Boy Swallows Universe: Boy Kills Bull Summary & Analysis

Eli looks through Mum’s half-open bedroom door as she puts on a necklace. She’s dressed up in her fancy red dress, and she’s so beautiful. How could any man—namely Dad—mess this up? It makes Eli so mad. He slips in and tries to ask why she left Dad, but as usual, she refuses to talk about it. She does say that Dad is a good man. Then, Eli asks if August ever scares Mum. He admits August scares him, and he tells Mum about finding Caitlyn Spies’s name in the paper after August was writing her name in the air weeks ago. Mum insists that August just loves how words sound, even if he doesn’t speak.

Mum asks Eli how she looks. She’s gorgeous, and Eli tells her so—but Mum says she’s “Mutton dressed up as a lamb.” This makes Eli angry, and he tells Mum she’s too good for this house and for Lyle. He insists that “arseholes” keep getting the lamb because the lamb thought she was mutton. Mum tells Eli to stop, but he says she should’ve been a lawyer, not a drug dealer.

Mum slaps Eli and screams at him to get out. Eli screams back that it’s absurd for her to make him eat his vegetables when she and Lyle are dealing drugs. Then, Lyle appears behind Eli and tosses him into the doorframe. Lyle kicks Eli as Eli shouts curses. August tries to get between them, but Lyle grabs Eli by his collar and marches him out the front door.

Lyle walks Eli to the cricket pitch. He asks what got into Eli, but Eli starts to cry. Lyle asks if Eli knows why he cries so easily. Eli insists he’s just a “pussy,” but Lyle says that isn’t true: Eli just cares, and he’s not afraid to show it. Lyle then says that Eli is right; Mum is too good for him. They look at the stars and Lyle says that he wants to get out of here; that’s why he works for Tytus Broz. He suggests they make a deal. He needs six months, and then, they can move wherever Eli wants. Eli says he wants to move to The Gap because of the cul-de-sacs, and he agrees to the deal—provided Lyle lets Eli work for him.

Soon after, Eli follows his family to Bich Dang’s Vietnamese restaurant. The restaurant’s interior is huge, as big as a cinema. A woman in a sequined dress sings on a stage as Eli follows his family past fish tanks and up to the balcony. This is where Tytus Broz’s 80th birthday party is taking place. Tytus always makes Eli think of bones. He’s wearing a bone-white suit and tie, and his hair is also white. He’s bony and thin. Eli also thinks of bones because Tytus made his fortune creating prosthetics and orthotics at Human Touch, the plant where Lyle works as a mechanic. Teddy, the friend who got Lyle the job, is also at the party. Eli also thinks of bones when he sees Tytus because just seeing Tytus makes Eli shiver.

Eli first met Tytus two years ago, when Lyle had to take Eli and August into work with him. The plant was just a warehouse then, and all the prosthetic limbs terrified Eli. Lyle ushered the boys into Tytus’s office. Behind Tytus’s desk was a painting of Moby Dick, the white whale. (Since learning what Moby-Dick is about, Eli now thinks of the crazy Captain Ahab when he sees Tytus.) Tytus took August’s hand and said there was strength there. Lyle explained August doesn’t talk, and when Tytus laughed about autism, Eli interjected that there was nothing wrong with August. Tytus then felt Eli’s arm and deemed Eli “weak-boned.” Tytus told Eli about the real, plastinated hand on his desk, and Eli told a story proving that August can see the future. Tytus said he’d keep an eye on August.

Back in the present, Tytus kisses Mum on both cheeks and then introduces his daughter, Hanna, to his guests. According to Lyle, Hanna inspired Tytus’s prosthetics business, as she was born without forearms and hands. Hanna shakes Mum’s hand with her plastic one and smiles warmly. Then, Eli sees another man, who seems to be made of stone rather than bones. The man is staring at Eli, and Eli feels like he’s seeing things from many vantage points. Tytus calls the man Iwan and jokes that August doesn’t talk, just like Iwan. Iwan says he talks and then picks up a beer. Bich Dang and Darren appear moments later and announce the start of dinner. 

Eli looks around at everyone at the table, but Darren hisses at him to stop staring at Iwan Krol. Darren refuses to look at Iwan and says it’s Iwan’s job to look disturbing. He apparently owns a llama farm by day, and by night, he “gives people the creeps.” Doing his best to make it sound scary, Darren says Iwan has killed people, but what makes him scary are the rumors. Darren sings a song and laughs, but stops suddenly when Iwan looks his way. Eli begs for more information and says he has to know, since he’s going to start helping Lyle by watching for “details.”

To demonstrate what this means, Eli looks around. He doesn’t mention seeing Teddy staring at Mum, but he tells Darren all the little things he notices about their party, such as how Tytus keeps his hand on Hanna’s thigh and how Hanna has barely eaten. Darren admits he didn’t notice a lot of those things and agrees to tell Eli about Iwan. Darren says that Iwan murdered his own brother 30 years ago, and the body disappeared. Iwan is brilliant because his targets just disappear. Darren says Iwan dismembers his targets—and takes them to Tytus Broz, “the Lord of the Limbs.” 

On the walk home, Eli hangs back with Lyle as Mum and August pretend to be Olympic gymnasts on some log edging. Eli asks Lyle if he’s thought about the proposition. Lyle just sighs, but Eli insists that the federal police are trying to stop the drug trade by stopping drug importers before they reach Australia. Soon, there won’t be enough drugs—so Lyle and Eli should buy up as much as they can now, bury it, and sell it in a few years when it’s worth more. Lyle tells Eli to stop spending time with Darren. Eli says he can’t drop Darren, since Bich will sell them more heroin if the boys are friends. Soon, they’ll be able to afford two houses in The Gap.

Eli has no answer when Lyle asks what happens when Tytus finds out and sends Iwan after them. Eli kicks a soft drink can, and Lyle scolds Eli to pick it up. Lyle says this neighborhood was once as nice as The Gap until people stopped taking care of it. Eli insists heroin is to blame, but he picks the can up and says, “The drop in the lake.” Seeing Lyle’s confused expression, Eli explains his theory.

Eli says for Mum, the drop in the lake happened when her dad left when she was a teen. This caused Mum to drop out of school, hitchhike around the country, and get kidnapped. She met Dad when she escaped her kidnapper’s car and asked road workers for help. Lyle sighs and insists that Eli can’t help him, and that he should stop asking questions about Iwan, too. But Eli says he can see things Lyle can’t see, like Teddy falling in love with Mum.