A Wild Sheep Chase

In this second letter, the Rat reveals to the narrator that he has arrived at a “final destination” (93). He describes where he is as remote and cold, far away from any sort of town. He tells the narrator that he has not had a girlfriend in some time, and he appears to be resigned to his lonely existence: “The only thing I could possibly throw overboard would be myself. Not such a bad idea, throwing myself overboard” (95).

Rat requests that the narrator return to their old hometown, in order to say goodbye for him to two people: their mutual acquaintance, J, and a woman whom the narrator doesn’t know. Along with his letter, he has enclosed the name and address of the woman, as well as a check for expenses. At the time that the narrator receives this second letter, he is in the process of divorcing his wife. 

The narrator goes back to his hometown, in order to fulfill his estranged friend’s request. He tells us that he has not been home in four years–when he had to fill out some paperwork after getting married—and that he left home for the first time ten years ago. Since separating from his wife, he no longer considers the town to be his hometown; pointedly, he stays at a hotel, rather than at his old house.

He goes to J’s Bar, which has been through several incarnations. J. is a Chinese widower whom the narrator first met as a teenager, when he used to go to his bar alone; the bar is also where the narrator first met Rat. Though J. was a constant background figure in the young narrator’s life, the narrator also does not know very much about him: “He had a cat, smoked a pack of cigarettes a day, never touched a drop of alcohol. That’s the sum of everything I know about J.” (102).

The narrator gives J. Rat’s letter, which J quickly reads, and the two of them have a terse-yet-intimate conversation. The narrator tells J that he has separated from his wife, and J tells the narrator that his cat has died. The narrator confides to J that he does not see the point in having children, and J protests that there is a hopeful side to perpetuating the species: “‘Good things happen too, good people can make things worthwhile’” (105).

The narrator then goes for a solitary walk along the riverside. He sees the river as having nourished both the town and the ocean, and he is distressed by all of the new construction in his town. He sits alone on a jetty, which strangely no longer overlooks the water but some new buildings; he drinks a couple beers, and then throws them down on the ground as if he were throwing them into the water. For this, he is reprimanded by a security guard. 

The narrator calls Rat’s female friend from his hotel, and the two of them then meet up the following evening in the hotel lounge. Rat’s woman friend (her name is never provided) is composed and inscrutable, her age difficult to ascertain. She tells the narrator that Rat left her, without saying goodbye, five years ago; she also tells him that she, too, is divorced. She tells him that she met Rat five years after her divorce, when she was leading a “‘cold and lonely life,’” and that Rat’s aura of “unreality” allowed her to see the unreality of the life that she was living (117-18).

The woman seems to have a pragmatic attitude about her own loneliness and solitude. She tells the narrator that even if nothing has changed for her since Rat left, she would never admit to this, as it would make her life seem pointless. She also tells the narrator that she identified who he was straight away, upon entering the hotel lounge: “’[…] there was something I could sense about you” (119).