ATDTDA (15): Peeping, 413-417 #2

[Paul Nightingale]

At the outset, Chick labels Alonzo ("young Meatman", then "[t]his Meatman
specimen", 413) to confirm his own superiority, perhaps, or some sense of
authority (and cf. Lindsay to Plug: "Here you go, my good lad", 397). Again,
one might recall the opening pages, and the way in which Chick's character
was established there. On 7: "Hey! Suckling! Only a saphead would risk his
life to see how fast the wind's blowing!" Cf. the 'analysis' of Alonzo's
"fear" on 413: "First to get up into the rigging during a storm ." etc. On
17 the bonding session between Chick and Darby exposes Chick's
vulnerability. Cf. Chick to Alonzo: "Stand easy, sky-brother" (413). So
Alonzo, in some sense, has come to stand in for Darby.

On Chick and Darby: if we need reminding, Lindsay confirms their
"all-too-predictable thickness of association" (411). Going back, their
initial bonding session was possible because Lindsay and Miles had leave to
visit the Fair, accompanied by Randolph's warning of "the fringes" (16; and
then their arrival at the Fair, 21). Cf. more recent excursions to the LL
(". hit by a strong polyaromatic gust, as if exhaled from the corrupted
lungs of Depravity herself", 399), and then the BiH, "a particularly low and
disreputable haunt" (410). The action here is initiated by Chick and Darby.
On their way to the LL: "Were glances of complicity exchanged?" (399)

Subsequently, Chick leaving the BiH with Alonzo: ". the streets into which
they passed becoming narrower and lit by gas, rather than the electric lamps
of the more 'respectable' parts of town, which at each step were receding,
it strangely seemed, disproportionately further as the young men went on"
(414). Geography/location (ie the writing of dimensions 1-3) mark the Chums'
(here, Chick's) act of transgression; but it does so in the context of
social change, ie disruption and discontinuity, eg ". a street of ungainly
row-houses, already halfway to self-demolition, the tattered millwork
testifying to the spirit of haste and greed in which they had been erected
but scant years before ." etc . Cf. the first sighting of Nochecita, the
juxtaposition there of 'old' to 'new': ". around the railhead and its
freight sheds and electrical and machine shops, the town had grown" etc. In
particular, "across the tracks from all that": ". a dimly illicit refuge for
secret lives ." etc (200). Cf. "feeder lines to the interurban" (414) and
"seekers of refuge" ( 415).

With Alonzo, Chick refrains from commenting as expected on their
surroundings; he fears "having been psychically interfered with" (and again
we find "young Meatman" in this passage, 414). The earlier 'reading' of
Alonzo, one that allows Chick to assert himself, is succeeded by another
'reading' of the locale, one that allows Chick to express his own fears: "He
found himself oppressed ." etc. Such expression is internal, of course;
Chick refuses to communicate with Alonzo. Mr Ace similarly "[d]ispens[es]
with phatic chitchat" (415) and launches into a speech that makes of Chick a
passive audience. Only when he is back with the Chums can he (attempt
unsuccessfully to) re-establish a position of authority through his reading
of the situation: "So this is supposed to be like Squanto and the pilgrims"
(416), the narrative cutting on dialogue, thereby transporting Chick,
without warning, from one scene to the next.

Randolph immediately offers an alternative reading ("Suppose they're not
pilgrims but raiders .") that both underscores the ambiguity of Chick's
formulation (an ambiguity related to the different ways of regarding 'the
new world') and repositions the Chums as insiders. Here, both Randolph and
Lindsay speak of a 'we' that incorporates the not-Chum world. Cf. Lindsay to
Chick at the end of Ch1: "Do not imagine . you have escaped into any realm
of the counterfactual," etc, including ". we must nonetheless live with the
constraints of the given world" (9). Cf. also, at the end of Part 1: "Their
fateful decision to land would immediately embroil them in the byzantine
politics of the region" etc, including the possibility of "disfellowshipment
from the National Organisation" (117). In the world but not of it? Cf. the
momias, "serenely believing themselves in, but not inescapably of, Mexico"
(383). Cf. also Frank "headin up north, back the Other Side" (389).