Palmer and His Dad
Palmer dreads with all his might the arrival of Pigeon Day when he becomes old enough to be a wringer. His father has a trophy for winning the sharpshooter award at the 1989 Pigeon Day. It is the kind of irony that makes for a perfect symbol of the inner turmoil and conflict driving Palmer a little crazy.
Farquar
Farquar has made it his mission in his young life to spend a certain part of his youth terrorizing kids on their birthdays by punching them in the arm for each year of existence. Palmer willingly submits to this painful indignity because it is considered a badge of honor symbolizing toughness. Ironically, after withstanding the withering assault in his arm which brings him nearly to tears and crying out for his mommy, Farquar exhibits an almost girlish sort of sensitivity by daintily pulling down Palmer’s sleeve and wishing Palmer a happy birthday. To which Palmer’s response is even more ironic: “in that moment Palmer loved Farquar.”
About that Birthday
Things get even more profoundly ironic as the birthday continues. It is good. It is a very, very good birthday, as Palmer muses when the day is nearly over. He made some new friends. He was feeling a new sense of pride. Sure, he was the young and the shortest and his first name was not exactly conducive to a lack of teasing and bullying, but “that was all over now. He fell back on his bed, he grinned at the ceiling. Life was good.” This conclusion turns out to not just premature, but ironic as well.
Pigeon Bait
Palmer tries desperately to save Nipper from becoming a victim of the pigeon shoot, but is unable to do so completely. Ironically, it is his own efforts to save Nipper which places the pigeon in the very danger he has been trying to avoid.
Et Tu, Dorothy
And yet, even more ironically, the person who really seals the fate of Nipper even being at the Pigeon Day shoot is not Palmer, but someone even more vehemently opposed to the whole sick enterprise. Palmer has entrusted Dorothy with protecting Nipper by sending the bird with the girl and her family on their way to a seaside vacation. Things don’t go as planned, however, and Dorothy winds up letting Nipper go by the railroad yards, not knowing that this is the exact location where the pigeons to be used in the shoot are trapped.
