Reality Boy

Gerald calls Hannah to tell her that they are running away together. When she gets in the car with him, he tells her about everything that transpired at his house but does not tell her about Tasha trying to drown him. She panics and asks if they are doing the right thing by leaving. She confesses that she is still worried that Gerald might physically hurt her one day. This breaks Gerald’s heart as he is not sure if he can control his temper around her either. They decide to keep driving and talk it out.

During the taping of the third episode of Network Nanny, Gerald decides to rebel completely. He smears his feces across Tasha’s room, despite his family’s insistence that he behave. He tears down Nanny’s behavior charts as well. When Nanny tries to get Gerald to clean up Tasha’s room, he punches her in the nose. The show’s production team decide to leave, though Gerald’s mother insists that he apologize so that they can still receive payment for filming the episode. Gerald tells Nanny, “Fuck you” (283), and the production team leaves. That night, Gerald feels himself change somehow, and he sleeps peacefully.

Hannah drives the car while Gerald sleeps. They reach North Carolina when Gerald wakes up. They decide to stop at a crab shack for some food before returning to their drive. During this time, they make a list of demands for their parents. Gerald asks Hannah to not punch his arm playfully because it is too reminiscent of how Tasha would torture him. While talking to Hannah, he realizes that his mother wants him to go to jail because it means that she never has to take accountability for siding with Tasha all these years. As this fact sinks in, he visits Gersday, where he forges his demand: “I demand a do-over” (290).

Back on the road, Gerald reveals to Hannah the truth about what took place in his family that Network Nanny did not show. He wants to know if Tasha and his mother appear to be as he knows them. Hannah admits that they do not seem so bad compared to how he was portrayed on the show.

When they arrive in South Carolina, Gerald receives a voicemail from his father, who says, “We can work this out, Gerald. Any way you want” (295). Gerald and Hannah stop to spend the night at a motel. While he is thinking about his father’s words, Hannah appears before him naked and asks if he wants to shower with her. He takes off his clothes and proceeds to be intimate with her in the shower.

Hannah starts to panic, thinking about how her mother is faring without her. She tries to talk to Gerald, who has disappeared to Gersday. Frustrated that he has disappeared on her, she storms off. When he realizes that she has left, he goes after her and tries to convince her to go back to the motel. She refuses and exclaims, “I don’t have anyone but you” (302), which is why it is so painful for her to try to share some aspect of her life only for him to be elsewhere. She writes in her journal while he tries to apologize to her. When she does not stop writing, he grabs the journal and throws it into the water. When she dives into the water to retrieve it, he follows until he sees that she has managed to find it herself. She smiles when she recovers it.

Gerald waits for Hannah to return to shore and apologizes once more. She does not seem mad anymore but does admit that running away with each other was impulsive. Back at the motel room, she says, “I don’t know if running away was the answer, but I’m not going back” (309). He tries to truly listen to her this time as she shares with him how dependent her mother is on her to take care of the family. She tells him that her family has not been well since her brother Ronald came back from military service and has been AWOL ever since. As she tells him this, they move closer to each other on the bed and become intimate once again.