Summary

Chapter 3 (The Past - 1979). This chapter is told from the point of view of the teenaged Larry. Narration describes his difficult relationship with his violent, redneck father Carl; how Carl, who, while driving Larry to school, got into the habit of giving a lift to a black woman (Alice) and her son (Silas) who had no winter coats and were shivering in the cold; and how Larry was “aware how unusual, inappropriate it was for black people to be getting out of a white man’s truck.” Narration also describes how, as the result of government-mandated racial integration, Larry was one of the few white students at Chabot’s mostly black school, and how the regular pickups of Silas and his mother stopped after Larry’s mother Ina found out about them; drove Larry to school one morning; and gave them coats (with...