The Important Relationship Between Cully and Jose

7. Discuss Jose and Cully's relationship. Describe the impact of this on Cully.

I've finished reading Friendswood by Rene Steinke! I'm still not sure sure how I feel about the conclusion, but I did enjoy watching the characters change and grow, especially towards the ending. The character Cully Holbrook in particular developed as a person more than I expected him to, and his mentor Jose encouraged this change and helped him strive to be good.

Cully makes a huge mistake taking Willa to his friend's party. They are all drinking, and they have access to drugs. They aren't good people, and Willa shouldn't be exposed to them. Cully becomes drunk, and one of his friends, Bishop, spikes Willa's drink. In his drunken stupor, Cully brings Willa upstairs into a bedroom and has sex with her while she is unconscious. He rapes her, and he feels awful about it. He loses his football skills and stops caring about his truck, both of which used to be very important to him. He can't forget what he did to Willa. "He wished there were a remedy for the damp pain he got in the pit of his stomach ever since that day with Willa" (Steinke 351). He doesn't know how to accept responsibility, so his guilt continues to eat at him.

Hal Holbrook is a real estate agent and Cully's father. He spoils Cully. When Cully tells his father that he slept with a drunk girl, Hal blames her for what happened and avoids placing responsibility on Cully. In addition, Cully gets kicked off the football team after his fight with Dex, but Hal goes to the coach to fight it. Hal tells the coach that Cully "had done a stupid thing, but he was a smart boy ... He just needed to be forgiven" (Steinke 228). Hal knows that Cully's fight was wrong, but Cully can't learn to accept responsibility if he's always forgiven. Hal is a soft father figure for Cully, and he likely realizes this fact the day Dex kicks them out of Casa Texas because Hal is drunk and harrasses a lady on the dance floor.

Once Cully starts working as a night guard for Avery Taft, his mentor Jose becomes the strong male role model for Cully that Hal isn't. Cully needs a man he can look up to now more than ever, and he appreciates Jose being there for him in the way that Hal is incapable of. He respects Jose, the honorable old veteran who brings Cully cinnamon cakes and coffee every Saturday night and tells stories with lessons. He even follows the same path as Jose when he makes his rounds through the building site. Cully wants to be more like Jose.

Cully's friend Brad tries to convince him to ditch his job so they could go to a dive bar together, but Cully refuses. He knows that more tragic accidents will happen if he continues to be friends with them, and Jose warns him that guys like Brad "tried to use meanness as a masquerade for manliness" (Steinke 350), so Cully isn't going to fall for it. Jose knows Cully is a good kid, and Cully wouldn't want to tarnish his image in Jose's eyes. But when Avery disrespects Jose right in front of Cully, he wants revenge because he respects Jose so much.

Cully's relationship with Jose impacts him in a positive way. Cully finally has a strong male role model in his life that he can look up to. He stops hanging out with his toxic friends, and he apologizes to Willa. These are only the first steps Cully takes towards a better life after Jose's influence.