Tex

Early in the novel, Tex and his friends attend the local state Fair—always capitalized to emphasize its importance. The centrality of the Fair to the young boys’ lives is striking; it is unthinkable that they would not attend. In fact, when Tex’s older brother, Mason, suggests he will not go this year, Tex is stunned: “he announced he wasn’t going to the Fair. I was as shocked as if he’d said he was going to skip Christmas” (29). Mason’s decision and Tex’s shock represents the different levels of maturity in the brothers. Tex is still maturing, while Mason has already—and too quickly, what with all his responsibilities—grown up. The Fair is all innocent fun and childlike frolic. Mason has no time for this, while Tex announces that “I’ll think the Fair is fun no matter how old I get” (30). By the end of the book, the reader must speculate—if after learning about his true parentage, getting shot, and facing being on his own—if Tex would still feel this way.

The description of the Fair emphasizes the childlike nature of the event. There are rides of varying degrees of intensity: The kids “ate corn dogs and fried chicken and ice cream and corn on the cob” (35); they play plenty of shooting games that foreshadow the shooting Tex will experience in the near future. The Fair is also where Tex encounters the fortune teller, who will relay to him his destiny: “You will stay” (39), which becomes the dominant refrain of the book. The Fair also sees Tex and Johnny pair off with girls for the first time in a rite of passage: “It was almost as good as having real girlfriends” (41), which is what Tex eventually wants Jamie to be. The Fair is one of the last episodes of innocent, youthful fun that Tex experiences before being tested by the kidnapping, the shooting, and the revelation that Pop is not his real father. The Fair an Eden before the fall.

In contrast to the Fair, the city—notably never named—functions as a test for Tex. It is not any sort of paradise, but is instead an underworld through which he must pass to make the hero’s journey. In leaving the city nameless, the narrative illustrates how any city would present a challenge for Tex. The first problem he encounters is the traffic; everybody is pouring into the place all at once, causing one to lose one’s bearings. This sense of disorientation and loss of one’s direction takes on the trope of a Classical text where the hero gets lost. Once he’s at the mall, he feels lost in the sea of people: “It was weird being lonesome in a place full of people. I never get lonesome hunting or fishing by myself” (92). The abundance of people, not to mention stores—“they make you feel dumb” (93)—overwhelm Tex and cannot compare to his natural adventures back in the small town of Garyville.

He is clumsy at navigating the world of the city, bumping into racks, and feeling embarrassed by comments the salesgirls make about to him. Then, when in the sporting goods store, he is accused of shoplifting: he innocently puts a fishing lure in his pocket, intending to pay for it, but that is not how it’s done in the city. When waiting for the verdict as to what might happen to him for his innocent mistake, Tex is “scared and sick,” feeling “like a caged animal” (96-97). He knows he does not belong in the city. He describes his feelings: “The way they were looking at me made me feel like I was the worst kind of trash” (97). Tex would be swept up and discarded in the confines of the city and the fortune teller’s truth that his destiny would be to stay in his small town is all but assured.