Moving along...

I think I'm into a smoother part of APoS Book Two, now. Scott takes Brendan to a gay bar where they're having a drag show, intending to get Brendan drunk and in trouble. He's upset he didn't get the pool house for himself. He'd already tried to do it once at his father's bar, but Brendan turned out not to like rum and coke so ignored the loaded drink.

So Brendan has a single Coors during the drag show, while Scott winds up being fed boilermakers by a man seated next to him and gets too loaded to drive. Meanwhile, Brendan, who was nervous and ready to run at the start, has calmed down and made the acquaintance of Everett, a gay man who's decent and kind, and sees a couple of kids in trouble.

He takes both boys back to his place, driving Scott's GTO, and fixes tea for Brendan, then he drives them home. He's a solid counterpoint to the Corll serial killings unfolding at the time, and will have a major impact on Brendan's life, in Houston.

Something that's begun to happen is Brendan beginning to see Corll's murders as connected to the mass murder of Bloody Sunday and the molestation of children by priests in the Catholic Church. Especially as regards his friend, Danny. I'm still thinking through how best to show this, but Brendan's sensing there's a streak of brutal selfishness in people, and while some can control it others either can't or won't. And though it rarely blossoms into murder, it does make some fight to take care of their wants and desires above everyone else's, even if they cause others trouble. Rather like what the GOP is doing, now.

I'm sure others have dug into this idea far more completely and properly than I ever could, but by keeping it at Brendan's level...as he's working through memories of seeing a good friend help men prepare to attack Eamonn on the PD march, and constables attacking peaceful demonstrators on October 5th, and the murderous expressions on the paratroopers shooting unarmed people on Bloody Sunday, he's also finding it happens in Houston, and the idea begins to explain things to him. He finally figures out something like...it's just part of man's nature, neither evil nor good. Those are labels used to condemn or praise, often without considering of the true meaning behind the actions being referred to.

But this is a new aspect of the story I'm still circling around. I may be laying too much onto it. However, it's better to have too much to put in than not enough.