Chapter 8 Read Along PPT

 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)

 Doesn’t even bother shaving  “had an awful dream last night” (182)  Forgot to pay his income tax and was behind on alimony payments and was being chased around the courthouse at gunpoint  It’s April 14 th (day before tax day) so this is why….  Has created a barter system for his services (since $ is useful)  Usually traded for gasoline

 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)

 “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…  Porkey Logan was the first  Bigmouth Bill Cullen was next  Pete Hernadez was after

 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)

 “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

 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

 Randy sees a notice at the park advertising an Easter service….(192)  “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)

 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)

 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)  People are still doing their day to day things….

 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)

 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”

 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)

 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”

 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)

 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

 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…