Everett Jenkins: The Hoarding WWI Veteran of Patrick Ryan’s Buckeye

Overview

Everett Jenkins is a secondary but pivotal character in Patrick Ryan’s novel Buckeye (2025). He is the father of Cal Jenkins, a hoarding World War I veteran whose unresolved trauma manifests in compulsive collecting, anti-war letter writing, and heavy drinking. Everett’s grief over the death of his dog Buster, combined with his alcoholism, leads to the accidental burning of his home. This catastrophe forces him to live with his son’s family, where he gradually finds purpose through an unlikely bond with his grandson Skip. Everett dies in the Vietnam era, but not before experiencing a late-life transformation.

Plot Role

Everett functions as both a burden and a catalyst. His hoarding and drinking create a tense backdrop for Cal’s youth and early marriage. The house fire he starts destroys his possessions and forces the Jenkins family to accommodate him, highlighting themes of secrecy and family lies. His eventual acceptance of a simple life—reading Zane Grey novels, joining a veteran book club, and teaching Skip about his fallout shelter—offers a quiet redemption arc. Everett’s death in the Vietnam era bookends the novel’s exploration of war trauma and survival guilt.

Motivations and Traits Shown Through Actions

Everett’s character is revealed almost entirely through action and dialogue. Key traits include:

• Anti-authoritarian skepticism: He writes angry letters to Presidents Roosevelt and Eisenhower, accusing them of warmongering. In one letter he calls Woodrow Wilson a “shitbird” and Roosevelt a “talker” who doesn’t die. These letters are never mailed? (The text shows he typed them but doesn’t indicate he mailed them.) The intent demonstrates his distrust of government and his belief that war profits the powerful.

• Hoarding as trauma response: His house is filled with salvaged junk—old doors, a pachinko machine, a giant wheel-handle, a skeleton of a cat. His hoarding likely stems from a need to control his environment after the chaos of war. When he moves in with Cal, he initially touches nothing, as if afraid of breaking order.

• Gruff tenderness: When he finally meets his grandson Skip, he weeps silently into his beard while holding the baby. This emotional display is a rare crack in his hard exterior. He later calls Skip and his friend Tom “shitbirds” but shares his whiskey and shows them his fallout shelter—a gesture of rough affection.

• Resilience and adaptability after loss: After the fire, he quits drinking and smoking without complaint. He accepts Cal’s old clothes, learns to use the library, and forms a book club with other WWI veterans. The text notes he “didn’t feel devastated by his monumental loss” and felt as if a weight had been lifted.

Chronological Arc

Everett’s arc spans roughly from the early 1940s to his death in the late 1960s or early 1970s (exact year not given, but set in the Vietnam era).

1. Pre-Chapter One: He serves as a lance corporal in WWI, then returns to Bonhomie where he lives alone on Compton Road, collecting junk and writing protest letters.

2. 1940s–Early 1950s: He is a peripheral figure in Cal’s life. In 1943 he writes to FDR. He adopts a runt puppy named Buster, who becomes his constant companion. He visits Cal and Becky after Skip’s birth and weeps holding the baby.

3. August 1953: Buster dies naturally. Everett, drunk with grief, accidentally burns his house down. He survives in his fallout shelter. He moves in with Cal, Becky, and Skip.

4. 1953–1954: He adjusts to family life, quit drinking, takes up the Zane Grey book club, and bonds with Skip and Tom. He attends the séances his daughter-in-law Becky conducts with grudging tolerance.

5. Late 1960s / early 1970s: He dies before the novel’s end. The exact circumstances are not detailed in the outline, but the user specifies he dies in the Vietnam era. His death is mentioned in passing during Cal and Becky’s reflections in Chapter Twenty-Five.

Relationships

Cal Jenkins (Son)

The relationship is strained by Everett’s hoarding, drinking, and emotional distance. Cal feels a sense of duty but often clenches his jaw around his father. After the fire, Cal moves him in despite reluctance. The text shows that Cal and Becky “hadn’t gotten along the whole time … and there was nothing to suggest that was going to improve.” Yet Cal retrieves him from the fire scene and provides for him.

Becky Hanover Jenkins (Daughter-in-Law)

Becky is patient with Everett. She buys him a used typewriter, introduces him to the library, and respects his need for quiet. He, in turn, respects her mediumship, even interrupting a séance to ask for coffee. They develop a mutual, if awkward, understanding. When Cal and Becky separate temporarily, Everett remains with Becky, and she loops her arm through his at the cemetery.

Skip (Grandson)

The most transformative relationship. Skip is not afraid of Everett; he visits his house with Tom, nicknames the old man “ogre” but also accepts sips of whiskey. Skip later serves as the courier for Zane Grey books, collecting nickels from book club members. This bond provides Everett with a sense of legacy and purpose.

Margaret Salt (Indirect)

Margaret is Cal’s lover and the mother of Tom. She is deeply unsettled when she learns her son Tom has been to Everett’s house and that her husband Felix consulted Becky. Everett is oblivious to this connection.

The Zane Grey Boys

A book club of four WWI veterans that Everett joins after the fire. This group gives him camaraderie and intellectual engagement. He takes pride in discussing western novels and maintaining the lending system via Skip’s bicycle.

Key Decisions and Consequences

Theme and Symbol Connections

Everett embodies several central themes:

• War Trauma and Survival Guilt: His hoarding and drinking are likely responses to his WWI experience. The text does not explicitly state his trauma, but his obsession with death (“all the unlucky ones”), his bomb shelter, and his letters suggest unprocessed horror.

• Secrecy and Family Lies: Everett is not directly involved in the central lie (Cal’s paternity of Tom), but his presence adds to the atmosphere of secrets. Becky and Cal hide the affair from him, and Cal asks her “not to tell him.”

• Mediumship and Grief: Although Everett does not participate in séances, his grief for Buster mirrors the loss that brings other characters to Becky. He finds his own way to process loss through action (digging the grave, sprinkling zinnia seeds).

• Forgiveness and Reconciliation: Everett receives a form of forgiveness from Cal and Becky by being taken in. He reconciles with his own past by giving up alcohol and embracing family. The fire, paradoxically, “cleans” his life of excess.

Symbols: The house fire represents both destruction and rebirth; the fallout shelter stands for his fear of annihilation and his desire to protect; the buckeyes that Skip collects connect Everett to the next generation; Buster the dog represents uncomplicated loyalty.

Five Book-Specific Questions and Answers

1. Why does Everett write letters to presidents that he never seems to mail? The text shows Everett typing letters to Roosevelt and Eisenhower, but no character responds to them, and they are not discovered by others. It can be inferred that the act of writing is therapeutic—a way to voice his anger without facing consequences. The letters are a private ritual, not a political act.

2. What role does Everett’s dog Buster play in the story? Buster is Everett’s primary emotional companion. The dog’s natural death in 1953 triggers Everett’s grief drinking, which leads to the house fire. Buster serves as a symbol of the old life Everett must lose before he can change.

3. How does Everett react to losing his house and possessions? Surprisingly, he does not feel devastated. The text says, “It was as if he’d been carrying on his back all the things … and with their combined weight suddenly gone, he was able to lift his head.” This suggests his hoarding was a burden he was ready to release.

4. Does Everett ever learn about Cal’s affair with Margaret or Tom’s true parentage? The evidence does not show Everett learning these secrets. He dies before the revelation in 1969. In chapter 20, Cal asks Becky not to tell him. Therefore, Everett remains unaware of the central deception that affects his family.

5. How does Everett change after moving in with Cal and Becky? He stops drinking and smoking, learns to use a library, forms the Zane Grey book club, becomes gentler with Skip, and develops a quiet respect for Becky. The fire acts as a catalyst for his late-life transformation, though he retains his gruffness and anti-war views.

For a deeper look at how Everett’s story intersects with the novel’s major revelations, see the ending explained and questions and answers.

Interpretive Note

The text does not provide Everett’s internal monologue or a backstory beyond his WWI service. His motivations are inferred from his actions: the letters suggest anger and helplessness; the hoarding suggests a need to hold on to the past; his tears over Skip suggest suppressed love. The reader is left to decide whether Everett’s transformation is genuine redemption or a late-stage surrender to convenience.