The thing that stood out to me the most in this short story was the sheer recklessness that Bobby embodied. On the first page alone it said that “He had written several bad checks, and before he could be sentenced for that he had robbed a convenience store with a pistol…” Throughout the story it appeared that his mindset was along the lines of him thinking that since things were already as bad; why not make it even worse? It also gave me the sense that he always felt like he was being watched, whether that was out of paranoia or out of an overinflated sense of importance varied. Maybe I read into it too much, but the direct mention of how there was a security camera above the kitchen door of Arlene’s seemed symbolic of that. It was also indicative of Bobby how he looked up at the camera, made a finger gun, shot it, grinned at Russ, and then Russ noted that “It seemed to make him calmer.” It was like Bobby was going through a period of psychosis, like he was so conflicted on his thoughts about going to jail that he snapped, and it wasn’t even like he only got into an argument with Arlene and Russ either.
No, on the way to the jailhouse he casually pulled out a pistol and told the pair with a grin that he was planning on killing Arlene. (Not to mention that he said all of this in the car with a child sitting in the backseat with him.) Thankfully, he handed the gun over. But even after arriving at the jail, he kept trying to provoke Russ into a fight for the sheer curiosity of him wondering what the guards might do. It was strange, because he fully understood the ramifications of his actions, and he clearly didn’t want to go to jail. Despite that, he was still trying his best to make his sentence worse, and maybe that was for a sense of control. He probably didn’t think that he would get caught for those fault checks but he did, so then maybe his thoughts went to overdrive like he wanted to go to jail for something that actually meant something. I just thought that it was interesting seeing how this story touched on the idea of fate or destiny (if it could be called that).