Middlesex Book 4, Chapter 6 Summary

How It All Goes Down

Air-Ride

  • Present-day Cal prepares to tell Julie Kikuchi his story.
  • Back in the past, at Middlesex, Milton agrees to give twenty five thousand dollars in exchange for Calliope.
  • Boy, here's a blast from the past: The ransomer turns out to be Father Mike!
  • Jealous that Milton got Tessie, and stuck with Aunt Zo yelling at him for all these years, Mike finally snaps.
  • He extorts thousands of dollars from Milton and plans to flee to Canada.
  • Milton gives chase in his giant Cadillac.
  • The chase ends abruptly when they crash in a ten-car pileup on the Ambassador Bridge over the Detroit River.
  • Mike survives. Milton does not.
  • Milton has an out-of-body experience as he imagines his car is flying over the city of Detroit. And he cries because he has failed to save his daughter.
  • Present-day Cal then tells us that Chapter Eleven runs the business into the ground; Cadillac changes its models forever, which Milton would hate; and Milton never had to see his daughter be reborn as his son. Basically, Cal believes that his dad got out just in time.