Craig and his younger brother Phil share a room together in their childhood home. They also share a bed, and frequently get in arguments as a result. In the opening scene, Craig’s father storms in during a squabble and takes Phil to a room called the “cubby hole,” a “strip of space with splintery, rotten floorboards” (15) to separate them. It is dark and dirty, and Phil begs not to be left there. Their dad is drawn as a large, intimidating, darkly shadowed figure with no eyes. He shouts at them in anger. Craig reflects on his childhood and expresses his guilt and regret for not only failing to protect his younger brother, but often rejecting him and scaring him about the future. Craig also reveals that he is bullied at school for being of Spanish descent and skinny. He is physically and verbally abused regularly.

Craig’s teacher bullies him as well, berating him in front of his classmates. Craig writes a poem about all the people who have hurt him eating their own excrement and thinks to himself, “if only God could forgive me for all the times I pictured people eating their own excrement” (29).