Motif · Book 5, The Butcher's Masquerade

Carl's family

'After a stint in the US Coast Guard, I ended up working as a marine tech.' What Carl says of himself in the first chapter, and what leaks out after: a mother who locked him in the basement with his father's Frogger machine whenever his father's friends came over, and who left; a heavily tattooed father who laughed at him, broke his slingshot and never replaced it, and drove on past a wrecked moving truck saying it was a shame.

Segment appearances

• Chapter 6 — Miriam, Pony and Bianca
• Chapter 7 — Whataburger
• Chapter 12 — No matter what
• Chapter 14 — Were-castors
• Chapter 15 — The kids' menu
• Chapter 25 — Fort Freedom
• Chapter 29 — Blood and ink
• Chapter 31 — The juvenile quickdraw
• Chapter 39 — Prepotente Town Number Four
• Chapter 47 — My beautiful boy
• Chapter 71 — Jill

Progression

The day he found his mother in the basement (ch. 5); riding in the cart, Carl thinks of the back of his parents' car (ch. 6); his mother's hand at the edge of the Grand Canyon, his father waiting in the car behind them, as the water runs (ch. 12); his father's voice, scolding him for watching the news, because knowing all that stuff rots you from the inside and does not affect people like them (ch. 39).