Bianca Adamita
November 19th 2014
Professor, Baumflek
The Red Convertible The story begin takes place on the Chippewa Reservation in North Dakota in the 1970’s. The story was written in first person by the character known as Lyman. The main characters in the story are the narrator Lyman and his older brother Henry. Lyman was telling us that he was always the type to find money even when he wasn’t working and have so called “good luck”. He started of as a dish washer at a restaurant called Joliet and very soon after owned and managed the restaurant at age 16. Unfortunately soon after owning it, it was destroyed in a tornado. We get introduced to Henry in the story as being a very happy go lucky guy but was also build like a brick wall Lyman goes to say in the story. Lyman and Henry come across a red convertible one-day and decide to buy it together and share the car. Shortly after they buy the car they take a nice long road trip that ends them in Alaska. They met a girl and end up taking her back to her hometown in Alaska and the girls family become very fond of the two young men but they can not stay long because Henry had to be home because he was shipping out to go fight in the Vietnam War. Which put Lyman in charge of the car. Him and Henry wrote back and fourth for a while then the letters from Henry stopped. Henry was kept captive for while during his 3-year service in the war. When Henry comes home he begins to suffer from PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). He’s not the same anymore, he loved that car more then anything and he didn’t even pay it no mind what so ever. Henry would just sit in the love seat for days on end and just dig his finger nails into the armrest and bite down so hard on his lower lip that would cause he to bleed. This worried Lyman and he thought of the only thing to snap him out of this was to take a hammer to his beloved red convertible. That obviously woke up Henry because soon after he was outside fixing the car day in and day out. They decided to take a trip down to the Red River where they loved to go and Henry confessed that he knew what Lyman was doing destroying the car and that he was thankful for him. He also tried selling his share of the car back to Lyman this angers Lyman and says no. After fighting and a few beers later Henry starts walking into the as Lyman said it dirty winter water. Lyman