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Summary
95. I Had Half a Second – 131. Buck Offered
Will scrambles to get himself together, hide the gun, ignore Buck, and pretend like everything is normal. A young woman, about Will’s age, gets on the elevator, and Will thinks she’s attractive. He notices her legs, her flower dress, and her perfume. As he admires her, she says she didn’t know smoking was allowed in elevators. Will is surprised she can see the smoke because he thought only he could see Buck. She says of course she can see the smoke. She says she also didn’t know guns were allowed in elevators. Will is surprised she knows about the gun, too. He wants to flirt with her but thinks it’s hard with a ghost in the elevator. He also thinks it’s hard to think about kissing and killing at the same time. She asks why he has the gun, and he says that, given that they don’t know each other, it’s not really a question she should ask.
She clarifies that they do know each other, saying they met on the monkey bars. He says he’s too old for the monkey bars and she says she knows, but that she knows him from when he was younger. She shows him a picture from her wallet of Will and his friend Dani when they were eight years old. He remembers her in a flower dress playing on the monkey bars. The girl asks if he remembers the day in the picture. He says he does. She asks if he remembers that she kissed him. Will is shocked. Will remembers that after Dani kissed him, there were gunshots. They got down on the ground, Shawn covering their bodies, but it was too late, and Dani was already bleeding out from the gunshot. He remembers bubblegum and blood.
Dani’s death was the first time Will experienced that level of pain. It was also when Shawn taught him rule #1 and told him not to cry. In the shower after Dani died, forcing himself not to cry, Will felt like he wanted to scratch his skin off or punch a hole in something just so there would be a hole in something other than Dani. He offers another anagram FEEL = FLEE.
Will tells Dani that it’s good to see her. Dani says the same but says he still hasn’t answered her question. She wants to know why he needs the gun. Will says his brother was shot recently, and he’s going to get revenge on the boy who killed him. Dani asks what happens if he misses, wondering if he’s ever shot a gun before. Will says again and again that he won’t miss, and it doesn’t matter that he’s never shot a gun. Buck offers Dani a cigarette, and she takes it. He asks her if she smokes, and she asks him if he shoots. Then the elevator stops.
Analysis
This section explores the theme of the pain of toxic masculinity by contrasting violence with sweetness and innocence. In the beginning of the scene with Dani, Will has his first moment of reprieve from grief and plans for violence because he notices and is attracted to Dani’s beauty. This moment illustrates a more “normal” teen experience and shows what Will’s life might be like if he wasn’t grappling with death, violence, and darkness. Will, however, cannot fully enjoy this moment where he’d like to chat up the beautiful newcomer. Will notes that it’s difficult think about killing and kissing at the same time. This illustrates that Will’s adherence to The Rules of toxic masculinity are at war with the softer, more tender aspects of himself that want to simply flirt and possibly connect with a girl he likes. What’s more, when Dani reveals who she is and Will delves into the memory of their kiss, it is, briefly, a moment of sweetness and innocence. This is devastatingly contrasted by Dani’s bloody death, an event that was followed by Will learning The Rules. Will describes his inability to mourn Dani in terms of violence, wanting to scratch off his skin and punch a hole in the wall. This encapsulates that loss of innocence and early grief, without an outlet, become violence under The Rules of toxic masculinity.
This section explores the motif of ghosts, which represent the haunting grip of violence and grief and the wisdom and peace that comes from a place beyond everyday life. That Dani has grown up since her death, grown up in the world of the dead, emphasizes how much she lost by dying at eight years old. Will is attracted to the girl she has become, which hints at the life, love, and delight that she, Will, and the world lost because of her death. However, alongside this painful reality, Dani has also gained wisdom and insight from growing up in the world of the dead. She can clearly see what Will cannot: that he has identified the wrong person as Shawn’s murderer and is setting out on a misguided and potentially fatal journey. Dani, in the wisdom of the dead, can also see that Will doesn’t have the skill or knowledge to carry out the murder he is planning. Dani, though she is similar in age to Will, carries a wisdom in death that he cannot achieve yet in life.
This section also explores Will’s loss of innocence and the reality that his childhood was cut short by violence. Will’s description of his experience with Dani holds, in some ways, the last moments of his childhood before his innocence was shattered by gunshots. He describes her tongue “like pink candy,” the sweetness of her floral dress, playing on the monkey bars, and the sunshine shining on them. These images evoke childhood, innocence, play, beauty, and light. Then, the gunshots ring out “like fireworks.” This illustrates a transition between the childhood state and the dark violence to follow because at first, young Will compares the gunshots to something safe, whimsical, and beautiful, a marker of celebration. Even in the first moments of death, Dani describes wanting to jump outside herself like when she played on the monkey bars, suggesting that as Dani was dying, she held on to a childlike sensibility that Will lost. As Will watches Dani die, he sees bubblegum and blood, which illustrates the gravity of this moment: the sweetness of his youth ravaged by the horror of gun violence.
