ATDTDA (13): Rounder-type antics, 361-362 #1

[Paul Nightingale]

So Stray eventually finds out that Reef has only been pretending to be a
'good-for-nothing', "his rounder-type antics" a cover. Again, his opening
claim, that he aspires "to a regular human life like everybody else", might
be something repeated over and over internally, and as such self-serving; it
might also be a one-off self-defence when she has found out. Either way it
denies responsibility; so cf. "... nagging at him the unfinished business
with Deuce and Sloat ." etc (362). Here, one can infer that dynamiting is a
substitute for dealing with Webb's killers, so if he is conning Stray he is
perhaps conning himself also. Earlier, leaving Jeshimon: ". gravid with what
it seemed he must become, he found excuses to leave the trail now and then
and set off a stick or two" (214). And then, after the burial, on his way
back to Nochecita: ". blowing up a few company outbuildings on the way back
just for drill" (217). Perhaps this is an attempt to become Webb, as a way
of denying responsibility for revenge on Deuce and Sloat.

Subsequently he seems to liken himself to "a damn Christer" (362), but again
the phrasing is far from clear: this is not an identity he embraces.
Similarly, for Webb, after his 'collision' with Rev Gatlin, "[i]t would have
been almost like being born again" (87). As with Reef's post-Jeshimon
'pregnancy', the emphasis is on a life taken over: now Reef has a "sworn
opponent unreachably within, never to be appeased ." etc (361), although he
is prepared to admit that "[s]ometimes he was just after the explosion"
(362).