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Uncle Delmer (Frank Hoyt Taylor), the younger brother of Wilgus's father, is a good-hearted man who hasn't lost his boyishness. One warm spring night he takes the 14-year-old Wilgus (William Johnson) cruising the country roads where they hang out together as peers and share insight into their common past.
After being admonished by Wilgus's grandmother not to get into any trouble, Delmer takes Wilgus fast and far down the curving Kentucky roads. Together they drink cans of beer, which Wilgus shows off through the window of Delmer's 1955 Chevy. They drive backwards on a whim so they can speed a second time over a bump in the road. In a show of machismo, they shoot Delmer's pistol at roadway signs, old junk cars and the night sky. When they stop at the house of Delmer's girlfriend, Wilgus passes the time trying to read the contents of Delmer's glove box and remembering his own encounter with a pretty girl. He awakens to the sound of an argument, and Delmer drives off in a huff, swigging whiskey. As if to impart wisdom to Wilgus, he says: "Life's a crazy thing. Sure is a nice night out, ain't it?"
Delmer and Wilgus pause for more drinking and shooting beside the wasteland of
burning slate where Delmer worked with Wilgus's father. Delmer wants to tell Wilgus about his father, "He was the best one of us, that's for sure." Coming to this landscape burning in the night and telling Wilgus about his father was Delmer's real destination all along. Wilgus hears the stories and they mix together with stories of the origin of the land itself. He glimpses his father, himself, and the infinite.
But the whiskey takes it's toll and Delmer passes out. Wilgus exercises his newly
discovered manhood by taking the wheel of the car and driving them back through the darkened country roads.
The Stories | The Author | The Filmmaker | The Cast | Resources | ITVS
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