JCO: Boys at a Picnic (spoilers)

Hi friends!
Woo hoo! Good to be back. Thanks Randy.
I thought some of the stories in this book were
better than others. Maybe it depends on the reader's
experiences or state of mind. Anyway I wasn't too
crazy about this one. It's a slice of life, sure; did
any of you get more out of it than that?
It's about boys on a rampage. The two boys want to
please the ringleader, to the extent that one of them
pretends to see an imaginary horse. At the end, it's
not clear whether Rafe actually "sees" the horse or is
just daydreaming. He definitely has a screw loose; he
would have killed the girl if she hadn't died first.
The story is told from various points of view: the
narrator's, Rafe's, and Dan's--and to a lesser extent,
Kennie's. Kennie is a true follower though.... Dan is
just as bad as Rafe but has a mind of his own.
The story mentions their "thirst"; they are thirsty
for beer but also for something else.
The title suggests perhaps the situation of boys of
a certain age. The boys turn away when the dice man
acknowledges them in a positive way; they don't want
to participate in the world, or they don't want to be
seen.
The name Rafe caught my eye. In *Unholy Loves*,
Oates mentions the composer Ralph (pronounced "Rafe")
Vaughan Williams, apropos of nothing as far as I could
tell. Maybe this name is one of her things. People on
this list have alluded to the white-blond girl. I
haven't run across her, but this book is full of
white-blond males.
Laurie

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