Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter von Tom Franklin. Königs Erläuterungen Spezial.. Tom Franklin

the other boy. He finds Silas, teaches him how to shoot, lends him a rifle and then leaves his gloves for the boy as well.

four

      Back to the present: On the phone to Silas, Angie describes briefly what she has found at Larry’s place. Silas goes to investigate and is reminded of having been there once before when he and Larry were friends. French arrives and they examine the crime scene together (Larry is in hospital, badly wounded but not dead). After examining Ott’s house, Silas returns home to find that Larry had tried to call him earlier that day, leaving a message on his answer machine.

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      This very significant chapter shows how important Silas was for Larry, how lonely and withdrawn Larry is, and how unpleasant and dangerous both Carl Ott and his friend and neighbour Cecil Walker are. It also shows the reader one of the two events (the fight – the other being the disappearance of Cindy Walker) which permanently changed the course of Larry’s life.

      Another chapter set in the past, this one describes events later in the year Silas and Larry first met, 1979, leading up to Carl forcing them to fight over the borrowed rifle. Silas beats Larry, who then calls him “n****r”, changing their relationship for ever.

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      This chapter is divided between the present day and a substantial section containing Silas’ recollections of his childhood and his journey with his mother from Chicago to Chabot.

      Silas investigates further in Larry Ott’s life. He goes to Ott’s garage and then back to his house to look for further clues as to what has happened. He finds small pieces of glass and the butt of a joint. Being in Ott’s house triggers memories of his childhood.

      Silas remembers his early life in Chicago, and how, after his mother’s boyfriend had been arrested and then gone on the run, he and his mother had left Chicago to head south to Mississippi, where she came from. As a child Silas had deeply resented his mother for her relationships with men and the way she took him out of the world he had known.

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      Picking up in 1982, this chapter recounts Larry Ott’s connection to the disappearance of Cindy Walker and how those events shaped the rest of his life and the lives of his parents.

      Cindy has encouraged Larry to take her out on a date. He believes they are going to the drive-in to see The Amityville Horror[8], but she tells him that he is to drop her off somewhere else so that she can see her secret boyfriend, and that because she is pregnant he must swear to never tell anyone about it. Larry follows her instructions, but she never appears at the arranged meeting place later that night. When he returns to the Walker’s house he is attacked by Cecil Walker. Soon after, the police are summoned.

      Initially, Larry tells the sheriff an abbreviated version of what happened, leaving out specific details in order to protect Cindy and himself. But when, over time, witnesses mention having seen him leaving the drive-in, he becomes the focus of greater suspicion.

      Eventually, Larry leaves to join the army. The suspicion and pressure put on him and his family have driven his father, who no longer speaks to him, to drink ever more heavily, and his mother has become increasingly withdrawn and depressed. While in the army he becomes a qualified mechanic. Returning to Chabot after his military service, Larry takes over his father’s garage after he dies in a drunk driving accident. His mother has to be moved into a nursing home. Larry is forced to sell large parts of his familys property to the Rutherford lumber business, and he lives solely on the money from those land sales. The garage generates no income.

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      Silas meets Angie for lunch in the diner where his mother used to work. He confesses to Angie that he and Larry used to be friends and tells her his history, moving to Chabot from Chicago. He recalls an episode from their time at school together when Larry had been invited to a Halloween party because he had a cool zombie mask, but that he had been ignored by the other kids, including Silas and Cindy, and had eventually driven off alone. Silas lies to Angie about the nature of his relationship with Cindy. He later goes to the hospital to see Larry.

      Larry has undergone surgery and is still unconscious. The nurse tells him that Larry was clinically dead at two points during the operations. After visiting Larry, Silas knows that he has to also inform Larry’s mother about the shooting. He goes to the nursing home, River Acres. Mrs Ott has Alzheimer’s and doesn’t understand who Silas is.

      Silas remembers the day he spent at the Ott house when he and Larry were children. He remembers mowing the lawn, and how when Carl Ott came home that evening he had thanked Larry (whom he thought had done the work), and how angry he, Silas, had been about Larry having a father and him not having one.

      He now believes that his father had been a white man who had impregnated his mother when she worked as a maid, and that his mother had left Chabot for Chicago to have her illegitimate baby.

      On the return trip to the Ott house, Silas pulls over a young white man called Wallace Stringfellow who has been driving suspiciously. But Silas is too preoccupied with thoughts of the cabin where he used to live with his mother to do more than give the man a warning and send him off.

      He goes to the cabin where they used to live. He sees through a window what appears to be a fresh grave dug in the dirt floor beneath one of the beds.

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      Larry recalls having scared away a boy who used to sneak into his barn and steal things and cause disturbances. He was 31 at the time. He put on the zombie mask he got for the Halloween party years before and ambushed the boy in the barn. Years later, aged 41, Larry is visited by a drunk young man in a TV satellite installation van who introduces himself as Wallace Stringfellow – it’s the boy from ten years earlier.

      Wallace is a drunk and a liar, but Larry is so crippled by loneliness that he doesn’t object to the visits from Wallace, and the two men become friends, Wallace visiting regularly and getting drunk and stoned on Larry’s porch. One Christmas, he secretly gives Larry an old pistol as a present.

      On one visit, Wallace starts to ask about whether Larry had actually raped and killed Cindy Walker, and becomes increasingly excited and sexually aroused by the idea of kidnapping, abusing and raping a girl. He has found the cabin in the woods where Silas and his mother had lived – he fantasises about this cabin having been the site of the rape and murder. He talks about how his mother’s ‘boyfriends’ used to behave with his mother and his obvious arousal makes Larry increasingly uncomfortable. Larry tells Wallace to go home. Wallace becomes angry and smashes up Larry’s car. He doesn’t return to Larry’s after that evening.

      Despite the insights he has had into Wallace’s dangerous and deviant character, Larry misses him and hopes he will come back, even to the point of considering employing him at his garage and training him to be a mechanic. His loneliness appears to hold sway over his judgement.

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      Silas is working traffic duty one week after discovering the grave and Tina Rutherford’s body in the cabin on Larry’s property where he and his mother used to live. He gets a phone call from the nursing home where Larry’s mother lives, informing him, as he had requested, that she is having a “good day”.

      Silas has begun working extra shifts – doing guard duty over the comatose Larry in the hospital and also spending time at the Ott farm, feeding the chickens and guarding the property. He is becoming increasingly exhausted by the extra work.

      He goes to see Larry’s mother at the nursing home. She vaguely remembers him and seems worried about Larry. A “stringy-looking” young white man (p. 232.30) has been spotted trying to get near Larry’s room in the hospital.

      At dinner, Angie forces Silas to finally tell her about his relationship with Cindy Walker back in school. They had been together secretly, but Silas’ mother had found out and begged him to stop seeing her. Cecil Walker had become increasingly suspicious of Cindy and tried to control her completely. Silas had been the secret boyfriend she had wanted to meet on the night she made Larry take her to the drive-in.