47 pages • 1 hour read
Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter
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Chapters 7-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary
In 1982, Larry’s mother tells his father that Larry asked out Cindy on a date. Carl seems pleased by this and offers Larry some money, as well as the Buick, since, “It’s got a bigger backseat” (115). Larry keeps secret that it was Cindy who asked him out, since he likes the attention he gets from his father and some of the boys at school, including Ken and David. After school, Larry talks to Cindy about the details of the date, and she asks him to bring some beer. Silas is playing baseball on the nearby field, and Larry hopes Silas will notice him talking to Cindy and be impressed.
Ken and David ask if Larry has a “rubber” and give him advice on where to park at the drive-in so he can get the most action. David gives Larry one of his condoms. Before the date, Larry sneaks one of his father’s beers and worries that Carl will catch him. Carl tells Larry not to give any of the money he gave him for the date to Cecil, then tells a story about when they were younger and a drunk Cecil swung out over a bluff and fell down into a briar patch for three dollars.
Larry goes to Cindy’s house, where Cecil roughs him up and threatens him not to touch Cindy. In the car, Cindy tells Larry to scoot over so she can drive. She opens the beer and drinks it as she tells Larry her secret: She is using Larry as a cover so she can meet up with her boyfriend because she’s pregnant and they have to figure out what to do. Larry reluctantly drops Cindy off in Fulsom, the next town over, and agrees to sneak into the drive-in for the second show so no one will see Cindy isn’t in the car with him. Cindy instructs Larry to meet her at 11 o’clock on the street in front of her house so Cecil thinks she was with him the whole time.
Larry sneaks into the movies but realizes Ken, David, and their dates have driven up behind him, so he positions a blanket over his hand so it looks like Cindy is in the seat next to him. When Ken approaches the car to get a look at them, Larry drives off. At the meetup point with Cindy, Larry waits until nearly midnight, but Cindy never arrives. He finally goes to her house, where Cecil grabs him out of his car and demands to know where Cindy is. Cindy’s mother calls Larry’s parents and the sheriff. Larry tells his story to the sheriff, leaving out some of the details—like the fact that Cindy is pregnant, and using the blanket so it would look like she was in the car—and the sheriff thinks she’s likely still off with her boyfriend and will return in the morning.
When Cindy doesn’t return, Ken and David tell the sheriff about seeing “Cindy” with Larry at the drive-in, making it seem like Larry has been lying. Larry becomes a person-of-interest, but because Cindy’s body is never found, he can’t be charged. Larry joins the army, where he works as a mechanic. After his father dies, Larry is honorably discharged and returns to Chabot to care for his mother. He remembers the prayer his mother used to say for him, asking that God send him a special friend, and notes that after all these years, it has finally been answered.
Chapter 8 Summary
Silas meets up with Angie for lunch at a diner, where the waitress recognizes Silas from high school and calls him by his old baseball number, 32. Angie and Silas discuss Larry’s case, and Silas admits that he and Larry were friends as children but drifted apart over the years. Silas recalls a time when he and his friends tricked Larry into thinking he belonged to the group, asking Larry to wear a monster Halloween mask to a haunted house but ignoring him when he tried to socialize with them. Cindy was part of that group, and Angie notices Silas behaving strangely when he mentions her. Angie asks if Silas and Cindy ever went out, and Silas says no smart black boy would have tried to date her with a stepfather like that. Angie doesn’t buy it: “Who ever accused you of being smart?” (145). Angie wonders why Cindy would go out with Larry if she was so popular.
Silas is called to the hospital, where Larry is out of surgery but still unconscious. Silas learns that Larry died twice during his operations, and the hospital staff tells Silas that nobody’s been to visit Larry. Silas goes to visit Ina in the nursing home to tell her about Larry’s condition. Ina keeps mistaking Silas for someone named “Clyde” and doesn’t seem to understand what Silas is trying to tell her, asking about her chickens instead of her son. Silas recalls a time when he went to Larry’s house when they were children, and Larry let Silas cut the grass since he’d never done it before. Silas enjoys himself and does a good job, but he must jump the fence and hide when Carl gets home. Carl praises Larry for the good work he’s done, and Silas resents Larry. In the present, Silas realizes that Carl was his father: Carl slept with his maid, Alice, and sent her to Chicago when she became pregnant.
As Silas drives back toward Larry’s place, he sees Wallace Stringfellow riding a four-wheeler on the side of the highway, drinking a beer that he throws into the woods when he sees Silas approaching. Silas notices a pillowcase in the back of his four-wheeler but ignores his instinct to search it, instead giving Wallace a warning. Silas returns to the one-room cabin he and his mother lived in on the Otts’ property. Looking through the windows, Silas’s memories are interrupted when he realizes somebody has dug a fresh grave in the dirt.
Chapter 9 Summary
At the age of 31, Larry notices that someone has been breaking into the barn. Not wanting to scare his mother, Larry decides to take care of it himself and hides in the barn wearing his monster mask. When a boy enters the barn, Larry jumps out at him, scaring the boy off. Ten years later, Larry receives a visit from the boy, now a teenager: Wallace Stringfellow. Wallace claims to be selling DIRECTV and tries to persuade Larry to buy. Larry offers Wallace a drink, though Wallace wants alcohol and all Larry has is Coke. Wallace and Larry bond over dropping out of high school. Wallace brings up the rumors about Larry: “You’re the one they say did away with that girl. Back in high school” (164). Larry worries this knowledge will scare him off, but Wallace agrees to come back on Monday and install the dish.
Two months later, Wallace returns and admits he stole the DIRECTV uniform and van from his mother’s boyfriend. Wallace sits down to visit again and asks Larry if he doesn’t like him, but Larry admits he doesn’t get too many visitors; usually people who stop by vandalize his property. Wallace asks Larry if he has a gun and suggests he buy one at Wal-Mart. Wallace tells Larry about his dog, John Wayne Gacy, and offers to let Larry use him to ward off vandals. Larry declines. Wallace continues visiting Larry, and Larry asks why Wallace didn’t come out and say he was the boy who used to break into the barn. Wallace admits he kept coming back to fish on Larry’s land. In school, the kids would talk about Larry kidnapping and murdering Cindy Walker. Wallace recalls seeing Larry at church one time, and how he followed Larry when he slipped out early to avoid the crowds. While they talk, Wallace smokes marijuana, which makes Larry uncomfortable: “I just don’t need any trouble. With the law” (174). Wallace tells Larry he gets his drugs from a dealer named M&M.
On Christmas Eve, Larry watches TV by himself and hears something on his porch. When he checks on it, he finds a gift-wrapped .22 revolver “from Santa.” On New Year’s Eve, Larry and Wallace hang out, and Larry thanks him for the gun, though Wallace plays dumb. Later, Wallace asks Larry to tell him about Cindy. Larry says nothing happened and he only took her on a date. Wallace asks if Larry got in her pants and demands to know if Larry is “queer” when he says no. Wallace talks about the cabin on Larry’s property and how he used to play there. As a boy, Wallace would imagine Larry catching him and tying him up, though in his fantasy, the two would eventually become friends. Wallace asks Larry again about Cindy, and Larry denies killing her. Wallace talks about some fantasies about tying girls up, and Larry notices that Wallace has gotten an erection. Larry tells Wallace to come back another time when he’s sober. Wallace gets upset and threatens to tell the cops that Larry confessed to him. Larry locks him outside, and Wallace jumps on his truck, smashing the windshield. When Wallace doesn’t return after a long while, Larry calls his house, but Wallace’s mother warns him to never call back. Larry prays for God to help Wallace.
Chapters 7-9 Analysis
In Chapter 7, the narrative finally answers the question of whether Larry killed Cindy Walker. From Larry’s perspective, the reader learns that Larry has been wrongfully accused all these years and that he has been shunned as an outsider for a crime he did not commit. Knowing his innocence for certain makes his treatment by the town all the more appalling. As Silas learns when he visits the hospital, no one has come to visit Larry since he’s been shot. Larry’s father is dead, and his mother suffers from Alzheimer’s in a nursing home; Larry never married, and spends most of his time alone at his house or at work, even welcoming vandals who destroy his property because it gives him “something to do the next day” (167). A profoundly lonely man, Larry has spent most of his life sequestered from the world, frozen in time. Even as the novel answers the central question about Larry’s guilt, however, other mysteries unfold: The text does not reveal the identity of Cindy’s secret boyfriend—the father of her baby—or what really happened to her on the night she disappeared. Rather than concluding the plot, the revelation of Larry’s innocence only deepens the mystery surrounding Cindy Walker.
The past and present continue to overlap as the narration progresses. Throughout the novel, various characters have referred to Silas as “32” or “32 Jones,” and in Chapter 8, the readers learn this was his number on the baseball team in high school. As a man in his forties, Silas is a long way from those high school days, but Chabot is a town with a long memory, and many still see Silas as the athlete of his youth. This lasting reputation parallels the way that Larry’s reputation from his teenaged years continues to follow him. Though he has committed no further crimes and leads a quiet, solitary life, Larry continues to be referred to as “Scary Larry” and gossiped about by people in town. For better or worse, both Silas and Larry continue to carry the reputations from their past.
Wallace’s visits to Larry at first seems friendly, but as time continues, Wallace reveals himself to be a disturbed young man with an unhealthy interest in murder. One early indication of this is the name of his dog, John Wayne Gacy. Gacy was an American serial killer sometimes called the “Killer Clown” who is known to have killed at least 33 young boys. Wallace’s fascination with Gacy, in addition to his repeated attempts to get Larry to tell him more about Cindy Walker’s murder, might be chalked up an overly curious person with a morbid mind. However, Wallace’s fantasies about the crime reveal a much darker side. Wallace suggest that some girls “like it, getting raped. They want you to do it” (179), and he gets an erection as he describes tearing off women’s clothes and beating them. Larry tries to keep this conversation in check, but the very fact that he continues to entertain a friendship with Wallace shows just how lonely Larry has been, and how much he misses human companionship.
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