All of Louis’s problems start with the year-long vacation he suggests to his family. On the birthday of his wife, Blanche, he proposes that rather than celebrating traditionally, each family member should get $700 dollars and do whatever they personally want. Blanche is skeptical of the idea at first, but their son Howard is excited by the idea. Blanche decides on visiting her family in Louisville, Howard buys a used car and goes to Nashville, and Louis stays home. He regularly takes walks alone in a nearby forest to think about life. He considers his passive and compliant disposition towards others. He also thinks about his own death and wonders if Blanche and Howard will notice that he was ready for it in a way. While lying in the forest one night, Louis suddenly feels inspired to build something and settles on creating a statue of a single word, and now he had to choose one. After weeks of brainstorming and drawing inspiration from the sounds in nature, he delightedly decides on the word “Louis,” his own name. He spends months cutting to wood for each letter and gathering materials. When Howard and Blanche come home, they immediately oppose his project and feel extremely embarrassed about the neighbors seeing. Howard and Blanche sneak out to the statue and set it on fire. They do not realize that Louis was underneath the statue and heard the whole thing. He gets caught up in some of the flames and gets burned. Feeling extremely angry with his family, Louis goes to the doorstep of each neighbor to show them his burns and exclaim that Blanche and Howard caused them. His neighbors think he has gone crazy and shame him for making bad claims about his own family. Although Louis expected for the whole town to sympathize with him, they side against him and completely ignore him. He wonders if he should write to Blanche about the whole matter but decides not to say anything until their vacation is over.