Chapters 7 and 8 Summary

Henry flies off to perform several readings around the United States. His first is in Kansas City where a man named Frenchy picks him up from the airport. Due to road ice, Frenchy crashes the car and the unlikely pair then thumbs a ride with a beer dealer to the college where Henry vomits and then performs his reading. Unfathomably, Henry is billeted in the girl's dormitory and he spends a few hours screwing up his courage with alcohol before making the rounds, pounding on every locked door in the dormitory, and demanding immediate sexual gratification. Obviously the girls have been forewarned and Henry eventually passes out, frustrated, in his own room. The next day he wakes up and is completely disoriented, telephones Lydia, gets ready, and returns to the airport.

Henry subsequently gives a reading in Arkansas. As usual, he...