Character Analysis
North Carthage is a town filled with economic discontent and failed dreams, and no one personifies these misfortunes more than Stucks Buckley. At one time, Stucks was an aspiring baseball player, but "never had the talent, just the hard wish" (13.35). Apparently, no one told him how bad he was, so getting cut from the team immediately after going to college to play was a painful reality check. Now he wanders the streets of North Carthage in a drug and alcohol-induced haze and is unable to hold down a job.
For all his negative attributes, though, Stucks sure knows how to stage a vigilante operation. He's the one who comes up with the idea of going to the mall to take on the Blue Book Boys, the gang of former paper mill employees who have set up shop there, and whom he suspects of playing a role in Amy's kidnapping. Stucks takes on the mall with a crazed zealousness, yelling at the various characters in the mall and "running full speed" (15.118) after those who dare to escape. Dude—get this guy an action movie deal.
All that said, like most everyone else in Carthage, Stucks eventually succumbs to the pressure of the media coverage and turns on Nick, contributing a blurb to the Ellen Abbott episode where he calls Amy a "sweetheart" and accuses Nick of "not being all that worried about Amy being gone" (36.102). It may not have happened on the ball field, but for the first time, America now knows his name.