Unhitched chapter notes …
This was a total indulgence chapter on my part.
Hopper starts realizing that he only has one life, so he better suck it up and starts working towards laying to rest all the shit that’s ever bothered him. He’s letting the chips fall where they may, so to speak, which is why he puts up with Butcher’s behavior.
This is a chapter where you get to see a new angle to the boys. Hopper is cynical but agreeable, Butcher is indifferent and almost child-like in his apathy.
In the end, they work together to get the body buried all the while Hopper is finally allowing shit to roll off his back, rather than internalizing it.
Not a lot of depth to this chapter but it wasn’t supposed to be overly emotional except for Hop’s eulogy.
Butcher’s coin is his canon 20-franc from 1904.
When my indecision gets the best of me, he says, “Then Marianne decides,” and he pulls a strange gold coin from his pocket.
“What’s that?” I ask, yanking his hand to my face. It’s a twenty-franc gold coin with a woman’s face on one side and rooster on the back. He withdraws his hand and flicks it up, catching it before it hits the ground.
“Mary follows you, and the cock follows me,” he says with a smile. The goddamn dick jokes are getting old. “And we’ll let daddy pick.” His thumb tings against the coin and it flips off his finger, spinning over and over as it arcs away from us and lands in the freshly-turned dirt of my father’s grave.
Marrianne is actually the name of the woman on the coin; she’s a French symbol. The back’s the cock, of course.