Until They Bring The Streetcars Back

The Gants open their gifts on Christmas Eve, but before the presents, they endure Norwegian food, like oyster fish and lutefisk. Cal compares the meal to “leftovers from the sewage plant” (116). For gifts, Horace gets Cal a box of Nut Goodies, and he also gets a phonograph, which he can use to listen to Frank Sinatra. Trying to save money, Lurine gives Horace a wrench made in Japan. Horace yells at her: He wants products made in America. They decide she will return it. Horace also says that the Gants won’t hear McCluskey’s dog anymore because he called the Humane Society. He didn’t want the dog to keep suffering.

At the dinner dance with Katie, Cal fixates on Lola and her gown. He tries to avoid physical contact, but they run into each other near the bathrooms. Lola thinks Cal likes Katie, and Cal screams at her in frustration about his feelings, which he felt were apparent. Lola hadn’t been aware someone was in love with her. Cal exclaims, “Spit on it.” He thinks having polio would be less trying than loving Lola.

Before New Year’s Eve, Cal goes to Gretchen’s house to see if she’s home. No lights are on, and no one shoveled the snow on their sidewalk. He climbs the oak tree until he’s on the same level as the second-story dormer. He peers into the window but is unsure if the curtains are open. In the tree, he remembers what Gretchen said about Cal seeing her.

On New Year’s Eve, Cal’s parents are in bed by 10 o’clock, but Peggy and Cal stay up, playing rummy, eating popcorn, and drinking root beer. Cal’s friends are at Tom’s party, but Cal doesn’t want to go there and witness Tom and Lola together. Peggy reminds Cal that their mom tells them to feel sorry for others, not themselves. When Peggy feels sorry for herself, she “spits on it.”

Steve drops by and they discuss how he quit hockey. The coach feels like he must let him play goalie because of his disability, but he’s losing games. Steve leaves Cal’s house, and Sandy takes his place, also visiting. She explains that the week prior, she saw a woman who looked like her. She told the woman she was adopted. The woman and her husband considered adopting, but then she had four kids. Sandy wonders what’s wrong with her and why her “real” parents didn’t want her.

At school, freshman boys bully Gretchen, but Cal stops them when he offers to carry her books. Cal asks about “up north,” and Gretchen is evasive. Cal wonders why people don’t see Gretchen’s pain. He decides he can’t wait for someone else to intervene—he has to do something.

After a “lousy” basketball practice, Cal goes to a drugstore and calls the police anonymously. He tells Sergeant Riley about a dad who “does bad things” to his daughter. Riley tries to help, but Cal can’t delve into specifics. Riley wants the man’s name so they can watch him. He also wants the girl to talk to the police. Cal hangs up.

A blizzard hits St. Paul, but it doesn’t postpone Central’s basketball game, a loss, nor does it alter Cal’s plan to take Gretchen to downtown Minneapolis during school. Sandy writes them fake passes, and while riding the trolley, Cal asks if Gretchen could run away. She can’t. Helga ran away, and Otto found her. She believes the same would happen to her. She thinks Otto might even call the police on her if she ran.

At Woolworth’s Five & Dime, Cal buys her candy. At a department store named Dayton’s, Gretchen ogles the clothes and toys, and Cal buys her a “boy doll.” At a cafeteria, Cal and Gretchen feast on hamburgers, fries, onion rings, soda, and desserts. Cal wants Gretchen to have “fun,” and she is. They return to Dayton’s and listen to Frank Sinatra’s “I’ll Be Seeing You” in the record department before picking up chocolate malts.

On the Hennepin streetcar, they discuss Helga. Once, Otto took Gretchen to see Helga at Fergus Falls. The trip was a warning that if Gretchen told, she’d end up like her sister. When Helga originally told the police about her situation, they didn’t take action. Their mom lied and claimed Helga “made up” everything. Otto made Helga kill her baby, Little Jacob, by holding Helga’s hands around Little Jacob in the bathtub, forcing Helga to drown him. The corpse is in the freezer, and the freezer is in the back entry.

Cal is caught with Sandy’s fake pass. The pass was allegedly from Cal’s coach, and Miss Bellows, Cal’s English teacher, asks the coach why he pulled Cal from her class. Cal has detention for a week on the days he doesn’t have practice.

Gretchen forgets to remove her loafers before her dad picks her up, so he hurts her. After this, Gretchen won’t wear the loafers or keep them in her locker. The loafers and the boy doll now reside in Cal’s locker. At night, Cal sits in Gretchen’s oak tree and observes the lights in the house go out. Otto leaves through the back door, and Cal follows him. Otto disappears, and Cal worries Otto is following him, so Cal runs home.

In Kirschlbach’s detention, Sandy gets the teacher out of the room so a boy can hide his glasses in his briefcase. Kirschlbach returns and yells at the students. He says that if he doesn’t get his glasses, the students will face two additional weeks of detention. Once he finds the glasses in his briefcase, Kirschlbach takes back his threat.

After basketball practice, Cal asks Pastor Ostrum to visit Gretchen’s family, and Ostrum agrees. At church, Pastor Ostrum preaches about the importance of little kids to Jesus. Ostrum sees the Luttermans and labels them a “solid Christian family,” suggesting that Otto tricked Ostrum into believing that everything in the household is normal.

The dormer window is in Gretchen’s room, and Cal regularly waits in the oak tree like an owl, but he can’t see anything. Every night, Otto leaves the house at 10 o’clock. Cal doesn’t follow him, but he develops a plan.

At another teen gathering, Cal asks Steve to teach him to hotwire a car. Cal wants to hotwire Finley’s truck so he can use it sometimes. Lola arrives, informing them she’s not dating Tom anymore and that her mom is upset about the breakup.

During dinner, Horace mentions he saw a carrot leave the kitchen with Peggy last night. Horace has known about the bunny. The bunny used to stop by the bathroom in the morning while Horace shaved. Horace praises Peggy, but Lurine doesn’t want Peggy wasting “good food.” Peggy had also given McCluskey’s dog some peanut butter sandwiches and Hostess cupcakes before the dog was rescued.

Once, Cal stole a comic book, but he felt guilty, so he snuck it back into the store and gave the cashier a dime he pretended to find on the floor. Today, Cal steals a case of Old Fitzgerald bourbon from Sid’s store, stashing it in an abandoned garage.

Gretchen is at the bakery, and Cal keeps giving her Nut Goodies to counter her emaciated body. Gretchen wonders if she’s to blame for her circumstances. She wonders if she should fight her dad. She used to resist, but then he hurt worse. Now when he tells her to take off her clothes, she complies. Cal tells her it’s not her fault. He also says he did something today that will free her.

At dinner, Horace announces the end of the “rehabilitation program.” Instead of fixing the streetcars, the company will let them break and atrophy. Horace blames the people. They liked streetcars during the Great Depression when they couldn’t afford cars. They used streetcars during World War II when the government rationed gasoline. He says that now that the economy is booming, people are too spoiled for streetcars.

At another dance, the Jalop-Hop, Lola and Cal dance together. In a car afterward, they “French kiss.” Driving, Cal and his friends spot Steve on the edge of a bridge, considering death by suicide. Steve tells his friends not to come closer and that no one cares if he’s dead. He suggests that they should get Katie—if she cares, he’ll come down. Jerry, meanwhile, is hitching a ride and drives by them. Jerry sneaks back onto the bridge and pulls Steve to safety. Steve’s friends take him to his house and everyone is glad he’s safe, but Cal admits that Steve could still return to the bridge and die by suicide.

On Saturday, Cal doesn’t get another chance to “swipe” liquor, but Steve teaches Cal how to hotwire Finley’s truck. In the truck, Cal drives his friends to the Valentine Dance. Steven thinks Cal hotwired it, but Finley let him use it. At the dance, Cal tells Lola he loves her, and Lola loves Cal, too. He makes her “feel different.” Cal feels like he could fly.

One night in the oak tree, Cal sees Gretchen standing naked, with her back to the window. Gretchen moves to the side like she’s getting into bed. A clothed man enters with something in his hand. Suddenly, the curtains shut. Cal thinks to himself to get Little Jacob now. After Otto leaves at 10 o’clock, Cal opens the back door, but fright pulls him away.

From a drugstore, Cal calls Sergeant Riley anonymously and says he can bring him a dead body. Riley says if Cal showed the cops a body, they could arrest the suspect. Riley commands Cal not to touch the body; Cal could “destroy evidence.” Riley says that Cal has to tell the cops the body’s location. Cal can’t: If Cal does it the “legal” way, the body will disappear.

Cal plans to get Little Jacob at night. He doesn’t eat much of his dinner, and he’s “jumpy” with Lola on the phone. Hearing his parents listening to Cedric Adams, Cal thinks about how the broadcaster would respond to what Cal was about to do.

After Otto goes outside, he stands still, as if he’s trying to hear something. Eventually, Otto leaves, and Cal enters the house and sorts through the crowded freezer. He finds a “wrapped bundle” marked roast beef and unwraps it. The bundle is Little Jacob.

Suddenly, Otto returns, and he has a butcher knife. He chases Cal out of the house and down the street. Though Cal is an athlete in “great shape,” Otto catches him. He drops Little Jacob but gets away from Otto by leaping onto a streetcar fender.

Tired and sick but safe in his room, Cal remembers when he and Emil found a dead owl covered in porcupine quills. Emil said the owl “[b]it off more than he could chew” (167).