Chris Crutcher's Whale Talk

Pittacus Lore once said, “The price of a memory, is the memory of the sorrow it brings.” In the realistic fiction book Whale Talk, by Chris Crutcher, The main character’s name is TJ, and TJ’s father said, “a good day is one in which you avoid remembering the events of July 27, 1968” (Crutcher 56). What happened that day was that an eighteen month old boy was wandering and was lost. What resulted from this was that he ended up outside and got stuck in between two of the tires of TJ’s father’s pickup truck. TJ’s dad didn’t check the truck, and started driving without noticing what he did. About six hours later, the police caught up to him and told him that he killed an eighteen month old boy. TJ’s dad didn’t go to jail for what he did, because

Heidi was a little girl that needed a lot of help. This was mainly because Heidi was the daughter of Rich Marshal who was a racist and an alcoholic. Heidi played a huge role in showing how terrible of a person Rich. For one, Rich punished Heidi for being African American so she ended up trying to ‘wash the dirt off her arm’. While she shows how bad of a father Rich Marshal is, she shows how good of a father TJ’s dad is. One time Heidi was at TJ’s house because Georgia was watching over Heidi. Georgia was the one who watched over TJ when he was little and they still talk today. At that time, “As Heidi removes the bag of fries from the happy meal box, the sack catches on the edge of the lid and fries tumble onto the floor. She is instantly wide-eyed and horrified (…) she gasps’ I’ll clean it up! I’m sorry! I’ll clean it up! (…) she is on her knees picking up the fries and putting them into the bag one by one, looking fearfully at my father. Instantly he turns his fries onto the floor and drops his knees with her. ‘We eat ‘em down here all the time. That’s how they’re best’ ”(Crutcher 122). The dad came in to comfort Heidi. Most of all Heidi was probably punished for dropping food on the floor in front of Rich. If TJ’s dad had been the same person before the event happened, TJ’s dad probably wouldn’t have cared. In the spring, Hoop Fest starts which is a basketball tournament. There, TJ’s team just happened to play Rich Marshal’s

When TJ was still living with his birth mother, the mother was smoking and would leave him home alone for hours. So with that, “Child Protective Services crashing down on herself, getting heavily into crack and crank and heavily out of taking care of me, she remembered Mom’s kindness, tracked her down and begged her to take me. Mom and dad didn’t blink–almost as if they were expecting me”(Crutcher 2). TJ originally came from a poor household, and immediately when she showed up TJ’s dad, he was happy to have a kid. Later it was learned that it was to remind him that he isn’t a bad guy. To the last minute of TJ’s father’s life, he could stop thinking about what happened on that day. Some of TJ’s father’s last words were,“ ‘Guess I killed one and saved one.’ (…) My father is gone, I didn’t get the chance to tell him … he saved two” (Crutcher 212-213). In reality, TJ realizes that he did save two because Georgia said that he was lucky to be alive after the situation from his birth mother. At the moment of TJ’s father’s death, one of the greatest things that he told TJ was not one minute for revenge. TJ’s father was only thinking about trying to get TJ to calm down and even TJ said, since his dad made him promise that he would do nothing, he did nothing. TJ was grateful to have his dad and he will greatly impact his