Bruiser

“She does nothing much motherly or wifely anymore since Dad did some unmentionables during his midlife crisis.”

Although Tennyson jokes about his parents’ marital troubles, it also foreshadows one of the central conflicts of the text. As their relationship becomes more strained, it will not only impact Tennyson and Brontë’s lives but, more importantly, it will take an emotional and physical toll on Brewster as he calms their troubled relationship.

“[Brewster] looks like a vagrant in training. I hate him. I hate the concept of him. He’s a freight train of bad news barreling at my sister.”

This quote reflects Tennyson’s shallowness and immaturity at the start of the novel. He knows nothing about Brewster and hates him simply for his looks, assuming that he is not good enough for his sister. Ironically, Brewster becomes the exact opposite of Tennyson’s early image of him—sacrificing himself to save Brontë’s life.

“This is what we call a vicious cycle, and I don’t feel all that good about it. I never thought of myself as a bully. […] Suddenly I realize that maybe, in some people’s eyes, I am. This is what we call a revelation.”

These thoughts from Tennyson reveal that although he is prone to anger, he is also intelligent and insightful. With help from Brontë, he realizes that he was perhaps too harsh in judging Brewster and too mean to people in general. This marks the start of Tennyson’s change, as he begins to accept Brewster and move toward Finding Emotional Balance.

“There’s a bull on the property, old and a little too tired to be cranky. It seems to serve no purpose, not even to itself. Occasionally kids will torment it on the way to school. It’ll snort, make like it’s going to charge the fence, and then give up, realizing that it’s not worth the effort. I imagine the Bruiser is somewhat like that bull.”

This simile, wherein Tennyson compares Brewster to the old bull in his yard, reflects the perception that people, including Tennyson, have of Brewster from the outside. They see him as isolated and distant, think he serves “no purpose,” and that he is unwilling to put in the effort to socialize at school. Ironically, Brewster actually ends up serving a very large purpose in Tennyson’s life throughout the novel.

“‘I saw your back,’ I remind him. ‘I think I can put two and two together.’ Now [Brewster’s] gaze looks a little angry again. A little scared. ‘Two and two doesn’t always equal four,’ [he says].”

This concept—that things are not always as they appear—is one of the central ideas of the text and reflects Brewster as a character. Just as Tennyson assumes that the bruises on Brewster’s back must come from physical beatings, he also assumes that Brewster is somehow weird or dangerous because of his isolation. Both of these assumptions turn out to be untrue.

“The wallpaper is faded, the sofa has stains on the cushions, the blue carpet is mottled purple and brown in spots. A bruise, I think, the entire house is like one big bruise.”

This simile, comparing Brewster’s house to a bruise both in its color and its rundown state, conveys the symbolism of Brewster’s physical bruising. Because of Brewster’s ability and his uncle’s abuse, his entire life—including the home he lives in—is reminiscent of a bruise.

“The gateway to Hoyt-Hell: Abandon all hope ye who enter.”

This quote is an allusion to Dante’s Inferno, the first part of an epic poem known as The Divine Comedy. These words were inscribed on the gates of hell. Tennyson is comparing the part of Brewster’s life that he has seen—the rundown state of his home and the abusiveness of Uncle Hoyt—to hell. This reflects the beginning of Tennyson’s understanding of why Brewster is how he is and what he suffers from.

“It makes me feel something, but I don’t have to feel it about someone, so I get off easy.”

The first time Brewster and Brontë meet, Brewster attempts to explain why he likes poetry. His response strikes Brontë as “odd” and she laughs; however, his phrasing reveals more to Brontë than she realizes at the time, showing that despite outward appearances, Brewster does have emotions and the desire to care for people, but is hesitant to do so because of the effects of his ability.

“Spite against my brother, compassion for a stray, and general curiosity quickly gave way to something deeper—something more real and maybe even more dangerous, because when you truly start to care about someone, you become vulnerable to all sorts of things.”

As Brontë begins to have deeper feelings for Brewster, she becomes worried about the impact that they will have on her, conveying the theme of The Complications of Empathy. Although it is good to care for others, she also acknowledges that it makes you vulnerable if you are unable to control that empathy. She is speaking generally here about the act of caring, but it also foreshadows something deeper—as her feelings will make her “vulnerable” to Brewster’s ability and the dangers it imposes.

“[Brewster] took a couple of limping, grimacing steps, and I grinned. ‘You think I don’t know what you’re doing?’ I said. ‘You’re just trying to make me feel better about not making it to the falls.’”

When Brontë injures her ankle on her hike with Brewster, it is the first time that Brewster uses his ability on her. Although her reasoning is logical—that he is faking an injury to make her feel better—it also shows her willful ignorance that will continue throughout the text. Rather than showing concern for Brewster’s injury, she simply dismisses it, unwilling to explore why she healed so quickly and he, in turn, received the same injury right after.

“I never saw it coming, but Tennyson did. […] It must have torn him apart inside to know that Mom and Dad were about to go thermonuclear, and also know that he could do nothing to stop it. All he could do was brace himself. He tried to warn me, but I was too oblivious to duck and cover. Maybe I was the lucky one.”

Brontë’s realization that there is something truly wrong in her parents’ relationship conveys an overarching idea throughout the novel that ignorance is bliss. While Tennyson saw his parents’ fight coming, he also struggled with the feeling that he could do nothing to stop it. Brontë ruminates that perhaps her own ignorance of the situation saved her that turmoil, drawing the conclusion that perhaps she was “lucky” in that way. This willful ignorance for Brontë continues throughout the text as she ignores the obvious signs of what is happening to Brewster.

“All at once, I found my thoughts ricocheting to Brewster. […] I had reached out to save him from whatever terrible things were going on in his world; but when something went seriously wrong in mine, he didn’t just walk away, he ran.”

Ironically, Brontë feels anger toward Brewster for leaving when her parents begin to fight. She sees herself as having “saved” Brewster from the problems in his life, but then sees him as unwilling to save her. Not only does she not “save” Brewster—ultimately, she brings more pain and suffering on him—but she also fails to understand that Brewster has already healed her injuries and helped take her emotional pain.

“So we sat there in silence, wishing there was some way to sleep through whatever was to come. Wishing there was someone who could come and magically take away all the pain.”

In an instance of dramatic irony, Tennyson and Brontë wish for someone to come take their pain—unaware that Brewster has been doing just that. This irony conveys the theme of finding emotional balance. Unable to grapple with their emotions, Tennyson and Brontë instead wish for them to disappear completely, unaware that feeling and working through these emotions is vital to a healthy life.

“Now I finally understand what it means to have a friend, and maybe it’s worth the pain I’ll endure because of it.”

These thoughts from Brewster—after Tennyson defends him against Ozzy in the cafeteria—convey a major internal conflict that Brewster struggles with throughout his life. Because of his gift, he lacks the capability of finding emotional balance, instead taking on all the pain of those he cares about. The struggle then becomes the value of friendship and human connection versus the pain he will have to take on because of it.

“I could leave but choose to stay,

To surreptitiously sustain the blows,

Because if I am now Tennyson’s project,

It’s my right to make him my project as well.”

As Brewster makes the conscious decision to remain at Tennyson’s lacrosse game despite the pain it causes him, it is clear that having the ability to make that decision is what is important to Brewster. He has been forced to endure the pain of Hoyt and Cody because he lives with them and they are family; now, he is able to actively choose to help someone because he has the desire to—not because he is forced to.

“I went inside to get the Band-Aids, glad that Uncle Hoyt kept his temper and didn’t go foul.”

After Uncle Hoyt presses a lit cigarette to his arm and Cody hears Brewster yell in pain from inside, Cody is relieved that he is allowed to leave and that Hoyt “didn’t go foul.” This shows how dangerous Uncle Hoyt is, as getting burned by a cigarette is mild compared to what Brewster and Cody typically endure. However, these thoughts also reflect Cody’s immaturity and lack of understanding, as he fails to see the impact that Hoyt’s actions have on Brewster and the pain that they cause him.

“A cloud of gloom follows us to the court, but when Brew arrives, it seems to dissipate. Maybe because there’s someone else to focus on.”

The feelings of contentment and peace that Tennyson and his father feel at the basketball court mark the beginning of the influence that Brewster has over their emotions. It also reflects Tennyson’s willful ignorance that will continue throughout much of the text, as he chooses to ignore the obvious signs of Brewster’s influence and instead repeatedly attributes the change in feeling to something else.

“Because once you stop marveling at that firefly you caught in a jar, it sits on a shelf with no one to let it out.”

This metaphor compares Brewster to a firefly. Although Brontë was initially in awe and disbelief at his ability—much like people are in awe of a firefly—it eventually became commonplace and just another part of life. However, much as people forget about a trapped firefly once they are no longer awed by it, she could feel herself forgetting about Brewster’s ability’s impact on himself once she stopped questioning how it was possible.

“And though I know I’m not wired for war,

The time has finally come to fight my own nature.

I’m ready for this dance.”

These thoughts by Brewster mark a change in his character. To this point, he has resisted standing up to Uncle Hoyt for fear of being sent away, but also because of his own inability to harm anyone. However, after he beats Cody worse than he usually does—and because of Brewster’s newfound friendships with Tennyson and Brontë—he realizes the importance of standing up to Hoyt to protect himself, and he is finally ready to do so.

“Only now do I begin to really understand how difficult it must be to carry the weight of his strange ability. He has to live his life in an emotional bubble—never caring—or he’d never survive. It’s a huge deal that he’s let Brontë and me into that bubble.”

Like Brontë, Tennyson, has taken Brewster’s ability for granted. After he learns that Brewster had to force himself not to like the Gortons, however, Tennyson begins to understand just how harmful Brewster’s ability is to himself. This reflects the theme of finding emotional balance, as Brewster’s existence only allows for one of two extremes: to restrict his social circle and protect himself, or to gain friends at the risk of his own emotional and physical well-being.

“Thinking about Uncle Hoyt makes me sad, because I miss him, or at least I miss the part of him that didn’t go foul.”

These thoughts from Cody reflect not only his immaturity, but also his inability to grasp the true damage that Hoyt did to Brewster. Because of Cody’s inability to feel pain, he fails at finding emotional balance. If he had been able to feel what Hoyt did to him, he would harbor anger and resentment toward him, showing one instance where negative emotions can have a positive impact.

“The things [my parents] said, the things they felt were wrong to the core—but it wasn’t just them. The depth of what I should be feeling was absent from me as well.”

This quote conveys the theme of finding emotional balance. Because of Brewster’s influence, Brontë’s parents had not truly reconciled their relationship. While peace between her parents should typically be seen as a good thing, Brontë recognizes the dangers that lie in failing to grapple with negative emotions, as her parents’ issues will never truly be resolved and they will never know their true feelings.

“‘Yes,’ Tennyson agreed. ‘[Hoyt was] sick, and twisted, and cruel. But keeping Brew lonely might have been the one act of kindness he ever did in his entire, miserable life.’”

Tennyson begins to recognize the complexities of Hoyt’s actions. Although he is obviously wrong for abusing Cody and Brewster, now that Tennyson has lived with Brewster and knows of his ability, he also recognizes the unique situation that Hoyt was in. By maintaining strict control over Brewster’s life and forcing him into isolation, his actions that made Brewster miserable also, ironically, helped protect him from the complications of empathy.