ATDTDA (3): Webb's trajectory, 85-87

[Paul Nightingale]

It is only at this point, bottom of 85, that we are given access to Webb's
back-story, beginning at a time "when men were finding their way to the
unblastable seams of their own secret natures". However, this journey isn't
taken consciously, after deliberation. The use of the term "trajectory"
foreshadows the scene in the Shorty's Billiard Saloon: the ball, when
struck, has no control over its destination (and Monte's reference to
determinism here invokes its opposite, voluntarism).

The text indicates that Webb  has gone to meet his destiny, but only after
miraculously surviving the gun-battle in Shorty's: "He found himself in the
street wandering hatless and confused, colliding presently with the Reverend
Moss Gatlin" (86). Remember Lew's fate: "It would've helped if he could
remember, but all he could produce was this peculiar haze" (37, followed in
particular by the "kind of waking swoon" paragraph, bottom of 38). Like Lew,
Webb cannot understand how he has arrived at this place at this point in
time; but his "state of heightened receptivity" leaves him vulnerable to the
Reverend's "offhanded preacherly drivel". He stands there, "ignored by the
pernicious bustle of Myers Street" just as, back up the page, he was
"standing in a roomful of flying lead without being hit once".

Chosen, then. Note that, in the street, he glosses over what might have been
his objection to the "offhanded" nature of Gatlin's "preacherly drivel": the
throwaway nature of the comment means it cannot have been tailored to the
demands of Webb's moment, not sufficiently respectful to the unique
circumstances Webb has found himself in. Subsequently, Gatlin's sermon
insists that Webb take sides; his argument is of the kind that, if you're
not with us 100% you must be against us, there are no shades of grey. This
is the language of fundamentalism, and eventually: "It would have been
almost like being born again, except that Webb had never been particularly
religious, nor had any of his family" (87). At this point, then, the text
offers us the first reference to Webb's family background as a way to
determine his current state of being: he can't be "born again", precisely
because neither he nor his family have ever been "particularly religious".