A Visit from the Goon Squad: Chapter 13 Summary & Analysis

This story is set in the near future. Alex meets with Bennie to talk about a job promoting a concert. Their children play on the floor between them, and their wives, Rebecca and Lupa, are in the kitchen. Alex had heard about Bennie from Sasha a long time ago, though he doesn’t remember Sasha’s name. He remembers something about a wallet, but can’t remember the details.

Alex feels some tension around taking the job, which revolves around social media marketing. The job he wanted was running a mixing board. Bennie’s daughter, Ava, takes a plastic pot away from Alex’s daughter, Cara-Ann. Alex gets up to go intervene, but notices Bennie doesn’t move. He sits back down. Rebecca calls in, asking if everything is okay. Alex tells her everything is good.

Bennie understands that Alex wants to work with sound, but the problem with the industry is it is no longer concerned with sound. The music industry is all about “reach,” which is a bitter pill Bennie has swallowed. Bennie was fired from his own label, Sow’s Ear, after bringing cow dung to his board of directors, and stating that they are asking him to produce shit music. After that, Bennie had begun producing music with analog sound, but it never sold. He is seen as irrelevant in the industry now.

When Alex’s daughter bites Bennie’s daughter’s shoulder, the women rush into the room. Alex reveals that he met Bennie through Bennie’s much younger wife, Lupa. Lupa suggests Bennie play Scotty’s record for Alex. He plays the record, and tells Alex Scotty’s album is selling well with “the pointers,” a term used to describe toddlers who are now able to download music just by pointing at their kiddie handsets, which resemble smartphones. In the near future in which this story is set, bands have had no choice but to market to preverbal children. Alex’s daughter has never touched one of the handsets, and Alex and Rebecca have agreed not to let her until she is five.

Bennie closes his eyes as he listens to Scotty’s album. He believes his sound is pure. Alex closes his own eyes and takes in the sound, which sounds like choppers, church bells, and a distant drill. He hears Cara-Ann cry as Rebecca pulls her sweater on to get her ready to go. Alex feels dread at the thought of leaving the meeting empty handed. He opens his eyes and finds Bennie staring at him. Bennie asks him if he hears what Bennie hears.

That night, Alex gets out of bed and goes into the living room. Outside the window, the Empire State Building stands tall. It had been a selling point when Rebecca’s parents bought the apartment. They’d planned to sell it, but developers are now erecting a building that will block the view, lowering the value of the apartment. Alex lights a joint. He thinks about that afternoon, when he’d tried—and failed—to tell Rebecca what he’d agreed to do for Bennie. His job is to find people, who are pejoratively called “parrots,” to spread the word about an upcoming concert to be played by Scotty.

Taking out his handset, Alex begins choosing people he might try to recruit for the job by three criteria: how much they need money, how connected and respected they are, and how they might use that respectability to recruit others to attend the concert. He finds that people who score high in two criteria, score low in the third. He realizes that Bennie had recruited him, though he is not sure exactly why it worked, since Alex considers himself a purist, like Bennie. He decides it doesn’t matter, and chooses to find fifty people like him.

Alex meets with Lulu, who is Bennie’s assistant. They are working together on the social media marketing campaign for Scotty’s concert. Lulu is perusing a marketing degree, and Alex is surprised that she has to take physics instead of epidemiology. She explains that the “viral model” of marketing has gone out of style. Information now travels faster than the speed of light, so they study particle physics in marketing school. Lulu is what is called a “handset employee,” who has no office and uses no paper, but is omnipresent through the use of her handset.

Alex learns that Lulu has known Bennie since she was a child because her mother, Dolly, was a friend with Bennie’s ex-wife, Stephanie. Their food arrives, and Bennie is careful not to wake Cara-Ann, who sleeps by his side. Lulu uses terms typically associated with sports to talk about their plan, and when Alex asks her about them, she says they are now marketing terms. They talk about the ways in which they will use manipulation to get their marketing team together. They talk about the ethics of the work, and whether it is okay to bribe people with money into promoting the show. Lulu challenges Alex’s perception of what is ethical, and Alex feels like pushing back against Lulu’s confidence, which seems to him the outcome of a happy childhood. He believes it is rooted in her youth.

Cara-Ann wakes up, and asks who Lulu is. Lulu asks if she can just “T” Alex, meaning can she send him a text message. She texts his phone, and he reads the strange texting idiom Lulu uses. She likes texting because it is straightforward—no philosophies, no metaphors, and no judgment. Cara-Ann points at the handset, and Alex tells her not to look. Before he can put the phone away, though, Lulu sends Cara-Ann a text picture of a lion, with a note that says she has a nice dad. Cara-Ann reaches out and begins touching the phone. Lulu texts Alex, saying that she never met her own dad. After receiving the text, Alex says he is sorry, but feels suddenly if he is talking too loud. He texts “sad”, but Lulu texts, “Ancnt hstry”, back to him.

Three weeks later, as Alex and Rebecca walk to the river, Cara-Ann points to Alex’s pocket, asking for his phone. She’s started calling it “lollipop.” Rebecca asks Alex if he has a lollipop, and Alex says of course he doesn’t. Alex has just met Rebecca outside of the library where she was studying, planning to finally tell her about his job with Bennie. They are hurrying to get to the river before sunset, which has been pushed back due to global warming. By the time they reach the river, the sun is hovering above the water wall, which has been constructed to combat rising water levels.

Rebecca sets Cara-Ann down, and Alex takes Rebecca’s hand. He notes that lately he has not found her as attractive as he did in the past. She has begun looking like a fragile, harried academic. She is teaching and working on a book about the phenomenon of “word casings,” a term she created for words that no longer have meaning outside of quotation marks, such as, “friend” and “real.” Other words, like “identity” and “Cloud,” have changed meaning because of their use on the web. Alex feels depressed when he thinks about his role in the relationship. He is an aging music freak who is struggling to make his way, and feels he is sapping the life from his wife.

As the sun sets, a hush encloses the crowd at the wall. Cara-Ann runs off, and Rebecca peruses in attempt to catch her. Alex, left alone for a moment, checks his phone, finding some texts from Lulu reporting people who have agreed to join their marketing campaign. When Cara-Ann returns, she cries “Lollipop!” Alex slips the phone in his pocket, and Cara-Ann tugs at his jeans. Rebecca realizes that the phone is what Cara-Ann is referring to when she says lollipop. She asks if Alex let her use it, and he says he did once. They argue, and Rebecca says she doesn’t understand why he changed the rules. Alex becomes paranoid, wondering what else she knows. He decides it is time to tell Rebecca about the job, but he feels paralyzed. He feels the desire to text her, instead of telling her outright.

As they begin walking again, Alex remembers the night he met Rebecca. He had chased down a man in a wolf mask who stole her purse, and though he failed to get it back, he coaxed her into getting burritos and beers. Later, they had sex on the rooftop of her building. As he reminisces, he remembers Sasha’s name, and recalls the events of the night he spent with her, though he can’t remember if they had sex. Just then, Alex gets a text from Lulu, asking if he has heard that Bennie moved Scotty’s concert outdoors. This means that Alex will have to do more outreach so people will know where to go. He will receive no additional pay. They text back and forth about Scotty’s demands, and Alex realize that the text conversations move along smoothly. When they arrive home, Alex texts Lulu about the building going up beside his. She asks if he can stop it. He says has tried, but failed. He asks if he can move, and she texts back, “nyc”. He thinks she means ‘nice’, but she really means, ‘New York City’.

The day of the concert is unseasonably warm. The trees, which bloomed in January, are full of leaves. Alex had debated how to tell Rebecca about the concert, but she had brought it up, saying it might be a chance for Alex to reconnect with Bennie. He writhes at the fact that he still hasn’t told her about the job.

On the way to the concert, they run into Alex’s friend Zeus and his girlfriend. Zeus and his girlfriend say that they have heard Scotty is really good, and Alex wonders if they have been recruited for the marketing project. Rebecca says that, strangely, she has heard the same thing from eight different people. Zeus’s girlfriend says it’s not strange, that people are getting paid to talk about it, but Rebecca notes that they were people she knew. After the exchange, Alex notes that he feels invisible.

On the way to the outdoor venue, Alex and Rebecca have nine or ten similar exchanges with different people. Alex struggles to believe that his work has been so successful. He feels like a genius, but begins to worry that Scotty might not be as good as everyone is saying. Rebecca, noticing that Alex seems nervous, asks if he is okay. He says he is fine. Rebecca notes that he is squeezing her hand, but she enjoys it.

When they reach the venue, there are helicopters overhead. Alex has gotten used to these forms of security, but today it seems strange to him. Around him, he notices a sea of babies and children. He notes that if there are children there must be a future. The new buildings shine on the horizon, more like sculptures than buildings, because they are empty. In front of the venue, there is a heavy police presence, and there are security cameras attached to lampposts and trees. Rebecca tells Alex that she loves him, and Alex tells her not to say it like something bad is about to happen. Rebecca says she is nervous, but Alex tells her it is just the helicopters.

Alex leaves Rebecca and Cara-Ann in the crowd after receiving a text message from Lulu that Bennie needs help. Alex goes to Scotty’s trailer, and finds Bennie and an old roadie inside. There is no sign of Scotty. Again, Alex feels invisible. Bennie tells the roadie that he can do it, but the man seems frantically unsure of himself. Bennie tells Alex to stand by the door. As Alex watches Bennie talk to the man, he suddenly realizes that the man is Scotty Hausman. Scotty says he is too old to play, that he can’t go out there. Alex understands that Scotty Hausman does not exist. Scotty is a “word casing” in human form, a shell whose essence has vanished. Bennie continues to encourage Scotty, telling him that “time is a goon,” and he shouldn’t let that goon push him around. Scotty feels the goon has won.

Bennie takes a long breath and reminds Scotty about the time he came to his office twenty-some-odd years ago and brought him a fish. After Bennie lost his job and Stephanie divorced him, he searched out Scotty. He asks Scotty what he told him, and Scotty says Bennie told him it was time to become a star. Scotty had dared him to do it. There is a long pause, and then Scotty jumps to his feet and lunges for the door, trying to escape. Scotty grapples with Alex, eventually swinging at Alex. He hits the door, and then knees Alex in the groin. He throws the door open and begins to leave, but is stopped by Lulu.

Lulu stands before Scotty, the sun reflecting in her hair. Scotty hesitates, and Alex realizes that Scotty has lost the fight. Lulu offers to walk him to the stage, and he asks to take her arm. In that moment, Alex sees a sexy and rakish version of Scotty shine through. After they walk toward the stage, Bennie says Lulu will run the world some day. On stage, Scotty begins to play children songs, and the sound of his music drowns out the helicopters. Alex expects the crowd to reject Scotty, but the children cheer, and their parents become intrigued by the song’s double meanings.

As Alex watches, he is stunned by the response. He wonders if a crowd at a particular moment in history creates the meaning of the event, like Monterey Pop or Woodstock. Maybe, he thinks, the response is just because two generations of war and surveillance have caused people to peg Scotty as the embodiment of their own unease. The crowed is bowled over when Scotty stands up, releasing something strong, charismatic, and fierce. Later, people will say this is when the concert really started. He begins playing songs nobody has ever heard, ballads of paranoia and disconnection that come from the heart a man who had never had an online profile, a handle, or a handset. The music is pure. Later, the show will go down in history, and later everyone will claim they were there, even if they weren’t. Scotty will become a mythic figure.

As Alex watches with Bennie, he wishes he were with Rebecca and Cara-Ann. He locates Rebecca with his handset, but he can’t see her. Eventually, he uses a zoom feature on his phone to find her. They are too far away for him to reach her, but he texts her, calling her his beautiful wife, and asking her to wait for him. He watches until the vibration of the phone registers in her pocket.

After the concert, Bennie is elated, and says that this kind of event only happens once in a person’s life. Alex notes that after the concert, Rebecca kept asking him to see about a job with Bennie. Well after midnight now, Bennie and Alex walk together to the Lower East Side. Alex feels depressed, but hides it from Bennie. Alex asks Bennie if he ever had an employee named Sasha. Bennie says he did, and that Sasha used to live close by. Alex asks what she was like, and Bennie says she was great, but she stole from him so he had to fire her. Alex feels a connection form in his mind, but he can’t see it clearly.

They turn a corner, and Bennie says that Sasha’s apartment was right there. Alex feels a flash of recognition and a shiver of déjà vu, as if he is returning to a place that no longer exists. Bennie remembers Sasha lived in apartment F4, and they ring the buzzer. Alex gains more clarity around his memory of the night he went to Sasha’s apartment, remembering the bathtub in the kitchen. Alex imagines himself walking into the apartment and finding his younger self there, still full of schemes and high standards. Nobody answers, and Bennie says he hopes that Sasha has a good life, because she deserves it.

Bennie and Alex begin walking again and Alex says he doesn’t know what has happened to him. Bennie says Alex grew up, just like everyone else. Alex thinks in the text idiom Lulu uses: th blu nyt, th stRs u cant c, th hum tht nevr gOs awy, which translates to: the blue night, the stars you can’t see, the hum that never goes away. Just then, they see a woman approaching. For a moment they hope it is Sasha, but it is another girl, young and new to the city, fiddling with her keys.