Stuck In Neutral

Shawn’s dad and Cindy fly to Los Angeles to tape the show. Paul refuses to join. They fly back in time for a family showing. The show caters to “an uneducated, loud audience [which Shawn finds] pretty ridiculous” (68-69). The host, Alice, makes every matter seem as controversial and outrageous as possible, talking about parents who kill their children and introducing Sydney and Cindy and the topic today: Earl Detraux, who the audience boos. Alice lists Detraux amongst other parents who have killed their children.

Paul sneaks Shawn a potato chip, and Shawn feels a small seizure come on: “for the first ten minutes of the program my mouth is blessed by Frito-Lay while my brain is a short-circuiting wad of useless electrical static” (71). After his seizure is over, Shawn comes back to his father saying he loves him, and that Detraux loved his son, too, which stuns the audience. Alice falters, but then criticizes anyone who could kill someone they claimed to love, and the audience hoots accordingly. Sydney maintains that no parent tries to be a bad parent, but sometimes they hurt their children nonetheless, and it is impossible to imagine watching your child suffer for years and not take responsibility for that: “’we do have to make hard choices every day to be good parents, to truly take responsibility for our children”’ (73). The audience applauds.

Sydney continues, asking how many people have told others to put them out of their misery if they are brain-damaged and in a coma. Alice tries to steer the conversation away from voluntary euthanasia, and Sydney replies that Detraux “‘was a man who did what he thought he had to do’” (74). Alice calls Detraux a child killer, which Sydney tries to refute. Alice then shows a picture of Detraux’s son. Sydney says that seizures killed Detraux’s son, and they watch a video of Sydney interviewing Detraux in prison.

In the interview, Detraux speaks about prison, and then about how he didn’t murder his son so much as end his son’s suffering, which his son was helpless to do by himself. Detraux cries and says that his son’s suffering had to stop, regardless of the law, and that if he had to, he’d do it over again. Sydney asks what would happen if next week, doctors could magically cure his son. Detraux answers that while he was doing it, he hoped that God would intervene and prayed that his son wouldn’t struggle. After he was gone, Detraux felt that his son was at peace for the first time in his life.

The living room is silent, and no one looks at Shawn, who agrees that love means putting someone else first. Shawn believes Detraux loved his son and did what he thought was best, and he also feels “Dad is trying to find a reason, any reason, not to kill me” (80). Shawn has a seizure before the talk show comes back on the air.

Shawn’s seizure is so severe he cannot concentrate on the talk show, and he floats away over his house and garden, “not really feeling anything…but experiencing everything in me and around me as pure joy” (81). He thinks about how much he loves his family and experiencing life, and he does not want to die. He wakes up tired in his body to the TV turned off and Paul and Cindy speaking quietly about whether Sydney will kill Shawn, although it is hard for him to make out what they are saying at first.

Paul says, “’Detraux was willing to give up his whole life for it. Dad’s too selfish for that’” (83), and then compliments Cindy on the way she spoke about dealing with the burden of Shawn. Shawn knows that this is how both of them must feel but has never heard them speak about it before. Paul and Cindy mock one of the show’s audience members, and Cindy worries about Shawn’s safety. Paul says if their dad wanted to do anything, “‘he’d have to come through me’” (85).

Shawn remembers last summer when he was on the porch and Paul was doing gardening as punishment for staying out too late. Two strangers, waiting for the bus, asked Shawn if the bus had come yet. When Shawn doesn’t answer, they get angry and mock Shawn, saying they’re going to “’slap you around til you show a little respect’” (86-87). They come up on the porch and make more cruel jokes, and then burn Shawn with a lighter.

Paul comes around the side of the house and tackles them, beating one guy unconscious and leaving the other guy curled up in the fetal position. Paul gets a can of gasoline and pours it over them, grabbing the lighter as the conscious guy pleads for his life. The lighter misfires. Shawn states that the “whole world smelled of gasoline” (89).

Cindy comes out of nowhere and pushes Paul, and he grabs her like he is about to hit her while she screams for him to stop. Paul lets her go, and Cindy asks what happened. Paul explains that they were burning Shawn, and Cindy tells the strangers to leave before Paul kills them: “I never loved and feared Paul more in that moment” (91), but Shawn knows that no one can protect Shawn from his father.