Richard beat down
Chapter Seventeen.
Nathaniel has left and Richard wants to know how Anita love him. I'm wondering the same thing. But then again Nathaniel is as pliant as squishy things. Anita is hesitant as to how to answer the question. Her answer? "Because he never makes me feel like a freak."
Richard retorts "Because he is a freak... anyone looks sane besides him."
Look! Look! Sanity! Look! Someone is speaking the truth! Watch it get crumbled and beaten under the threat of Anita!
"First," I said in a very tight, careful voice, "Nathaniel is not a freak. Second, he's willing to disrupt his entire life if he got me pregnant, and you're not. So I'd be careful before you throw stones at his character."
"If you're pregnant, I'll marry you."
The room was suddenly full of one of those silences so thick you should have been able to walk across it. I stared at him for a second, or two, then said, "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Richard, is that all you think it takes to fix this? Marry me so the baby won't be a bastard, and it's all better?"
"I don't see anyone else offering marriage," he said.
"It's because they know I'll say now. Every other man in my life understands this isn't about marriage. It's about the fact that we may have created a little person. And we needed to do whatever is best for that person. How will marrying anyone make this work better?"
He looked at me, and there was such pain in his face, such struggle, as if I'd said something incomprehensible. "If you get a pregnant, you marry her, Anita. It's called taking responsibility for your actions."
"And if it's not your baby? Could you really raise someone else's baby? Could you really stay married to me, and play Daddy, as you watched the baby grow to look like something else?"
He covered his face with his hands, and he screamed, "No!" He showed me a face ravaged by rage. The room was suddenly hot again, as if his power were raising the actual temperature. "No, I'd go crazy. Is that what you wanted to hear? Is it?"
So, first of all, I think it's very noble of Richard to offer to marry Anita. He's being proper and a gentleman. A bit old fashioned, but he loves Anita and now he wants to raise the child properly. As opposed to in a house with two men and a mother who sleeps with any guy she comes across. Personally I don't think that's a very healthy way to raise a child. Of course I could be wrong. Also -and I could be totally wrong - but I thought as a Catholic Anita would want to get married because having a child out of wedlock was a sin. It seems that Anita's religion is just as flip-floppy as everything else about her.
Finally, why would Richard care whose baby it is. I mean, some babies don't look like their parents. It's genetics, you know? Lots of genes involved. And Richard doesn't seem to be the sort that would care -beyond the bad characterization. He's willing to marry Anita because he thinks it's right. I think he would welcome the baby, no matter who the father is, because it's Anita's. And he loves Anita, and that's all that matters. The whole bit about the baby belonging to someone else driving him crazy is out of character from what I've seen. It feels forced. The "He covered his face with his hands" seems to me, as a writer, the character not wanting to do what he's being told to do, at least within context of the rest of what is known about him.
The two of them bitch at each other some more when Claudia breaks in. She tells Richard to shut up because "you're making Anita feel worse than she already does". After all, Anita's feelings are the most important ones here. Never mind the fact that Richard is getting equally, if not more beat down. Everyone is against him.
Claudia continues to berate him and tell him that he's living in the 1950s.
Eventually, after about four pages, Samuel buts in. He tells Anita and Richard basically that yes, Anita is going to turn into this other person because she'll have a baby to protect, also that the baby will require a great deal of time attention and energy. As in, it's not likely Anita'll have the strength to take care of the zombies after dealing with feedings every two hours at night.
At this touch of reality, Anita demands to change the subject. Richard does not. The following exchange ensues.
"What if I don't want to change the topic?" Again I got the impression that Richard was spoiling for a fight.
Micah finally said something. "Anita is only asking to change the topic until we know for sure, Richard. That makes sense."
"You stay out of this!" Richard yelled it at him.
"Don't yell at Micah!" I yelled at him.
"I'll yell at whoever I want to yell at," he yelled
Claudia yelled both of us to silence.
Bolding mine. That's four instances of the word "yelled" in four sentences. Rogert's Thesaurus II Has the following synonyms for yell: roar, bellow, bluster, bawl, cry, call, clamor, holler, shout, scream. As well as a few others. These would have easily mixed up the sentences without the redundancy of "yell". "While said" is a non-word, the reader's eye just skipping over it. Other speech descriptors aren't and having the same one all in a row is jarring.
Moving on.
Claudia wants to fight Richard because "he's like so many men. He thinks that if he could just get you pregnant, just get you married, you'd be the perfect little woman."
They bitch some more. It's not really important.
And then Samuel interrupts again saying that perhaps they should move on to other things. Such as what are they going to do if Anita manages to bugger everyone into following her around like puppies. They decide to say that they want to see how powerful candidates are in the hopes that they don't turned into mindless slaves. I'm not really sure how that one will work.
The chapter ends with them Samuel and Sampson leaving for the night and the getting of the pregnancy test. Buhm Buhm Buuum!
Nathaniel has left and Richard wants to know how Anita love him. I'm wondering the same thing. But then again Nathaniel is as pliant as squishy things. Anita is hesitant as to how to answer the question. Her answer? "Because he never makes me feel like a freak."
Richard retorts "Because he is a freak... anyone looks sane besides him."
Look! Look! Sanity! Look! Someone is speaking the truth! Watch it get crumbled and beaten under the threat of Anita!
"First," I said in a very tight, careful voice, "Nathaniel is not a freak. Second, he's willing to disrupt his entire life if he got me pregnant, and you're not. So I'd be careful before you throw stones at his character."
"If you're pregnant, I'll marry you."
The room was suddenly full of one of those silences so thick you should have been able to walk across it. I stared at him for a second, or two, then said, "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Richard, is that all you think it takes to fix this? Marry me so the baby won't be a bastard, and it's all better?"
"I don't see anyone else offering marriage," he said.
"It's because they know I'll say now. Every other man in my life understands this isn't about marriage. It's about the fact that we may have created a little person. And we needed to do whatever is best for that person. How will marrying anyone make this work better?"
He looked at me, and there was such pain in his face, such struggle, as if I'd said something incomprehensible. "If you get a pregnant, you marry her, Anita. It's called taking responsibility for your actions."
"And if it's not your baby? Could you really raise someone else's baby? Could you really stay married to me, and play Daddy, as you watched the baby grow to look like something else?"
He covered his face with his hands, and he screamed, "No!" He showed me a face ravaged by rage. The room was suddenly hot again, as if his power were raising the actual temperature. "No, I'd go crazy. Is that what you wanted to hear? Is it?"
So, first of all, I think it's very noble of Richard to offer to marry Anita. He's being proper and a gentleman. A bit old fashioned, but he loves Anita and now he wants to raise the child properly. As opposed to in a house with two men and a mother who sleeps with any guy she comes across. Personally I don't think that's a very healthy way to raise a child. Of course I could be wrong. Also -and I could be totally wrong - but I thought as a Catholic Anita would want to get married because having a child out of wedlock was a sin. It seems that Anita's religion is just as flip-floppy as everything else about her.
Finally, why would Richard care whose baby it is. I mean, some babies don't look like their parents. It's genetics, you know? Lots of genes involved. And Richard doesn't seem to be the sort that would care -beyond the bad characterization. He's willing to marry Anita because he thinks it's right. I think he would welcome the baby, no matter who the father is, because it's Anita's. And he loves Anita, and that's all that matters. The whole bit about the baby belonging to someone else driving him crazy is out of character from what I've seen. It feels forced. The "He covered his face with his hands" seems to me, as a writer, the character not wanting to do what he's being told to do, at least within context of the rest of what is known about him.
The two of them bitch at each other some more when Claudia breaks in. She tells Richard to shut up because "you're making Anita feel worse than she already does". After all, Anita's feelings are the most important ones here. Never mind the fact that Richard is getting equally, if not more beat down. Everyone is against him.
Claudia continues to berate him and tell him that he's living in the 1950s.
Eventually, after about four pages, Samuel buts in. He tells Anita and Richard basically that yes, Anita is going to turn into this other person because she'll have a baby to protect, also that the baby will require a great deal of time attention and energy. As in, it's not likely Anita'll have the strength to take care of the zombies after dealing with feedings every two hours at night.
At this touch of reality, Anita demands to change the subject. Richard does not. The following exchange ensues.
"What if I don't want to change the topic?" Again I got the impression that Richard was spoiling for a fight.
Micah finally said something. "Anita is only asking to change the topic until we know for sure, Richard. That makes sense."
"You stay out of this!" Richard yelled it at him.
"Don't yell at Micah!" I yelled at him.
"I'll yell at whoever I want to yell at," he yelled
Claudia yelled both of us to silence.
Bolding mine. That's four instances of the word "yelled" in four sentences. Rogert's Thesaurus II Has the following synonyms for yell: roar, bellow, bluster, bawl, cry, call, clamor, holler, shout, scream. As well as a few others. These would have easily mixed up the sentences without the redundancy of "yell". "While said" is a non-word, the reader's eye just skipping over it. Other speech descriptors aren't and having the same one all in a row is jarring.
Moving on.
Claudia wants to fight Richard because "he's like so many men. He thinks that if he could just get you pregnant, just get you married, you'd be the perfect little woman."
They bitch some more. It's not really important.
And then Samuel interrupts again saying that perhaps they should move on to other things. Such as what are they going to do if Anita manages to bugger everyone into following her around like puppies. They decide to say that they want to see how powerful candidates are in the hopes that they don't turned into mindless slaves. I'm not really sure how that one will work.
The chapter ends with them Samuel and Sampson leaving for the night and the getting of the pregnancy test. Buhm Buhm Buuum!