Chapter 6
The chapter opens with a vivid, god‑like description of a pine forest where two boys lie side by side on the forest floor. The taller boy has dark‑grey eyes, a fresh cut under his eye that has reopened, and blood crusting his cheeks; the smaller boy’s cheek is also crusted with his friend’s blood. Despite the blood, the boys clap and sing the Ralph Stanley version of “This Little Light of Mine,” their heads swaying, teeth flashing, and pine needles swirling around them. The scene is narrated as if a deity were observing the boys, noting every detail of the needles, wind, and blood.
The narration then shifts to a woman—a mother—sitting at a kitchen table far away, reheating fried flat noodles and scallions for the third time. She watches the street through a fogged window, waiting for her son’s orange New York Knicks sweater to appear, while remembering the nearby overpass littered with plastic bags and liquor bottles. She reflects on late‑night sensations of a bullet lodged in her son’s chest, a metaphor for inherited trauma, and ponders that a bullet without a body is “a song without ears.”
The mother’s son finally arrives, sitting next to his friend, who is called Trev. Trev’s cheek is crusted with the tall boy’s blood. The boys converse quietly, asking each other to share a “normal secret.” Their exchange is brief and hushed, set against the cold night, pine needles, and a sky described as a smudge on a chalkboard.
As the conversation ends, the mother stops drumming her fingers on the Formica, pushes back her chair, grabs her keys, and walks out the door. She declares, “I’m not scared of dying anymore,” followed by a pause and laughter. The chapter concludes with the mother’s internal monologue that memory is a flood, echoing an earlier statement that memory is a choice. The scene juxtaposes the violent, blood‑soaked forest tableau with the mother’s domestic waiting and ultimate decision to confront whatever lies beyond the doorway.