What up y'all? This week we callin it with No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy.
Down in the SouthWest side of Texas, country boy Llewelyn Moss rollin strapped through
the dessert huntin antelope when- "Oh damn. Da hell happened ova' here?" Bodies EVERYWHERE.
And from the look of the gats deez boys was packin, this musta been some kinda drug deal
gone HELLA wrong. One dude still breathin and all like "..say, can you hook a brutha
up with some water?" But Moss just like " Psh. b*tch I don't know you!" After scopin out
da area some mo, he finds the last brutha standing and a leather case full of BIG FACES.
I'm talkin 2.4 MILLION DOLLAS. Oooh baby!
Moss head back home to count his fat stacks, but start feelin like a real dick leavin that
Mexican dude hangin. So he head back to the spot with a jug of water and gets outta his
car, which is about the STUPIDEST damn thing he coulda done. It aint long before he realize
he ain't out in da boonies by himself, there's some creep lurkin round his whip. "Oh. F**k."
Moss try to bail but dem pushers chase his ass through the desert. Eventually, he manage
to shake them off, and calls up his lady Carla Jean and tell her she gotta bust ass over
to her mama's house til things cool off a bit.
When wind of this mess comes to old law man Ed Tom Bell, he decide he gonna make sho dat
Moss and Carla Jean make it out alive. Specially since he did some bunk sh*t back in WW2, and
wanna do some good to make up fo it. But sh*t gets real whack when a hitman named Anton
Chigur hit da streets to hunt down dat cash. This is one cat you DON'T f**k with. Chigur
packin a silenced shotgun and an air-powered stun gun that not only can blow a hole in
a brutha's head, but can rip the locks off doors like it ain't nuthin.
Also hot on the trail of dem Benjamins is Carson Wells, anotha hit man, who got beef
with Chigur. Chigur catch up with Moss across the border, and they start bustin
caps in eachotha til both of em walk away with gnarly wounds. Chigur patch himself up
in a hotel like a real hardass while Moss rest up in a hospital. Wells drop in on Moss
and be like "say dawg, you have no idea who you dealin with. Chigurh ain't gonna stop
lookin for you even if he gets the money back. He still gon find you and put yo ass six feet
deep. But I'll take care of him for you if you gimme dat cheddar."
Wells leaves, and Moss marinate on it fo a while, but it's too late. Chigur corners
Wells and mercs his ass right as Moss callin Wells to seal the deal. Chigur pick up da
phone and tell Moss dat he better cough up da cash or he gonna kill Carla Jean. Damn,
son. Sh*t just got real.
Since Carla Jean start to bug out, she call up Sherriff Ed to tell him where Moss is gonna
lay low. Guess who traced the call? Das right. Crazy-ass Chigur.
So when Ed Tom's crusty ass swang over to the motel, he finds Moss lyin in chalk. Apparently,
he got smoked by a gang of drug pushers also searchin fo the money. Good lookin out
ED! Later, Chigur roll up on dat motel room and find the money stashed in the vent and
hand it over to the big dawg.
Since Chigur's a man of his word, he stop by to put a bullet in Carla Jean's dome. She
beg him to just chill, so he flips a coin to decide her life. (gunshot) She dead. On
his way outta da crib BAM, boy gets TOOKEN out by a car. He still alive, tho. After bribing
two kids to keep they mouths shut, Chigur limps off in to the sunset.
After tryin to bring the law down on Chigur's ass fo a while, Old ass Ed just says "f**k
it," retires, and starts talkin bout two trippy dreams he had after his dad died: In one,
he gotta borrow some ends from his dad, but just loses em. In da otha, brutha on a horse
watching his daddy ahead of him holding a blazin horn,
knowin he would light a fire dat would keep on blazin in the darkness.
From da first pages of da book, Sherriff Ed Tom Bell lay it on thick. The world has left
his ass in the dust. See back in his daddy's day, the hardest hoods on the block would
jus boost cattle, and chasin em down wasn't no thang. But these days, da face of evil
got a way meaner mug on it- and Ed Tom and his boys ain't never seen nothin like it.
Deez killas ain't got no code. They'll merc anybody without even trippin. Like he say
on page 196, "the world is goin to hell in a handbasket." This truly is no country for
old men.
And speakin of the title, it actually come from an old school poem by my main man WB
Yeats called "Sailing to Byzantium." In da poem, the narrator lay down some sick rhymes
bout how how bad it sucks to get old. So he pack up his nuts and head to Byzantium where
word is some sages gonna appear in fire and take him outside of time, kinda like da dream
Ed Tom's dream at the end of the book. He could see his pops "carryin fire in a horn
the way people used to do... in the dream I knew that he was going on ahead and that
he was fixin to make a fire somwehere out there in all that dark.... Whenever I got
world" thing is da same kinda bullshit Ed Tom Bell and a buncha otha bruthas goin through
in the novel. They da old men constantly sweatin da coming of the "new man," and da kinda person
you gotta become to stop such stone cold killers. Like Ed Tom say-
"Somewhere out there is a true and living prophet of destruction and I dont want to
confront him. I know he's real. I have seen his work. I walked in front of those eyes
once. I wont do it again. I wont push my chips forward and stand up and go out to meet him.
It aint just bein older. I wish that it was. I cant say that it's even what you are willin
to do. I think it is more like what you are willin to become. And I think a man would
have to put his soul at hazard." (4)
Ain't nobody representin this "new man" better than Anton Chigur- the baddest muthaf**ka
EVER. Yeah, he cold blooded as hell, but there's more to it than that. Accordin to Wells,
"You could even say he has principles. Principles that transcend money or drugs or anything
like that." (153)
Chigur don't look at life like most people and always be philosophizin like a muthaf**ka,
"I got here the same way the coin did, for things at a common destination there is a
common path. Not always easy to see. But there, every moment in your life is a turning and every
one a choosing. Somewhere you made a choice. All followed to this. The accounting is scrupulous.
The shape is drawn. No line can be erased." (258-59)
To Chigur, ain't nobody can really change the world or da shit that happens. In his
eyes, asking questions like "Why couldn't things be different?" just don't make no sense.
Things are they way they are and we just passively participating in this cosmic clusterf**k-
like little puzzle pieces that all randomly come together to create the here and then.
Aight so Ed Tom is the good guy, tryna keep it old school morality, and Chigur is the
bad guy cuz da new man don't give a shit bout nuthin, right? Well not exactly. There
are some pretty interesting similarities between Ed Tom And Chigur. They both always bustin
other people's balls bout not speakin clearly enough and both like to go on and on about
truth and principle.
Now here's where shit gets cray: Ed Tom Bell straight up say "I'm not the man of an older
time they say I am." Huh? Turns out ol Ed turned his back on his boys back in WW2 and
left them out to die, even though that goes against his code. Chigur on the other hand,
always talkin bout how he's a man of his word, like when he's havin one last talk with Carla
Jean,
"You've got no cause to hurt me, she said. / I know. But I gave my word…my word is
not dead. Nothing can change that. (256)
So NOW who's the man with no code?
Also, when a book slangin religious imagery, they usually doin it to make da good guy look
dat much mo righteous. But in No Country, it's CHIGUR who all holy like. For real. For
real, when he ghost dat dude on the highway, da book say "he places his hand on the man's
head like a faith healer." Hm. Later, dude actually compares himself to actin like God.
"Even a nonbeliever might find it useful to model himself after God. Very useful, in fact."
(256)
And just think abut his piece, one of Chigurh's favorite ways to ice somebody is with a stungun
used to knock cattle da f**k out. Maybe it's cuz to someone like Chigurh, who da novel paints
as mo divine than human, errybody else just mooin sacks of flesh. God Damn.