Boy Swallows Universe: Boy Seeks Help Summary & Analysis

It’s five days until Christmas. Eli can’t sleep because his secondhand mattress smells like urine and Dad is groaning in the other room. Dad didn’t drink today because he’s coming off of a three-day bender. On the first night he got so drunk that Eli and August were able to tie his shoelaces together and trip him. On the second day, Dad went out and menacingly wrapped a dog chain around his hand when he got home. Eli and August didn’t sleep that night. On the morning of the third day, Dad played the cassette of Mum’s favorite song, “Ruby Tuesday,” on repeat until he destroyed the tape. He eventually passed out next to a puddle of bloody vomit. Eli used Dad’s finger to write “SEEK HELP DAD” in the mess.

Eli hears Dad making noise again. Dad is calling for August, but August doesn’t stir. Eli goes to Dad’s doorway—and Dad can’t breathe. He asks Eli to call an ambulance. When the ambulance arrives, the neighbor, Pamela Waters, watches and knowingly says “another turn” to Eli. The paramedics also seem to know what’s happening as they carry Dad out of the house and give him an oxygen mask. Terrified, Eli asks Dad if he’s alright. In a tender tone that Eli remembers from another time that Dad was on a gurney, Dad says that he's alright and that he’s going to fix himself. The ambulance takes Dad away.

In the morning, Eli and August watch an ibis with fishing line wound around its leg limp through their yard. Then, Eli grabs Dad’s ancient, rusting bike and rides down the street. Everyone’s life on this street has been tragic: one woman didn’t accept that her baby had died until it had been dead six days, and a man tried to kill himself by running his lawnmower in the garage. Kids don’t notice their moms covering bruises with concealer.

Shelly Huffman calls to Eli from her window, interrupting his reverie. She offers Eli her cigarette, acts nonchalant about the fact that her family went to the beach without her (she can’t walk on the sand anymore), and then observes that Dad had a panic attack last night. Shelly says her mum used to get panic attacks, but she was cured when Shelly was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy. Perspective, Shelly says, cured her mum. She invites Eli to play cricket, but Eli refuses. Knowingly, Shelly says August told her about “the plan” by writing it in the air, which annoys Eli. She says Eli is “nuts,” but he’s sweet, too. Eli considers staying with Shelly. Maybe they’ll kiss. But it’s so unfair that Iwan Krol is strong and violent, while Shelly can’t even walk across the sand.

Eli thinks of Lyle’s stories about the Hornibrook Bridge as he bikes onto the bridge and it starts to rain. In the middle of the bridge, Slim is fishing. As rain picks up, they discuss how the fishing is going and then, Slim asks if Eli is sure he wants to go through with it. “This” might not work. The men in Boggo Road have it easy since nobody loves them—it’s the female prisoners whose comparatively short sentences, like Mum’s two and a half years, feel like forever, all because they have kids on the outside. Eli asks if Slim believes what he says about the man on the red telephone, since Dad doesn’t. Slim does, but he also thinks Dad isn’t right not to let Eli see Mum in prison.

Sighing, Slim says his man, George, has agreed to help in exchange for Slim helping his brother years ago. George runs a fruit wholesale business and delivers fruit to the Boggo Road prisons, in addition to contraband that the guards are paid to ignore. However, he’s never smuggled in a 13-year-old who childishly wants to see his mother on Christmas Day. Slim warns Eli that when he gets caught, he must insist he knows nothing about George. The guards will want to smuggle Eli back out quickly, since they won’t want it to get out that a kid broke in.

Slim lights a cigarette and pulls out a slip of paper. He says he’s been thinking about good and bad, and when Eli asked about it in the hospital, Slim should’ve told him it’s just a choice. When Eli objects, Slim says that even he had a choice. And now Eli has a choice: he can take this paper, or he can enjoy Christmas with Dad and stop trying to do Mum’s time for her. Eli asks if Slim will be angry if he takes the paper. When Slim shakes his head, Eli pockets the paper.

Flatly, Slim says they can’t see each other anymore. Eli has to leave “this crook bullshit” behind. Crying now, Eli says that Slim is his only friend, but Slim says that Eli will get to go on and live his life. Suddenly angry, Eli says that Slim probably killed the cab driver, since he’s so cruel. When Eli starts to scream, Slim shouts back for Eli to stop—and then a coughing fit grips him. When it passes, Slim says he deserved to be in prison, even if he didn’t kill that man. In any case, he says, Eli should be thinking about girls, not Slim’s innocence. Eli needs to tell his own story, not others’ stories.

Slim’s fishing rod bends. The strain of holding on sends him into a coughing fit again, so he passes the rod to Eli. As he coughs up blood, he coaches Eli through reeling in the fish. Eli feels panicky as he fights with the fish and notices how emaciated Slim looks these days. Slim tells Eli to keep fighting, and Eli realizes he’s winning. But as Eli shouts to Slim that he got the fish, he realizes Slim is lying on his back with blood on his lips. Eli lets the fish go and sobs over Slim’s body, apologizing.