That's the day I need to have this draft of NWFO done so I can send it out for proofing and editing. April 30th, I'm off to Rhode Island to oversee a pickup, then May 5th I'm running to Dallas, San Francisco and Sacramento for other packing jobs. So I won't have the time I need to work on it till after...and that'd make things too tight to make my deadline.
That sort of ties into his thoughts when he and Scott are discussing the mass murders committed by Dean Corll and Elmer Wayne Henley. Scott insists there has to be a reason or explanation that will help people understand why Henley and David Brooks would take male friends of theirs to Corll to be raped and killed.
Brendan points out they were just guys being paid -- money, car, drugs -- and there's something in many people where self-interest takes over and concerns for others vanish. He saw that happen in Derry, with Billy helping his uncle prepare for the attack on the People's Democracy marchers at Burntollet Bridge, and Colm casually helping kneecap Paidrig, who'd been his buddy since before he met Brendan, all over cigarettes.
Scott insists there has to be some existential cause but to Brendan it's just immediate circumstances and luck of the draw. If during Bloody Sunday he'd moved an inch to the left, he'd have been killed by a soldier instead of just hit by shrapnel. And the Paratroopers had stormed into the anti-internment march with live ammunition in their weapons, ready to commit slaughter.
So now he's nearly killed a man he didn't even know in order to protect someone he did know, and it emphasizes his belief that circumstances are what count all too often in all too many situations, not deliberate thought.
Because if he had thought through him defending that friend, he'd only have used a baseball bat to crack the attacker's knees, thus stopping him, instead of aiming for his head.
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