me *censored*less?" (324) Thomas was teased to no end, but never in the presence of his brother Dominick.Dominick married his first love and lover, Dessa. He was very much in love with her and she was with him. The two tried unsuccessfully many times to have a baby, before they were successful. Their baby was born healthy but later died of crib death. "She she died. Crib death. She was three weeks old." (247) Dessa became overwhelmingly distraught and unbearable to live with. She suggested a divorce, "I have to breathe Dominick. You suck all the oxygen out of the room." (320) on the grounds that Dominick was unsupportive after the death of the baby. Dominick was just as upset as Dessa was, but, reflecting back from his childhood and Ray's words, part of being a man was not showing emotion. Dessa decided that Dominick never loved the baby to begin with, so he couldn't possibly love her. After the divorce, out of anger, or out of sadness, Dominick decided to secretly get a vasectomy.The circumstances that seem to affect Dominick the most profoundly is the period during which Thomas began to change. Thomas became uninterested in school. He never studied or attended lectures, began to become paranoid, feeling that he was always being watched. Thomas also began to lose a significant amount of weight. "Is it drugs, Dominick? Is that why he lost all that weight?" (251) At first, Dominick thought that Thomas was just distracted because of the stress of moving away from home. "Sometimes he's lose track of what he was doing, or drift off into a fog somewhere." (250) Eventually, it was discovered " by then, Thomas' illness had already started flirting with him nine months later there'd be no avoiding it: March of 1970 was when Thomas' brain dropped to his knees." (50) that Thomas' condition was in fact schizophrenia. Thomas was diagnosed at the age of twenty-one after he was discovered sitting in his room with a cap construct...
