The Road to Tender Hearts

They stop in Ohio to eat. Since they have a long car ride ahead, PJ finishes the story about Michelle Cobb. After the knife attack in the bathroom, PJ was in jail with a nearly severed finger. He fell asleep and woke up near a strange man who told him he could predict his future. He at first thought the man was his father. PJ never knew his father because his mother got pregnant with him after traveling all over the country and having multiple boyfriends. The man asked PJ to buy him pretzels from the vending machine, stating that he had had a vision of his own death, in which he died by choking on a pretzel. PJ refused to buy the pretzels, not wanting to cause another’s death. Michelle Cobb and Gene Bartlett came to bail PJ out, and the man told both boys that Michelle would be “[…] the best thing that will ever happen to you” (165). When Gene escaped the draft because he had bone spurs, he and Michelle fell in love while PJ was in Vietnam. PJ is confident that in Arizona he will have another chance at love with Michelle.