33 pages • 1-hour read
Tex
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Chapters 10-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 10 Summary
Tex flees the school after finding out the truth about Pop, where he runs into Lem again and asks for a ride. Lem says he must meet with his supplier and Tex agrees to go along. Tex continues to think about what he will do and where he will go while on the way and he does not intend to go back home. They arrive at an apartment complex, where Lem engages in a conversation with a man who seems perturbed. Tex is distracted as he contemplates his predicament and wounded feelings. As the conversation grows more heated, Tex decides to leave, annoyed by Lem’s stoned behavior. The man begins to scream that Tex is a “narc,” acting frenzied. He pulls a gun and points it at Tex, preventing him from leaving. Tex, enraged by his own situation, acts brazenly, rushing at the man and pulling the gun away from him—but not before he shoots the gun. Tex threatens him with the gun, but Lem begs him to reconsider. He and Lem leave, and Tex reveals that he has been shot.
Lem is afraid to take him to a hospital, so they stop at a pay phone outside of a grocery store. Tex calls Jamie—he can’t remember his own phone number—and asks her to call Mason. Jamie hands the phone to Mr. Cole, who calls an ambulance to Tex’s location. Tex continues to lose blood and slumps onto the ground. He keeps asking for Mason, as Lem begs him not to die. His last thought before losing consciousness is that he wants to see Jamie.
Chapter 11 Summary
Tex wakes up in the hospital, bandaged and sore. Mason is beside him and has a Band-Aid on his forehead. When Tex next wakes up, he is questioned by the police about the incident. This time, Tex does not really want the attention: “I was a little tired of being in the news” (196).
After Tex recuperates to some degree, Pop tells him the story of his mother and their relationship. His mother didn’t agree with Pop’s “bootleggin’ business” (197), and Pop served some time in prison for his activities. Clare, his mother, was only 19 and already had Mason to care for, so she befriended another man on the rodeo circuit. The was Tex’s father. Afterwards, the relationship suffered because of the mutual lack of trust. After a stubborn fight where his mother walked through the snow to attend a Christmas party, Clare caught pneumonia and died. Tex asks Pop if he had always paid more attention to Mason because of these facts. Pop answers, “I reckon” (200).
Later, Johnny and Jamie come in to see Tex. After Johnny leaves the room, Jamie tells him everything that happened since the shooting: Mason attacked Lem in the hospital waiting room. While Tex was in surgery, Mason cried and was inconsolable. Jamie says that she didn’t cry. Tex tries to kiss her, but she pulls away after a minute. She is still resistant to the idea of love. Cole comes in—Tex knows now he is the one who called the ambulance—and makes sure Tex knows he does not approve of any relationship between Tex and Jamie.
Chapter 12 Summary
A month later, Tex is back home with Mason. He has received a letter from Lem telling him that he has left town for Arizona. Tex decides not to inform Mason. Tex still has the job working with horses for the summer.
Mason, on the other hand, is struggling as to whether he will go on to college. He doesn’t want to leave Tex, but he desperately wants to leave Garyville. Tex encourages him to go. Mason talks about the hitchhiker who kidnapped them, expressing his worries for Tex. “He hated everything and everybody. I thought that’s what finding out [about Pop] would do to you. I couldn’t stand that” (210). Tex encourages Mason to go to college and says he’ll take Mason to the airport when it’s time for him to leave. They decide to go fishing together the next morning.
Chapters 10-12 Analysis
In the final chapters of the book, Tex acts recklessly yet again—this time out of wounded feelings and rage. His reaction to being shot, and the danger in which he placed himself, is different this time. He does not seek attention, just understanding. He now understands why—no matter how attention-seeking his behavior is—his Pop does not respond to him the same way he does to Mason. He understands who his true father has been all along: “Whenever I was scared Mason was there” (192).
As Pop tells him the story of his ill-fated marriage to Tex’s mother, Tex begins to comprehend Pop’s true character. He has always been reckless, and Tex has emulated him. Now that Tex knows the truth, he will follow a different path. Pop tells Tex that his mother loved him just as much as she loved Mason, and Tex notices how that effects Pop: “You could tell that half-puzzled him, even now” (199). While painful, the revelation emphasizes the expectation that Tex will create a different life for himself. In Chapter 12, Tex balks at going hunting—he’s had enough of guns—and instead wants to go fishing. His wounds, both physical and emotional, have shaped him.
The brothers also heal their own wounded feelings for each other. Tex has been a burden to Mason, yet now Mason contemplates sacrificing college for him. Mason sold Tex’s beloved horse, yet now Tex knows why he had to do so. Mason’s love and devotion for him are clear, and Tex understands that he has been protecting him from Pop all these years. In the end, though, Tex has reached adulthood. He knows his father will go and he encourages his brother to go. He will decide what kind of man to be on his own. As he himself repeats throughout the book, “[t]here are people who go places and people who stay” (211). Tex is happy right where he is.
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