Tape OZK007

I read up to the seventh section of the book, from Tape OZK007.

The seventh section begins with the Adam’s bike journey narrated in a first person account as he is eating clam chowder in a small restaurant, watching three guys eating popcorn. The counterman then comes over, dropping a huge chunk of butter into Adam’s clam chowder, believing that he is doing Adam a favor as Adam has no option but to simply thank the thin counterman. As he is eating, the three guys eating popcorn start throwing popcorn at Adam, annoying him, but he ignores them. The popcorn having no affect on Adam, one of the guys called Whipper approaches Adam, irritating Adam with numerous questions, picking a fight. However, Adam doesn’t do much, eating and answering the questions. Whipper pretends to be a bit angered that Adam shows distrust by putting his bike in the police station for safekeeping. Whipper’s interest turns to the package that Adam has, but Adam fights him off from even touching the package, soon leaving the restaurant. The scene changes to the conversation between Brint and Adam in two-fifteen in the morning as Adam is extremely troubled, asking Brint to fill in the blanks that he has in his memories. As Brint is thrown into confusion of Adam’s words, Adam remembers the time he has awoken, in terror, feeling isolated, unable to find out who he is, where he is, and all the other questions filling up his head. He finds himself in deep pain, unable to fill in the blanks in his identity. The scene returns back to the conversation as Adam is in frightening confusion, unable to recover enough memory to figure out his identity. Brint tells Adam that the reason may be that the memories were so frightening that Adam cannot recall them. Adam continues, telling Brint that he hates everybody and has a feeling that they hate him too. Adam decides to rest as he takes the pill recommended by Brint. The story changes to the first person narrative of the bike journey as Adam finds a telephone booth. He calls Amy through a male operator, but he realizes that he had called the wrong number. As he on the phone, he finds the guys from the small restaurant walking at his direction, quickly escaping the place on his bike, frightening him.

Although the bike journey from a first person narrative and the conversation between Brint and Adam seems to have no connections, more connections are built in this section between the two different scenes. It was first the German shepherd that had connected the two, the dog appearing in both scenes. The second connection is the three guys picking on Adam during his bike trip. The conversations following soon after the scene in which Adam was picked on, Adam tells Brint that he will say no more because he knows that the people hate Adam, stating that he hates them as well, replying in anger. Although Robert Cormier doesn’t directly tell that the people who hate Adam in the conversation are the three guys who are picking on him during the bike trip, he gives enough clues for readers to figure out that the three guys in the bike adventure and the same people that Adam hates as he mentions them in the conversation. The critical clue is that Adam, during the taped conversation, says the reason the people hated him is because of his difference which is exactly why the three guys from the restaurant had hated Adam, for coming from a different place.

Adam is in devastation as he cannot recover enough memory to discover his identity. He is waking up at nights, terrorized, trapped into a place in which he has no idea of. He cannot figure out where he is and why he is there. Memories create identity. Identity creates a life. Without memories, Adam is without identity, and without identity, he is without life. He is living without life. However, the more horrifying part for Adam is that the reason he cannot recover his memories easily is because his mind doesn’t want to recover them because the memories are too terrible. Adam is in such a desperate situation, needing someone to depend on. When he wakes up in two fifteen in the morning, he doesn’t have anyone to go to for comfort. He doesn’t have any option but to go to Brint and trust him at that moment. Even though he had previously gone against Brint, he simply agreed with Brint in taking the medicine, having no one else to depend on during such desperate moment. This shows how people depend on even those whom they have never trusted, when terrorized and frightened until such a point. I have had the experience during a camp in which I awoke at one in the morning. It was a nightmare about the building that my friends and I secretly spray painted with. I was in such terror that I immediately went to the counselor in that camp and told it all. Even though I abhorred the camp and the counselor was mean, I told him that I was to be blamed for the building because the nightmare had shocked me to such a point that I would have said anything. Despite the hostility Brint and Adam had between each other, Adam was frightened to a destructive point that he had to go to someone, even if he couldn’t trust them. This also shows how formidable it can be to be without memories and identity, in a place you have no idea of with no one to trust.

Tape OZK006

I read up to the sixth section of the book, from Tape OZK006.

Tape OZK006 begins with the conversation between Brint and Adam as Brint urges Adam to think of the lie that Adam made during the phone call to hide his family’s identity. Adam agrees of how bizarre it was that he had lied to Amy, automatically trying to conceal the family’s true identity. Brint continues to question Adam if he had doubted his father and believed that he had been lied to by his parents. However, Adam innocently answers that he didn’t bother asking his father about it, trusting him. Brint is a bit frustrated that Adam does not tell Brint the information he truly wants, why the family had fled from Rawlings. Despite Adam’s innocent response in the conversation, Adam knows more than he has told, the secret of Adam being revealed by third person account in which Adam’s inner thoughts are told. Adam remembers the day that he had stolen his father’s keys to his desk drawers, in suspicion of why the editor did not know of their family when they were in Rawlings. As his father was mowing the lawn, he swiftly snuck into his father’s desk drawers. Inside were three official birth certificates, affirming his last name as “Adam David Farmer”. It also stated his birthday in February 14th, Valentine’s Day. However, there was another birth certificate, which stated that his birthday was not February 14th, but July 14th. Adam was thrown into confusion, but he didn’t have enough time to examine the certificate as his father came in the house. Adam’s world was simply terrified, causing him to hide in the cellar in such fright. The scene is then suddenly returned to the conversation between Brint and Adam as Adam is telling Brint of the time Adam had found the birth certificates. Brint is continues asking Adam questions and when Adam ignores the last question he asks with excuses, Brint repeats the question showing that he will not let Adam get away with excuses.

Then the third person account revealing Adam’s inner thoughts tell that Adam had lied, starting to be more alert, and often spying on their parents after finding the sealed birth certificate. The scene is changed to the conversation as Adam tells that he had found out too many things, yet not enough. Brint is in confusion by Adam’s statement, replies in a question with hostility, later apologizing for the rude reply. Adam feels more hostile toward Brint, believing Brint already knows all about Adam’s memory. However, Brint denies it, asking of what he found out afterwards about the secrets. Adam attempts not to tell Brint of what his mother Thursday’s phone calls were about. Although he tried hard not to tell as said in a third person account showing Adam’s inner thoughts, Brint somehow lured him into telling the story during the conversation. Adam hates talking to Brint, yet he realizes its importance as he finds himself recovering much of his memories through the conversations with Brint. The narrative continues to change from the conversation to the third person account revealing Adam’s inner thoughts to the third person account telling of Adam’s memory that he remembers. Then the scene changes to Adam’s flashback of what had happened when he eavesdropped to his mother’s phone call. Adam had not suspected anything at first when his father demanded for him to keep off the phone for his mother on Thursday nights since she was making a phone call to someone special. However, after having found the sealed birth certificate, he couldn’t stop his suspicion he had. He used another phone to hear who she was talking and what she was talking about. His world was shook as he found out that his mother was talking to his aunt whom his parents have lied to him of, Adam having been told that they had no living relatives. Adam was thrown into more confusion and devastation, trying to figure out what was going on from the pieces of clues that he got. The scene was changed to the conversation again as Adam told Brint that, it was after eavesdropping the phone call that he was assured something was going wrong. Adam tells Brint that he needs some rest, having had the longest session, Brint agreed and allowed Adam to be dismissed.

In this section of the story, Brint and Adam’s conflict becomes much clearer as Brint tries to get information out of Adam as Adam strongly refuses to by telling lies. This creates a feeling of malevolence in both characters. Brint feels as a more hostile character, constantly making Adam tell things that he does not really want to talk about. It is as if, he is in a way torturing Adam, continuously asking questions, luring him into answering the questions. It is also that Adam feels that Brint already knows all of his memory, placing Brint as a more powerful character in the story, giving Brint an evil feeling since he is not only with more power, but is using that power of being a psychiatrist into making Adam tell things to him. Not only is a feeling malevolence created in Brint, but even in Adam himself as the readers realize how he is lying to Brint about what he remembers and does not remember. Adam seems to be the protagonist character in the story, yet there is something evil and dark inside him as he not only lies, but he uses criminal ways to find clues about his identity. This creates suspicion toward Adam, making him unreliable whether it is what he tells Brint in the conversation or his story from the first person account.

At this point of the story, clues are starting to found as Adam desperately hunts for them in suspicion of his family and his identity. The first clue that he finds, the sealed birth certificate brings many questions about his identity. Why were there two birth certificates of him? Why was the second one with the wrong birthday date sealed? Adam is tumbled into a world of a deeper mystery as he discovers his second clue, the existence of his aunt. He feels as if he is alone, unable to trust anyone, not even his parents, realizing that even his parents have lied to him, having told Adam that they had no relatives existing when his aunt was still living. He tries to connect the memories together starting from the flights to the clues that he found. However, he was only placed in deeper confusion as faced with more questions. Why did they flee? What made his aunt even flee? Why was she kept a secret from him? Why did he have two birth certificates with different dates? He feels as if he has a secret identity, yet does not have many clues of that secret identity. He realizes something dark behind his family and his secret identity as he watches her mother holding herself back from engaging in other activities with other mothers.

There is a significant symbolism in this section of the story. Adam’s birthday on the first birth certificate is February 14th which is Valentine’s Day. His birthday on the second birth certificate is July 14th which is Independence Day. The Valentine’s Day and Independence Day symbolizes what Adam longs and searches for in this mystery: love and freedom since the Valentine’s Day celebrates love and Independence Day celebrates the freedom. He searches for his father’s love in the bike journey as he travels to visit his father with a present. He searches and longs for freedom from the conversations he is trapped into everyday in the hospital. He wants freedom from what has been causing his family to flee. These two birthdays written on the birth certificates symbolize the ultimate goal of Adam throughout the story. Since he was born on those two days, it is that he was born to live for love and freedom in his life.