The Topeka School

Darren’s confronts the drunken party girl. After the drunk girl calls Darren a homophobic slur, Darren picks up a cue ball from the pool table and throws it at the girl’s face. The narrator describes how Darren feels the cue ball was already waiting for Darren to throw it—”a rotating disco ball that throws no light, only absorbs it” (229).

The narrative then goes backwards in time, describing a number of violent incidents that have happened to Darren throughout his life.

It is several weeks after Adam’s championship debating tournament, where Adam won the extemp competition. Adam and his family visit Jane’s now senile and mute father in the nursing home. Though Adam and his family tell his grandfather about the win, Adam is unsure how to interact with “someone who may or may not hear you” (234). At some point during the visit, Adam’s grandfather “made a noise […] a groan or croak [that] lasted two or three seconds” (236). Adam is haunted by the noise, which he feels might be the “negation” of speech, “signifying nothing” (236). The encounter prompts Adam to realize that he has forgotten what his grandfather’s