Book excerpt: Butch’s mother was beaten by unknown persons. Feeling helpless and alone, Butch seeks to learn what happened and how to help his mother. For the first time in a long time, he is coerced into trying to pray. Jesus appears to him as a slightly older teenager and accompanies a skeptical Butch on his quest for understanding. Aided but never pushed by his new friend, Butch comes of age, growing through his search for justice, and gradually finds his emotions altered from rage to understanding to sympathy, and, finally, to a more fulfilling love. His adventure, Butch realizes, is one of self-discovery. He learns the identity of his mother’s attacker, confronts that person and another in a ramshackle warehouse, but the warehouse is soon ablaze. Butch performs heroically, an action he conceals from his mother, as he learns the value of life and the protection of it. Ultimately, he learns that being alone and resentful is a choice he does not have to make for himself.