She gets totally bombed (metaphor)
Clay attends a party of his ex-girlfriend, Blair, in order to celebrate a coming Christmas. There are not only their friends from the school, but also through Blair’s parents. Since they are separated, they don’t communicate civilly. Blair’s father has a new boyfriend whom he takes everywhere, while Blair’s mother gets drunk every time she has to deal with them. Being extremely upset because of divorce and a fact that her ex-husband finds a replacement so quickly, Blair’s mother gets bombed, drinking a lot of alcohol. That’s the reason why Blair’s friend Alana says that she wishes that “Blair’s father wouldn’t invite him”.
My father was really bitter (metaphor)
Clay’s family used to be different. They were more caring, loving and less self-absorbed. After a divorce of his parents, the only thing which reminds him about that time is the old house. It seems that his father is determined to get rid of that house as soon as possible, but time passes and the house is still not sold. Clay thinks that his aunt “got sentimental” and decided not to do anything about it. The only one who is mad about it is Clay’s father, who “was really bitter about it”. Sometimes Clay comes to the house to have a look at it, so that he would be able to remember “the way things were”. This house makes him remember what they all used to be.
She is always stoned anyway (metaphor)
Trent who is a male model and one of Clay’s friends also has a maid to take care about the household. The only problem is that she is almost always “stoned” and sits idly “watching MTV”. Since her family was killed in El Salvador, she behaves strangely. Trent’s mother pities her and has no enough courage to fire her. To dull her pain and forget about her tragedy, the maid smokes marijuana and stares at the TV with a blank expression on her face almost all the time. Other characters describe this state as a stoned one.
Hungry like the wolf (simile)
“Hungry like the wolf” is a name of a song which plays when Clay and Rip attend to Dead. “I am hungry like the wolf” bursts out of the speakers when Dead says them that they should be more careful, because the city is full of narcs who almost hunt drug dealers or drugged people. This simile may indicate that the narcs are eager to find drug dealers and the whole process of it looks like a hunt. The simile may also indicate resemblance between Dead’s sexual appetite and a wolf’s appetite. When the songs plays, Dead reclines on pillows, surrounded by the two young boys.
Turning as red a tamale (simile)
Clay’s family celebrates his grandfather’s birthday in Palm Springs. The weather is extremely hot and the sun really burns. Too much beer and absence of any shadow to hide from the sun make Clay’s father redden. He jokes that he is going to look like a tamale, a Mesoamerican dish if he stay in the sun any longer.
