How It All Goes Down
- When Kevin is fourteen, in 1997, school shootings happen. Pearl, Mississippi. Paducah, Kentucky. Small towns devastated by tragedy.
- Eva calls the kids weak losers unable to handle their problems.
- Franklin wonders why no one just punches each other anymore.
- "Choice of weapons […] is half the fight," Kevin says (21.19).
- Kevin says the boy's "life is over already" (21.23), so he might as well go out with a bang.
- Franklin blows it off as a joke.
- Later, the cops bring Kevin and his greasy friend Lenny home. They were throwing bricks off the overpass.
- Franklin is furious at Kevin for a change, and Eva lets Franklin take Kevin to his room to discipline him.
- But when Franklin returns, he's calm. Kevin had an explanation: it was all Lenny's idea. Kevin just took the fall.
- Eva, of course, doesn't believe this story, and she and Franklin fight over whether Kevin is a liar or not.
- Later, though, Eva overhears Kevin talking to Lenny. Turns out he was telling the truth. But Kevin tells Lenny "this one's gonna cost you" (21.98).
- Maybe Kevin only took the fall to earn a favor. That's what friends are for.