The bakery on Memory Lane

Will Landschulz
Am Lit Per. 2
Mrs. LaMagdeleine

DAMN, Joe's torn up.  Leg status: gone, lower jaw: gone, nose: gone, tongue: gone, eyes: gone, with other things remaining from last post.  No wonder he considers himself more a "dead man" than a live person.  He's a torso and head, with about 3/4 of a face left to him.  Not to mention how much hair he's got left, which is left for the reader to imagine or pass over, whistling frantically.  But thankfully, the disturbing revelations about the state of his body are kept to a minimum, instead diving back into situations of his own recollection/imagining.  these range from the blissful (e.g. floating in the river with Kareen) to sadness (finding about a previous girlfriend's treachery) to the plain disturbing (losing Kareen to the river, then going under himself as soon as he figures out his legs are AWOL), to the panicked (his mental cries for Kareen and his mother at the end of chapters iii and v, respectively).  However, there is a different note in his memories, in his experiences working in a bakery.  He remembers working in a bakery with some people who were obviously bums, just back from the welfare office or whatever.  He specifically remembers José, a Puerto Rican who has the aura of being slightly better than the other employees.  Joe seems to admire several things about José.  One being his gallantry and politeness, shown in agonizing over trying to reject his New York girlfriend (who has all the trappings of being the perfect choice for a man of José's status, which he is aware of) and trying to take a job in the studios without offending his benefactor, the owner of the bakery.  The other thing being his tenacity, shown in having both jobs at once, then trying to get himself fired from the bakery in order to devote more time to such activities as sleeping.  He eventually succeeds, by deliberately knocking over the entire stock of blueberry pies, which leads to Jody calling him out loudly and coarsely on his clumsiness.  José does not do anything, and later pays for the entire stock of ruined pies out of his paycheck.  However, I don't think that anybody there, not even Joe, thought of simply going up to Jody and asking whether to stay in the bakery or go to the studios where he's always dreamed.  It would have been the perfect answer.  If Jody says its better to go to the studios, then go, if he doesn't, then he is not deserving of José's respect and he should go anyway.  But nobody thinks of that, and given José's character, he would have turned that down instead.