INTERLUDE #2

Each of the novel's 12 INTERLUDES moves the novel's plot forward in time. In the case of INTERLUDE #2, the action occurs four months after Buck's visit to Mabe's Place the night he struck a deal with Longshore for the mortgage that enabled him to buy Green's store. Twenty year old Buck is now two years along in his successful business career.

The tragicomedy quality of Buck's billy goats' visit to Mabe's Place in Chapter 4 continues in INTERLUDE #2 as the story opens with Jake's arrival at the Aven freight depot aboard the No. 54 train from Albany. Jake is so hungover that simply walking is painful for him and not only that, he's broke and late paying on his loan from Buck. Jake meets his fellow brakeman, Bass, who brings more bad news by informing Jake that his watch is gone because Buck has left town. Jake tries to process this information and exclaims, "Wheeoo, watch gone, job gone." 

Jake's sad conclusion, causes Bass to show his railroading friend some sympathy and to reassure Jake that all is not lost and that Buck will soon return from his short trip back home. This news lifts Jake's spirits momentarily but as he contemplates the future of his watch, Jake says, "I don't like this. He'll lose it, or break it, or, by God, he'll swap it off for a rubber-tired buggy." 

Again Bass reassures Jake that Buck simply has gone back home to convince his parents to leave farm life and to move the entire family to Aven. This information only worsens Jake's bleak attitude because he knows that the demands of Buck's family will mean that Buck will become an even greedier pawnbroker and payday loan shark. 

INTERLUDE #2 ends with Bass finally agreeing with Jake's conclusion that the future of Jake's watch, as well as his brakeman job, were indeed rather gloomy simply because Buck "left in a rubber-tired buggy, all right."

In each of their conversations, Jake and Bass discuss their grievances with Buck  but they also discuss how Buck gives back to the same people he exploits. In the case of Jake, a hopeless victim of Buck's usurious lending practices, the years that this failed railroad brakeman spends working off his debt to Buck may give him status in the Aven community by Jake being one of "Buck's men" and of having the reputation of being commercially associated with Aven's most important decision maker, Buck Bannon.

The characters of Jake and Bass only appear in the novel's 12 Interludes and the progress of their lives and relationship gives the reader another window into the intimate details of Buck's life. Both of these undisciplined railroad brakemen allow their appetite for liquor and fast women to sink them into debt to Buck with no hope of recovery. The consequences of Buck's financial robbery are quite severe for Jake. INTERLUDE #2 will be the last time the reader will see Jake on a train. For the rest of the novel, Jake will never return to railroading and he will spend the rest of his time working odd jobs for Buck in order to pay off his debt. This form of debt slavery doesn't totally annihilate Jake's autonomy, however, his financial bondage to Buck will limit Jake's options and his only escape from continual debt would to be to move out of Aven and to run away.

The last line of INTERLUDE #2, "He left town in a rubber-tired buggy, all right,"also gives us insight into Buck's motivation. One of the first things that impressed Buck during his first morning in Aven was "a small neat buggy with new harness." That Buck chose to visit his parents' farm in a "rubber-tired buggy" shows that Buck is adapting to life in Aven by acquiring all of the status symbols associated with his small town business success.