LaRose

As a child, Landreaux enters the boys’ dormitory of the boarding school where a matron explains the demerit system. “If he didn’t wash or if he wet the bed, if he overslept, if he was noisy after lights-out or backtalked or went out of school boundaries, or most especially, if he ever ran away, demerits would be marked by his name” (155). Landreaux sees Romeo, who refuses to make his bed and calls the adults names. When Romeo arrived, sans parents and starving, people thought he was stupid but he turns out to be the smartest kid in school. Romeo stops wetting the bed because he stops drinking water, but the other boys still don’t want to sleep underneath him, except Landreaux. Landreaux and Romeo form a connection, and Romeo becomes better because of it; they win the admiration of the other boys and teachers and even get to go home with Mrs. Peace a few times, where Romeo falls in love with the infant Emmaline, who Landreaux ignores. Mrs. Peace feeds them and mothers them. When they read aloud together, Romeo stumbles so Landreaux won’t feel stupid. Landreaux starts talking about running away, and the boys discuss one girl who clung onto a bus to escape. They talk about the danger, but Landreaux’s mind is set. Romeo worries about having no one to go home to. They check out the undercarriage of the bus, and Landreaux doubts they could hold on for hours. “But there was something irresistible in Landreaux’s intense planning. He could not stop thinking, talking, how they might strap themselves on with belts or ropes” (160).

Romeo and Landreaux escape when other kids are taken home. They hang on for dear life to the underside of the bus, staring into each other’s eyes, sure that they will die. “They were speechless with pain” (161) when they get off at a rest stop. They wait until the other kids have boarded and hide behind a trash can, forgetting their backpacks with all their provisions. They dumpster dive, then steal a family’s food and car. Miles away, they ditch the car and start walking, talking about one of the matrons, Bowl Head, whose hair Landreaux argues turned white the day a kid drowned swimming. Romeo doubts many parts of Landreaux’s story that seem like a mix between misunderstanding and fancy. They see a house and go there, where they hide from a blind old woman and her dog. The woman knows they are outside and eventually invites them in for dinner.

The woman acts like she knows them and gives them food to put in the oven. They eat snacks while they wait, and the woman explains her husband died. She asks them about their parents, and the boys play along, carefully answering her questions. She answers the phone and talks for a bit, saying nothing about the boys’ presence. They eat a feast, and the woman suggests they get back to their family. Romeo asks to stay, which puzzles the woman, and Landreaux adds that it’s getting dark. The woman acquiesces, telling them to sleep upstairs to fool her son. The boys wake up in the morning to the woman arguing with her son, who argues she couldn’t have possibly eaten all the food and that she slept on the couch again, even though he’s asked her not to. Once he sees the mostly eaten pie, he again insists that she had a visitor, but the woman makes up a story about the dog eating the pie and the son leaves. The boys go downstairs. “The woman was standing by the window watching the place her son had disappeared. She turned around, her face alight with emotions the boys exactly knew: the fury and shame of kowtowing to a righteous person who controlled your destiny” (169). She feeds them again, talking about the people she believes are the boys’ parents. As she talks, they realize she has no idea what year it is. Before they leave, she asks them to take anything they want because her son wants to sell everything she owns.

The boys follow the railroad tracks, having taken money, food, and water at the woman’s behest. She tried to give them jewelry, but Romeo refuses, later rebuking Landreaux because he worries what will happen if the cops catch them. They divide the money and go to a town store where the clerk follows them around. They decide to go to Minneapolis, but Romeo worries that Landreaux knows nothing about the way the world works. On the bus, Landreaux thinks he sees Bowl Head running after them, but Romeo assures him that it’s just another white lady. In Minneapolis, the bus driver tries to escort them to their parents but they elude him. They copy other people’s city behavior and buy snacks. They find a homeless encampment with a bridge that overhangs it. They steal blankets and sleep in the bridge’s trestles. They awake early in the morning to adult discussions about drugs and sex and find that most of the homeless people in the encampment are Native Americans.

“Romeo and Landreaux developed habits opposite those of the scraggly people in the camp” (173). They steal food from them and various neighborhood houses. They go to the movie theater during the day and eat leftover food, until they see Bowl Head one day, who luckily doesn’t notice them, although Romeo remains unconvinced it was her. They accidentally wander into the encampment with two regulars awake, who accost the boys for stealing. The boys admit they ran away from boarding school, so the adults let them stay. One man asks if they stole his blanket, and the boys break down, crying, causing the adults to laugh. A woman stands up for the boys and feeds them stew. The boys go to sleep on the platform, and Landreaux’s nightmares cause him to fall but Romeo catches him. In trying to get Landreaux to safety, both the boys fall with Romeo underneath Landreaux, who passes out. Landreaux wakes to find Romeo looking dead with his arm and leg broken, under the influence of pain pills given to him by the woman. Landreaux wants to take him to the doctor, but Romeo screams about Bowl Head. Landreaux runs off to find help. A cop finds him, but Romeo is gone by the time they return with backup. They take Landreaux to the police station where Bowl Head retrieves him. Landreaux begs the police not to let her take him, but they ignore him. A male attendant accompanies them back and at one point, urinates on Landreaux’s pants on purpose for losing Romeo. At the hospital, a doctor decides not to amputate Romeo’s leg, which was the original prognosis. Romeo stays in the hospital until he gets better, although the pain pills they give him are weak. “It would be years before Romeo again tasted of the substances fed to him by the shaggy woman, but when he did, he felt reunited with the only mercy in this world” (183).