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Summary
66. There’s a Strange Thing – 94. Buck Finally Let Go
Will takes the elevator down, reflecting that, when he and Shawn were little, they used to wait for someone else to push the L button for the Lobby because they said that L stood for Loser. They would laugh that the person who pushed it was a loser and that Will and Shawn were winners. He also reflects on The Rules of the elevator and how strange it is that people always follow the same protocol. They get in, make sure their floor is pressed, and then stand facing the door in silence. They don’t talk to each other or greet people when others come into the elevator. He reflects that these are The Rules of the elevator.
A man gets on the elevator, and Will feels the man watching him. This reminds him of how boys look at girls at the bus stop. Getting increasingly uncomfortable, Will confronts the man and asks if he knows him. The man asks Will if he recognizes him. Will says he doesn’t. The man turns around and shows him the back of his shirt, which says RIP BUCK YOU’LL BE MISSED FOREVA.
Will recognizes that that man is Buck, an older brother figure to his brother Shawn. Shawn knew Buck longer than he knew his and Will’s father. Will is very frightened because Buck is dead. He hopes that Buck will tell him that he faked his death or that people got it wrong. He wonders if he is dreaming and tries to wake himself up, pinching his arms, hoping to wake up still in his bed with the gun under his pillow. But no matter what he does, he’s still in the elevator, and Buck is still there. He’s afraid that Buck's presence means he's about to die. He feels afraid of death. He thinks of another anagram: ALIVE = A VEIL.
Buck says he’s there to check on his gun, the very gun Will has in his waistband of his jeans. Buck says that he gave the gun to Shawn and taught him The Rules when Shawn was about the age that Will is now. Will says he has it now. The rattling elevator, which Will compares to the stuck middle drawer, is taking a long time. Will is impatient to get out of the elevator because he has a job to do. He’s following The Rules and avenging his brother’s death. Will knows that Buck isn’t taking him seriously. He reflects that older people often don’t take him seriously.
Buck laughs at Will. He asks him if he even checked to see if the gun was loaded. Will hasn’t. He checks the gun and notes there are 15 bullets, though, there should be 16. Buck says Will, unlike his brother Shawn, doesn’t have what it takes to kill someone. Will says that Buck’s laughter is as bad as the boom of a bullet. Will and Buck struggle for the gun. Buck finally lets go and the elevator stops.
Analysis
This section explores the motif of anagrams, which represent Will’s attempt to understand the bewildering world through language and playing with reality. Will often interjects with anagrams during particularly painful or incomprehensible moments in his life. For example, he uses an anagram when he surveys the room he shared with his brother, feeling his absence as he looks around the room. The anagram he shares is CARES = SCARE, which emphasizes caring for people seems particularly vulnerable, especially in the wake of his brother’s death. In this section, Will thinks of an anagram when he meets his first dead person, Buck. He reflects that A VEIL is an anagram of ALIVE. This illustrates that he is beginning to understand that being alive and within the thick of life obfuscates his ability to truly understand the nature of reality. It also suggests that what separates the living from the dead is a very thin veil. This helps the reader understand how powerful and disorienting Will’s encounters with the dead are. Through anagrams, Will is able to control a small amount of his world in the midst of the powerful forces that bewilder him. He is able to play with language to understand the nature of reality and to comfort himself during a frightening time.
This section also explores the symbol of the elevator as a kind of Bardo, purgatory, or in-between place in which life and death dialogue with each other. Will struggles to believe his experience in the elevator and knows that it will be hard for other people to believe, too. This sense of both unreality and reality permeates the elevator much as complex grief separates us from our lives before the trauma of unexpected loss occurs. The dead interact with Will and with the real-life object of the gun as though they are alive. However, at the same time, they seem to behave in ways that sometimes defy the laws of physics, such as the way the smoke doesn’t waft through the elevator door and the way time moves strangely inside the elevator. This also parallels the way grief defies the laws of what is normal, putting mourners like Will in a fog and changing their relationships to time. In his interactions with Buck, Will has his first experience of learning from the dead, which helps him to begin to understand the foolishness of his revenge plot and the danger he is in. The space between life and death holds philosophical and imaginative power, and in the elevator, Will is able to talk to the dead in order to better understand life.
This section also explores the symbol of the gun, which represents the heavy burdens of the cycle of violence in Will’s life. Will often marvels at how heavy the gun is, comparing its weight to that of a baby, and noticing that the gun, from the very beginning of his journey, is already heavy in his waistband, making his back ache. This emphasizes that the gun itself carries the weight of the acts it represents: the heaviness of the revenge that Will believes he must carry out, the heaviness of the secret violence that Shawn committed when he was alive, and the heavy history of the gun’s violence, as suggested by Buck when he checks in on his gun. Buck illustrates that the gun has been passed down from person to person, Buck gave it to Shawn and Shawn’s death put it in Will’s hands. This parallels the way violence is passed from person to person in Will’s community. Will also compares the gun to a backbone, suggesting his belief that the gun gives him strength and courage. However, when Buck snatches the gun away, Will can’t wrest it back from him, suggesting that the power the gun gives to Will is illusory and dangerous.
