A Visit from the Goon Squad: Chapter 10 Summary & Analysis

This story is told in the second person by a character named Rob. While hanging out at a friend’s house, Rob listens to his friend Drew talk about being president one day. He looks at Drew through layers of hash smoke in the sun. Drew’s arm is around Sasha. Rob admires Drew’s body, which is healthy because of his love of swimming. Rob tells Drew not to try and say he didn’t inhale, and everyone laughs. Rob feels like a funny guy, but then worries that people laughed because they are afraid he will jump out of the window and kill himself.

Rob feels paranoid. He worries that Drew is mocking him, but Drew is sincere. Last fall, Drew stood in Washington Square passing out leaflets to get students to register to vote. Rob helped Drew hand out pamphlets, but didn’t register to vote himself. Nobody, not even Sasha, knows that he never voted for Bill Clinton. He keeps it a secret.

Drew gives Sasha a kiss. Rob knows Drew feels horny because he feels it too. He used to get into fights in high school when he felt this way because it relieved the tension. Nobody will fight him now, though, because he slit his wrists with a box cutter three months ago, and people are too worried about him. People have been treating him differently, smiling whenever they see him.

Drew kisses Sasha again, and Rob feels angry. They are at their friends Lizzie and Bix’s house, and it feels too small. The house is full of plants and the smell of plants, and the walls are covered in Bix’s collection of Last Judgment posters that show humans getting separated into good and bad. Rob goes out onto the fire escape, and Sasha joins him, asking what he is doing. It makes her nervous to see Rob out there, but Rob says the worst he would get if he jumped is a broken arm or leg.

Drew joins Rob on the fire escape and they listen to Lizzie talk to her mom on the phone inside the apartment. Her parents are visiting from Texas and don’t approve that she is dating Bix, who is a black man. Afterward, Lizzie leans out the window, and Rob asks how her bigoted parents are. Lizzie says that he can’t talk that way in her apartment, and she tells Rob, “fuck you,” and Rob returns the insult. He feels good about the reaction he gets from Lizzie, noting that it has been a while. Sasha and Lizzie begin talking about Rob, and he notes to Drew that he loves how they talk about him like he isn’t there, like he is dead.

Rob remembers Drew telling him about his childhood in Wisconsin, where he built a log cabin, hunted, and swam in a lake by his house, even in the winter. When Rob first met Drew, Drew thought Rob must have swum a lot because he grew up in Florida. Rob says he did, even though he doesn’t like water, which is something only Sasha knows about him. Rob goes to the window and looks inside at Bix, who is on his computer, reading messages sent from other graduate students. Bix believes computer messaging is going to be huge in the future.

Bix tells Rob to come inside because Lizzie is stressed out. Inside, Rob apologizes to her, and then says sorry that her mom a bigot, and that Bix are dating a girl from Texas. Rob apologizes that his recent suicide attempt makes her nervous. As he says it, he feels like he is a few feet away from himself, and he notices that the others’ faces have grown sad. He wonders which part of himself is the real one, the part of him saying these things to Lizzie, or the part of him watching from a distance.

Rob, Drew, and Sasha walk to Washington Square Park. Rob remembers that while he was recovering from his suicide attempt in Florida, Sasha and Drew went to Washington and watched the sun rise over the Mall the day Bill Clinton was elected. They told him they felt something in the air, but Rob doesn’t feel it. At Washington Square, Drew leaves and Rob feels glad. He is coming down from the hash, which is still new to him. At Freshman orientation, Sasha had picked Rob out because he didn’t do drugs. She needed a fake boyfriend because she was afraid that her stepfather had hired a detective to look out for her. Rob agreed to be her fake boyfriend.

Rob and Sasha began spending time together after the orientation, and Sasha became increasingly worried about the detective. Rob kissed her in public to throw the detective off. Sasha told Rob that they needed to tell each other something that would make it impossible for them to really go out. Sasha told Rob that she started shoplifting at thirteen, and became addicted to it. Later, in Naples, she stole things and sold them to a man. She then began having sex with the older man and still taking money from him, telling herself that he was her boyfriend. She told Rob that that person (her past self) wasn’t really her, and she feels sorry for whoever that was. Rob tells Sasha about a football teammate whom he’d had sex with, though he does not believe himself to be gay. He wasn’t sure who it was who had sex with the other young man.

Rob and Sasha spend some time in the library, where Sasha writes a paper for one of the six classes she is taking to try and graduate in three years. She is an older student, and feels behind. She is majoring in music and business. After she finishes, they walk to Sasha’s apartment. The mood of Sasha’s roommates seems to shift when Rob arrives. They go to Sasha’s room, which is empty besides a rented harp she is learning to play. Rob lies on the bed, and Sasha takes a shower, returning quickly, Rob suspects, because she doesn’t want to leave him alone. He remembers spending the night in Sasha’s room, and holding her while she cried. Rob knows everything about Sasha, the particularities of her body, and everyone believed they were dating. The biggest regret of Rob’s life is not sleeping with Sasha. It was especially hard on Rob when Sasha started dating Drew.

After ten o’clock, Rob and Sasha meet Drew on Third Avenue and Saint Marks. Drew kisses her, and Rob wonders why Drew has been able to help Sasha start her life over again, when he was unable to do the same. Rob wonders again what Sasha felt like watching the sun rise in Washington D.C., and whether other people felt it too. They arrive at the Pyramid Club, where they are going to see the Conduits play a concert. Rob offers Drew and Sasha ecstasy pills. Drew wants to do the ecstasy with Sasha, but she has quit doing drugs. Rob takes one of the pills and puts the rest back in his pocket.

As the Conduits play their concert, Rob stands in the back and watches Drew and Sasha close to the stage. He wishes Drew were his brother, wishing they could have built a log cabin together and slept inside. He wishes he could have killed an elk with Drew, and danced naked around a fire. He feels if he could see Drew naked, even once, it would ease the deep pressure he feels inside of himself. As Bosco (the guitarist) crowd surfs overhead, Drew spots Rob and pushes his way back to him. Rob shoves one of the pills into Drew’s hand.

After the concert, Rob and Drew wait for Sasha outside. They are high on ecstasy, and Sasha says she gets it. Drew tells her not to be mad, and she tells him she is not mad, but bored. She was invited to a party with the Conduit’s producer, Bennie Salazar, but she doesn’t want to take Rob and Drew because they are high. Rob says Drew wants to come with him anyways, and Drew agrees.

Later, Rob and Drew sit in another part of the city, and Rob says he feels bad about leaving Sasha. Drew tells him not to worry, but Rob remembers Sasha coming to visit him at the hospital after his suicide attempt. She had climbed into bed with him and held him. She had found him after the suicide attempt, and the doctor had told her if she’d been ten minutes later, he would have died. Sasha told him that in Naples, there were kids who were hopeless, but there were others who she thought still might have a chance. She believed that she and Rob were survivors. She made him promise he would never attempt suicide again, and he did, truly believing he would not break his promise.

Later, they meet Bix, and Rob gives him the final ecstasy pill. Bix has been walking around for hours because the janitor kicked him out of the lab, and he can’t go home because Lizzie’s parents are in town. Rob feels like going home, but Bix tells him he can’t because he is “central to the action.” Drew agrees, slinging his arm around Rob’s shoulders, and telling him that he is their aching, pounding heart. They go to an after-hours club, and Rob dances with a girl who wants to go home with him, but eventually she gets bored at his lack of response and leaves.

After the club, Rob, Drew, and Bix eat breakfast, and then go to the East River. The sun is rising, and Drew says he wishes he could swim in the water. He says they should remember this moment, even when they don’t know each other anymore. Rob imagines himself looking back from the future, and feels a swell of movement pushing him toward the future. Bix says they will know each other forever, since the days of losing touch are almost gone. Bix says he imagines it like Judgment Day, when everyone will rise out of his or her bodies and meet someplace else where you never lose anyone or get lost. Rob asks if Bix will finally get to meet Lizzie’s parents in that special place, and Bix laughs, saying maybe that part will never change, but he hopes it does. With that, he says he’d better get home, and leaves.

Rob and Drew walk together along the river, smoking a joint. Rob tells Drew he wishes they could live in a cabin together in Wisconsin. Drew says he would miss Sasha, and Rob tells him he doesn’t really know her, that Drew doesn’t know who he would really be missing. Drew asks what he means, and Rob tells him that Sasha was a hooker in Naples. Drew gets insulted, but Rob says to ask her about the man in Naples. They start walking again, and Rob feels terrible about what he has said. Eventually Drew turns and tells Rob he is an asshole.

Drew tells Rob to leave him alone, and goes down to the river’s edge to a beach made entirely out of garbage. Rob follows him, and Drew begins to undress. Rob looks at Drew’s body, which is as strong and tight as he had imagined, though he finds it thinner than he expected. He feels a faint appreciation for the beauty and inelegance of a man undressing. At the water’s edge, Drew looks back and tells Rob he has always wanted to do this. Drew dives into the water.

Rob moves to the edge of the water and undresses. He feels if he can master his fear it will mean something important. Rob jumps in and hits his knee hard on something below the surface. He swims quickly to get away from the garbage, which he imagines reaching up and slashing his genitals and feet. Rob yells to Drew, asking how they will get out, and Drew tells him they will get out the way they got in. Rob is struck by the beauty of the city around him, but realizes suddenly that the shore is far away and he can’t find Drew. In the distance, he hears Drew calling out to him, but when he tries to call back his voice seems small.

Rob flails, knowing he is not supposed to panic. His mind pulls away, and he imagines slipping from Sasha’s window, past the stolen objects on her sill. He sees her asleep in her bed, and imagines saying sorry to her, telling her that he believes in her, that he will always protect her, that he will never leave her, and that he will be curled around her heart for the rest of her live. The narrative voice switches from the second person to the first person (Rob refers to himself as “me” instead of “you” in this moment). The current pulls him under, and he hears Sasha screaming into his face: Fight! Fight! Fight!