The two young men turned and they didn't smile because they were Woody Ballinger's two boys, Carl and Sammy, and for one brief instant, there was something in their faces that didn't belong in that atmosphere of joviality and the little move they instinctively made that shielded them behind the others in back of them was involuntary enough to stretch a tight-lipped grin across my face that told them I could know. Could. From away back out of the years I got that feeling across my shoulders and up my spine that said things were starting to smell right and if you kept pushing the walls would go down and you could charge in and take them all apart until there was nothing left but the dirt they were made of.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- The narrator senses a shift in group dynamics when two young men display a rare moment of seriousness or defiance.
- In plain terms
- A brief serious look from two boys signals something is changing.
- What can you take from it?
- Small non-verbal cues can signal shifting power dynamics.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- When do you feel the tide turning?
- What small signals change a room's mood?
Another view
Relies heavily on the narrator's subjective interpretation of others' feelings.
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