Eileen

Eileen arrives for work at Moorehead. That day, Moorehead celebrates the retirement of the prison’s psychiatrist, Dr. Frye. The narrator describes the mundanity of her job and her fear of the violence displayed by the guards and inmates. She spends most of her time fantasizing about one guard, Randy, and how to make him notice her. 

Eileen is obsessive about her body and protecting it from other people’s notice or touch. She has never been intimate with another person, and though she fantasizes about Randy, she is disgusted by the thought of someone else seeing her naked. She is isolated and lonely. She has begun saving money and plans to run away to New York City when the time is right.

During visiting hours at Moorehead, Eileen hands out mock surveys to the mothers waiting their turn to help them focus their anxiety on a specific task. Eileen enjoys visiting hours. She is often in the room with Randy, who is a former Moorehead inmate himself. Eileen decorates Moorehead’s Christmas tree before leaving.

At home, an X-ville police officer waits for her outside. A complaint has been filed against her father, who aimed his gun from the window at schoolchildren walking home. Eileen thinks nothing of the notice as her father has received many similar ones before. Eileen’s father believes he is being conspired against, that their home is under threat from mysterious enemies he calls “hoodlums.” That evening, her sister Joanie visits; it is the last time they see each other. Joanie lives with her boyfriend in X-ville and shares none of the responsibilities of caring for their father.

Six feet of snow falls on X-ville overnight. Eileen spends the morning in bed. Neither her nor her father bother to feed themselves or clean the house. Eileen drives to Randy’s apartment and watches him, a frequent habit of hers on the weekend. Her fantasies about Randy are her only entertainment. When she arrives at Randy’s apartment, his motorcycle is gone. She decides to go to the cinema, then a boutique, where she shoplifts three pairs of stockings. Eileen describes her ability to put on a “death mask,” or compose her expression in such a way that she seems to have no emotion.

Back home, she and her father share a bottle of whiskey. Eileen reflects on the difficult relationship she has with her sister, Joanie, and the resentment she feels toward her: “She left home at seventeen and abandoned me for a better life with that boyfriend of hers” (64). Though Joanie visits occasionally, she doesn’t take care of their father. Eileen feels trapped as the caretaker. Their father always preferred Joanie for her beauty and sociability, further complicating Eileen’s relationship with him.