I am not done reading yet but after this one section on page 194, I was really interested in Sal's reaction when Dean was being criticized for all the sins he had made: only caring about himself, especially about how he had just left Camille and his child and he was laughing having a good time, without a care in the worly. Sal wants to tell everyone that he may have his troubles, but, "...he's given all of you a damned good time just being himself." I know he and Dean are really tight, so he wanted to tell the others off but he barely defended Dean. If you were in Sal's position would you have stood up for your friend? I mean it is your closest friend but you know that he or she has been selfish and "sinned" and a part of you knows as long as you are with that friend it will be difficult to settle down.

Also, since Dean broke his thumb and all, it must be held in an upright position, the same as that of a hitchhiker trying to pick up a ride. It shows how we will always be "on the road".

My favorite quote from the reading tonight was when Sal said, "It was probably the pivotal point in our relationship when he realized I had actually spent some hours thinking about him and his troubles, and he was trying to place that in his tremendously involved and tormented mental categories. Something clicked in both of us. In me it was suddenly conern for a man who was years younger than I, five years, and whose fate was wound with mine across the passage of the recent years; in him it was a matter of fact that I can ascertain only from what he did afterward" (190). Here Dean realizes how much Sal cares about him and they realize they share a common fate.