ATDTDA (17): It ain't like fixin the porch, 468-470

[Paul Nightingale]

Frank falls back into being Mayva's son ("Still sayin your prayers ...");
and again he is brought up to date, this time regarding his brothers.
Customers interrupt any discussion of Lake, one daughter 'replaced' by
others who are innocent but nonetheless caught up in affairs (eg Poutine's
"quick smile of apology", recognition that something is wrong). Frank "ha[s]
a rough idea of the dimension of insult she must have had to swallow" (469)
as Webb's wife/widow, so she too is kept in check by past events.

This "rough idea" is one he can judge without knowing the details, just as
earlier his knowledge of the way Nochecita had changed was juxtaposed to
another kind of knowledge regarding the recent arrival of motorcycles, a
more generalised awareness of the way the world is changing. He can sketch
in Mayva's story, even though he hasn't been there to witness it; which
means he inserts himself into the story after the event. Because of his
wandering post-Golden, Frank's life is always elsewhere, it seems ("the spur
line of his destiny", 460). Prompted by Moss Gatlin he can recall "funny
looks" from "the newspaper gang" (465); it hasn't occurred to him to see
himself as others have (Linnet remembers him as different, and Stray, of
course, doesn't see him at all). Another kind of wandering is implied by
Mayva's efforts to simply survive, get by, reinventing herself as ice-cream
seller ("... long after my time, o' course", 468).

There seems an unspoken agreement to avoid mentioning Lake; discussion of
Webb similarly avoids any mention of his (still alleged) role as "legendary
Phantom Dynamiter" (470). So much of this section concerns what isn't put
into words, including: "... in each explosion, regardless of outcome, had
spoken the voice Webb could not speak with in the daily world ..." etc. Lake
can only appear as an off-shoot of talk about Sloat and Deuce, her name not
mentioned.