How It All Goes Down
Boulder
- Wendy Torrance is watching Danny from the window. He's sitting on the curb waiting for Jack.
- She's not feeling too happy and is on the verge of tears.
- Jack has too much "pride" (2.3) to take a pay advance from Al Shockley. So, they are living in a dump, at least compared to their brick house in Stovington (the name of the Vermont town where Jack was teaching).
- They can hear the upstairs neighbor beating his wife every night.
- Jack had even talked to him about it, but it didn't have an effect.
- Wendy goes outside to talk to Danny.
- All the sudden, Danny asks her why Jack lost the job at Stovington Prep.
- She tells him the truth. When Jack was coaching the Stovington Prep debate team, he got in a fight with a student he'd cut from the team, George Hatfield. Jack found George slashing the tires on the Torrance's VW bug.
- Danny asks Wendy if Jack hurt George like he hurt Danny when Danny "spilled all [Jack's] papers" (2.42).
- Wendy thinks of "Danny with his arm in a cast" (2.46).
- Wendy tells Danny, "Your Daddy hit George to make him stop cutting the tires and George hit his head" (2.46).
- Then George got kicked out of school and Jack got fired.
- Danny asks Wendy if she's happy about spending the winter at the hotel. She says she is if it makes Jack happy. Danny says he's OK with it, too.
- Wendy goes back in the house and makes some tea, watching Danny from the window again. He looks so small and alone and serious. She starts crying, "In grief and loss for the past, and terror of the future" (2.64).