Left Behind Chapters 5 and 6

CHAPTER 5

Buck Williams stops to take inventory, because this is suddenly an RPG. He also carries a murse. He has stuff in a special pouch in his jeans IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN. Seriously though, is this a money belt? Because those don't generally go inside your jeans. You'll get weird looks whenever you whip it out.

Now Buck is telling us about his overseas laundry methods. NO ONE GIVES A SHIT. Buck continues telling us about things about which we don't give a shit, like the time he scooped some people on a sports story. Yes, you can say that they don't like you because you scooped them, but for God's sake we don't need any more details than that. Oh, and THEN we get shown the conversation the two have about said scooped story. Seriously, Tim and Jerry? We don't get any details about burning wreckage at the airports or the suicidal pilot or the way people feel about the disappearances or the grieving people, but we get enormous detail about A SCOOPED SPORTS STORY THAT HAPPENED A LONG TIME AGO? And then the chick he's talking to goes into an impromptu Jesus speech. Dear God, let's just get back to the "action", such that it is, already.

So Buck's talking about why he was overseas in the first place. We get all this unnecessary detail about following a tip from a conspiracy theorist former classmate blah blah I'm just going to skip it.

I love how all these names are ridiculously manly. Rayford. Buck. Dirk.

"I wish I could say I tried to call you Hattie, but I didn't. This is hard for me."
Well that's comforting. Like it's not hard for Hattie either? Or any of the friggin' BILLIONS OF PEOPLE WHO HAD RELATIVES DISAPPEAR? Rayford is such a prick. Before he was all lusting after Hattie but making her work for it and all of a sudden he's completely cold but Hattie is still worrying about him.

Wtf? This is so mean:
Losing his wife and child made him realize what a vapid relationship he had been pursuing with a twenty-seven-year-old woman. He hardly knew her, and he certainly didn't much care what happened to her family any more than he cared when he heard about a remote tragedy on the news.
What an awful thing to say! Most people care about their coworkers, even if they're not really friends. I know if I was still at the cafe and an acquaintance (we'll say Teneille) came to work all, "OMG! My family disappeared without a trace!" I'd at least be empathetic. It's called BASIC DECENCY.

Here's why I'm confused about Rayford though. He's ostensibly the "protagonist" inasmuch as we see everything through his eyes. But he hasn't been "saved" and so is a "bad person." Am I supposed to relate to him? But then Tim and Jerry are saying that I'm a bad person too. But why would I want to be in the head of such an awful, awful person? (Not awful because he's unsaved, but awful because he's a truly sociopathic human being.) I assume this will not become clear.

Hattie's so stupid. Find someone who actually cares about other people, okay?

Back to Buck. He calls a private pilot who is basically gouging passengers who want to get places. I love how human decency goes out the window just hours after a disaster. Maybe I'm just being idealistic, but I feel it should take longer, or there should be some actually good people out there. We haven't met anyone yet who cares about helping other people, and I think there should be at least a FEW. In the wake of 9/11, there were tons of volunteers, but apparently not when people disappear.

This was written in 1995, and I was only five then. But...should you be allowed to check your voicemail on a phone miles away while you're on a payphone? Somehow I think this shouldn't be possible.

Buck is describing his brother and sister-in-law. They had a tumultuous marriage, but the wife had been "forgiving and conciliatory", which means that she gets a free pass to Heaven! Woo hoo! We also get told that Jeff's children both look like him and are "precious." This is integral to the story.

"This is too strange, isn't it?"
Somehow, that wouldn't be my first reaction. It would be something like, "WHAT THE FUCK BILLIONS DISAPPEARED INTO THING AIR? THAT'S NOT POSSIBLE, IT MUST BE ALIENS WHAT THE FUCK WHERE THE HELL IS EVERYONE?" Buck seems to be talking about like, someone who can shoot milk out of their nose.

Here's what confuses me about the Rapture. The "saved" people go to Heaven, which means they're dead. The people who are "left behind" are still alive. Would you rather be dead or alive? The "desirable" option here seems like it sucks ass.

Buck calls Lucinda and gets her teenage son, who says she's disappeared, and obviously she's in Heaven. I'm reading the Slacktivist articles as I'm doing this recap, and he made the comment that every characters seems to have read the back of the book and they know they're in a Rapture story. This is totally true. Rapture would NOT be my first guess and I probably wouldn't even think of it unless I heard someone talking about it. I'm pretty sure "aliens" would come before "Rapture." Most people who aren't fundies don't even know what the Rapture is.

THIS KID IS SO INSANE. The conversation between him and Buck goes something like this:
Kid: My whole family is gone.
Buck: I'm so sorry!
Kid: That's all right. I know they're in Heaven and I can't say I'm surprised.
Buck: Do you have anyone to take care of you?
Kid: My uncle. And a guy from church.

WHO TALKS LIKE THIS? If my family disappeared and I KNEW for sure they were in Heaven, I would still be freaking out. Because THEY'RE DEAD, plus I'm an orphan now. I can't get money because there are no jobs and there's bound to be looters and criminals around and I can't protect myself. These people are all cyborgs or something. Is this how fundies think? Is this how they would act in a situation like this? Because if so, Jack Chick is even more batshit than I previously thought.

CHAPTER 6

So we learn that Irene disapproved of Rayford drinking and she wanted him to keep it from their son Ray. Growing up, I always knew my dad drank, and it didn't affect me at all. Fundies seem so uptight.

"How does that jibe with your insistence that we be totally truthful?"
I...don't think jibe is the right word. Did no one edit this?

WHAT.
Rayford poured three inches into a wide crystal glass and threw it back like a veteran. That was about as out of character as he could find comfortable. The stuff hit the back of his throat and burned all the way down, giving him a chill that made him shudder and groan.
Have these people done shots before? Granted, I've never done bourbon shots, and maybe they actually make you "shudder and groan", but I've done vodka shots and shuddering and groaning seems like a very extreme reaction. Also, obviously the fact that it was three inches of liquid is integral to the story.

Ha ha, he's also getting a buzz from one shot.

I love how Rayford only loves his wife when she's gone. Yeah, that's sincere.

Shouldn't your first reaction in a disaster be to listen to the radio or watch TV to get more information? Yet Rayford consciously avoids that, further cementing my belief that he is not a real person.

Rayford keeps SAYING that he loves his daughter, but somehow I doubt his conviction. We know how fickle he is about women.

Rayford is a cutthroat father. He talking about how Ray was always too compassionate, always caring about others when Rayford thought he should be looking out for number one. What a great parenting strategy. This is how bullies are made, ladies and gentlemen.

Buck backstory. His family resents him because he went on to an Ivy League school and became super successful when he should have gone into the family business. You know, the usual cliched angst.

Buck's dad tells him that Jeff's (the brother's) kids disappeared, along with everyone else on this retreat and Buck's response is "whew, boy." UNDERSTATEMENT.

Let's talk about the fact that all the children under a certain age (looks to be under 13) disappear. Supposedly, they're innocent and uncorrupted. LIKE HELL. I know PLENTY of kids who are FAR from innocent. What about the bullies? They get to go to Heaven just because they had the good luck to be born a certain year? What about the kid who called me a "shithead" in third grade? He gets to go? That's a dick move. What about friggin' LISA MARIE who's the most batshit kid ever and regularly bit people on the playground? Why does she get to go to Heaven and I don't? What about good people who aren't fundies? Obviously, Catholic people don't get to go because they're THE DEVIL. So that leaves out Mother Theresa, if she were alive at the time of the Rapture. What about Ghandi? He's not a fundie. He goes to Hell? What about Harriet Tubman? She's not a fundie either. So a LIFETIME of doing good doesn't mean shit unless you're a fundamentalist Christian.

Back to assh- I mean Rayford. He reads a piece about Nicolae Carpathia. "Hmm, a surprise move in Romania." Rayford can't bring himself to care about Hattie's family, but he cares about a presidential election in ROMANIA? It's hard news, but whoever wrote it obviously doesn't know what they're doing because they use adjectives to describe him. This is what I've learned in hard news class: BEING CREATIVE IS BAD. Anyone writing hard news would strive to be completely objective.

This book is so batshit.