How It All Goes Down
- Still in 1969, Ray agrees to let Thomas return to school, but Dominick secretly goes up to the school and applies for a different roommate.
- Thomas has other problems: His boss, Dell Weeks, constantly bullies him, calling him "Dickless" (20.17), among other things.
- He asks Dominick for help, and Dominick tells Thomas to stand up for himself.
- One day at lunch, Thomas tells Dell, "You better not call me that anymore. […] I'm warning you" (20.38).
- Dell says he'll stop if Thomas proves he isn't, in fact, "dickless."
- So Thomas pulls his pants down, and sure enough, he is not sans penis.
- A huge fight ensues. Dominick wants Thomas to pull his pants up, and Ralph Drinkwater just wants to finish lunch. Everyone screams. Picnic tables get flipped over.
- Dell punishes Ralph and Thomas by putting them into the muckiest part of the reservoir, then he tries to tell the crew, "what goes on in our crew stays in our crew" (20.77). Being in Dell Weeks's crew sounds like the worst trip to Vegas ever.
- At home, Ma finds out that Dominick and Thomas won't be roommates, and it doesn't go over well.
- That night, Dominick rides his bike to visit Dessa.
- She's had a bad night and isn't in the mood, so Dominick forces himself on her.
- She accuses him of raping her, and he gets mad at her. He's had a bad week, too, so he was entitled to sex with her against her will. (Pro tip: That's bad math.)
- She doesn't buy that argument, so she drives off and leaves him on the side of the road; he has to hitchhike home.
- When Dominick gets home, Thomas has written him a note about God stealing his sleep.
- He doesn't do anything about it, and instead he just wads up the note and flushes it down the toilet.