Name_____________________________________Period______________Date______________________________
In Cold Blood: Persons Unknown
Summary of pages 113-130
Takes place in Hartman’s Café, various rumors are discussed by the townspeople. Two of the Café’s steadiest customers announce plans to leave. A tenant farmer who claims his wife can’t sleep, that he is moving east to Colorado. The second resident leaving is Mrs. Hideo Ashida, her husband says that they will do better farming in Nebraska. The scene ends with
Mrs Ashida saying how much she liked Mr. Clutter, how she could never imagine him ever being afraid. Mrs. Ashida talking to Bess Hartman “I’ll bet he wasn’t afraid. I mean, however it happened, I’ll bet right up to the last he didn’t believe it would.
Because it couldn’t. Not to him”
This is really the high point for Dick and Perry. While in Acapulco, they meet Otto, a vacationing Hamburg lawyer, and his
Acapulcan friend named Cowboy. They all get alone great. Each Day, Otto hires the Estrellita, a deep sea fishing boat, and the four friends go fishing along the coast. Perry-“this is finally it. The way it ought to be.” On the last day in Acapulco, the four go fishing again, Perry lands a ten foot sailfish and after an hour reeled it on to the boat. Otto pays an old man at the dock with an ancient wooden box camera to take six portraits of Perry with his catch. Perry’s expression is one of unflawed fulfillment, as though at last, and as in one of his dreams, a tall yellow bird had hauled him to heaven.
Unfortunately, for Dick and Perry their happiness was short lived. Otto returned to Germany the next day, and Dick and
Perry were driving back to Mexico City short on money. They had sold just about all of the merchandise that they had acquired through Dicks check cashing scheme, with little left but their car. They had sold a pair of binoculars and a gray
Zenith portable radio to a Mexico City Police officer with whom Dick had become acquainted. Dicks plan is to get back to
Mexico City, sell the car, and maybe take a job at a garage.
One December afternoon, Paul Helm the groundskeeper at the Clutter residence, was pruning a patch of floral odds and ends outside the Clutter house. Mr. Helm was worried that he would soon lose his job due to the fact the Beverly and
Eveanna Clutter were intending to sell the property. He reminisced about the Clutter family, how much he missed them.
As Mr. Helm glanced up at Mrs. Clutter’s bedroom window on the second floor, he was shocked to see a hand holding the curtain back, and eyes staring down at him! Knowing that he does not believe in ghosts, that he was confident he did in fact see someone at the window, he ran to Holcomb and phoned Sherriff Robinson . The police, state troopers and K.B.I. agents came racing right on out to the house. As they were surrounding the house, out walked a person no one had ever seen before! A man in his thirties, dull-eyed, wild-haired, and wearing a hip holster stocked with a .38 caliber pistol. Everyone thought that they had the killer in their sights! They questioned the man, Jonathan Daniel Adrian, as to what he was doing in the Clutter home and how he got in. He claimed that he was traveling across the state, had heard about the Clutter murders and was just curious. He managed to enter the house through a drain pipe that entered the basement. But it’s what they found in Mr. Adrian’s car that really got agent Dewey’s attention, a shotgun and a hunting knife!
Just as Perry had prophesied, Dick had sold the car, and within three days had spent all the money. On the fourth day,
Dick went looking for work and returned proclaiming “Nuts! You know what they pay? What the wages are for an expert mechanic? Two bucks a day.” Mexico! I’ve had it! Dick decides that they must return to the United States. Dick criticizes
Perry’s dreams, “wake up little boy. “There aint no sunken ship filled with gold”. The next day, Dick borrows money from one of his girlfriends and buys two bus tickets that will take them as far as Barstow, California.
Of course Perry could have stayed in Mexico, lived on his own. Hadn’t he always been “a loner”? But he was afraid to leave Dick, merely to consider it made him feel “sort of sick”. The basis of his fear, or so he believed, was a superstitious certainty that “whatever had to happen won’t happen as long as he and Dick stick together.” Then, too, the severity of
Dicks “wake-up” speech, the belligerence with which he’d proclaimed his theretofore concealed opinion of Perry’s dreams and hopes—all this perversity being what it is, appealed to Perry, hurt and shocked him but charmed him, almost revived his former faith in the tough, the “totally masculine,” the pragmatic, decisive Dick he’d once allowed to boss him..

In a hotel room in Mexico City, Perry packs a cardboard box with clothes and personal items that he cannot carry on the trip back north. The box contains two pairs of boots, one pair with soles that left a Cat’s Paw print, the other pair with diamond pattern soles. He intends to mail the box to himself, to be received in Las Vegas, Nevada. Perry leaves two huge boxes filled with his much loved memorabilia with a Mexico City bartender. He intends to send for them as soon as he has a fixed address. One prized possession Perry will not be taking with him is his guitar, which was stolen in
Acapulco. Perry was bitter, “you have a guitar long enough, like I had that one, wax and shine it, fit your voice to it, treat it like it was a girl you really had some use for—well, it gets to be kind of holy.” Perry looks through old letters, photographs, clippings and selects from them those mementos he means to take with him. Among them is a letter his father had sent to the Kansas State Parole Board entitled “A History of My Boy’s Life”. His father had written the letter to help his son obtain a parole from prison.
Highlights of “History of My Boys Life”
Childhood:
1.
Perry was a healthy baby.
2.
Very serious if mistreated, he never forgets
3.
Perry’s mother leaves her husband and takes the children to live with her in the city.
4.
Perry’s mother becomes an alcoholic.
5.
Perry’s father wins custody of the children in the divorce settlement with his wife.
6.
Perry goes to live with his father; the other children are put in foster homes because Perry’s father cannot afford to keep them all.
7.
Perry’s father sells his home and he and Perry live in a “house car”.
8.
Perry’s education is sporadic due to their “roaming” around the country.
9.
Perry does not like school, he get into fights defending himself against larger boys, “bully’s” he calls them.
According to his father, Perry wins these fights and is soon feared in school.
Youth:
1.
At 16 years old, Perry joins the merchant Marines during the Second World War (WWII- 1941-45)
1.
Perry serves in the military during the Korean War (1950-1953), receives an honorable discharge.
2.
After returning from Korea, Perry gets in a motorcycle accident, breaking both legs and injuring his hip.
Recreation:
1.
Perry has had girlfriends, never married.
2.
Does not drink alcohol, and does not like drunks.
3.
Perry does not like criticism, he is” touchy”, quit many jobs due to bully bosses.
4.
Calls Perry a cripple and middle-aged man, jobs are hard to come by and Perry is” beginning to think of a more easier way of supporting himself”.
5.
Claims Perry regrets his “mistake” (whatever it was that put him in jail, although we have not been told what his crime was).
6.
Claims Perry is goodhearted if you treat him right, trustworthy if you’re his friend. Treat him mean and you have a
“buzzsaw” on your hands.
7.
Insists Perry wants to stay out of trouble.
Relatives:
1.
One sister and his father, only living relatives.
End of summary of his father’s letter.