Instead of taking the train all the way back home to Seattle, the narrator instead gets off in New York and cashes out the rest of the value of his ticket. He gets a job as a busboy and shares an apartment with three Ecuadorian waiters. It is during this time that he learns of Hemingway’s suicide. He notes that, because of health issues, Hemingway never made it to his school.

The narrator goes on to work a number of different jobs and, after three years, enlists in the army, which takes him to Vietnam. The narrator offers anecdotes on what it means to live a writerly life, and how he is actually most productive when his life appears to be the most boring. But there is no one way to best live as a writer. He states, “No true account can be given of how or why you became a writer, nor is there any moment of which you can say: This is when I became a writer” (156).

During the fall of 1965, the narrator receives orders to go to Maryland for training. While cleaning out his locker, he discovers a copy of the newspaper that featured his plagiarized story.