This Boy's Life Part 5, Chapter 6 Summary

  • Jack cuts his finger in wood shop at school. Badly.
  • The doctors operate and they save the finger. He gets to stay in the hospital for a week, doped up on morphine the whole time.
  • Jack gets morphine pills to take home, but he's hooked now, and the withdrawal from the drugs is bad. He can't buy drugs in Chinook, so he starts sneaking Dwight's booze: watering it down to cover his tracks.
  • Dwight notices. He gives Jack a friendly talking to about how alcohol is only for mommies and daddies. Okay, no, we're kidding. He shoves Jack and Jack lands on his busted finger.
  • Jack's mom finally has had enough. Jack goes to live with Chuck Bolger's family while she goes to Seattle to look for work.
  • She makes him promise to be good at the Bolgers. She is rather naïve in certain ways.
  • Dwight watches him go and realizes that it's over. He comes over to shake hands and wish Jack good luck. Jack returns the compliment, then tells us that he hates the man. Even scarier, he can hear Dwight in his own voice sometimes when he gets angry at his kids.
  • Chuck Bolger passes him some liquored-up Hawaiian Punch as they drive away.