Sharon's Reaction to Chp. 7 & 8

            After traveling the U.S. to follow him, Sal has finally reunited with Dean in Denver. However, their first day makes me feel that where Sal eagerly sticks to Dean, Dean just tolerates Sal. Sal feeds off Dean’s energy and vibrancy; he counts on Dean to get him a girl and is constantly interested in details of Dean’s life, even calling to find out what Dean is doing during Rawlins’ party. Dean’s job talk with Sal also struck me as interesting; he wants to use Sal’s smarts to support himself as he is too “busy”. And though Sal is present during Dean and Carlo’s heart-to-hearts, the two don’t truly treat Sal as one of them, in my opinion. But it seems to me that Sal actually likes not joining in –it is enough for him to just listen because he finds the two crazy, but immensely interesting. I also found it extremely ironic how Sal aspired to stay and have adventures in Denver with his gang, yet the first week he gets there, he finds out the city is considered the ‘doldrums’ and Dean will move to Los Angeles.
            Sal’s association with different groups of friends also stood out to me. He stays with wealthy buddies Roland Major and Tim Gray, yet spends his time with rowdy, polar opposites Rawlins, Dean and Carlo. In fact, when Major and Dean meet, the former disdainfully sees Dean as foolish while the latter sees Major as stuffy and ignores him. This striking difference and Sal’s disagreement of Major’s conclusion about Dean is telling; I feel that Major represents the calm, dignified friend Sal associated with before he changed, while Dean is representative of the more impulsive quality Sal is now attracted to.