The Corrections Chapter 4 Summary

At Sea

• Alfred is sitting in his room on the Gunnar Myrdal while Enid snores beside him.
• Alfred was always most attracted to Enid when she slept—in fact, feigned sleep became a key part of their courtship ritual.
• Enid had been overjoyed when she got pregnant with Denise because "she'd always wanted three children" (4.7).
• That happiness, however, causes Enid to get "sloppy" and do the unthinkable: give Alfred investment advice (4.9). How dare she? When she doesn't back down, Alfred leaves the house and doesn't come back for eleven days.
• What Enid doesn't realize is that Alfred is going on a business trip: Midpac is looking to buy the Ernie Belt railroad and Alfred is tasked with inspection. It ends up being a pretty lonely trip.
• Alfred runs into their neighbor, Chuck Meisner, when he gets back into town. Chuck—a banker—prods Alfred for inside info about the Midpac, and Alfred lets it slip that they're purchasing the Ernie Belt. Ah, insider trading at its finest.
• Enid is nervous for Alfred to arrive. When he does, he immediately berates her for not cleaning and locks himself in his lab. Well that went well, didn't it? Defeated, Enid starts cooking dinner.
• Chip and Gary run through the front door after being dropped off by Chuck's wife, Bea. They hustle downstairs to tell Alfred all about their swimming lesson at the YMCA.
• His half of the recap complete, Chip decides to investigate dinner. And what he sees… is terrifying, a.k.a. liver and bacon. The horror. Chip has a Blair Witch Project moment and runs "out of the kitchen shaking his head in violent denial" (4.87).
• The family sits down for dinner. Chip and Gary talk about "The Pack" (4.124), a youth organization similar to the boy scouts; Chip doesn't touch his food.
• Gary finishes his plate and asks for seconds, but neither Alfred nor Chip has made a dent. Alfred finally starts to eat, but Chip stands firm, begging Enid for a glass of milk.
• Alfred eats a heaping portion of Chip's food and tells him not to get up until he finishes it. If he does finish it, however, he'll get some dank dessert.
• The phone rings—it's Chuck Meisner. He asks Alfred for more details about Midland Pacific's purchase.
• Chip tries to get his dad's attention but ends up getting yelled at. Chip hoped that Alfred would finish the rest of his food for him, so this turn of events crushes his spirit.
• Soon, Chip is the only one left at the table. Alfred is in his lab while Enid and Gary play ping-pong in the basement.
• Alfred isn't really working however—he's sitting in the dark hoping that Enid will come and comfort him.
• Enid, on the other hand, has finished the game, and is now ironing shirts. As she works, she thinks about the suitors she had before Alfred. She turned down multiple proposals from men who didn't seem like they could provide for her, and then she met Alfred.
• To be honest, she should've seen his statement that "human beings were born to suffer" (4.274) on one of their first dates as a clear warning sign of what's to come. Yikes.
• When she's finished, Enid puts Gary to bed. Gary is worried about Chip, however, because it's nine o'clock and he's still at the table.
• Alfred, meanwhile, is still futzing around in his lab, trying to figure out a way to use electricity to strengthen steel. You know—everyday stuff.
• Something strange is happening in the lab tonight. As Alfred tests the material, he finds that "his conductivity reading varied wildly" (4.324).
• Chip is asleep at the table when Alfred finally emerges, so he carries Chip to his bedroom.
• Alfred gets into bed. Enid rolls over and questions him about his conversation with Chuck Meisner.
• She knows what Alfred did, and doesn't have an issue with it—she's just mad that he wouldn't let her use the same information to earn extra money for the family,
• Enid starts crying and says that Alfred "didn't kiss [her] goodbye" (4.426) and "comes home and doesn't even say hello" (4.430).
• Alfred tries to change the subject to his recent scientific experiment. She asks him why he is so angry with her, but he says that he'll never tell her. For real—he actually says that.
• Then, unexpectedly, Enid starts performing oral sex on Alfred while simultaneously dispensing investment advice. Alfred pushes her away once he realizes what's going on, then, to Enid's surprise (and dismay), Alfred takes off her nightgown and they have sex.
• Although Alfred feels guilty for having sex with his pregnant wife, he promises he will treat his youngest child "more gently than he'd treated Gary or Chipper" (4.479).
• In the end, this is a memorable moment for Alfred for a very different reason: It's when he first realized that sleep itself is his one true love.
• Back on the Gunnar Myrdal, Alfred is startled awake at 3:00AM by a voice calling out to him. Enid is asleep beside him.
• Alfred is getting a bit trippy, man: He looks over the side of the bed and realizes that the voice is coming from a talking turd. No, really—we swear.
• These two have met before. This is the "sociopathic turd" that "introduced itself to Alfred the night before" (4.505). Careful, now—we're getting into Mr. Hankey territory.
• Alfred begs Li'l Poopers (he deserves a nickname) to leave, but the little guy sends feces splattering all over the room in response.
• Alfred runs to the bathroom to regain his composure. He tries to put on extra pairs of diapers, but can't figure out how to get them on.
• Just then, he looks down and sees water on the floor of the bathroom. He loses grip of reality again and convinces himself that the ship is leaking.
• Enid, on the other hand, is able to sleep through all of the chaos thanks to something called Aslan.
• Enid had been looking forward to this cruise with every fiber of her being, although it hadn't quite lived up to her expectations so far.
• Enid and Alfred were assigned to a dining table with the Nygrens, a couple from Norway, and the Söderblads, from Sweden. Also at the table are Sylvia and Ted Wroth, from Pennsylvania. Sylvia starts intensely staring at Enid as soon as she sits down
• The Nygrens and Söderblads talk trash about each other's countries and Alfred heads back to the room.
• As the conversation gets more heated, Sylvia makes an excuse to leave and pulls Enid along with her. The two women introduce themselves and play some slots.
• They watch a string quartet perform and enjoy a few drinks—it's practically a date—until finally, they end up at the bar talking about their kids.
• Sylvia reveals her reason for coming on the cruise: The man who murdered her daughter—Khellye Withers—is about to be executed. Mysteriously, she says that her husband Ted would tell Enid that they're on the cruise for their anniversary, but "it's not the truth" (4.673).
• Sylvia is an amateur artist. She focused on decorative designs for much of her career, but that all changed when her daughter was killed five years ago. From that point onward, all she wanted to draw was guns, sometimes with her own hand holding the grip.
• She would spend hours drawing the tiniest details. These urges upset her—for all of the obvious reasons—but particularly because she was raised in a strictly pacifist Quaker household.
• What's even stranger is that her daughter wasn't shot—she was stabbed.
• Interestingly, though, this was the first time in Sylvia's life that she felt like a good artist. This self-revelation led her to make one final piece—a painting of her holding a gun that's aimed into Withers's mouth.
• After finishing that painting, Sylvia got on the computer and downloaded a pornographic clip of a "black man performing oral sex on a white man, camera shooting over left hip sixty degrees behind" (4.692).
• With that, Sylvia finally admitted to herself that she wanted Withers dead—something that goes against all of her deeply held social and political beliefs.
• But that's not why the Wroths are on the cruise—they're here because "Ted won't admit that Jordan was murdered" (4.699).
• Although he grieved at first, he announced to Sylvia that he would cease to acknowledge their daughter's murder after Labor Day. And he's lived up to that promise—since then, he's not mentioned one word about her murder.
• This almost makes Enid open up emotionally, but her Midwestern insecurity holds her tongue. She even follows Sylvia up to the exclusive luxury floor, despite the fact that she and Alfred are staying in budget rooms below.
• Her mood—momentarily lifted after finding ten bucks on the ground—plummets when she opens the door to find Alfred stark naked, sitting in a mess of bed sheets and clothing. Enid hardly gets any sleep that night.
• Enid is pretty loopy at breakfast, quite understandably. She manages to convince Sylvia to join her on the day stop in Newport, Rhode Island, while Alfred stays and hangs with Ted.
• But her lack of sleep catches up with her and messes with her head. When Sylvia offers her a cell phone so she can call Chip, Enid finally admits he's probably not actually working at The Wall Street Journal.
• This emotional release makes her feel a little better, but the feeling fades when she sacrifices yet another sleepless night at the altar of Alfred's madness.
• The following morning, Enid leaves breakfast early and heads straight to the ship infirmary.
• She's greeted by Dr. Mather Hibbard. Enid tells him that she's "having some trouble" (4.748) with her husband, but he doesn't seem to understand—or want to, for that matter.
• After Enid tells him that she's having trouble sleeping, he hands her eight pills. Enid is confused.
• He tells her that it's a drug called Aslan that "exerts a remarkable blocking effect on 'deep' and 'morbid' shame" (4.774).
• Dr. Hibbard explains that the drug is not yet available in America, so many cruisers make it a point to pick up Aslan during their trips abroad.
• He also says that "Mexican Aslan" (4.811) is the only form available in the States. Mexican Aslan? Now why does that sound familiar?
• Finally, Enid relents and gives him $150 (her slot machine winnings) for the pills. She takes one and nervously waits for it to kick in. And boy does it.
• We're now caught up (chronologically) to the opening scene of this chapter—the night of Alfred's battle with the diabolical Li'l Poopers.
• Enid sleeps through the chaos and isn't even annoyed when she wakes up to find the room in shambles.
• Conversation is popping at breakfast that morning. The Swedes and Nords are once again at war, while Ted lectures Alfred on environmental issues.
• Feeling better after breakfast, Alfred takes a walk along the top deck. He hears a noise and peers over the balcony: It's the Söderblads making love.
• The world begins to spin around Alfred and he loses his balance and…
• Meanwhile, Sylvia and Enid are at a financial seminar called "Surviving the Corrections" (4.975).
• The talk—which Sylvia resents for its condescending language—discusses how to manage your personal finances during inevitable "market corrections." Enid, for her part, is enraptured.
• Just then, Enid spots something falling outside the window. It's Alfred.