“A Good Man is Hard to Find”
A Recap
It's time for a family trip of some kind, and there's a
disagreement in the family about where to go. Bailey
wants to take his family, (i.e., his wife, baby, and two
kids, John Wesley and June Star), to Florida. His mother,
called simply "the grandmother," doesn't want to go
there. To make her case, she mentions that there's a
dangerous criminal named The Misfit on the loose, and
that he's headed that way.
No one seems to take her seriously. The next morning,
it's off to Florida they go. Everyone piles in the car,
including the grandmother, who seems to have
acquired some enthusiasm for the trip. (She's also
secretly stowed away her cat, Pitty Sing.) They hit the
road and begin the trip from Georgia to Florida.
During the trip the grandmother plays games and tells
stories to the kids. They stop at a restaurant to eat, and
converse a bit with the owner, Red Sammy, and his
wife. The grandmother talks with the couple about how
hard it is to trust people and find "good men" these
days. She also talks a bit about The Misfit.
Back on the road, the grandmother gets the kids all
excited by telling them about an old plantation she once
visited that's located nearby. The kids convince the
reluctant Bailey to take them all to see it. He turns onto
a dirt road, which, the grandmother assures him, leads
to the plantation.
After following the road for a while they don't see
anything. Suddenly, the grandmother remembers that
the plantation isn't here at all – it's actually in
Tennessee. She is so startled by this realization (which
she doesn't tell anybody), that she jerks, letting her cat
out of the basket where she's stowed it. The animal is
propelled onto Bailey's shoulder. A dramatic accident
follows, as the car veers off the road and flips over. As
June Star laments, however, no one is killed.
The family waits for a car to come along, and sure
enough, one does. Only it's not quite the help they were
expecting. It turns out that their "help" is none other
than The Misfit and two of his buddies. The
grandmother recognizes The Misfit, and tries to
convince him he's a good man who couldn't possibly
want to do anything to harm them. The Misfit orders
Bailey and John Wesley into the woods, where his
cronies shoot them. The mother, the baby, and June
Star soon follow.
All the while, the grandmother, increasingly dizzy and in
shock, talks with The Misfit, still trying to convince him
he's a good man, and telling him he should pray to
Jesus. This gives The Misfit the opportunity to tell a bit
of his personal history and offer some his ideas on
Jesus, about whom he's actually done some thinking.
The grandmother, detecting a moment of vulnerability
in him is suddenly moved to call him her child and
reaches out to touch him. The Misfit responds by
promptly shooting her three times in the chest.
The story ends with him telling his cronies, who've
returned from shooting the others, to dump her body
with the rest. "She would've been a good woman if it
had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of
her life," he says.