Bastard Out of Carolina Chapter 15 Summary

  • Bone goes with Raylene to visit Earle in prison.
  • Grey and Garvey have recently had their first encounters with the law, and Raylene says that if they get into any more trouble, they'll have to worry about her instead of the police. Granny says that Raylene would just bring them food in prison like she's doing for Earl.
  • Earle is skinnier and has made leather wallets and bags for everyone. He tells Bone how they tool the leather with blades and pallets and punches. Bone wants to ask him something, but Earle anticipates it and shows her the blade he has hidden in his pocket. Bone is proud to be his niece.
  • Back in the car, Raylene complains to Bone that Earle gets in trouble all the time.
  • Clearly not taking Raylene's concerns to heart, Bone finds Grey to tell him that it's time to use that hook.
  • Even though Grey and Garvey are twins, Grey is the more awkward-looking and hairy of the two (though he's also the sweeter one).
  • Grey meets Bone at Woolworth's past midnight and with the hook in a sack. He has painted the hook black, which angers Bone, but she deals with it because she knows that the only way to get into Woolworth's is through a vent that Grey won't fit through.
  • Grey throws the hook onto the roof, and Bone climbs up with no trouble. She has to go in through the exhaust housing and past the fan.
  • Bone hasn't been inside Woolworth's since she was caught stealing, and she still harbors feelings of revenge toward Tyler Highgarden, the manager.
  • Bone takes the hook with her into the vent for protection, and everything is going fine until the hook bangs against a metal pipe and swings out of Bone's hand, and both Bone and hook fall through the vent cover.
  • Bone falls through a glass countertop and lands inches from the hook, but she's somehow miraculously fine. She starts toward the candy counter, swinging the hook as she goes, and lets it go right through the case of nuts.
  • Bone lets an impatient Grey in through the front door, and he immediately runs in and breaks the knife case.
  • Bone looks around at all the cheap goods and realizes that she doesn't want any of it. She calls Grey, who now has a pillowcase full of cigarettes, and they leave, leaving the doors unlocked behind them.
  • As they're running, Bone and Grey see a group of men and yell to them that the Woolworth's doors are open. Bone is satisfied in the knowledge that by morning there won't be a counter that hasn't been cleared.
  • Having successfully pulled off the heist, Bone knows that she can scrape down the hook to its original sheen again. She imagines that, when she does, she will take off one night, and maybe pull up a rosebush from James Waddell's house while she's at it.