The Topeka School

Darren has delusions; he believes that objects from his dreams “show up in the bushes” at Topeka’s Westboro Park (69). Darren frequently goes to these bushes whenever he feels overwhelmed, for instance after hallucinating his dead father in a McDonald’s. Darren describes the bushes and his hallucinations to Jonathan, his psychologist. At the end of each of these sessions, Darren’s mom complains to Jonathan about Darren being “dishonest, unreliable, and let’s not even talk about the GED” (70).

As part of his magical thinking, Darren believes he killed his father, because he had mentally “flipped [his father’s] blue Honda over and over” prior to his father dying in a car crash (70). Jonathan gets Darren a job at the Surplus grocery store, where Darren struggles to accomplish tasks, like finding out the price of “a large can of something” (72). The ensuing frustration causes Darren to recall past embarrassments, such as a doctor telling his father that Darren is a “nine- or ten-year-old in a teenage body” (72). At the Surplus, Darren’s boss is Stan, who goes on racist and misogynistic rants to Darren.