visited upon them. so the thugs rough nick up pretty good and leave him for dead; as a matter of fact they try to make sure he ends up that way by throwing him out in front of an oncoming vehicle. it turns out the occupant of the vehicle is a doctor who fixes him up and brings him into town to the local sheriff's department. nick is unconscious during all this and awakes to find himself in a cell. the local sheriff, john baker, listens to nick's story and decides he wont hold nick on any charges. well, that's mighty nice of him, eh? anyway, we find out that the head thug in charge is sheriff baker's brother in law. wonderful. just another small town perk, ain't they grand?? nick decides that no matter the consequences, he wants to pursue legal action against the brutes. sheriff baker will help him, and he commiserates that it's turning out to be a wonderful day; first a drifter in trouble, then finding out his brother in law is the culprit, and to top it all off he's got a summer cold coming on....
well, i guess we know what that means huh? sheriff baker is a bit "blue" and nick is our next main character. nick reminds me a lot of dale "barbie" barbara from king's under the dome. king has a lot of similar themes in many of his epic stories: a drifter, a gang of hometown thugs, a down-home sheriff, and an old, wise character (usually black).
chapter ten takes us back to larry underwood. it's the morning after a night on the town, full of drinking and apparently some sex. he's in some woman's apartment and she's half-naked, cooking him breakfast. sounds good huh? eh...not really. he doesnt remember much (what he does remember, i dont really wanna explain here lol) but he DOES remember that he left his mom's apartment without a goodbye note or anything. not so good in the gratitude department, are we, larry? mom goes out and buys you lots of great groceries and you leave her high and dry in exchange for a night of drinking and an oral hygienist (dont know how she is on hygiene, but she's great on the oral, so says larry). so when larry bails on the chick, she gets mad and tells him he "ain't no nice guy" after all and that's the only reason she went with him to start with. larry leaves her apartment with a headache and a bit of a guilty conscience. he remembers when he threw everyone out of the beach house back in L.A. and how they basically said the same thing: you ain't no nice guy. but larry did the right thing then, and he wants to do the ultimate right thing now: find his mom and make things right. their relationship isnt so kosher anyway, so he ought to do his best to make this right. so we end chapter 10 with larry in a cab on the way to the bank where his mom is a housekeeper.
character development is still in the works majorly at this point in the book. we see the people who are getting sick and dying, and there's the people who arent. the virus has made it from california to georgia to maine and to arkansas so far and lots of places in between. and it's only been a few days. surely all hell is going to break loose very soon.
thanks for tuning in, and i'll see y'all tomorrow for chapters 11&12.
we're in arkansas when chapter 9 opens. enter nick, a deaf-mute drifter, who is currently receiving a down-home ass-whooping by a few local "good ole boys." if they were half as smart as they are brutish, they may actually realize that he's deaf, but all they care about is exacting their pound of flesh for whatever slight they perceive he visited upon them. so the thugs rough nick up pretty good and leave him for dead; as a matter of fact they try to make sure he ends up that way by throwing him out in front of an oncoming vehicle. it turns out the occupant of the vehicle is a doctor who fixes him up and brings him into town to the local sheriff's department. nick is unconscious during all this and awakes to find himself in a cell. the local sheriff, john baker, listens to nick's story and decides he wont hold nick on any charges. well, that's mighty nice of him, eh? anyway, we find out that the head thug in charge is sheriff baker's brother in law. wonderful. just another small town perk, ain't they grand?? nick decides that no matter the consequences, he wants to pursue legal action against the brutes. sheriff baker will help him, and he commiserates that it's turning out to be a wonderful day; first a drifter in trouble, then finding out his brother in law is the culprit, and to top it all off he's got a summer cold coming on....
well, i guess we know what that means huh? sheriff baker is a bit "blue" and nick is our next main character. nick reminds me a lot of dale "barbie" barbara from king's under the dome. king has a lot of similar themes in many of his epic stories: a drifter, a gang of hometown thugs, a down-home sheriff, and an old, wise character (usually black).
chapter ten takes us back to larry underwood. it's the morning after a night on the town, full of drinking and apparently some sex. he's in some woman's apartment and she's half-naked, cooking him breakfast. sounds good huh? eh...not really. he doesnt remember much (what he does remember, i dont really wanna explain here lol) but he DOES remember that he left his mom's apartment without a goodbye note or anything. not so good in the gratitude department, are we, larry? mom goes out and buys you lots of great groceries and you leave her high and dry in exchange for a night of drinking and an oral hygienist (dont know how she is on hygiene, but she's great on the oral, so says larry). so when larry bails on the chick, she gets mad and tells him he "ain't no nice guy" after all and that's the only reason she went with him to start with. larry leaves her apartment with a headache and a bit of a guilty conscience. he remembers when he threw everyone out of the beach house back in L.A. and how they basically said the same thing: you ain't no nice guy. but larry did the right thing then, and he wants to do the ultimate right thing now: find his mom and make things right. their relationship isnt so kosher anyway, so he ought to do his best to make this right. so we end chapter 10 with larry in a cab on the way to the bank where his mom is a housekeeper.
character development is still in the works majorly at this point in the book. we see the people who are getting sick and dying, and there's the people who arent. the virus has made it from california to georgia to maine and to arkansas so far and lots of places in between. and it's only been a few days. surely all hell is going to break loose very soon.
thanks for tuning in, and i'll see y'all tomorrow for chapters 11&12.
whew. what a really great run down. i have GOT to learn how u can do that LOL I Guess I ramble with my blogs as I do with my mouth =D
ReplyDeletegreat great great job!!
haha that's ok, if we wrote the same way there'd be no need for 2 blogs would there? so nananana lol
ReplyDelete