A Visit from the Goon Squad

“You (Plural)” is set about a quarter-century after “Ask Me If I Care.” After Lou Kline’s second stroke, Bennie has called the old group together to visit him. Jocelyn, who narrates this chapter, is in recovery from her addictions. Lou is now confined to a bed, supported by breathing tubes and IV treatments. Rhea is able to talk to Lou jovially, but Jocelyn is distracted by the traumatic memories this visit is bringing up. Jocelyn compares her life—mid-forties, living with her mother while working towards her first college degree—with Rhea’s: married with three children, the oldest of whom is sixteen, or as Jocelyn observes, “almost my age when I met Lou” (87). She remembers Lou’s son Rolph, who was exactly the same age as her. She remembers kissing him, and she remembers that Rolph stopped speaking to her after a while. She asks Lou about him, forgetting that Rolph committed suicide many years before. Lou begins to weep, and Rhea reacts with empathy toward him, assuming that Jocelyn had not forgotten about the suicide, but was asking in order to hurt him. Jocelyn is struck with anger, and imagines pushing Lou’s bed into the pool to let him drown, then says to him, “I should kill you . . . You deserve to die” (90).