The Vacuum Keeping Al Drawn to Sammy

"The Vacuum Keeping Al Drawn to Sammy"

By

Ki Tai Choi

English 2

March 16, 2007

Choi 1

The Vacuum Keeping Al Drawn to Sammy

In the novel What Makes Sammy Run, Al is the narrator and throughout the story follows Sammy in his life of achievements, deceit, and blustering trying to figure out what drove this “ferret” of a man. This question is one of the reasons Al was kept drawn to Sammy. He is constantly being surprised by Sammy and learning something new about himself during the process. He is intrigued by how Sammy can stir him to feel so many emotions from momentary hate, annoyance, disturbance, curiosity, and revolt to awe and empathy. Al is kept captivated by Sammy by being moved powerfully; curiosity, jealousy and bitterness mixed with intrigue for Sammy kept Al consumed. Al, after seeing Sammy continually rise, wondered when Sammy might fall and when he did he wanted to be present.

Sammy was such an opposite of what Al was, like the saying opposites attract, this kept Al investigative for Sammy. Early in there first encounter when Sammy was a copy boy, Al said that Sammy made him feel “uncomfortable” because he was always afraid of “people who were agile without grace” (4). Al said “the first time he ever scared me” was when Al said he would keep an ear to the ground for Sammy to become a cub reporter, Sammy replied “don’t do me any favors, couple of years at cub reporter 20 bucks, district man 35 bucks, and finally big reporter at 45 bucks for the rest of your life. No thanks”, and ran off.

Choi 2

During their first associations Al was mostly feeling negative impressions toward Sammy, feelings of dislike and uneasiness. Up until Sammy had the brave idea of selling

Julian Blumberg’s story to Hollywood. Al suggested Sammy call Myron Selznick a well known agent in Hollywood thinking that Myron would humble Sammy by rejecting him and putting Sammy in his place. Even though Sammy was a “nobody” in Hollywood and was a complete stranger to Myron, he bluffed and sold Myron on a story he never even wrote. Expecting to see Sammy get shut down like a salesman on the front-porch of a hostile homeowner, Al was stunned and “was in actual awe for the magnitude of his blustering” (33). Al being mesmerized asked Sammy candidly if he were scared. Al used a simile for his curiosity like “a mystic trying to reach another world” (33).

Al was in some ways wanting to see Sammy get rejected. Watching Sammy closely, when Myron Selznick didn’t call for weeks, Al had a “tremendous temptation not to exult” and after seeing no signs of success he finally said, “Well, Sammy, my boy, so you finally bit off more than you can chew?” Later, Sammy runs into the office with an expression of a rat that avoided the trap and got the cheese and told Al that he sold the story for five thousand bucks. Al seemed to be bitter for Sammy’s success. When Sammy arrogantly commented about Julian being lucky to have him around, Al threw in a bitter comment, “like Miss Goldbaum?” Feeling satisfaction from stabbing Sammy with his words, Al said he was all of a sudden feeling hate for Sammy. He said it was “good-to-the-last-drop one-hundred-percent pure hate” (35).

Choi 3

Jealousy seemed to be a part of it as well. Al was already feeling a roller-coaster of emotions because of Sammy when he expressed “I didn’t know if I should be painfully jealous or congratulate myself for not being like him. I’m afraid I did both” (35).

People are generally interested in the extraordinary and this becomes a reason Al was continually occupied with Sammy even to the point to say obsessed when he visited Sammy’s mother and brother. Being moved by Sammy to a roller coaster of emotions this kept haunting Al’s mind with Sammy. When people watch a boring movie that does not move them in anyway, they lose interest even fall asleep and forget they even saw the movie. When the movie moves them positively or negatively, even to disgust, they remember the movie. In a similar way Al was absorbed in Sammy’s life because it was extraordinary and moved Al to wonderment of how Sammy overcame the greatest of obstacles and bitterness of not being able