09-22-2023, 08:48 PM
Near is losing the game because he has set out to play it without confirming the other player knows the rules and the goal. It must be that much more humiliating to be beaten at it: to be determined to be the least nonchalant, the most removed, the most reasonable, pelting dodgeball after dodgeball. Jude evades not because he is burning with competitive spirit, but because he doesn't understand there is some value in being hit. There's no guarantee he would submit to a strike if the game was explained, but maybe he would go on the offensive if he knew he was supposed to pick up the balls and throw them back.
Throwing Jude out right after he's ordered food -- right after Near has cancelled his plans for the evening -- wouldn't that be just like them though?
Having agreed to dinner, Jude has promised Near at least a few hours of his time. He hopes that they can do a dance he has some experience with now: suppertime small talk. What have you been doing? "Traveling." His first instinct remains to leave it there, just the one word, but Jude swallows and presses on. "When I was younger -- when I met your father -- it wasn't like I kept track of the addresses. Where the Family took us." He stops again, rolling his tongue around his mouth, feeling the inner ridges of his teeth. This isn't coming out the way it does at the suppers, perhaps because he's not trying to sell Near anything. Jude is usually selling. "But I remember the broad strokes. I go places I've been, try to remember who I talked to, find my way back. Talk to them again."
He is eliding the financial components. It was very difficult, in the beginning. He was nearly arrested several times -- for sleeping outside, for loitering, for panhandling. But once he found his first real benefactor, he's stayed on his feet. These details he isn't eager to provide, because he imagines Near is just going to make fun of him. Opening a bank account was a nightmare for Jude.
Throwing Jude out right after he's ordered food -- right after Near has cancelled his plans for the evening -- wouldn't that be just like them though?
Having agreed to dinner, Jude has promised Near at least a few hours of his time. He hopes that they can do a dance he has some experience with now: suppertime small talk. What have you been doing? "Traveling." His first instinct remains to leave it there, just the one word, but Jude swallows and presses on. "When I was younger -- when I met your father -- it wasn't like I kept track of the addresses. Where the Family took us." He stops again, rolling his tongue around his mouth, feeling the inner ridges of his teeth. This isn't coming out the way it does at the suppers, perhaps because he's not trying to sell Near anything. Jude is usually selling. "But I remember the broad strokes. I go places I've been, try to remember who I talked to, find my way back. Talk to them again."
He is eliding the financial components. It was very difficult, in the beginning. He was nearly arrested several times -- for sleeping outside, for loitering, for panhandling. But once he found his first real benefactor, he's stayed on his feet. These details he isn't eager to provide, because he imagines Near is just going to make fun of him. Opening a bank account was a nightmare for Jude.