Chapter 8 Read Along PPT
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Randy wakes up
Always feel hungry
 Razor was a hunting knife
 Misses music a lot
 Only remaining batteries losing strength (radio is
limited and flashlights will go out soon….)
 Missed cigarettes
 “He missed whiskey not at all” (181) and no longer
regarded whiskey as a drink
 “He missed his morning coffee most” (181)
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Doesn’t even bother shaving
“had an awful dream last night” (182)
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Forgot to pay his income tax and was behind on
alimony payments and was being chased around the
courthouse at gunpoint
It’s April 14th (day before tax day) so this is why….
Has created a barter system for his services
(since $ is useful)
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Usually traded for gasoline
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Citrus groves will stop producing soon
“The Henrys have been losing eggs” (183) –
suspects being stolen
“One of Henry’s pigs is missing” (183)- thinks a
wolf took it
Corn crop would ripen in June
Henry’s suggest they grow sugar cane
Randy decides they need to focus on helping to
protect the food supply – gives Ben a gun to
help keep watch (they are going to take turns)
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“pistol had become a weightless part of him” (186)
Randy brings a bottle of scotch in hopes of trading
for coffee
Dan says he’s got three serious cases of radiation
poisoning in town but can’t figure out how (since no
one else is sick…)
Not a result of “delayed fallout” because he would have
hundreds sick….
 “this is more like a radium or X-ray burn. All of them have
burned hands…”(186) but radiation is not contagious…
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 Porkey Logan was the first
 Bigmouth Bill Cullen was next
 Pete Hernadez was after
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Continued with her regular work
“Since The Day, the demand for her services
had multiplied” (187)
“…for the first time in her 30 years as a
librarian, she felt fulfilled, even important”
(187)
Strange that “it should require a holocaust to
make her own life worth living” (188)
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“He’s worse. His hands is leakin’ pus” (189)
Hair was falling out, exposing his red
scalp….hands were blackened, swollen and
cracked (189)
Stench
Wife is fine
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Where all of the men meet to trade and barter
Dan drops off Randy
“the laws of hunger and survival could not be
evaded, and honored no color” (190)
“White Only” and “Colored Only” signs mean
nothing now
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Randy sees a notice at the park advertising an
Easter service….(192)
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“Since The Day, he had lived in the imperative
present, not daring to plan beyond the next meal or
the next day…..this bit of paper tacked on peeling
white paint enlarged his perspective, as if, stumbling
through a black tunnel, he saw, or thought he saw, a
chink of light. If Man retained faith in God, he might
also retain faith in Man….”(193)
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Speculation the Russians are asking the U.S. to
surrender and speculation that we are
demanding the Russians to surrender….
Men wonder who won the war….”Nobody ever
tells you. This war I don’t understand a all. It
isn't like WWI or II or any other wars I’ve ever
heard of. Sometimes I think the Russians
must’ve won. Otherwise things would be
getting back to normal. Then I think no, we
won. If we hadn't won the Russians would still
be bombing us, or they would invade….”(195)
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Randy knew the discussion would
continue….”the question of who won the war,
or if the war still continued, who was winning,
had replaced the weather as an inexhaustible
subject for speculation…” (195)
New rumors each day
Randy believed nothing, “except what he saw or
heard himself,” or what he hears on the short
wave radio (195)
John Hickey, the beekeeper, gives Randy honey
for free (doesn’t drink scotch)
Dan picks up Randy- says “the world changes,
but people don’t…” (197)
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People are still doing their day to day things….
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Uncollected garbage
A few optimistic storekeepers boarded
windows up
“Randy had seen degradation such as this. But
this was America. It was his town, settled by
his forebears….” and he has to do something
about it. (199)
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Description of Rita“not like a girl of Fort Repose” (200)
 Had not gone to college but was intelligent and
quick
 She had an annulled high school marriage and
abortion
 Her hobby was men
 Was professional in “never letting a
man go without some profit”
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Lots of nice cars in the driveway; she tells us her
dog had been killed the other day
House is full of silver, TVs, etc…like an auction
house (they are very materialistic remember, so
this time of war is a great time for them)- she calls
it “her investment”
Rita acts of jealousy- “hears he has two new
women in his house…” (202) but Randy looks at
her as ridiculous in her heels and jewelry in a time
like this….
Rita to Randy- “You’re not the same Randy. I
guess you’re growing up.” (203)
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Rita shows off a new 6 carat emerald ring she
bartered for, revealing black skin under the
band that was itching…
Dan asks where she got it and she replies it was
Porky Logan
Determines the ring was exposed to radiation
and that she has a radium burn (205)
Realizes Porky went through a city that was
destroyed and took a lot of jewelry and has
been bartering it off, and they were given
“handfuls of watches”
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Pete is wearing one of the watches when they
go to check on him…and he has watches and
gold all in his bed
“Pete is slipping into leukemia” (207) – tells
Rita, “you’d better prepare yourself…”
Felt sorry for her and Randy gave her his
scotch…..
“She’ll find a man…..she always does” (207)
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Found him sitting up in bed, chin resting on his
chest, and between his knees was a “beer case
full of jewelry. His hands were buried to his
forearm in his treasure” (208)
He was dead
Need to get the jewelry underground so no one
else gets sick and they paint a sign on his door
to KEEP OUT- RADIATION-POISION
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Tells him why he’s sick
He admits he’s been hiding the jewelry from
his wife
They leave, and Dan admits they doubt he will
live
They suspect the highwaymen will get his wife
if she tries to leave…..
“Highwaymen” meant ruthless, evil men who
would go between towns…