The Hector Quesadilla Story

The story opens with a vivid description of Hector Quesadilla, an ex-star in the MLB that is now so old that his body has trouble playing the game. His mother, Asuncion, wants hector to finally "hang up his spikes," using evidence that he is already a grandfather. Hector, on the other hand, convinces himself that he still serves an important purpose to the Los Angeles Dodgers as a reliable and versatile baseball player. On Hector's birthday, he wakes up with the weird feeling that he will play in his game that day. He IS called in to bat for a player in the game, but the coaches decide to let Dave Tool bat instead, leaving Hector in dismay. He is enraged with the team manager and blurts out that it is his birthday--Dave Tool makes a great play and keeps the game going. The game goes on and on; during the twentieth inning, Hector begs the manager to let him hit but he still refuses. Hector consolidates confidence that his time is soon coming. The game comes to a point where the whole entire roster except Hector have participated in the game in some way. All of Hector's teammates go insane, per se, except him, remaining alert and figuratively hungry. The game is now at thirty-one innings, and Hector is finally called up to bat. As he heads to the plate, he has a spring in his step and feels young again. Hector strikes out and his confidence is diminished, if not for the manager begging him to pitch the next inning, reminding him that he used to pitch when he was a teenager. Hector stands on the mound, wondering if the game will ever end.

The ending of this story is quite the cliffhanger. We never find out if the game ends or if Hector does a good job as a pitcher. But it is circular, and in a weird way, does provide a sense of closure. The story opens by mentioning Hector's success as a pitcher when he was younger, and the story ends with Hector back on the mound, just like in the old days. The story is complete in the aspect that we see no end to the never-ending game, but it is complete in the light that Hector is back in the habitat he grew up in, a loquatious pitcher on the mound.

On For The Long Haul

At the start of the story, Bayard is getting his appendix removed because he read an article about someone who died from a sudden appendix burst in Malaysia (even though he is only traveling to Montana). Bayard, thinking about a potential nuclear war on food and resources, experiences extreme paranoia all day and through the night, which is when he decides he's on for "the long haul," AKA the trip to Montana. That night, Bayard goes on to tell his wife, Fran, that Los Angeles is a dangerous place to be for an earthquake or if Russia attacks the US. This is how he introduces to Fran the idea of moving the family to Montana. It takes a lot of thought, research, and sitting around on Fran's part before finally agreeing to go. The house in Montana was fully equipped with weaponry, food, and all housing supplies thanks to Bayard's boss, Arkson. Arkson uses his persuasive tone to convince Bayard and Fran to purchase the expensive weapons. Arkson is portrayed as a very powerful man.

Two months later, Bayard feels lucky to be in Montana; he had no regrets about leaving California. Bayard senses that his two daughters are feeling depressed, however. Fran has hope that the girls will adjust; Bayard has no intention on going back to the city. One afternoon, Arkson and a man that Bayard had not recognized came to his front door. Arkson was avoiding eye contact with Bayard and acting suspicious from the get-go. The stranger acts in the same manner as Arkson. The stranger is revealed to be named Rayfield Cullum. Bayard reaches his hand out in greeting but Cullum doesn't shake his hand. Arkson then informs Bayard that other people, including Cullum, will soon be moving in as his neighbors. Bayard's daughter, Melissa, accidentally slips and her chocolate ice cream fell onto Cullum's jumpsuit. Cullum kicks Melissa twice in the ribs. Right in the presence of his daughters, Bayard proceeds to fight Cullum, with Arkson trying to stop the altercation. Fran later expresses concern that Cullum will be living next door to them--Bayard claims to be able to deal with him. Weeks pass without seeing Arkson or Cullum. Bayard buys to domesticated rabbits as pets for the family. Just as soon as they become attatched to the rabbits, they are murdered. Mentions of a world demise continue. Bayard grabs a gun and tries to figure out who would have killed the rabbits. Fran wonders if it was Cullum. Bayard calls Arkson, who informs him that Cullum did indeed move into Montana just one day before. As Bayard heads to his car, he sees Cullum in a car outside. Cullum exits and taunts Bayard, holding up a rifle at his side. Bayard reflects, stating that even if he knew how to use the gun, even if he practiced all the time on soda cans and junkyard rats, he would never use it for real. "But Cullum would," the story concludes. "Oh yes, Cullum would. Cullum was on for the long haul."

"On For The Long Haul" is the type of story that someone starts reading, then they look at the clock forty-five minutes later and realize how quickly the time's gone by. T.C. Boyle uses omniscient narration to deeply dig inside the thoughts--some sick, some sane--of Bayard Wemp, Fran Wemp, their daughters, Arkson, and Cullum. The story is fueled by Bayard's recurring thoughts about some sort of figurative world demise, which drives him to move his family to Montana. The only problem is that, no matter how convinced Bayard is otherwise, he is not "on for the long haul." This is not revealed until the end of the story, where he is mentally incapable of using any of the guns he had bought from Arkson with intent to hit another human being with a bullet, even in the defense of his family.

I believe that after the story ends, Culllum shoots and kills Bayard. Therefore, Bayard would see the "end of the world as [he knows] it" not with an agricultural disaster, but with Cullum's murdering of him. T.C. Boyle uses an insecure character (who actually tells himself he's secure) in Bayard to contrast with a sure-fire killer in Cullum, someone who truly is "on for the long haul."

Being "on for the long haul" is portrayed as a physical concept, but it is actually a psychological trait. Making the move from the city to Montana comes with not only the ability to own guns (which acts as one example representing an array of life changes),  but the mindset to use them.

Ike And Nina

"Ike and Nina" refers to the affair between President Dwight D. Eisenhower (Ike) and Russian Premiersha Nina Khrushcheva. The narrator, Mr. Padarewski, is a Russian/English bilingual staff member of Ike's organization. Though he has only seen the President rarely and briefly through this point of his career, he is one day summoned to the Oval Office. There, President Dwight D. Eisenhower informs Padarewski, as a fluent Russian speaker, that he will be his aid for the upcoming visit of the Russian Premier Nikita Khrushcheva and his wife (Nina). Of course, Ike tells him, anything and everything that occurs during the visit is top secret. Padarewski recalls events stemming back ten years earlier to when Ike was first swept off of his feet by Nina. The first time he ever looked at her started a covert, continuous series of sensual encounters between the two at political events. They two lovers would find ways to get alone with each other for whichever amount of time was possible. During the visit in which Padarewski is in charge, a plan is devised for him to escort Nina from a dinner at the White House and deliver a note from Ike, which tells her where to meet him at 3 A.M. Once this hour of the night is reached, Padarewski sneaks Nina out of her room and into a Limousine with Ike, which Padarewski would drive around for a few hours, allowing them to get their business done. When dropping Nina off, a foreign car drives by and slows down as it passes the limousine. At the time, it doesn't seem like a big deal. Nina and Nikita leave Washington, D.C. to finish their visit across America. In Los Angeles, Nikita throws a tantrum, insulting the American people on their etiquette. Ike, who is with Padarewski at the time, claims that the Premier knows about the affair between Ike and Nina. Ike understands that this means the foreign car reported the news and that he can never make contact with Nina again. This saddens him tremendously; Padarewski refers to Ike and Nina as "star-crossed lovers" to wrap up the story.

T.C. Boyle has a lot of good literary things going on in "Ike and Nina." To start off, Padarewski's mesmerism with Ike is evident throughout the story. When describing Ike's nemesis (Nikita) of the love triangle with Nina, Padarewski refers to Nikita as a "torpedo-headed bully boy," something said to get on the good side of the President. He also comments throughout the story on how passionate the love is between Ike and Nina, actually stating that Ike is a more passionate lover than Romeo from Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" (he later calls the President and Primersha 'star-crossed lovers'). Ironically, Padarewski sees Ike's cries for Nina as a manly, mature, profound act.

Boyle's use of asyndeton throughout "Ike and Nina" helps the story to be read smoothly, allowing each individual phrase of the asyndeton to be read and appreciated as an independent clause and an important idea. The asyndeton's go well with the romanticism of the story. 

Greasy Lake

Summary: "Greasy Lake" centers around three characters; Digby, Jeff, and the narrator whose name is not revealed in the story. The framework is the narattor retelling the story of a night that happened at the beginning of the boys' summer vacation.

The boys pull up to a car by Greasy Lake and they believe it belongs to their other friend, Tony. Naturally, they assume that he's having sex with his girlfriend in the car and to make fun out of a boring night in a boring town, they start honking and flashing their headlights at the car. It is then revealed that the car belongs not to Tony, but to one of the town's hoodlums. He exits has car and insitgates a fight with the boys. The skirmish results in the narattor hitting the hoodlum in the head with a tire iron; he appears to be dead.

Grotesquely, the alleged murder satisfies the boys. They decide to continue the path of crime by raping the hoodlum's girlfriend, but this plan is halted when another car pulls up by the lake, thus forcing the boys to run away and hide. While in hiding, more hoodlums exit the new car and the original person that the narrator had thought he killed regained conciousness. They destroyed the car that the boys came in.  Once the scene was seemingly clear, another car with two girls pulled up. The girls were extremely high on unknown drugs. Seeing the boys as the "badasses" that they always wanted to be, the girls offered them some of their drugs. The narattor declined the offer and got back into his beaten up vehicle to drive home.

Analysis: "Greasy Lake" is a commentary on typical teenage boys striving to be seen as something that they really are not. In this case, T.C. Boyle weaves the concept of comitting crimes into the evening of four boys that were truly innocent at heart.

Boyle uses murder to exemplify the extremes that people will go to for recognition, whether that might be as a scholar or as a rebel. Near the end of the story, two girls experiencing extreme euphoria recognize the boys as the fellon-like humans they strived to be viewed as. Boyle uses girls on drugs as the people to respect the boys as a symbol that going beyond all innocent norms leads to respect that is not even desirable.

Another interesting point is to consider whether the boys would have raped the hoodlum's girlfriend if they had had the chance to. The narrator "kills" him by accident. Are the boys really prepared to intentionally rape an innocent girl?

Caviar

Summary: "Caviar" is the story of Mr. Trimpie and his wife, Marie. They have been married for several years and Marie decides that she wants to have a baby. Upon trying and failing to conceive, they visit Dr. Ziss, who tells them that Marie's ovaries are dysfunctional and she would not be able to produce a baby, even artificially.

As upset as this makes Mr. Trimpie and Marie, the problem is somewhat solved when a Medical School student, Wendy, volunteers to artificially give birth to the baby and then hand it over to the couple. Wendy becomes very close with the married couple throughout her pregnancy.

Wendy and Mr. Trimpie engage in a sexual relationship; Marie knows nothing of it. One day, after the birth, Mr. Trimpie goes to see Wendy and finds that Dr. Ziss is at her house. Furious, Mr. Trimpie assaults him and gets arrested. Marie doesn't let Mr. Trimpie back into the house after the arrest.

Analysis: "Caviar" is fueled by the irony that not only will Mr. Trimpie sexually engage with the "mother of his child," but Dr. Ziss will also become involved with the woman he has impregnated. In this eccentric case, the mother of Mr. Trimpie's child is not his wife, and the woman who has been impregnated by Dr. Ziss is not his wife.