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Book 4: Go West, Young Man
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Middlesex, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Rebirth vs. Continuity
Ancestry, Inheritance, and Fate
False Binaries
Migration, Ethnicity, and the American Dream
Secrets
Summary
Analysis
The man who picks up Cal is named Bob Presto. Presto is surprised when Cal doesn’t know the name of the city where Stanford is located. He offers Cal an abundance of snacks and soft drinks, and Cal is “too hungry to refuse.” Presto reflects that college was the best time of his life, and adds that he hopes Cal is ready for all the action with girls he is about to get. Presto used to work for his college radio station, and advises Cal that “Voice is a big turn-on for women.” He advises Cal that he should learn to sing. Presto then asks Cal his age, and says that he initially took Cal for a girl. He then saw Cal with “that queer,” and asks if Cal is gay.
At first, it is difficult to tell if Bob Presto is another predator. His interest in Cal’s sex life and questions about his sexuality seem to indicate that this might be the case. Again, however, Cal’s vulnerable position means that he ends up trusting people even when there are signs they might have shady intentions.
Themes
Panicking, Cal asks to get out, but Presto apologizes and assures him that he’ll stop talking, which he does. After they stop and Presto buys Cal lunch, Cal relaxes. Back on the road, Presto asks Cal to hand him a variety of pill bottles, explaining that he contracted hepatitis while in Thailand, which badly damaged his liver. When they get to San Francisco, Presto drops Cal off in the Haight. He notes that Stanford is in Palo Alto, and that Cal should probably remember this fact. He then asks Cal if he is a “tranny,” adding, “I’m in the business.” Cal quickly goes to leave, but Presto gives him his number, advising him to call him if he wants any work.
Presto is certainly something of a sketchy character, if not an outright sinister one. The problem that Cal now faces is that it might be hard for him to find people who aren’t sketchy in some way. As Presto points out, Cal’s claim to be a Stanford student is pretty hard to believe considering he doesn’t even know where the school is. His naïveté leaves him vulnerable, especially now he has reached San Francisco.
Themes
Tessie feels a profound, spiritual attachment to Callie, and senses that she is alive but hungry. After Callie’s disappearance, Tessie and Milton remained in New York for a week before being advised by an NYPD detective to go home in case Callie showed up there. Before they go, Dr. Luce informs them that Callie may have read and misunderstood her file. When Milton demands to see it for himself, Dr. Luce refuses. Furious, Milton says he blames Dr. Luce for Callie running away. After, Tessie vows that she would never let Dr. Luce near Callie again. The couple go back to Detroit, and Tessie begins taking tranquilizers to calm her nerves.
Dr. Luce’s patronizing attitude—both in characterizing Cal as having “misunderstood” in his file and in refusing to let Milton see the file for himself—is another example of medical doctors mistreating intersex people and their families by failing to keep them properly informed. As is obvious now, this can have disastrous results.
Themes
Tessie thinks about Callie, wondering how her daughter could possibly be a boy. She begins to reevaluate her entire impression of her child, and wonders if Callie’s sudden insistence on being a boy could be correct. Milton, meanwhile, throws himself into participating in the police search for Callie. He makes sure photographs of Callie are circulated so far and wide that the San Francisco police station receives them, although Cal looks so wildly different from this picture that there is no chance of anyone recognizing him from it. The friends and relatives who previously deserted Milton and Tessie start coming over again to offer support. Father Mike holds Tessie’s hand and offers his prayers.
Even though Cal has told his parents that he identifies as a boy, they struggle to perceive him that way. (Thus, in this part of the novel when Cal is depicted as he is understood by his parents, it is with the name Callie and she/her pronouns). Of course, it is extra difficult for Milton and Tessie to process the fact that Cal identifies as a boy because as soon as he begins to identify that way, he also disappears from their lives.
Themes
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San Francisco is famously shrouded in fog. Following World War II, the city was “the main point of reentry for sailors returning from the Pacific.” Homosexual relations among these sailors was common, and before long San Francisco became the center of gay life in the U.S. Now, the fog hides Cal and his new friends. On his third day in the Haight, Cal is eating a banana split when a scrawny teenager asks him for money. Cal points out that he himself could ask the same thing. The kid offers to show Cal the safe places to stay in the park if Cal buys him a hamburger, and Cal eventually agrees.
At least in San Francisco, Cal is not only at the mercy of adults but also finds other young people with whom he can build relationships of mutual support and solidarity. As Matt indicates, homeless young people must stick together—they can’t harbor any selfishness but must share what they have in order to survive.
Themes
The kid’s name is Matt; he came to San Francisco while following the Grateful Dead and never went home. Now he lives in the park and sells Grateful Dead T-shirts and, occasionally, drugs. Cal becomes close to Matt’s group of homeless friends, and learns how to survive in the park from them. When one of them gets a girlfriend, Cal distances himself, worried that girls will be able to perceive his secret. The Deadheads Cal befriends look after each other, taking turns to guard everyone’s belongings so that they don’t get stolen. Along with the others, Cal reads about Buddhism. One kid claims that the Buddha dropped acid, and that this was how he reached enlightenment.
During this period, many young people are flocking to San Francisco and living a life that revolves around music, drugs, and sex. Many of them live on the streets, like Cal, Matt, and their friends. While this does not necessarily make Cal much safer, it does give him access to a community, as well as knowledge about how to take care of himself. The random group of Deadheads thus end up being facilitators of his rebirth as a male.
Themes
Cal is running out of money. Every day he buys burgers for the group of kids, which cost 75 cents each. He chooses not to deal drugs or start begging, but starts feeling increasingly desperate. Meanwhile, Milton calls Chapter Eleven and asks him to come home, explaining that Tessie is going through a terrible time with Callie being missing. In response, Chapter Eleven starts coming to visit on weekends. Milton offers Chapter Eleven the chance to take over Hercules Hot Dogs one day, an offer Chapter Eleven neither accepts nor refuses, although he does point out that he doesn’t eat meat. Jokingly, Milton suggests that his son can be in charge of developing a salad bar.
Milton’s softened attitude toward his eldest son is no doubt caused by his distress over Cal’s disappearance. Realizing that he needs to make an effort to keep his children close, Milton reaches out to Chapter Eleven—even if this means attempting to cross the gigantic ideological and cultural chasm that has formed between them.
Themes
Milton drives Chapter Eleven to a Hercules Hot Dogs branch and introduces him to the manager, Gus, as the “future boss.” Gus is extra friendly, and Chapter Eleven soon realizes it is because he assumes the worst about Callie’s disappearance. On Sunday, Milton asks Tessie to light a candle for Callie at church, saying, “Couldn’t hurt.” After, he curses himself for this lapse into superstition.
Milton’s desperation is here underlined by his request that Tessie light a candle at church, despite the fact that Milton has spent his entire adult life vehemently opposed to religion. Yet he now realizes getting Cal back is more important than his pride.
Themes
The Grateful Dead come to play a show in Berkeley, and while the rest of the group are gone, Cal is charged with watching over of the camp. While he is sleeping, he is attacked by two homeless men who rob him looking for drugs. They search his wallet and finds his ID, and suddenly declare that Cal is a woman. Pinning Cal down, they wrestle off his jeans, but on seeing Cal’s genitals back away in horror. One says, “It’s a fucking freak […] I’m gonna puke.” One of them kicks Cal in the head before running off. Cal gathers his things in his suitcase. Using his remaining 75 cents, he calls Bob Presto.
The brutal violence that Cal is subjected to here is again an all too prevalent issue for intersex and transgender young people. Yet notice the similarity between the homeless men’s morbid curiosity about Cal’s gender and the invasive voyeurism of Dr. Luce and his peers. One may be less overtly violent, but is it ultimately any less painful and damaging?
Themes
