Interlude & Chapter Seven

Part III: Paths Taken and Expectations Fulfilled

Summary: Interlude

Back in the prison visiting room, Moore notices how many women and children are there. He and Wes discuss whether people are products of their environments. Wes, still refusing to admit that he was present during Sergeant Prothero’s murder, suggests that they are products of other people’s expectations. Wes argues that people take on the expectations that others have for them. Moore sympathizes with this idea but feels this perspective doesn’t allow Wes to take responsibility for his own actions.

Chapter Seven: The Land That God Forgot (1997)

Summary: Section 1 (Moore)

As Moore eagerly waits for his turn to jump out of a plane to complete his paratrooper training, he contemplates the past few years. While still being recruited by colleges, he understands that he has little chance to make it in the NBA. Influenced by Colin Powell’s autobiography My American Journey and high school teacher Colonel Murnane, Moore decided to join the army and dedicate himself to a life of service. He now recognizes how the transience of life makes hopeless inner-city young men reckless, but Moore chooses to see life as precious. Moore now attends Valley Forge junior college, where he’s a regimental commander and one of the youngest officers in the Army. As Moore prepares for his jump, he finds himself concerned about his parachute and asks god to protect him. He jumps and tumbles through the air, and his parachute opens. Moore finds himself suddenly at peace with the world.

Summary: Section 2 (Wes)

Wes finds Cheryl, the mother of his third and fourth children, lying on the couch in a heroin-induced stupor. Wes has refused to acknowledge her addiction up until this point, but he quickly recognizes the damaging impact drugs have had on his community. His friend Levy has recently gotten out of the drug trade and plans to go to Job Corps to receive vocational training. Wes visits Levy, who tells him about the organization and encourages him to apply. Wes has his concerns but pulls himself off the streets, applies for Job Corps, and is accepted. Shortly after, Wes joins Levy at the Job Corps center, where, amazed by the beauty of the campus and encouraged by his teachers and peers, Wes earns his GED and learns carpentry. Inspired by the desire to improve life for his family, Wes works hard and graduates form Job Corps. He works as a landscaper and construction worker but only makes nine dollars an hour, which is not nearly enough to support his children. Exhausted by the pressures of working ten-hour days, Wes buys a bag of cocaine, which he brings home and processes into crack.

Analysis: Interlude & Chapter Seven

Moore posits that personal responsibility plays a crucial role in success, while Wes believes that people develop according to what’s expected of them and thus have little control over what becomes of their lives. Moore rejects this fatalistic outlook when he says that it is “easy to lose control when you were never looking for it in the first place.” Moore demonstrates self-control when he summons the will to obey his Jumpmaster and step out of an airplane for his first parachute jump. Moore’s faith in God, his training, and himself is on display when he jumps despite his fear. The jump, and resulting peace it brings, is symbolic of all the leaps of faith he’s taken up to this point. Wes also aims to take control over his life by joining Job Corps, but when the program ends and he no longer has external support, he returns to the drug trade. Moore points out that Wes’s income was so low and his workload so large that the odds were stacked again him. However, just as Moore’s success comes from a combination of lucky breaks and personal responsibility, Wes’s outcome can’t be blamed on external factors alone.

The playhouse that Wes builds for his daughter during his time in Job Corps becomes a concrete symbol of protection, a major theme in the book. Seeking a life outside of the drug business, Wes leaves everything he knows to go to Job Corps, where he studies carpentry. For his independent project, Wes chooses to build a house large enough for his daughter to climb inside, “a house to protect her.” While other student projects are far more modest in scale, Wes perseveres and completes the house, a profound symbol of his desire to safeguard his daughter and keep her from experiencing the abandonment that he suffered as a child. However, following Job Corps, Wes returns to the drug trade and is ultimately sent to prison for life, depriving his daughter of his presence. Despite his desire to protect her, his choices result in him being as absent from her life as his father was from his.