Quote 4
I shrugged. "Well, s***, I want out of Lightsburg. I'll always be the Shoemaker boy, here. And I'm not one of your peace-and-love never-comb-your-hair never-take-a-bath never-finish-a-sentence just be-be-be me-me-me free-free-free and love-me-'cause-I'm-so-mellow-groove-a-delic hippie freak types, anyway. A reliable paycheck with free bed and food, and a ticket out of town for good? And all they want me to do is char some babies? Well, all right then, a deal's a deal, line up the cradles, hand me the flamethrower, and fetch me the barbecue sauce." (8.92)
Ever live in a sibling's shadow? Worse, have you ever lived in a parent's shadow? Karl is doomed to forever be known in Lightsburg as "the mayor's kid"—make that "the drunken ex-mayor who wouldn't give his blessing to the plastic development neighborhood project's kid." What's really sad is that in a time when joining the Army was what most kids his age were trying to avoid, Karl is ready to hit the road for Vietnam tomorrow if they'd let him.
Quote 5
She opened the waffle iron and dumped out two perfect waffles. "How do you know when they're ready?" I asked.
She grinned. "Ancient secret, Tiger Sweetie. You get married very young. You get a waffle iron as a wedding present and you have a husband that you think the sun rises on, and very shortly after a little boy that you think it rises and sets on, and they both love waffles. Then you make about ten thousand burned waffles—and about ten thousand half raw ones—while your husband gamely eats them, and your little boy doesn't care." (19.32-33)
Quote 6
"While he was dying, I was around Dad all the time. He showed me how to fix everything around the house […] all that stuff he'd been good at once, and was good at again now that he wasn't drinking. We'd do stuff all day and he'd add it to that list that—the list that used to be on my wall, and then we'd sit and watch old stupid movies together. He used to do that when he was drunk with Mom, but now he did it with me. He was dying, but life was better than it ever had been. I loved that." (26.104-105)
Dang. This is probably the saddest passage in a book that's packed with a whole lot of sad—the happiest time of Karl's life was when his dad was dying. Really, it seems like that was the closest he came to living anything that resembled a normal life … and losing a parent is about as abnormal as it gets.