Acceleration

“Having a future’s way overrated.”

As Duncan and Wayne discuss Wayne’s job at Dairy Barn, the latter reveals his tendency to focus on the moment. His small-time criminal exploits are the acts of someone who expects an early death or a future in prison. He doesn’t take his job seriously because he does not believe it will last. This foreshadows the moment when his boss fires him after believing he stole 600 dollars. 

“He frowns, holding the bottom of the club up to the light. Probably scratched from my putting with it on cement. For some reason this makes me happy. This guy goes through life with his perfect hair and shining eyes. Like life’s a dream. He could use a little scratch on his perfection.” 

For most of the novel, Duncan is unable to find pleasure or peace in normal activities. He resents those who appear to have lives of privilege and ease. He enjoys watching the man inspect his damaged putter, his happiness compounded by his own hand in it. Duncan frames the game of golf as a leisurely activity for people who don’t understand hardship, and he assumes that the man in front of him has no problems.

“You’ve locked yourself up in some dark little prison cell. And you want me to join you. But I can’t live like that.”

Kim doesn’t want to break up with Duncan, but his guilt and grief at Maya’s death are so consuming that they threaten to damage her as well. She sees Duncan as inhabiting a prison of his own making, a self-imposed punishment with no current prospects for escape—a “prison” he doesn’t deserve, but one she’s unwilling to share.

“I’m the one who found the diary. For a reason. This is my second chance.”

Duncan taking responsibility for Roach’s journal reveals the depths of his obsession and guilt. Neither Maya’s death nor the pursuit of a killer is his responsibility, but he believes that stopping Roach will absolve him of the past.

“What a waste…now he’s pretending to be a politician. What a waste of all that muscle. He’s supposed to be out killing stuff.”

Vinny comments on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s performance in the Terminator trilogy. He equates Schwarzenegger’s physique with how he should live his life (i.e., “killing stuff”). He also finds the trilogy’s fictional violence entertaining in the same way that Roach does with real violence. Duncan and Wayne see themselves in a similar way, albeit without killing: They live in the Jungle, therefore their fate, their function, is to be impoverished and without prospects. 

“It’s the duty of every prisoner of war to try to escape.”

Vinny describes every resident of the Jungle as a prisoner of war—specifically, that between the upper and lower class. While this sentiment is melodramatic, Duncan also thinks of his fellow residents as doomed inmates. Duncan himself is a prisoner of his own guilt. It doesn’t fully occur to him that he’s pursuing Roach out of duty in his own war against guilt.

“I just terrified that woman—stalking her when I’m supposed to be protecting her. I’m doing what Roach does, except I’m sure he’s way better at it.”

When Duncan follows Cherry, his intention is to keep her safe and determine whether or not Roach is following her. However, Cherry takes notice and sees him as a threat. Duncan is mimicking Roach’s actions, hoping for a different result, but he ends up becoming another frightening man from her perspective. Duncan’s paranoia also makes him an unreliable narrator up to a certain point in the novel, and the author uses this scene to maintain tension that Duncan might be Roach without realizing it.

“It doesn’t go away—that thing, the belief or whatever, that one day you’re going to be a hero. All guys think that. It’s bred into you. Every movie you ever see tells you that one day you’ll get your chance. It doesn’t go away, either. I’m still waiting for mine.” 

Duncan’s father provides for his family but finds little joy in life. Though he was raised on action movies, he now lives in the Jungle and works a graveyard shift to make ends meet. While he’s old enough to know that his life probably won’t change, he still has the naive hope that he can be a hero. His sacrifices of time, energy, and sense of taste are noble, but they aren’t the version of heroism he wants to embody. He shares his feelings in the hopes that Duncan will pursue a more satisfying life for himself.

“Back when I got arrested for the B and E, the worst part wasn’t dad shouting at me over and over, ‘What were you thinking? What were you thinking?’ The worst part was the way mom looked at me. Like she was looking at a ghost. Like she’d lost me.”

After the toilet heist, Duncan has to face his parents. His father reacts with outrage and disbelief, which Duncan can handle, but his mother’s quiet horror matters more to him. He realizes that he looks unfamiliar to her, as if he were a ghost. Throughout the novel, he is far more worried about disappointing his mother than angering his father. 

“Mason Lucas has a name for this ‘escalation of increasingly destructive aberrant behavior,’ this demented growth pattern moving from pets to fire to people. He calls it acceleration.” 

Duncan reads Mason Lucas’s book on profiling serial killers. What Lucas calls acceleration is the map of Roach’s trajectory from animal killer, to arsonist, to potential murderer. Earlier in Lucas’s book, he describes the background of many killers: It is similar to that of many residents in the Jungle. However, very few of them accelerate into killers. 

“She went out too deep, got a cramp or whatever, and went under. It sucks. It’s tragic. But it’s not on you, man. You can’t save the world. Gotta get that idea out of your head. That’s why Kimmy dumped you. You couldn’t let it go.”

Vinny tries to convince Duncan that Maya’s death was not his fault, that he’s trying to “save the world” by pursuing Roach. Duncan wants to end his guilt by saving Roach’s targets, but his obsession already led to his breakup with Kim—and it can cost him more if he isn’t careful.

“I try to picture her listening to this. I can’t see it doing any good. What’s changed? I’m still a basket case. She’s still out there, taking risks, living her life.” 

Duncan calls Kim and attempts to leave a voice message, but he hates each result. He describes himself as a “basket case,” exhibiting a level of self-awareness that is painful for him. He believes he’s still the same person she broke up with, with the same flaws, and ultimately deletes his last attempt out of having nothing new to say. However, this message foreshadows Kim’s reentry into his life; she sees that he attempted to reach out, so the message does net a positive effect.

“Sun gives you cancer. And fresh air or stale air, it all breathes the same.” 

Jacob is another character determined to find the worst in every situation. Sunlight and fresh air are pleasant for most people—but for Jacob, even these niceties come with downsides. The warmth of the sun can lead to skin damage and cancer. Fresh air is not enjoyable to the man because it only serves to continue his miserable existence.

“And I see HER now; when she’d come home painted like a clown, bringing back Johns. At first I hated those perverts and the things they made her do. But they were nothing but dumb dogs running wild in the street. SHE’S the one who dragged them back here, let them do any disgusting thing they wanted. SHE’s the one who sent me hiding when they told her to lose the kid.” 

Roach’s journal entries speak to his hatred for women—his mother and grandmother in particular. His mother was a prostitute who brought men home with her. Initially, Roach blames the men, but later blames his mother for their presence. Rather than take care of him, she sent him away when clients didn’t want him around. In other entries, he refers to the women he stalks as whores. 

“Growing up in the Jungle, you get programmed for failure. Most of the people who live there have the doomed look of lifers. They move in slow motion, never picking up enough speed to escape its gravity. So deep down, I just expect to fail.”

Just as Wayne expects his youthful life of small crime to determine his adult future, Duncan expects to remain stuck in the Jungle. He doesn’t have any personal examples of financial or social success to emulate. His use of “lifers” and “doomed” makes him and the other residents sound like inmates, inhabitants of purgatory; their expecting failure will become a self-fulfilling prophecy if Duncan doesn’t break the cycle.

“Doesn’t matter who starts out in front. Matters who can close the distance.” 

Back when Duncan still swam on a team, his coach gave him this advice. A year later, Duncan tries to make progress with Roach. Duncan lost his girlfriend, optimism, and expectations of becoming a hero. He doesn’t understand why he keeps trying, other than his adhering to his coach’s words. Swimming provided a positive framework for him to explore growth, failure, and success. Upon losing his enjoyment of water after Maya’s death, Duncan also lost that perspective. 

“It’s not so hard, Kim says. But it is. Some people you can’t be friends with, not when you’ve been something more.” 

Kim returns Duncan’s message to encourage him to reach out again—but the latter is too remorseful, too wounded, to do so. He insists on maintaining the distance and difficulty in their relationship. He uses distance as a means to keep punishing himself for Maya’s death, believing himself undeserving of a friend like Kim.

“When me and dad used to go fishing, years ago, we would catch fish and just throw them back. We were only there for the hell of it, and it didn’t seem to hurt the fish much past a cut lip. But then we’d get one that would swallow the hook. We knew he was a goner, whether we tried to pull it out or just cut the line. Because once you’ve swallowed the hook, there’s no losing it. Me, I’ve swallowed it big-time.”

Duncan’s memories of past fishing trips have disturbing implications. In “swallowing the hook,” it follows that he also considers himself a “goner” like the unfortunate fish. He knows himself. He knows he won’t be able to remove the hook—to step away from his pursuit of Roach—and that the hook (literal or otherwise) might kill him. 

“We sit and eat and watch baseball, which must be the most boring sport ever invented. But right here and now, I love it. I love this boring, ordinary meal. Freeze the frame here, and let it last.”

Before leaving to track two security guards (either person potentially being Roach), Duncan experiences his happiest moment in the book. As he eats defrosted pizza and watches baseball with his parents, everything is calm, mundane. He is with people who love him and there are no immediate threats. His plea to freeze this moment speaks to it having to end (potentially in violence). His sentiment echoes Jacob’s later remark about his job at the lost and found being desirable because it is predictable. 

“I’m the only driver who ever asked to come down here…This is where they used to send suspended drivers. I thought I’d only stay a few weeks, but I found out I fit here in the morgue. It’s quiet, nothing changes. The world could go up in smoke and we wouldn’t feel a thing.”

Jacob explains how he came to work at the lost and found, which he calls a “morgue.” He enjoys predictability. He doesn’t say that he finds the job rewarding or satisfying; rather, he enjoys the protection and quiet it provides. His current version of happiness is not euphoria or exhilaration, but the absence of uncertainty and suffering. 

“Part of me hates myself for doing this; it’s like I’m waving a needle in front of an addict. Wayne’s always been the devil on my shoulder—now I’m the devil on his. But I’m desperate. I need him.”

Duncan feels guilty for asking a repentant Wayne to pick the lock at Roach’s house. Initially, Wayne enabled Duncan’s forays into petty crime—but now that he wants out, Duncan is the one bringing him back to illegal activity. Duncan believes that the ends justify the means in this case, even as he becomes the “devil” on Wayne’s shoulder. 

“All’s well that ends…in death and disfigurement.”

Duncan and Wayne share the same dark sense of humor, and their bond deepens after Roach’s death since only they know what actually happened. Duncan’s stitches, broken forearm, and concussion leave him physically disfigured, but he is healing emotionally. This conversation hints at the possibility of his moving on from Maya’s death and the trauma of his fight with Roach.

“Walking into the stacks, I take my post and lean back. The morgue is quiet today. Like every day. We’ve both been doing our time down here. My sentence is almost up. Jacob might just be a lifer. But I’ve still got a couple more weeks to work on him.”

Duncan is surprised to find that he almost missed being at work with Jacob. He elaborates on his prisoner metaphor, framing the two of them as doing time in the morgue. However, Duncan is more optimistic than before; he knows his sentence will end. He has hopes for the future and wonders if he can help Jacob move past his own pessimism and uncertainty.