IJ study archive

the whole beef fought out under a stranger's name

quote

All he’s got on is a donated orange bowling shirt with the name Moose cursive-stitched on the breast

Context

The Nucks address Gately all through the confrontation as "Moose" — the name stitched on a donated bowling shirt — so the entire life-or-death exchange is conducted under a wrong name read off a garment, a man negotiated with, shot at, and warned-off as somebody he isn't. The misidentification is the theme's small cold joke inside the violence: even at gunpoint, the person is not actually being addressed, only the label he happens to be wearing.

In anthology