46 pages • 1 hour read
Carl DeukerGym Candy
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2007A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses
Epilogue, Part 1 Summary
The bullet takes off part of Mick’s scalp but misses his brain. Drew carries him to the Jeep and takes him to Ballard Hospital. When Mick wakes up, his mother and father are there. They both tell him that he should have come to them, but also that they’ll help him get through the difficult times ahead. Before his parents leave him alone to go eat for an hour, they tell him that a policeman will be coming to talk to him, and that he has to tell him everything. The officer’s named is Lee Ikeda. He tells Mick that they have Peter Volz from Popeye’s “nailed solid” (304) and asks for the story of what happened. Mick tells him everything, then begins to cry.
Epilogue, Part 2 Summary
The next day, Mick’s parents take him to a drug rehab center. If he completes the program, it will be almost as if nothing negative had happened. He can even play football the next year. The head of the facility is named Mr. Riley. Before he shows Mick to his room, Mick’s mother says she needs to give him something. She goes to the car and returns with her Bible. Mick takes it from her and says thank you, which seems to surprise her.
Epilogue, Part 3 Summary
Mick spends the first ten days in rehab taking drug-education classes and having daily sessions with Mr. Riley. He realizes that no one forced him to do steroids: “Way back in the beginning, I’d done it for me. I wanted to be a star. Me. For myself” (309). Riley says that “lying is like a spear with points on both sides, and that the wounds go deep on both sides” (309).
At night, Mick reads the Bible his mother gave him. When he reads the story of Judas Iscariot betraying Jesus, he thinks of Drew. Sometimes, he feels that Drew saved his life, just like everyone says. But when Mick thinks about all of the football glories that he missed out on, sometimes he still feels that Drew betrayed him, like Judas. He tells himself that if Kane is simply better than him, Mick will play second string. But he also thinks, “I don’t know if I can stand being ordinary” (312). As the book ends, Mick contemplates what he will do when he leaves rehab. He already feels the pull of the steroids again. He is not positive that he will be able to resist the drugs, but he hopes he will.
Epilogue Analysis
As the novel ends, Mick is out of danger, at least temporarily, and in a rehab facility. He will have options in the future, if he wants them. However, he does not know what he wants. He sees even his failed suicide attempt as yet another example of his incompetence and is unsure that his life was worth saving. The notion of drug rehabilitation is different for Mick than it would be for someone struggling with alcohol or heroin. He was addicted to the results of the drugs, not the immediate physical pleasures they provided, though the mental torment arrives as analogous. As the reader experiences his torment, it is clear that the book will not have a happy ending, and it does not.
The novel’s ending can be read as pessimistic, since Mick does not achieve any real resolution beyond the fact that his life will continue. He still wants success and he still feels temptation for the drugs. Inside, he is screaming in the final line, and it provides a jarring end to the novel. If rehabilitation for Mick is to be a reality, it will involve far more than simply not returning to steroids. The support of his parents, when he awakes after the attempted suicide, is the most significant clue to what he may benefit from the most.
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By Carl Deuker
