This Boy’s Life: Chapter 25 Summary & Analysis

Jack is in shop class, working at the table saw when he feels a sharp pinch—he looks down and sees that the ring finger on his left hand is spouting blood. He has severed part of it at the last joint. He faints, and his teacher takes him to the doctor, who, after assessing the finger, brings him to the hospital in Mount Vernon for surgery. He goes under the knife that very afternoon and awakes the next morning in the hospital, where he stays for almost a week while his doctor observes him to make sure his finger doesn’t get infected.

By the time Jack gets home he is addicted to morphine, which his nurses gave him freely as his pain was so bad. Back at home, the pain tablets his doctor has prescribed him do almost nothing for his pain, and he is on top of everything else experiencing the pain of withdrawing from morphine. Since he doesn’t know what’s happening to him, he wonders if his life is going to be one unending marathon of pain.

Seeking to find a way to numb the pain, Jack steals some of Dwight’s whisky; he can barely swallow it down, though, and adds some water to the bottle before replacing it. A couple of days later, Dwight asks Jack if he watered down the whisky. When Jack, emboldened by his pain, answers that he’s “not the drinker in this house,” Dwight pushes Jack and knocks him off his feet. As Jack falls, he puts his hands out behind him—and lands on his bad finger. Pain rips through him and he thrashes on the floor, barely conscious. When he comes to his senses, he is sitting on the couch drenched in sweat. Rosemary comforts Jack and tells him that it’s “all over;” she promises Jack that they are getting out at last.

Rosemary talks to Chuck Bolger’s parents, and they agree to take Jack in for a few months until the end of the school year. Rosemary, in the meantime, plans to look for work in Seattle, in hopes of moving Jack down there when she’s settled. Though Chuck’s father, Mr. Bolger, believes that Jack is a wild child, he is a religious man and does not turn down Jack’s request for “asylum.” He makes Jack promise that he will help out at the store, go to church each week, and will refrain from smoking, drinking, and swearing in the house. Jack agrees to the conditions.

On the day that Chuck comes to collect Jack from Chinook, Dwight takes Jack aside and says he wants to talk to him. Jack, though, simply shakes his head and walks away, getting into Chuck’s car. Dwight comes over to the window and sticks his hand out for Jack to shake. Jack is helpless to stop himself from returning the handshake, though he and Dwight hate each other “so much that other feelings [don’t] get enough light.” As Chuck drives Jack away, he passes Jack a bottle of liquor; Chuck himself sips from the bottle as they make their way to Chuck’s house.

Looking back now on his time in Chinook, the older Tobias reflects on how his hatred of Dwight—and Dwight’s hatred of him—“disfigured” him and ruined his childhood. Now, when he thinks of Chinook, he has to struggle to see the faces of his friends and the rooms of his home and school. The only thing that remains clear is Dwight’s face and voice. Now, when Tobias gets angry at his own children, he hears Dwight’s anger in his voice, and becomes frightened.