Pulp Fiction discussion

In Matt Phillips’ Accidental Outlaws (2017), a lone biker named Packard interjects himself into the lives of people in a Southwestern working class town. He, like Shane and Driver, has painful memories, of the death of his wife. Unlike them, however, he is repressing self-doubt about his response to his wife’s death, which was withdrawal from profession and home. Unlike social isolates like Shane or James Sallis’ Driver, who have mythical heroic stature, Packard surrounds a core of anxiety with a persona of tough isolation.

He sports long unkempt hair, a black vest on his otherwise bare, tattooed torso. He’s a death-defying driver on his “black hog with chrome pipes,” coming much closer than is healthy to oncoming big rigs, thinking about the “hard wall of force” and then “the other side.” He doesn’t fear the unknown.

Packard has camped on a canyon rim that allows him a view of the isolated town. From there, he can see a ramshackle tavern in which he had an annoying experience. He was told to leave because he would not agree with the owner, Sketchy’s, racist bigotry. Detached from any societal ideal of trust, self-restrant, or justice, Packard burns down Sketchy’s place. He realizes the devilishness in doing so. “You do what feels right, and usually that’s fine.” That’s in part his death wish whispering in his ear.
The town is situated near a dusty mesa, dominated by its Walmart. That corporation thrives in such locations, where citizens’ horizons cannot go beyond the need for reliable generic goods. Bars, fast food drive-ins, and used car lots line the highway. Teenage “Mesa Boys” produce and use weed and harder drugs, and learn from the thieves and racketeers how to get money. Packard’s first act is to pull a heist at a convenience store at a gas station. He occasionally needed the excitement, and the power it gave him, although that part gave him a sense of responsibility to the victim.

In this case, the latter was a young man, Ronnie, who, with his wife Jennie, struggled to pay rent and meet basic needs like food and gas, which were especially important since his wife was pregnant, and the hospital distant. On the advice of his creepy landlord, Merle, he stole his uncle’s car. Packard liked Ronnie, because he had a “toughness that called to mind broken glass and swithblades,” and a desperation than explained stealing from his own family. Packard was hard and desperate too.

Desperation plays well in most every pulp fiction/noir book we read. I appreciate here, the description of the characters of this book. Being a city boy, though living rurally for several years, I preferred the crime books set in cities large and small. I have found though, that desperation seems to play a little better in the more rural settings where there are few choices of a way out.

There is a lot of desperation, indeed. McCarthy's work, and Poachers by Tom Franklin, are examples. But there is a resilience, too, that might turn things around. Even Woodrell's Winters Bone, where Ree Dolly has nerve enough to face down the town drug lords. At the end, gets what she so badly needs.